To me -- personally, my reading -- the essence of these cartoons is racist, and the essence of the reason why these cartoons were commissioned is racial/nationalist provocation and mockery; the essence of their offence is not just that they seek to provoke an already-bleeding underdog (or to pour flaming gasoline on troubled waters) but that they are quite simply racist... and almost certainly similar caricatures of racial groups not currently selected as official Enemies of the West would not be found "funny" or defended so hotly. They definitely do not read to me like good-humoured persiflage.
But because of the ambiguity of race and religion in Islamic/Arab identity (and recall that in the US, most non-Arab Muslim converts are Black), the racial/ethnic insult can be camouflaged as a satirical attack on religious conservatism (a big juicy target thanks to the fundie element in contemporary Islam), and defended by liberal intellectuals as such. There are Polack jokes and there are Catholic jokes, both offensive in many cases, but at least you can tell 'em apart. In this case the ethnic and the religious provocation are inseparable.
...and again, though I am at risk of prosecution for cruelty to dead horses... I revert to context, historical context...
Obviously (doh!) the violent responses are inappropriate, the threatening of Danish citizens and UN workers, the thuggish "tit for tat," the stupid testosterone-poisoned escalation. But can we remember please for one moment that "the West" (that abstraction which CivClash pundits try so hard to keep inflated) has killed a half million Iraqi kids via blockade and sabotage of water and sewage facilities; has invaded, occupied, looted and wrecked a sovereign nation, killing perhaps 30 or 50 thousand more civilians in the process; has fired on the offices of Al Jazeera, the Arab-language news agency; has installed its own tame propaganda media; has planted false information throughout the almost-equally-tame Western Press; has shot journalists and cameramen trying to report from the war zone; has conducted collective punishments; has randomly detained and tortured innocent civilians, sometimes for entertainment -- and so on, and so on. And the same engines of militarism and propaganda are now ponderously turning to point at Iran, the power centre of Shi'ite Islam.
Can anyone imagine, for a moment, from a pan-Arab or a devout Islamic point of view, how utterly hollow must seem these Western preachments on the sacredness of moderation and non violence, of proportionate responses, of freedom of speech? [One word: Falluja. Two words: Abu Ghraib. Three words: Downing Street Memo (or New York Times, take your pick).] How on earth can anyone expect any halfway informed person on the Arab street to take seriously anything any ferengi says about Enlightenment values...? Do as we say, not as we do, eh?
I'm reminded of the old British road safety campaign poster. iirc it was a cartoon showing a dead guy being pulled from the smoking wreck of his car, and the caption read "He was right... dead right." The moral as I read it, was that even when you have the right of way and convention and law on your side, there's also judgment, wisdom, caution, reason... negotiation, compromise.
But then I thought the Waco incident coulda been handled a lot better, too. The difference between theory and practise in practise ...
It is both, and has been for thousands of years.
