Jay Currie

Well organized Islamic militants are causing a good deal of trouble in the Middle East and elsewhere insulted that their Prophet has been caricatured. The woman in the picture to the right will not be among their numbers – not because women are excluded form days of anger – rather because, shortly after this picture was taken, in the finest tradition of the 13th century, she was stoned to death. (Thanks, sort of, Kate.)

There is indeed a clash of civilizations occuring at the moment. On one side are decent people of all religious faiths who believe that “words will never hurt me”. On the other are people who know that, “sticks and stone will break the bones”. The Danish cartoons and the Islamic militant response to them draw a very clear line between the two camps.

The cartoons were a provocation and a useful provocation: at some point the West is going to have to reach within itself and defend its values. It is encouraging to see that, in England, the Conservative Party has actually recognized that there is a problem and called on the police and the government to do something about it.

At the height of the protests on Friday demonstrators chanted slogans threatening more London bombings, praising the “magnificent” 9/11 hijackers and waving placards saying “Massacre those who insult Islam”, “Europe you will pay” and “Europe you’ll come crawling when Mujahideen come roaring”.

Mr Davis said last night: “Clearly some of these placards are incitement to violence and, indeed, incitement to murder – an extremely serious offence which the police must deal with and deal with quickly.

“Whatever your views on these cartoons, we have a tradition of freedom of speech in this country which has to be protected. Certainly there can be no tolerance of incitement to murder.”
the telegraph

There is, of course, an inherent contradiction for those of us who are very nearly free speech absolutists when it comes to arresting people who are doing nothing more than holding placards with incitements to murder. There are two saving defences: the first is that free speech does not extend to “fighting words”, the second is that free speech does not protect the man who yells “Fire” in a crowded theatre. Both are defences which can only be invoked in situations where real harm is a real possibility. The protests in England, given the background of the July 7th bombings, are very, very close to such a situation.

Certainly there are plenty of Muslims who think so,

BRITAIN’s leading Islamic body yesterday called on Sir Ian Blair, the Metropolitan police commissioner, to press charges against the extremists behind last week’s inflammatory protests in London over the “blasphemous” cartoons of the prophet Muhammad….

n London, Inayat Bunglawala of the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) said the extremists should be prosecuted. “The Metropolitan police should now consider all the evidence they have gathered from the protests to see if they can prosecute the extremists,” he said.

“It is time the police acted, but in a way so as not to make them martyrs of the Prophet’s cause, which is what they want, but as criminals. Ordinary Muslims are fed up with them.”
times of london via andrew sullivan

At a certain point, and I suspect we are very close to it, it will be time to round up the imams who preach physical jihad and ship them back to whichever bit of East Whackystan will have them. The alternative is the slow descent into the sort of society in which pictures like the one atop this post are commonplace.