Thursday, February 02, 2006

Sick as an ill monkey

I am, indeed, sick as an ill monkey. It's horrible. Bathroom bound every two minutes. You don't need to know all the info, I've probably already told you too much.
At least I'm not the only one.

So, in lieu of any detailed descriptions of bowel health, or any complaints about general male sickness, or any sarcasm about the great British ability to always have the flu, I have decided to simply post the response of the French newspaper 'France Soir' to the ridiculous behaviour over these cartoons.

"It is necessary to crush once again the infamous thing, as Voltaire liked to say. This religious intolerance that accepts no mockery, no satire, no ridicule. We citizens of secular and democratic societies are summoned to condemn a dozen caricatures judged offensive to Islam. Summoned by who? By the Muslim Brotherhood, by Syria, the Islamic Jihad, the interior ministers of Arab countries, the Islamic Conferences - all paragons of tolerance, humanism and democracy.

So we must apologise to them because the freedom of expression they refuse, day after day, to each of their citizens, faithful or militant, is exercised in a society that is not subject to their iron rule. It's the world upside down. No, we will never apologise for being free to speak, to think and to believe.

Because these self-proclaimed doctors of law have made this a point of principle, we have to be firm. They can claim whatever they like but we have the right to caricature Muhammed, Jesus, buddha, Yahve and all forms of theism. It's called freedom of expression in a secular country...

For centuries the Catholic Church was little better than this fanaticism. But the French Revolution solved that, rendering to God that which came from him and to Caesar what was due to him."

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