Tom and Jerry never went this farEarlier this month, a Danish paper called Jyllands-Posten printed some cartoons depicting the Islamic prophet Muhammad in a number of "satirical" scenes, including some clearly showing him as a terrorist. Portrayal of Muhammed in this way is not only distasteful, insensitive and downright foolish given the current state of the world, but is regarded by many as direct contravention of the Islamic religion.

Since then pretty much everyone must be aware that there have been many, many protests, riots and worse throughout the world. This included an unacceptably offensive one here in Britain where a handful of protesters called for the beheading of unbelievers and a repeat terrorist attack on Britain amongst other niceties. Contrary to popularly-ignorant non-Islamic opinion though, this offensive protest was essentially tiny and apparently involved some extremist groups already outlawed by the Government. A larger, peaceful demonstration against both the publication of the cartoons and the violence they inspired has subsequently taken place in the UK. Unfortunately a relatively tiny minority of violent extremists through the world are still causing death and destruction over the cartoons; they must be immediately apprehended and removed from being a danger to society.

Anyway, how to ease these deadly troubled waters? Well, Iran’s biggest selling newspaper has had an idea that, well, is just guaranteed to bring peace and harmony to the world. The original cartoons predictably caused massive offence to a large proportion of society and resulted in consequences as severe as death. So let’s try and cause more offence and see what happens eh? The Hamshahri newspaper has launched a competition to find the 12 "best" (and by best don’t assume they mean "of most refined brushwork") cartoons about the Holocaust, of all things. The Poorhouse does not feel the need to comment upon the harmful stupidity of this action. This apparently is to "test out how committed Europeans were to the concept freedom of expression".

Sacrosanct as freedom of expression may be, this is a ridiculous line of reasoning in terms of the possible awful effects it may have. There is no doubt at least an element of truth in President Ahmadinejad’s assertion that most British papers could do a better job in publishing "anything about the innocence of the Palestinians" but there are more rational, more acceptable ways to make this point than trying to incite yet further violent horrors.

The Danish Foreign minister has already voiced the truth that Al-Qaeda type organisations will likely try to capitalise on the depth of feeling that has already been generated around these cartoons. For the sake of peace, harmony and just generally staying alive, let's do our best not to let them be successful. Preach tolerance, not hate.