Islam and Freedom of Speech

There is an interesting an fascinating comparison of the difference between Islamic countries and free ones this week.

This story shows one of the fundamental conflicts that exists between the West and the Islamic world. These journalists are on trial, and their publication banned, due to publishing jokes deemed insulting to Islam in an article entitled "Jokes: How Moroccans laugh at religion, sex and politics?". If Muslims are unwilling to accept that making fun of their religion is acceptable, then freedom of speech and the press will never be acceptable to them. And in the West, the freedom we all enjoy, and often take for granted, is primarily due to freedom of expression.

What should happen in Morocco is that the King intervene to ensure freedom of the press, even if they choose to "insult" the state religion. If he wants his country and people to advance, freedom of expression is critical.

In Canada on the other hand, we have a television comedy, Little Mosque on the Prairie. When you first go to the website it declares "Muslims around the world are known for their sense of humour". I watched Little Mosque and found it entertaining - and there were even jokes that made light of certain aspects of Islamic faith and practice.

Interesting that both events revolve around jokes told by Muslims (Little Mosque is the invention of a Muslim). But in one country the government wants to imprison the publishers, while in the other the government is the publisher...