Holocaust cartoons

Apparently Iran is holding a competition to find the “best” cartoon depiction of the holocaust as a test of Western principles and ideas of freedom of speech.

Firstly I’ll make my stance on freedom of speech clear. With rights comes responsibility. Although I think that people should be allowed freedom of expression and that people should be allowed to draw cartoons of what they like, that doesn’t mean that I think it’s necessarily a good idea to. A lot of unpleasant situations in the past have arose because of freedom of speech ideals.

On the other hand killing people for saying something you don’t like could rarely, if ever, be justified.

If Iran (or whatever newspaper or person came up with the idea) goes through with their plan, the outcome will be fairly obvious. There will be condemnation of the cartoon(s), people will say it’s an insult to the millions that died as well as those who lived through it. Despite all that I’m fairly sure you won’t see Iranian embassies burnt down nor death threats against the cartoonist or publisher.

Whatever argument there might have been that the cartoons were wrong has been completely overshadowed and rendered insignificant compared to the response. As I was told when I was at school: “If you have to shout, you’ve probably already lost the argument.”