A caricature of respect

THE PUBLICATION of 12 cartoons depicting the prophet Muhammad in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten has triggered a multinational crisis. Danish embassies have been burned in Damascus and Beirut, and five Afghans and one Somali have been killed by police in their home countries while protesting the cartoons. In Denmark, the cartoonists who drew the caricatures have gone into hiding. And it's not just Denmark that is feeling the pressure; all of Europe is on high alert.

Given that, it speaks volumes that the politically fragmented continent -- unable to agree on the Iraq war or on a European Union constitution -- has managed to come together to support the Danish newspaper's right to publish the caricatures.

But should we be surprised? The questions raised by the caricatures, which were published after the newspaper's editor issued an invitation to Danish cartoonists to submit drawings of Muhammad, have been asked with increasing frequency in European capitals recently: How much does a society have to change to welcome immigrants from different cultures and religions, and how much must newcomers have to change in order to become members of that society? How, he wanted to know, was Islam affecting traditional Danish values such as freedom of expression and tolerance?

It's not just Denmark that's facing this identity crisis, it's almost every nation in Europe. Similar questions were raised by the murder of Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh in Amsterdam in 2004 and by the riots in Parisian suburbs in the fall. Londoners were shocked to learn that four of the five Underground bombers in July were British-born.

Islam is the fastest-growing religion in Europe. There are at least 15 million Muslims living in the EU today. In the eyes of many Europeans, the problem hasn't been just the size of the Muslim population, but these immigrants' refusal to assimilate or compromise with Western culture and values.

In the past, Europeans tended to err on the side of caution and avoided directly challenging Islam for fear of destabilizing their relationship with the Muslim world. Now, Europe's strategic interest in retaining access to Middle East oil demands that governments soothe Islamic ire. But European politicians' interests lie in insisting that Muslim immigrants assimilate and in standing tough against censorship by standing up to Muslim mobs.