Why 'On Line Opinion' hasn’t published those cartoons

Both Pell and the vandals lost their day in court - a demonstration of what our civilisation is about. Nothing could demonstrate more than this result the difference between our world view, and that of the Muslims who have torched embassies and whose governments are taking economic retribution against Denmark, merely for being the tolerant host country of the publisher.

So, if I think it is vital that the right to publish these cartoons be defended, why have I not published them?

Partly it is because of the medium we work in. If On Line Opinion were a print publication we would have published them. Newspaper readers expect to get all the vital information from the publication, not have to marshall two or three of them to understand the basics of the debate.

The great innovation of the Internet is the ability to hyperlink so that not all the information needs to be held on the one website. I can link to Tim Blair who has published the cartoons, and give my readers all the information they need. This is not a cop-out. It actually allows On Line Opinion to do something quite different from what most of the conventional media will do, because it allows us to provide the information for an informed discussion, but at the same time keep the temperature lower.

Publication of the cartoons certainly makes dialogue with Islam more difficult, but it also makes it potentially more productive. The broad Islamic reaction to the publication of these cartoons blows away the arguments for moral equivalence between our cultures. The sort of nonsense analysis that says things like, “We are all essentially the same,” or “Well, all religions worship the same god,” are shown to be as insubstantial as Salome’s veils (another provocation in its own day).

Perhaps as a result of this eruption debate can now proceed on a more difficult but more honest basis.

It says something about Australian journalism that The Courier-Mail was the only metropolitan newspaper willing to publish any of the cartoons. While editor David Fagan is not prepared to make a public statement on the decision, he has already shamed his big city cousins who have failed in their duty to inform.

I hope my commitment to freedom of speech, tolerance and understanding is understood by Muslims, and they will feel simultaneously challenged and reassured by this approach, and drawn to engage. So far we have published Irfan Yusuf and Salam Zreika. I hope there will be a number more.

Yesterday morning The Courier-Mail published another confronting photo. Pauline Hanson was back, on the front page, and selling real estate in Annerley, not far from where I live.

The media made Pauline into what she was by talking about her incessantly in derogatory and dismissive terms. They accentuated an “us” and “them” (what David Flint refers to as the “elites” and “ordinary Australians”, or Mark Latham called “tourists” and “residents”). The tribes are always there, but not always as at war as they were in the middle 90s. Pauline became the heroine of the outsiders, a Boadicea driving a Pajero with scythes, who was eventually ground down by the military efficiency of the major party oligarchy, but doing a lot of damage as she went.

The dangers of Hansonism were one of my inspirations for setting up On Line Opinion - a site where people could bring their prejudices, but also a willingness to engage. The success of this site shows that, given a chance, even those people who have closed their minds love the opportunity to argue. Hopefully from the sparring some greater understanding and tolerance will spring and the tribes will become more peaceful.

None of us might change our minds, but we might change our dispositions and recognise our intellectual foes as being at least worthy of respect.