The Evil Cartoons of Europe

A small newspaper in a small north European country published the works of a dozen religiously bigoted cartoonists. It hurt the feelings of the few Muslims who saw it and they complained about it. Civilized behavior would have it that other newspapers would become vigilant that such offensive cartoons did not find a place in their columns. On the contrary, by chance or by design, the offending cartoons were reproduced in a number of European newspapers with much wider circulation. The wider circulation caused much distress to millions of Muslims all over the world, resulting in mass demonstrations and more than half a dozen deaths aside from scores of minor casualties.

The governments of Europe and the officials of EU are not willing to condemn the publication of the bigoted cartoons on the pretext that they care more about the freedom of their press than the feelings of millions of people who are not in a position to influence their election results. Either they are being blackmailed by their press or they are returning the favor that the press did by not taking them to task for the extrajudicial killings by NATO troops in Afghanistan.

The relevant question here is whether or not a crime has been committed against a section of humanity, and it is very likely that European and international courts would conveniently rule the matter out of their jurisdiction. The onus, therefore, lies on the more responsible members of world press to create an example of judging possible journalistic crimes. If the ICC can review bowling action and suspend a bowler, why can't the IUJ do the same?

As for the failure of certain countries to protect the Embassies of certain countries in the face of enraged mob-action, there aught to be clear cut international protocols for the punishment or exchange of people responsible for the initiation or execution of such acts.

Having made the legal case, let us look at some historical examples:

1) The US tested the first nuclear bomb named Trinity and with the encouragement of its allies dropped two of them on innocent Japanese civilians killing hundreds of thousands. Yet no civilized Buddhist or Shinto did anything that would be insulting to Jesus Christ (Hazrat Issa).

2) For the past many centuries, European pirate ships and colonizers have been constantly plundering the rest of the world and carrying out genocides eliminating populations of entire continents, but decent people of the suffering humanity have not held the religious or intellectual leaders of Europe responsible for those heinous crimes.

3) For over a century, the Israelis have been driving Palestinian Christians and Muslims out of their homes and killing them indiscriminately with superior weapons supplied by their friends. Almost every Muslim in the world hates Israelis, yet no one has made a caricature of Moses (Hazrat Moosa) depicting him as a murderer even though it could be justified historically.

There is something very wrong with the European civilization, if there is one.