Beazley and Downer on cartoons

OPPOSITION Leader Kim Beazley has condemned the publication in Australia of controversial cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed. Mr Beazley said he believed publishing the caricatures was “extremely unwise”.

“It’s an offensive cartoon and it shouldn’t be printed,” he said.

I’m sure he meant to say they are offensive cartoons. Brisbane’s Courier-Mail newspaper has published one of the 12 cartoons, while political commentator Tim Blair has posted all 12 on his website.The cartoons, which were first published in Denmark, have sparked violent protests around the Muslim world. Downer says;

“I see the cartoons they produce of me and John Howard and so on and they’re usually incredibly offensive but that is just the nature of our society.” “I think around the world people have got to learn that not everybody needs to agree with them or have the same interpretations that they have of events or people, and they need to demonstrate a higher degree of tolerance.”

Mr Beazley also has condemned the global violence over the cartoons, as “absurd and disproportionate”. It might be procative to publish the cartoons but the alternative is to be seen as buckling under fatwas and only printing in our media what these 7th century zealots authorise. Not this little black duck. Meanwhile, Al JAzeera reports that Iran is planning a series of Holocaust cartoons in retaliation

Iran’s largest selling newspaper has announced it is holding a contest on cartoons of the Holocaust in response to the publishing in European papers of caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad.

When no Mosques are destroyed, no riots eventuate, no Iranian flags burnt and no threats made they are going to appear stupid. So stupid in fact that they won’t even realize it.