Faulty Narratives Again

The Danish cartoons were first published in 2005… The most common explanation for the violence in the English and European language press was that the production of images of Mohammad is prohibited by Islamic law and further that Muslim immigrants in Europe and elsewhere have failed to internalize the democratic value of free speech. Jyllands-Posten, for its part, self-righteously claimed to be heroically rescuing free speech in the face of the fearful self-censorship practiced by Danish writers and artists with respect to criticism of Islam. The incident was portrayed as a clash between the liberal values of an open society and an anti-modern, authoritarian, and superstitious religion.

As Sullivan points out “Bzzzz! Wrong!” The narratives that we walk around with are fabricated for a specific point of view. And that is a strange point of view born out of the Enlightenment that most of the world cannot make sense of.