Interest or Profit?

It was only a matter of time before those cartoons turned up here and it's typical of the Queenslanders to do it. The Courier Mail, a newspaper in Brisbane printed one as did the Rockhampton Morning Bulletin.

I have to wonder at the thinking of the editors. Did the fact that there have been riots world-wide over this issue enter into their thinking? It doesn't appear so.

There has been much debate on whether it is in the so called 'public interest' to show these cartoons, or whether it's simply a measure of gaining increased profit because there's been a backlash and everyone wants to know what the fuss is about.

We in the western world think nothing of satirical comment on events and politicians. If you are a public figure, you're going to be a target of comment - good and bad. This, I feel is different. The issue is different.

Any depiction of the prophet is blasphemous. If a similar blasphemous image of Jesus Christ was published, there would be a reaction and rightly so. It's bad enough that the Danes thought it amusing; the Moslems thought it insulting.

There is no doubt in my mind that those cartoons, twelve in all, should never been published. It is a special kind of bullshit when an editor sits on his/her high horse and suggests it's all in the name of 'freedom of the press' or the 'public has a right to know'. An editors job is to decide whether it is 'ethical' to print such a thing; whether the public should be informed. Ethics went out the window; the public's right to know was no such thing. One cartoonist's twisted thinking and an editor's funny bone has created a storm of controversy. What did they think would happen? That Moslems would chuckle, like they did? Did they not consider the insulting nature? The offensiveness?

It's a controversy that should have remained 'in country' except for the Imams who cut the cartoon out and went to the Middle East to show everyone! This is where the violence was let loose.

I'm calling both sides stupid: stupid for creating the cartoons, stupid for publishing them, stupid for spreading the malice and stupid for inciting the riots. This isn't the first time something offensive has been published, nor will it be the last and I have no hope that editors will consider the consequences of future actions while they sit wrapped in 'freedom of the press' or 'the public's right to know'.

Both phrases can cover all sorts of morally reprehensible actions and with this issue, it has only served to further alienate Islam from the West and provoke more unnecessary violence.