A group of Arab and Muslim youth have put together a website apologizing to Denmark and Norway for the violent reaction to the Jyllands-Posten cartoons: sorrynorwaydenmark.com. The key paragraph:
Anyone offended by the content of a publication has a vast choice of democratic and respectful methods of seeking redress. The most obvious are not buying the publication, writing letters to the editor or expressing their opinions in other venues. It is also possible to use one’s free choice in a democracy to conduct a boycott of the publication, and even a boycott of firms dealing with it. Yet an indiscriminate boycott of all the country’s firms is simply uncalled for and counter-productive. We would be allowing the extremists on both sides to prevail, while punishing the government and the whole population for the actions of an unrepresentative irresponsible few.
Let me just say: the people who set up this website do not themselves have anything to apologize for. By their generous willingness to take responsibility for the appalling behavior of their coreligionists, they set themselves up as examples of how Western and Islamic civilizations can work toward an understanding of how to coexist. So does Tim Blair reader Ahmed: Islam Defended.
Posted by awm at February 6, 2006 10:46 AM