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The refusal of most North American media to re-print the Mohammed cartoons has left many Canadians and Americans with the idea that all of them were intended to insult Muslims and dishonour the prophet of Islam. That this is not the case would be obvious to most people who have actually seen the images. The Western media are therefore complicit in spreading the false impression that the cartoons are deliberately disrespectful.
Moreover, as Rex Murphy points out, the character and magnitude of Islamist response to the cartoons—riots, embassy burnings, church attacks, killings, etc.—far outweigh the alleged initial offence.
The reaction was not proportionate, on any scale, to the perceived offence, and if it had any signature characteristic it was one of threat and intimidation.
I am not sure we can have a dialogue based on "respect" that is threaded with the idea of violent retaliation if one side of the conversation does not have its way. The dynamic of any dialogue cannot be ceded to the extremists for that is the nullification of the idea of dialogue. "Agree with us — or else" is not a seminar topic.
Judging by the number of people who have died in the riots so far, the number of Middle Eastern journalists in jail, the number of embassies and churches burned, the fatwas issued against the cartoonists and the bounties to encourage their execution, the "or else" faction of Islam is by far the dominant one.
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