Free speech, insulting or not, injuring feelings or not, intelligent or not, stereotypical or not, is the fundamental pillar of Western democracy and our many freedoms. Sure, there are limits as to what one can say or print about an individual person (particularly a private individual versus a public figure), and limits when the line is crossed into inciting violence, but otherwise, risking being offended or insulted by something in the press is one of the costs of living in a free society.

Focusing on the disparaging, here and there (BBC Two Facebook, BBC Asian Facebook, Telegraph Facebook), guests on radio discussions, there have been comments made, such as:

“They are demonising Islamic values”
This person didn’t explain what he meant, so I’m not sure which “values” depicted in the sketch, he was miffed at.

“Why does it have to be Muslims? Couldn’t the wives be non-Muslims with Western names?”
I can only suspect this person wants all Islamic refs as well as Asian name refs removed through embarrassment.
Another (it might have been this one) asked why they couldn’t be Jewish.

“Why does it have to be women, acting like Muslim women? Couldn’t they use men, perhaps gay ones?”
This was the same poster as above who obviously missed that it was a parody not only of ISIS, but the “Real Housewives of…” franchise. She also implied that they *are* behaving like Muslim women.

“This is Islamophobic”
This was quite a popular complaint, generally without explanation.

“It was sexist because they were only women (missed parody title point again), and they only talked of husbands”.
Missing the point again.

“I liked Father Ted, because (cue silly analysis of non-stereotypes on an island), but this was stereotyping”
That was Lauren Booth on the radio. It’s always curious that when asked, they always like Father Ted and can find reasons (Ansar did the very same during the Jesus & Mo T-shirt/Nawaz thing), while gnashing their teeth about *anything* Muslim/Islam.

And many more. All I take from the disparaging comments is that the sketch was linked to Muslims. never mind that it was about ISIS. It didn’t seem to matter. Vague recollections of the whole program had sketches parodying rich Tory MPs, UKIP voters, Company Tax avoiders, and quite a lot else. Perhaps these people ought to be reminded that anyone connected with all of the others parodied have not made one peep of criticism or annoyance. But I reckon that wouldn’t matter one jot.

And yes, this is a parody of ISIS, but thereby it is *also* a parody of Islam, since ISIS is an extreme version of Islam.

And will Muslims take offense? Well, if they do then excellent! We need to maintain the principle that criticising ideas in a way that can cause offense is an entirely acceptable and routine thing to do. It is entirely normal to criticise political parties and their policies in ways that could cause offense, if their supporters chose to take offense, Ditto other idea systems such as capitalism, socialism, fascism, communism or whatever. Religion, especially Islam, should be no different. We need a world where mainstream media regularly publish things that cause offense to the hair-trigger offense-takers in the Islamic world.