Two More on the Cartoon Riots

Via Matt Drudge, some Arab politicians are hoping to use the United Nations -- originally founded to help prevent warfare -- as a means of abridging freedom of speech (i.e., of delivering the West into the tyranny of dhimmitude).

Arab and Islamic governments should pressure the United Nations to ban the slandering of religions, said more than 200 Arab politicians who renewed their criticism today of the contentious Prophet Muhammad cartoons.

The call, which was made at the end of a two-day conference at a Dead Sea resort in Jordan, comes amid outrage felt throughout the Islamic world over the publication in a Danish newspaper of a series of cartoons of Islam's prophet.

"We urge Arab and Muslim governments to spare no effort to pressure the UN to issue a resolution banning the slandering of religions," the politicians from 16 Arab countries representing the Arab Inter-Parliamentary Union said in a statement.

Regarding the United Nations, there seems no better time than the present to remember this gem of an Ayn Rand quote:

Wars are the second greatest evil that human societies can perpetrate. (The first is dictatorship, the enslavement of their own citizens, which is the cause of wars.)

What good is the United Nations if, on the pretense of preventing war, it aids in the destruction of freedom?

In related news, I learned today of the following threat by, believe it or not, an Anglican cleric! (HT: PigBoatSailor, who has more, including this.)

May we at this stage remind our Muslim brothers that they do not have the monopoly of violence in this nation. Nigeria belongs to all of us -- Christians, Muslims and members of other faiths. No amount of intimidation can Change this time-honoured arrangement in this nation. C.A.N. may no longer be able to contain our restive youths should this ugly trend continue. [bold added]

While I fully sympathize with the need to defend oneself against barbarous Moslems (and Peter Akinola's statement sounded pretty good up until the above quote), I am very concerned about the fact that he fails to point out that his followers, like others, have a right to defend themselves. Rather, Akinola drags in past sectarian violence on the part of his followers as a threat. (And loses the moral high ground in the process.)

This threat does nothing to educate Moslems on respect for individual rights. In fact, it cedes the premise that this is merely a religious conflict for the West. Much more is at stake than that. As Nick Provenzo put it so well recently, "[T]his conflict is not about religion -- it is about individual rights."

-- CAV