...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in the Soddy national face...
and Indonesia ‐ no one is too well-known or too insignificant to be punished.
Neither does this trend limit itself to Moslem-majority countries, as globalization ensures the rapid spread of ideas which are now dependent on nothing more than an internet connection. In the west, radical Islamists and their politically active and well funded conservative supporters have begun to advocate for criminalization of blasphemy through the expansion of existing hate-speech laws. In the U.K., Moslem groups were the only religious minority that advocated for the resuscitation (and expansion) of long-unused blasphemy laws.
At the global level, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation is trying to criminalize any affront through pushing for legislation that prohibits the defamation of religion. But the flowering culture of self-censorship, the roots of which can be traced back to the the accompanying violence of the Rushdie Affair, is increasingly doing their work for them.
The BBC will cancel documentary movie screenings because of security threats. British museums will hide their collections containing artistic images of the Prophet Mohammad made by Moslems through the ages. Atheist societies are censored on British university campuses. A political candidate, himself of Moslem background, receives death threats because he tweeted a picture of stick figures saying hi to each other ‐ a picture which the BBC refused to show. A campaign is underway to prohibit him from running for office.
These are but a small fraction of the latest examples of the changing tides. When Charlie Hebdo
...
A lefty French satirical magazine, home of what may well be the majority if the active testicles left in Europe...cartoonists are accused of provocation, people forget that their publications were a response to these incremental changes of the last two decades. And the fact that these developments are increasingly being forced, not through dialogue and discussion, but violence and intimidation, is likewise ignored.
In the wake of the murders, numerous religious leaders ‐ from Pope Francis to the head of the Russian Orthodox Church ‐ have condemned religious satire as unpardonable provocation. Politicians of the world have listened closely to these calls for sensitivity to religion. And while authoritarian regimes are always happy to use the barrel of a gun in order to suppress legitimate dissent, artistic expression, and political opposition, pluralistic democracies increasingly appear to have stepped on the same path.