Don't Draw Mohammad... Or Else

A depiction of Mohammad resetting the black stone by Rashid-al-Din-Hamadani (circa 1315).

Two gunmen, one of whom was known to the FBI, opened fire at a contest in which participants had to draw Mohammad. Both were later killed by the authorities.

This is not an unusual event. Salman Rushdie was threatened after publishing The Satanic Verses. There was violence after the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten published allegedly offensive cartoons of the Islamic prophet by the name of Mohammad. Ezra Levant was condemned by a human rights tribunal for publishing the same cartoons. The American cartoonist, Molly Norris, had to go into hiding. The creators of South Park were threatened for depicting a blocked image of Mohammad. French cartoonists and journalists who worked for Charlie Hebdo were gunned down.

What is news is the pandering to Islamists and the willful suppression of facts and expression by the very people who, if living in a caliphate, would either be silenced or expunged from existence simply for being who they are.

Why, of any religion, leader or ideology, would the popular press and the left wish to defend, without question, Islamism?

Intellectually, one guesses that Islamism is the opposite of what the popular press and the left represent. It is a kernel of truth for what is a mind-boggling puzzle.

But embracing the crocodile does not convince it to never eat one.

Sooner or later, this apologia will seem less and less absurd as it will seem suicidal.

Then there will be no knee-jerk defense of anything.