Come off it, Jérôme, you don't expect us to take that crappy journalism seriously.
If this were a well-researched and well-written article about that language school, which established the facts and examined what was happening and listened to the different points of view, and if it then became clear that religious extremists were attempting to change the normal practice of the school in order to make it fit with their beliefs, then of course I would say they should be politely told they were free to leave if they didn't like the teaching.
But you are trying to conflate this with the cartoons (as Hans-Jürgen Schlamp does in his sneaky civilization-clash article in the Spiegel), and they are not the same thing.
I see a great difference between extremists (not only Muslim) challenging the way different institutions, like schools or hospitals, already work in our societies (in which case, if their demands appear to us unacceptable, we should tell them we refuse), and reactions to deliberate provocation by the xenophobic right.
What matters most to me is that we push back the extremes and promote the moderates. And that we stop feeding pernicious idiots like Philippe de Villiers whom I heard once again say this morning that French suburbs are "handed over to Islam".
The only way to fight off the scaremongerers like de Villiers is precisely to speak up as progressives on the topic and say that the Muslims stepped over a line (in calling for violence and in actually conducting violence) while fully acknowledging their right to say they are offended and their right to protest them peacefully. In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
As for your point about cartoons, please. Cartoons are not about to disappear. We are not in danger.
To give just one example, there's a hard-hitting cartoonist named Finn Graff working for the liberal Norwegian daily Dagbladet. This guy has a serious problem with authority; allegedly his wife and sister are tasked with erasing as many erect penises as possible from his sketches of authority figures. I remember one of his offerings featuring an elephant screwing another (which had its head draped in the Stars and Stripes) with a crucifix. This prompted a furious letter to the editor from Republicans Abroad.
Graff freely admits that he wouldn't dare draw Muhammed. But apparently that is not enough. When interviewed on TV recently, he nervously displayed an old cartoon slamming the treatment of women under Islamic law. A minaret played the part of an erect male member. Now, al-Jazeera's man in Oslo deliberately refrained from reporting this back to his HQ, since the existence of this cartoon, as he put it, would be sure to "unleash hell." This despite there being no representation of Muhammed.
Morten Kristiansen, editorial cartoonist at the country's biggest newspaper Verdens Gang, says he has often received complaints from Christians when drawing Jesus and from Muslims when drawing their religious leaders, but that in recent years the feedback from the latter has increasingly included threats. I wager you will find the same phenomenon across Europe. The world's northernmost desert wind.
This kind of process may take a little time. It's already under way. But we must support the movement. I've seen (TV) moderate Muslims in Denmark complain that the cartoon controversy has set them back and they have lost influence. A young woman who is working and dressing in a European manner no doubt has a daily struggle to persuade the older, more conservative elements in her family that this is OK. Now she's not being listened to, because the Prophet has been insulted (fundamental symbol), and for her it's now go back to the beginning and start again.
The day will come when Muslims themselves will be doing the cartoons, and I'll be hugely happy to see that and to support the cartoonists. In the meantime, what purpose (other than those of the xenophobic right) do we serve if we seek to face down the extremists by insisting on our absolute right to caricature sacred aspects of Islam? We have won the freedom to do that as regards our own historical religion (and I support that freedom), but let's encourage those who will make Islam evolve so that they will one day have that freedom. For the moment, is it so huge a problem to lay aside the rather arrogant notion that our caustic wit is going to change a religion to which we don't have personal or historical links, and to exercise some understanding and restraint?
