A notable feature of the cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad, which were published by Denmark's largest circulation newspaper, Jyllands-Posten, and which have given great offense to millions of Muslims is that, whatever they may mean to your typical Danish pig breeder or dairy farmer, there is nothing about them likely to prompt a belly laugh from your average urban Canadian. This fact raises the following question: if the cartoons are not funny to a Canadian audience, why publish them in Canada?
According to, Ezra Levant, publisher of the obscure Western Canadian magazine that included the cartoons in its current issue, the purpose is to assert the right of free speech: the right, in other words, to insult one's neighbour. And if that means a few Canadians soldiers in Kandahar Province, Afghanistan fall victim to improvised explosive roadside devices as a result, well so be it: that's their job, according to Mr. Levant. In response to that, I have two things to say.
First, and purely as an expression of the right of free speech, Mr. Levant is a horse's arse.
Second, to make a show of balance and fairness, why does Mr Levant not commission a cartoon depicting Moses, say, or Joshua, raping a child at Abu Ghraib?
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