Jahan Sadat, the wife of assassinated Egyptian dictator Anwar Sadat, calls for press and speech censorship by government in today’s New York Daily News.

Let me be perfectly clear: I am a Muslim, and I am offended by the cartoons of the Prophet Muhammed. I also am offended and deeply disturbed by the reaction these cartoons have evoked. Being offended by cartoons should never give rise to the destruction of property and the taking of another's life. There is enough violence and killing in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Congo, Sudan and in hundreds of American and European cities where crimes occur every day. I have had enough of violence and hate.

Fine so far – though you know there is a “but” coming. Here it is.

The fact is, these cartoons came at the request of a culture editor for a Danish newspaper after he discovered that a writer could not find an illustrator for his book about the Prophet. From this little bit of knowledge, the editor decided, according to his explanation in Time magazine, that the author's problem constituted a violation of free speech and expression. Instead of trying to find out why the writer was having such a difficult time and taking the time to learn why physical renderings of the Prophet are rarely, if ever, found anywhere in the history of Islam (in mosques, in the Koran, or other books about Islam and the Prophet), he decided to launch a war against censorship by staging a contest of sorts among some of Denmark's cartoonists. The result was not open debate; the result was chaos.

Yes – chaos caused not by those who published the cartoons, but instead by the mob that demanded that their beliefs and customs be respected over the beliefs and customs of those who published the cartoons.

Is the publication of sacrilegious cartoons the foolish exercise of a poorly informed editor or a harsh, unwarranted attack against one of the world's three great monotheistic religions? Is the reproduction of these cartoons nearly six months after their original publication a stand for democracy or just another assault on Islam? Is this freedom of expression or expression without responsibility?

You left one out, Mrs. Sadat – is the uproar and violence one more attempt by a barbaric religion and backwards culture to fend of Western modernity and impose itself upon others?

I am not American, but I have been spending half of my time in the U.S. since 1985. I have a home and a career here. Like Americans, I believe in freedom and democracy. I also know that freedom does not come without responsibility. I know that one should not, and cannot, yell "Fire!" in a crowded theater just because one is free to do so. Even freedom has its parameters.

And those parameters relate to actual, substantive harm, not hurt feelings or offended sensibilities. The proper response to speech we hate is more speech, not violence or the heavy hand of government censorship, as practiced by your husband’s government upon the state-controlled Egyptian press.

There is no law that says cartoonists cannot draw caricatures. There is no law that says television commentators cannot equate terrorism with Islam. There is no law that says we should not defame the religions of others. But there should be! There should be a law that says reasonable, responsible people of any faith, or no faith for that matter, cannot attack others simply because of their beliefs. There should be a law that requires us to appreciate the cultures and beliefs of our fellow human beings. In fact, there is a law: Do unto others, as you would have them do unto to you. In Islam, we say, "Do for your brother what you want for yourself."

And you and your co-religionists have been doing unto Christians and Jews and the members of other religions in a violent, oppressive manner for centuries. There is no freedom of press, no freedom of speech, and no freedom of religion in most of the Muslim world. Such a system should be attacked, mocked, and ridiculed, as should the associated religion, upon which that system of slavery and oppression is built. For that matter, even your more secular husband kept Islam well enough to oppress the Copts, whose presence in Egypt predates the founding of Islam.

Whether we are in a war of civilization or a clash of culture is a question that cannot be answered, much less discussed, as long as emotions are high and reason is blind. But it is a question we cannot afford to ignore.

Actually, Mrs. Sadat, the answer became clear on 9/11, as Muslims danced in the streets and celebrated Osama bin Ladin and his minions as heroes of the Islamic faith. Furthermore, I would remind you that for there to be a war of civilizations, it takes two. What we have instead is civilization fending off the barbarian hordes as they approach the gates of the city, a cultured people seeking to fend off the coming darkness that civilization’s failure to defeat the barbarians has always brought. The laws you propose do nothing to help fight that battle. Rather, they are an appeasement of the barbarians, and a surrender to them.

I cannot help but note two otehr things that are important here. If the Islamohorde with whom Mrs. Sadat allies herself succeeds, she will soon find herself restricted in speech, dress, and action by the verysort of folks who murdered her husband.

Also, if insults to religious figures are to be banned, one of the first items to be prohibitted will be the Quran, for it is blasphemous in the eyes of Christians due to its rejection of the Trinity and the divinity of Jesus Christ. As a result, one could argue that the very practice of Islam would becomeillegal in this country -- unless you are demanding special consideration to Muslim sensitivities alone.

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