A number of Peaktalk readers have alerted me to the following:

Denmark faced the full fury of the Muslim world yesterday as a long-simmering row over newspaper cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad finally erupted.

There were street demonstrations and flag-burnings in the Middle East. Libya joined Saudi Arabia in withdrawing its ambassador from Copenhagen. Islamic governments and organisations, including the Muslim Council of Britain, issued denunciations and a boycott of Danish goods took hold across the Muslim world.

The Danish Government warned its citizens about travelling to Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Syria, and withdrew aid workers from the Gaza Strip.

Last night EU foreign ministers issued a statement in support of Denmark, and the European Commission threatened to report any government backing the boycott to the World Trade Organisation.

One reader actually wondered if I would be willing to help spread the word of a counter-campaign and ask readers to "Buy Danish".

To be frank, this is probably an affair that will blow over and I personally do not put any faith in boycotts, counter-boycotts, consumer-support initiatives or whatever you want to call them. Not since I witnessed anti-apartheid activists destroy the wine collection of a mom-and-pop winestore for daring to carry South African wines back in the 1980s. Or when it was expected that as a pro-war in Iraq voice I should have stopped buying Brie. All total nonsense.

What is far more important is how the newspaper that ran the cartoons responds and according to LGF's Charles Johnson they have been consequent in their commentary. Here's Jyllands-Posten:

In our opinion, the 12 drawings were sober. They were not intended to be offensive, nor were they at variance with Danish law, but they have indisputably offended many Muslims for which we apologize.

Since then a number of offensive drawings have circulated in The Middle East which have never been published in Morgenavisen Jyllands-Posten and which we would never have published, had they been offered to us. We would have refused to publish them on the grounds that they violated our ethical code.

Good for the newspaper to reiterate its original position. It is also instructive that they have discovered that probably some of the cartoons that are now fanning the flames of Muslim discontent probably never even appeared in the newspaper. Anybody care to guess where they came from?

UPDATE I: Michelle Malkin has a comprehensive round-up of the affair, including the 'offending' cartoons.

UPDATE II: Andrew Sullivan takes on Bill Clinton's lame and questionable reaction and argues very clearly about what is at stake here:

These cartoons help expose the brutalization of women, the use of violence in defense of faith, the idiocy of suicide bombers allegedly going to heaven, and so on. If we cannot speak of these things without giving offense, then we have lost our ability to discuss freely the most significant cultural shift of our time: the rise and rise of religious fundamentalism.

It's not the first time that the advent of self-censorship has come up on these pages. It will increasinlgy become an issue of our time and it is perplexing to note that someone like Bill Clinton is actually encouraging a framework on which that practice can be built. From thereon, self-censorship will become the norm, something that will be expected of all journalists.