“Why are mainstream news organizations in Canada shirking their duty to present the news fully and honestly [by printing the Danish Mohammed cartoons]? For one or another of four reasons, I think.
“The first is concern for the feelings of Canadian Muslims. This can’t really be their reason, though, as concern for the feelings of others requires that we do not patronize them.
“The second is fear of provoking violence. This might have been a valid reason in early days, when mob violence overseas could have been taken as grounds for fearing mob violence here. But we now know, as, of course, many knew all along, that Canadian Muslims do not react with violence. Indeed, no Canadians even protested peaceably the presence of the cartoons on their supermarket newsstand, when Harper’s magazine reprinted them.
“What about a single enraged individual? That’s a threat for security and the police to diffuse. Let us not hold the news, let alone a way of life, hostage.”
