Dominic Lawson: Hysteria, hypocrisy and half-truths

"Publish and be damned" is a threat which any newspaper can ignore. "Publish and be stoned" is quite another matter. Naturally, the editors of our proud British newspapers have not expressed themselves so bluntly. Instead, each of them has come up with a range of more edifying reasons why his or her newspaper chose not to illustrate its voluminous news coverage of the international row over some Danish cartoons of the prophet Mohamed with a picture of what the row is actually about.

Some of the editorials, such as that in The Sun, have said that it would be wrong to offend their Muslim readers. The Sun, of course, is known for its sensitivity in such matters. One or two others have said that, in any case, the cartoons do not match up to their own high standards, being neither well drawn nor especially funny. They seriously expect their readers to believe that if the cartoons had been more elegantly drawn or had a more side-splitting punch-line then the newspaper would, of course, have published them. Yet another said, portentously, that it "reserved the right to publish" them - presumably at some future date when no longer newsworthy.

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Well. Let me tell you what in fact each and every one of those editors would actually have been thinking about before "choosing not to publish". They would, first of all, have had a phone call from the newspaper's distributors, or their own circulation department, pointing out that a large number of "our" newsagents up and down the country are run by families originally from Pakistan and Bangladesh, both Muslim countries. You don't bite the hand that sells you.

They would also have received an anxious memo from their respective foreign editors pointing out that their correspondents in the Middle East would be put at grave risk "if we took the decision to publish those bloody cartoons".

I readily admit that I would have taken the same decision not to publish - I just hope that I would have had the honesty not to pretend to readers that my reasons were noble. Indeed, I remember, when editing the Sunday Telegraph, asking the literary editor to remove the illustration from a book review about the Prophet Mohamed. She pointed out, with characteristic reasonableness, that there is absolutely nothing in the Koran that forbids the drawing of likenesses of the Prophet and that the illustration was from the 14th century, by a Muslim artist. I do not recall then saying to her: "Please do let us think of the sensitivities of our many Muslim readers." I believe I said: "If we publish that we'll have nutters with hooks for hands storming our offices."

Perhaps the most hypocritical of all the newspapers are those who refused to illustrate the controversy with the relevant images but, on their online versions, gave links to other websites which did publish the cartoons. Perhaps they thought they were being clever in shifting the risk to another media outlet, but in fact such newspapers are being commercially short-sighted. One of the many lessons which people might take from this episode is that if they want the uncensored truth about a matter of genuine controversy they are better off scrolling the internet than buying any British newspaper.

One thing I gleaned from the internet - thanks, tomgrossmedia.com and Wikipedia- is that Islamisk Trossamfund, the Danish Muslim group which has spent the past few months fomenting unrest about the cartoons, has supplemented the ones which were originally published by Jyllands-Posten, with three additional cartoons of unknown origin: one shows Mohamed with a pig's snout, one shows the Prophet as a dangerous paedophile and the third shows a Muslim at prayer being buggered by a dog. If indeed such cartoons are being circulated throughout the Middle East by European-based Muslim groups then it becomes easier to understand the level of popular outrage - and to understand the real motives of those leading it.

The British press may not have come out of this with its dignity fully intact, but its performance is vastly more creditable than that of Jack Straw. The Foreign Secretary clearly saw it as part of his brief to criticise newspapers in foreign countries for publishing the cartoons. That probably went down well in parts of his Blackburn constituency.

Perhaps our Foreign Secretary might also like to opine on a recent cartoon in Arab News, an English-language publication widely read by British expats in Saudi Arabia, which shows verminous rats in skull caps with the Star of David scurrying in and out of a building labelled "Palestine House". By the way, Jack, that newspaper is published by a Saudi state-owned corporation, not private ventures like the European newspapers you denounced.

Perhaps most unappetisingly of all, Peter Mandelson proclaimed that: "The action of other European newspapers now in publishing these cartoons is throwing petrol on the flames of the original offence [in the Danish press]". Mr Mandelson is a European Commissioner - is this his way of expressing solidarity with another European country, Denmark? Does he seriously think, as Trade Commissioner, his remarks will make the Middle Eastern countries now boycotting Danish goods think: "Oh, now that Mr Mandelson has condemned those cartoons we will start buying Lurpak again"?

Finally, at the sharp end, we find the Metropolitan Police, at last Friday's demonstrations outside the Danish Embassy, taking no action against masked men holding up banners proclaiming: "Massacre those who insult Islam" and "You must pay, 7/7 is on its way", while arresting counter-demonstrators carrying the offensive cartoons. Perhaps the officers in charge of policing the demonstration recalled their Commissioner's remarks last week criticising "institutional racism in the media", and didn't want to get a rocket from Sir Ian Blair when they returned to New Scotland Yard.

Now the Met says that they are looking at all the photographs of the men in masks at the demonstration - and that, when they have worked out who they might be, arrests might be made. It's a bit like a policeman arriving at a house while a masked intruder is present, and saying: "Run along, now, we don't want a disturbance, but I might try to find out who you are later."

The one encouraging thing that has emerged from all this is the view expressed by many British Muslims who have denounced the intimidation from the bloodthirsty extremists in their own community and who argue that if you want to live in a tolerant, free society it means that you have to accept the often unpleasant consequences of free speech. These are the people we must protect at all costs - they are the people at most risk from the Islamofascists. And any one who responds with a sentence beginning with the words " I believe in free speech but ..." is as self-deluding as those who write letters to newspapers beginning " I am no racist, but ...".

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