I fear that in this effort, the Toronto Star's Haroon Siddiqui is being less intellectually honest than he is capable of being.

An excerpt:

The prohibition on the depiction of Muhammad is understood, if not fully accepted.

That's unclear wording. Does Siddiqui mean that non-Muslims now understand that depicting the Prophet Muhammad in a cartoon can trigger a global incident? Does he think that means the West now agrees never to draw Muhammad again?

Apparently.

There is a growing realization that freedom of speech is circumscribed by laws of libel, hate and religious freedom, and also self-restraint dictated by such subjective considerations as to whether or not words or drawings may be gratuitously insulting or morally reprehensible.

Uh, Mr. Siddiqui, who realizes that? I've not read anything to date indicating a "consensus" that freedom of speech is circumscribed by religious freedom. One person's freedom to worship or believe as they choose shouldn't limit another person's right to publicly criticize that faith's tenets. Freedom of religion is an outgrowth of freedom of expression.

You seem to be arguing, in the context of this column, that Muslims should have freedom of religion, but no one else should have freedom of speech, especially if it offends Muslims.

Here's a quote attributed to Salman Rushdie: ""What is freedom of expression? Without the freedom to offend, it ceases to exist."

Rushdie's right: The "freedom to express things that no one will disagree with" doesn't really have a ring to it.

Now, I do agree with the notion of not gratuitously offending a group, but on the other hand, if one does so, it usually says more about the person communicating the thought -- unless there is a wild over-reaction. In that case, it says something about the person or group being offended.

A consensus is emerging, certainly in Canada and even the U.S. (where they routinely push the limits of freedom), that the Jyllands-Posten episode had an aura of juvenile bravado to it.

This became clearer when an Iranian paper planned anti-Holocaust cartoons. Hoisted on its own petard, Jyllands-Posten said it would reprint them. Fortunately, sanity has prevailed and both have backed off.

Actually, Hamshahri, the Iranian paper, is still going through with it. Flemming Rose, the Jyllands-Posten culture editor who approved the initial Muslim cartoons and who said the paper would run the Holocaust ones, has been put on indefinite leave.

Anyway, the genesis of this incident, for better or worse, is that a Danish children's book writer who wanted to include a chapter on the early life of Muhammad was having problems finding an illustrator.

Remember, the Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh had been killed a year earlier by a Muslim fanatic.

A newspaper asked if artists were self-censoring themselves. Jyllands-Posten got the idea, rightly or wrongly, to ask 40 cartoonists to draw Muhammad. Twelve responded.

Once again, the Danish religious figures who went to lobby in the Middle East for support didn't bring just those cartoons; they brought some far more hideous drawings, and those were the ones often highlighted by those who wished to inflame matters.

Equally, the West and the world of Islam are no longer planets apart. What we say about each other has repercussions, as we have seen.

Internet, text messages, Al-Jazeera and other networks have robbed the West of its monopoly on the world narrative.

Pluralism and globalism together are moving monoculturalists to the margins. The whining you have heard in the past two weeks is their nostalgia for the days when they could say whatever they wanted about Muslims and get away with it.

The Internet and text messaging allowed Muslims in Europe to "inform" Muslims in the Middle East that right-wing Danes were planning on burning the Koran on Feb. 4. That didn't happen.

But when Siddiqui talks about people saying whatever they want about Muslims, he strangely seems to give Muslims a free pass to say whatever they want about Jews, as one example. Was there widespread outrage in the Muslim world against Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's statement last fall that Israel should be "wiped off the map"? If not, why not?

There is also increasing appreciation that Islamophobia did play a big part in the episode.

Jyllands-Posten and several papers that reprinted the cartoons are openly anti-Muslim.

Some of their defenders share that hate, as a quarter of the 400 reader responses to my columns in the last week testify.

Jyllands-Posten rejected caricatures of Christ three years ago, saying they were too provocative — precisely the grounds on which Muslims have objected to the Muhammad drawings.

Queen Margrethe, no less, is on record as stating there's "something scary" about the "totalitarianism that's part of Islam." And she advocated "resistance."

According to Media Guardian, Jens Kaiser, the Jyllands-Posten Sunday editor, said the main difference between the Christ cartoons and the Muslim ones were that they had asked for the Muslim ones, while the Christ ones were voluntarily submitted. Kaiser said they reject about 90 to 95 per cent of voluntary submissions. Can Mr. Siddiqui tell us what percentage of cartoons and other voluntary submissions were rejected during his tenure as the Star's editorial page editor?

There have been even worse things said. Some members of the Danish People's Party have called Muslims a "cancer" in Parliament.

As the Globe and Mail story I posted earlier today indicates, one problem that the Danish Muslim community faces is that it allowed itself to be defined by its extremists. If the only people the traditional Danish community sees are big-mouthed Islamist extremists, then it will have an image problem. Here's an  excerpt:

Because their rank-and-file are so unknown and invisible to Europe's mainstream, people hear the only voice that is speaking loudly and clearly. In many countries, this is the radical, orthodox religious leaders, who often, like Mr. Abu Laban, resemble extremist politicians more than preachers. In places like Denmark, where Hitler's rampage left terrible memories, the hateful messages of people like Mr. Abu Laban, and their calls for censorship of the media and repression of women, strike a troubling chord.

If that's the case, however, that's also poor journalism by the Danish news media. Actually, a good rule for the news media the world over is, "who is this person speaking for, and how many people does he or she really represent?"

I found this statement in a BBC story to be slightly heartening:

"I didn't know there were so many Muslims in Denmark who are supporting Western values," said Soren Espersen, an MP for the populist Danish People's Party.

His comments mark a turnaround for the party, which has grown to be the country's third largest on a political platform of nationalism and xenophobia.

Anyway, back to Siddiqui:

It was no accident that the worst riots were in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Iran, the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and Egypt -- where Muslims are under the gun in different ways.

There is some truth to that statement, and some untruth (see the Feb. 7 BBC story Pakistan's mild reaction to the cartoons). It might be worth noting Mahmoud Zahar of Hamas was calling for the death of whoever created the cartoons, as were many other extremists. In many of the areas where there was particularly violent unrest, there also appeared to be some state tolerance of that behaviour. Some have said that a good blasphemy riot in Egypt, for example, would take peoples' minds off the government's inept handling of the ferry disaster.

I'm glad to hear that Canadian Muslims have an easier time integrating than their European counterparts. I want everyone in this country to feel like they belong.

But I still think we need a reasoned societal discussion on how best to avoid or resolve clashes of religious belief and freedom of expression.

It would help if people like Mr. Siddiqui tried harder to tell the whole story.