Repeat, Offender

Much has now been written about Ezra Levant, the former publisher of the now defunct Western Standard, and his decision two years ago to publish a set of cartoons depicting the Islamic prophet Muhammad. For those who prefer to forget, they were the Danish caricatures of the founder of Islam, implying a connection between Muslim fanaticism and terrorist violence.

In response to the appearance of the said pictures and their claim that Islamic extremism led to violence, Islamic extremists killed people, promised to decapitate their opponents and firebombed churches and embassies.

Not all Muslims behaved or thought thus. But anyone who argues that it was a mere handful is a liar, a fool or a Canadian leftist.

Some Canadian Muslims took a different path and simply complained to the Human Rights Commission that the cartoons transgressed their — here we go — human rights.

Human rights are a funny old thing. They tend to change shape and meaning depending on the day and place. Most of us, however, would agree that the right to life, freedom and movement are pretty obvious ones.

But the human right not to be offended? The very idea, well, offends me.

So a handful of people complained and as a result journalist Levant is obliged to hire a lawyer and spend a great deal of time with an unqualified official who will decide whether freedom of the press is a good or bad thing.

Actually the real disgrace here is that the Western Standard was the only Canadian publication to print the cartoons. They should have been featured in every media outlet in the country, in that they made international news. The ostensible reason that they weren't published was that they were, yet again, offensive.

So bloody what? Canadian newspapers publish cartoons that are offensive to Christians, for example, dozens of times a year. Tolerating that which offends is part of being an adult, being sensible and being part of an adult, sensible county with an adult, sensible culture. Or at least it was.

The real reason the cartoons were not published, of course, is that people were terrified of the consequences. In some cases editors had private security companies give them estimates of how much it would cost to protect their buildings. Which is not only cowardly, but deeply insulting to Canadian Muslims, who are some of the most moderate in the Islamic diaspora.

The editors at the good old New York Times pretentiously explained why they wouldn't publish pictures of Muhammad with a bomb in his turban. They could, they said, adequately explain the cartoons in words. Odd, then, that in the same week they printed a photograph of an alleged artwork depicting the Virgin Mary covered in excrement. Suddenly their ability to describe had abandoned them.

The stench of double standard and fearfulness is as heady as the perfume from an Arabic harem.

We know they're lying and they know they're lying. And we all know that Ezra Levant has become an icon of hope in this nation. The mere fact that he has been called to account is obscene and it must be stressed that the outcome of this witch hunt is irrelevant.

Freedom seems so trivial when you possess it, but it's like water to a man in the desert when it is taken away.