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The current cartoon-induced tempest that is fracturing - already fragile - relations between the West and the Islamic world, has given me much to ponder. My initial outrage was at some sections of the quasi-Christian right, many of whom have hijacked the Church as a surrogate for a supposed British identity, who claimed this incident proves that Islam is irreconcilable with Western society. The millions of peaceful Muslims who live and work in Europe and America show this belief to be nonsense.

Stuart Lee – a noted humanist - who wrote the controversial opera Jerry Springer: The Opera, said this morning that he would never have satirised Islam. Christianity, argues Lee, – being the subject of his Springer opera – has prostituted itself through its commercialisation of Jesus, citing the sale of iconography in and around churches and religious sites. Lee states that images of the Mohammed are rarely reproduced in mosques or elsewhere. Rather more convincingly Lee protests that it wouldn’t be right for a westerner to ridicule Islam, and that real satire is informed and it is the role of Muslims to lampoon their own faith.

I think Lee is right – it is not the role of the West to ridicule Islam, but that does not mean that it can’t. Criticism of Islam is often little more than poorly concealed racism, using the religion as a proxy for moronic prejudice. The offending cartoons however cannot be disregarded as closet racism, as they rightly call into question the perversion of Islam by those who seek to justify terrorism – they have a real socio-political message. As many have pointed out, the cartoons are hardly works that demand to be recognised alongside great C18th political satire, but genuine social commentary they are. Religion is an ‘idea’, and is therefore a justified subject for debate, criticism, and derision. The fact that the cartoons offend the sensibilities of millions is no reason to curb freedom of expression – however it may be a reason for editors to avoid their publication.

This issue also brings into the question the recent Incitement to Religious Hatred bill, which thankfully suffered a setback on Wednesday. Religion, I repeat, is an ‘idea’; one does not have to be Jewish to convert to Judaism, one merely has to accept its tenet – its theory of the world. Legislation that outlaws criticism of an ‘idea’ has its own name: totalitarianism. The religious hatred bill is nothing more than a dictatorial attempt to curtail our freedom to challenge and satirise religion, to address the wider social problem of inter-racial malcontent. As comedian Rowan Atkinson contended, the government are using a “sledgehammer to crack a nut.”

So with the ‘thought-police’ not yet empowered to prohibit the publication of the pictures, the authorities are pleading with media outlets to show some decorum and not reprint the images. Editors are faced with some difficult decisions.

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Also open for criticism is the reaction by thousands in the Middle East, and wider Islamic Diaspora, to the cartoons that has exposed the regressive fanaticism and increasing radicalisation of Islam. Groups have demanded that unless formal national apologies are made they will retaliate against Danish interests and nationals.

The reaction in the Islamic world is predictable and lamentable. Muslims have a right to be offended, a right to boycott Western products, and a right to protest. However the threat of violence and the acts of gunmen, who took over an EU office in Gaza City, is outrageous and western governments have exposed their spinelessness in not condemning this irrational response. So powerful is political correctness within Europe, that our leaders would rather condemn the media, than genuine aggression.

Again Muslims are venting their frustration outwardly and aggressively towards the West, never tolerating inward retrospection or contemplation. What radical Islam is achieving is proving the extremists in the west, who argue Islam is irreconcilable with western civilisation, right. Protests today in London outside the Danish Embassy are justified as a legitimate response to the cartoons, but again they descend into counterproductive hostility when protesters hoist placards decreeing: “behead the one who insults the prophet” and “free speech go to hell.” These statements are inciting violence and pour flames on tense inter-racial relations. Free speech is a valuable freedom that is intrinsic to European identity and culture; outbursts such as this will cause nothing but resentment.

It would be both condescending, and wrong, for me to call for an Islamic enlightenment. But the rampant march of Radical Islam is threatening to pull the fragile fabric of our relative peace apart. Much like the regressive evangelical Christianity that is poisoning American society, and the rabid ideology of Orthodox Judaism, fanatic religion is plunging humanity back into an Age of Darkness, where free thought and expression are prohibited under threat of social exclusion and/or violence.

If people in Islamic states seek to give up freedoms for dogma, then that is their prerogative, but this is contrary to modern post-enlightenment European civilisation; and Islamic communities within Europe must respect this. This clash of civilisations must not be manifested by violence. The cartoons are just that: ‘cartoons’. They do not physically hurt anyone, but call into question an ‘idea’, a worldview.

It has been pointed out that terrorism somehow justified by Islam, is causing far more damage than these cartoons ever could, and that the Islamic world regularly refuses to condemn such violence, always seeking to justify it against Western Imperialism. There are huge swathes of western society that call into question Israeli territorial occupations, and millions who oppose the Iraq War, but the Islamic World must also condemn it’s own internal problems and communities must work to root out extremists. Religion can never justify violence.

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What this debate comes down to is freedom of expression, and the question of whether Europe, and its leaders, will stand by its principles and not cave into irrational outrage and violence. Relations between indigenous Europeans, their Muslim communities, and the Islamic world, will not be repaired by European acquiescence to demands, they will be enflamed. Xenophobic extremists in Europe will seize on any compromise in western values as proof that our existence is under threat, and to a point they will be right. Our belief in an Open Society is who we are and must never be negotiated.

The cartoons were in poor taste, and the editorial of the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten has revealed incredible editorial inanity, but the violent and aggressive response has been far far more reprehensible.