This morning brings the news that a Iranian newspaper - Hamshari - is going to run a competition satirising the Holoucast. I gagged. Coupled with the pronouncements of the Iranian Leadership - this entire thing is probably going to act as a neat lightening rod for hate campaigners. Hamshari? says that it is in retaliation to cartoons satirising Islam, and that

the cartoons would be published to test the argument of western newspapers which have cited freedom of expression in printing the prophet Muhammad images. "The western papers printed these sacrilegious cartoons on the pretext of freedom of expression, so let’s see if they mean what they say and also print these Holocaust cartoons,"

I have been following the fracas about the protests across the world against cartoons of Prophet Mohommad that appeared in a Danish Newspaper. Really stupid of the editor to publish such stuff. Irresponsible really. This is the expression equivalent of killing a pig and dumping it outside a mosque or a cow and dumping it outside a temple. In today’s day and age where every idiot and his cousin decides to take to the streets to prove a point, and every media vehicle is pointed at the ‘idiot and his cousin’ to broadcast their pronouncements - acting as though the western ethos of irreligiousness prevails across the world is silliness. There are people who take their sacred cows very seriously. And while the rest of us don’t have to believe in these sacred cows - making a mockery of them or ridiculing them is asking for trouble. It very conviniently acts as an effective platform for the extreme right & the extreme left. Oxygen for their hate. And above all a disruptor for civil society. When people stand on soapboxes and? scream "Freedom of Expression" they conviniently forget that every freedom has a responibility attached! On a complete aside - i am glad that the Indian Government has resisted the temptation to support Iran on the nuclear issue.Even if it was not a rogue state - it is definitely getting there!

Tags: , Freedom of Speech, India