Freedom Too Far?

Here in England, we've been experiencing a wave of demonstrations against the publication of those cartoons in Denmark.

Although they haven't been published in this country, and although presumably most of the demonstrators hadn't actually seen them, the atmosphere was pretty unpleasant. The placards held high outside the Danish Embassy included written exhortations to kill unbelievers, to behead them.

One of the demonstrators was a little boy of seven or eight, his face contorted with a hatred he couldn't possibly feel, carrying a placard announcing that Europe will come crawling when the Mujahadeen arrive. Another young man, twenty two years old, stood, dressed as a suicide bomber, hurling his message of hate.

And the British Police did nothing.

They stood there and allowed the demonstration to take place. Allowed those terrifying images to be seen on TV screens around the country and around the world.

Of course the Police were under orders, just as they were a few weeks ago, when a young woman tried to read out the names of the British Army war dead in Iraq. That's all, just the names, read without comment a couple of hundred yards away from Prime Minister Tony Blair's official residence. The woman was arrested -- by those self same Police.

Over here, public opinion is beginning to realize that tolerance isn't that even-handed.

There is a growing backlash amongst ordinary people who feel deeply that, as one Muslim woman said yesterday, if these people despise the country of their birth so much, there is always a boat or a plane waiting to take them somewhere they'll feel more at home.

Finally, after days of mounting public and media pressure, the police arrested the man dressed as a suicide bomber. They announced the setting up of a special squad to look at video evidence of the demonstration to see if there was a case for some more arrests.

The bigger issue, though, is respect and there is a dangerous swell of British public opinion concluding that there is one rule for the parents of that boy, the ones who actually wrote his placard full of bile and hatred for the west, and another for the majority here who never supported the war in Iraq in the first place, and wish that the whole adventure had never taken place.

Slowly but surely, the consensus by which we all agree to be governed equally in the common cause is beginning to be undermined. And the danger is that this will lead to the real collapse of law and order in this country.
by Simon Bates