You don’t need to be a genius to have calculated the degree of hurt caused by cartoons published in recent months portraying the Prophet Mohammed in an unflattering light. Note the use of the word ‘hurt’. It means what it says. It hurts.

Nor do you have to be a genius to realise that these cartoons would cause offence to specific sections of the population. Likewise it does not stretch the synapses too far (okay, I am winging it here) to work out that the countries where these ‘harmless images’ were published and republished were those in which the desire to antagonise and revile immigrants, including Muslims, was at its strongest. And you don’t have to be a genius to work out what that means. Cause; effect.

Moving away from that combustible issue, ‘the Danish cartoon controversy’ is hitting the media in general — and the Internet in particular — quite hard. Internet stalwarts stroke freedom of expression quite lasciviously, without always accepting the responsibilities that go with such rights. Until recently Google, the behemoth of Internet companies [search on our site or google 'Google' if you want more details], could even have counted itself inside the free speech lobby. Its sad yet pragmatic sell-out in China proved that rights, like responsibilities, are tradeable commodities.

Google will answer to its own God – rumour suggests that it is either Mammon or Boeing – and it has every right to do so. All the same, I remember hearing Abbie Hoffman speak at some obscure US university and I recall thinking, in anticipation of his own strand of BS, “where is your revolution?”. He might well have known, so I probably should have asked him. After all, he was saying: revolution “is a perpetual process embedded in the human spirit.” He’s also been dead for seven years so there’s no point asking him now.

Two caveats
There are two caveats that should be expressed in the context of recent rows. These are obvious to me but they may not be obvious to you. If they are obvious to you, perhaps you should stone me.

The first observation is that most cartoonists are mad. This is a compliment. Some of my ex-best friends are cartoonists. My absolute best friend is a cartoonist. He has not spoken to me for months. We fell out when he refused to draw a hugely amusing cartoon about... no, I won’t say.

The second observation is that journalists are habitually obsessed by ‘free speech’ issues because any discussion of them allows them to do what they like best: it allows them to write about themselves. Narcissus would love the job.

Having rehearsed those two caveats, I’ll leave those issues aside and wander off elsewhere. Let’s talk about sex.

Fatwa
As a greedy ingestor of mass media, I am perplexed by the way in which media outlets (notably in the USA) suppress, if not freedom of speech, then certainly freedom of expression. Two fairly trashy examples from recent days in the mainstream US electronic media bear this out.

The first was a recent CNN report about a Cuban artist, almost a caricaturist, whose metier was the depiction of the naked female form. Our friends in Atlanta pixellated the breasts and the pudendae of the paintngs in their report on this artist’s work. I could not and still can not work this out. As an upholder of free expression, I would like to have seen the sitter's artistically portrayed and caricatured pubic hair. And if I had seen the pubic hair I would probably have remembered the artist’s name.

Hours later, at the Super Bowl in Detroit, a geriatric musical combo (aka ‘The Rolling Stones’) were obliged by broadcasters ABC to “tone down” the lyrics of their songs, played at half time. “Hopping up and down, Jack Flash” brought the house down, apparently. Anything goes in Detroit. Or it doesn’t if it’s rude.

This is the lame-brained approach to censorship. Michelangelo’s David must be censored because his penis is too big (hint: it isn’t) or the Venus de Milo is pixellated because of the size of her bosoms.

Low-fatwa
So are such trite examples proof of a new era of faux-moral censorship in the USA? I can’t quite bring myself to say that. But we are drifting towards a world where what Beijing says can curtail the ambitions of US-based counter-culturalists like Google. US capitalists (like Google), enthralled by new market potential, are flitting into markets where freedom of speech is at best compromised. Shedding their principles, ignoring them – and just counting the cash. And if it works over there…

Now I can think of a cartoon to illustrate that idea. But cartoons are verboten just now.
Jim Chalmers