Andy (and Andrew), what’s dispiriting about the actions of Yale University Press is that they’re trying to pass off as mere squishy craven appeasement-as-usual what is, in fact, a new and significant concession.
When the Danish cartoons were published, the justification for not reproducing them in the innumerable news stories about the controversy was that there’s no need to be unduly provocative, especially over some undistinguished drawings from an obscure provincial newspaper. In other words, it wasn’t self-censorship, just multiculti “sensitivity” over something footling and peripheral.
Yale has now extended that to any and all representations of Mohammed, including great works of art that have been reproduced in thousands of books over the years. They’re saying so long not just to a few no-name Jutland doodlers but to Gustave Doré, Botticelli, Blake, and Dante. Roger notes Yale’s motto: Lux et veritas. Light and truth. In fact, Yale has decided to retreat into darkness.
What all these stories — from this disgusting act to the no-donuts-at-Ramadan “recommendations” now common at European businesses — have in common is acceptance of the same general principle: that the most extreme interpretation of Islamic “law” now applies to Muslim and non-Muslim alike. As Pat Condell says, what other freedoms are you willing to surrender?
[UPDATE: A reader adds:
I recall seeing a photograph years ago from a Harvard (motto: Veritas) vs. Yale (motto: Lux et Veritas) football game where the Yale band had a huge drum emblazoned with the slogan, “Your Veritas Sux If It Ain’t Got the Lux.”
Would that Yale University Press had remembered that.]
