...born with the gift of laughter and a sense that the world was mad

The Aussie way: As evidence that we don’t need authorities to mediate and ameliorate hurt feelings, I offer Exhibit A—Tim Blair’s account of what happened when he posted those offensive Mo ‘toons on his site. What happened—or, more to the point, what didn’t happen? Well, let’s just say it didn’t involve an Islamic supremacist scrawling out a complaint in chicken scratch citing passages from the Koran in order to punish a brazen ‘toon-publishing Jew. Nor did it involve a five day show trial convened in a windowless, airless bunker:

…Because papers and magazines were a little shy, I put the cartoons – none was so bold as that Gold Coast kid’s T-shirt – on my personal website. Reaction was interesting. The Sydney Morning Herald ran an item on it, which of course required an accompanying image. Rather than display one of the cartoons, they ran a shot of me.

There was some hilarious bending and twisting from commentators who’d previously defended religious insults. ``We need to understand the value of artistic freedom,’’ wrote the Herald Sun’s Jill Singer in 1997, standing up for the Australian display of Andres Serrano’s ``Piss Christ’’, which depicted a crucifix in a vial of urine.

In 2006, though, Singer denounced those far milder Mohamed cartoons: ``Who wants a totally uncensored media run by those devoid of judgment, taste or social responsibility?’’
The ABC was forbidden – forbidden – to run even a singlecartoon.

Police called, offering a safe house until the heat died down. I declined, figuring the heat wouldn’t be all that great. And it wasn’t. I think I received two emails from Islamic readers taking issue with my decision, but politely so.

All  in all, a much better way of going about it, because the freedom to debate, denounce and offend remains intact.

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:43 | link | comments

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