Peace be upon you And upon you, peace. In this poetic way, Muslims around the world have greeted each other for centuries.

So when one hears that Hong Kong's Muslims are planning to march to protest the now notorious Danish newspaper cartoons, one wishes they might reconsider. While the annoyance (or worse) of Hong Kong's Muslims might be understandable, at whom, exactly, would their protest be aimed? Hong Kong is not a party to this affair; the world is unlikely to pay much attention. If the local march is peaceful, it will be compared to the violence overseas; if there is any violence at all, it will harm the reputation of the religion here. Any march runs the risk of being an empty gesture and counterproductive.

I know the cartoons in question only by reputation - and I imagine that hardly any of Hong Kong's Muslims have seen them either - but if they are as described, then they are certainly inappropriate. Political cartoons are by their nature unfair, using satire and ridicule to make their point and excluding reasoned argument.

Freedom of speech allows, but does not require, insults. Such speech is only justified when it has a higher purpose, for example to highlight hypocrisy and prick the bubbles of the powers-that-be with the hope that this will bring about positive change in the places where the cartoonists live and work.

Such blunt instruments should be used with care. Cartoons should target political figures and policies - in the hope of changing them - not groups of people, religions or the dispossessed. Cartoons that depict the poor as slothful, Jews as venal or the handicapped as incapable would rightly be condemned not just as distasteful, but inherently inaccurate and manipulative. It would appear that, in this case, the cartoonist is guilty of, at the very least, sloppy symbolism. While readers understand that a cartoon of Uncle Sam represents the United States government, not all Americans, a cartoon depiction of the Prophet Muhammad can only be taken to mean all of Islam and all Muslims. If the cartoonist meant this, then he is by definition a bigot; if he meant the prophet to be a symbol for some Muslim leadership, he demonstrates a profound ignorance of the religion and its worldly structure.

The cartoons, therefore, would appear to be ignorant, inaccurate and pointless. So while cartoons are meant to insult - that is their purpose - these insults were merely gratuitous.

This is why newspapers have editors: they are supposed to edit. Newspapers may be allowed to print rubbish, but it doesn't mean they should: quality control does not equate to censorship. This particular editor seems to have fallen down on the job.

The answer to protesters' rhetorical placards "Free-dumb to insult?" is, however, " yes" and those so insulted have the freedom (or free-dumb) to answer in kind.

But rather than protest, local Muslims might instead develop a program that would lead to deeper and long-term understanding of the religion and culture in Hong Kong. They might, for example, organize visits to the Great Mosque in Guangzhou, to demonstrate that it was the cultures of the East that developed world trade and globalization some seven centuries before Marco Polo set eyes on the Great Wall.

Local Muslims might also push for anti-discrimination legislation in Hong Kong, formal recognition of their place as valued and equal members of the Hong Kong community.

They might develop a school curriculum on the history of Islam, noting among other things that for much of Islamic history, Muslim lands were renowned for their tolerance, justice, culture and intellectual achievement in comparison with the backward, fundamentalist European periphery. Jews, for example, or even members of non- Catholic Christian denominations, were usually better off in a Muslim land than a Christian one. It was the Islamic world, not benighted Dark Age Europe, that saved the learning and science of the Greeks and Romans for posterity - and extended upon it: it is to Muslim thinkers we owe modern mathematics, including our numerals and algebra.

Protest marches, like cartoons, are blunt instruments that might not have the desired effect. There is not much practical difference between a march and a parade. In this part of the world, the latter might be more appropriate, for there is more to celebrate than to protest: more than 13 centuries of trade and largely peaceful cooperation between the Islamic world and China, from which both sides benefited immensely from the cross-fertilization of ideas, art and commerce.