And one more, because it’s just so unchanged and so infuriating – the bait and switch. Yes you can have free speech, no you can’t say harsh things about religion. What’s the problem?
Of Course You Can, Except When You Can’t
February 4, 2006
Back to the real world, where cartoons ‘are’ representations of Mohammed – some depressing oxymoronism from Jack Straw. Of course we respect free speech, but you can’t say that; of course everyone has a right to free speech, but no one can insult religion. Well which is it, bub? It ain’t both! I’m not a free speech absolutist, as I’ve said many times, but this idea that free speech is okay as long as it doesn’t offend anyone is sheer jam tomorrow. If we can’t say anything that might offend someone, our speech is pretty damn restricted, isn’t it!
Speaking after talks with the Sudanese foreign minister, Mr Straw said: “There is freedom of speech, we all respect that. But there is not any obligation to insult or to be gratuitously inflammatory. I believe that the republication of these cartoons has been insulting, it has been insensitive, it has been disrespectful and it has been wrong. There are taboos in every religion. It is not the case that there is open season in respect of all aspects of Christian rites and rituals in the name of free speech.
Oh? Really? What does he mean? That it’s illegal to say ‘offensive’ things about some aspects of Christian rites and rituals? (Perhaps he’s thinking of the dear blasphemy law.) Does he mean that if one says ‘offensive’ things about some aspects of Christian rites and rituals, the result will be violent riots and death threats, and that that’s a good thing? If neither of those, what does he mean? What, exactly, does he mean?
Nor is it the case that there is open season in respect of rights and rituals of the Jewish religion, the Hindu religion, the Sikh religion. It should not be the case in respect of the Islamic religion either. We have to be very careful about showing the proper respect in this situation.
Do we? Why? And why doesn’t that work the other way? Why don’t people who want to prevent free speech on the subject of religion have to be very careful about showing the proper respect for our beliefs? Because we don’t chant ‘”7/7 is on its way” while also waving placards and burning flags, during a march through London to the Danish, French and German embassies’? Because we don’t threaten to blow up 57 random people as revenge for our feeling offended?
More bullying oxymoronism, this sample from Bunglawala.
UK Muslims have denied that the reaction to the cartoons’ reproduction has been a threat to freedom of speech. It was a “question of exercising good judgement”, said Inayat Bunglawala, from the Muslim Council of Britain…”Of course Europe has the right to freedom of speech, and of course newspapers have the right to publish offensive cartoons. This was really a question about exercising good judgment,” he said. “Knowing full well the nature of these cartoons, they were offensive, deeply offensive to millions of Muslims, these newspaper editors should have exercised better judgment.”
But of course Europe has the right to freedom of speech, and of course the reaction to the cartoons is not a threat to freedom of speech. How silly! Of course you can have your pesky freedom of speech! You just can’t say anything we don’t like, that’s all! What is the big stinking deal?
That is a really massively irritating trope – that saying you can have free speech and then instantly saying the opposite, in the very same breath. At leas they could have the honesty to say what they mean – ‘No, you can’t have free speech, because you say things we don’t like, so you have to shut up. And shut up about your free speech, too.’
I’ve had exactly the same thought Mediawatchwatch has had – remembering Stephen Fry at the Hay Festival last summer, talking with Hitchens, talking about the two words that have taken on a creepy resonance (and I knew what they were before he said them), ‘offended’ and ‘respect’. And I can hear him saying what Mediawatchwatch quotes him saying – ‘So you’re offended. So fucking what?’
All speech should be protected, because inoffensive speech doesn’t need protection.
I’m curious about the juxtaposition between the recent posts concerning the racist SAE chant and these archive posts concerning the Danish cartoons. How do the people who feel the former should be legally punished while the latter should not be reconcile the positions?
No one has the right to not be offended.
qwints – if the issue had been a group of frat boys singing about Pakis being lynched and not being allowed in their fraternities, I wouldn’t be defending them. That’s how.
@qwints
I dont think there is an objective way of evaluating which forms of offense are ok and which are not – which is probably what you are hinting at – we all draw lines at different places and we have opinions about people who draw lines at different places than where we do. The closest thing to objectivity that we have is – if its something that is inherent to you that doesn’t determine anything else (e.g. Gender, Sexual orientation, Race) then those forms of offense are discouraged. If its something that determines your behavior or is a choice or is something that doesnt apply to me (for e.g. you may have to revere cows because of your religion but I dont have to then those forms of offense may be ok.
All forms of offense that escalate to harassment are bad. Sometimes discrimination is couched as if its merely offensive – which is also bad.But many grey areas and subjective evaluations and nuance are needed.
@qwints
I dont think there is an objective way of evaluating which forms of offense are ok and which are not – which is probably what you are hinting at – we all draw lines at different places and we have opinions about people who draw lines at different places than where we do. The closest thing to objectivity that we have is – if its something that is inherent to you or something doesn’t determine anything else (e.g. Gender, Sexual orientation, Race) then those forms of offense are bad . If its something that determines your behavior or is a choice or is something that doesnt apply to me (for e.g. you may have to revere cows because of your religion but I dont have to) then those forms of offense may be ok.
All forms of offense that escalate to harassment are bad. Sometimes discrimination is couched as if its merely offensive – also bad.
Certainly I can think of forms of cartoon-defending that would be harassment – posting them in or on mosques for example. I wouldn’t defend that.
qwints @ # 2 – None of the Mo’toons included threats of violence.
@Deepak Shetty – Ophelia’s right, the analysis shouldn’t change if the SAE members had chanted similar things about muslim. It’s not the nature of the group identity that’s the difference here – it’s something about the nature of the speech. I hope no one thinks it’s okay to use slurs or advocate discrimination against muslims.
@Pierce Butler – There’s a lot of speech that contains similar references to violence. I think a college would be wrong to expel a student for singing a country song (“it might be a smart bomb they find stupid people too. And if you stand with the likes of Saddam, one just find you”) or a rap song (“And when I’m finished, it’s gonna be a bloodbath of cops, dyin’ in L.A.”)? I also have a hard time seeing the SAE chant as harassment given that it (presumably) wasn’t intended to be heard by any Black people.
Ultimately, I think that the only way to meaningfully differentiate between the cases is to say that muslims were wrong when they say they were harmed by the cartoons and that Black people were right when they say they were harmed by the SAE chant. I just don’t see how a government can meaningfully make that determination and still retain room for free speech. I think the constant racism on Fox news is far more harmful, but I don’t think the government should be able to ban it.
@ qwints
There was a recent guest post that distinguished between “offensive” speech that has a point, and offensive speech that has no content except to express hate.
Rule of thumb, I think, is to ask, “Is this attacking ideas or specific harmful behaviours, or does it just boil down to ‘I loathe those people’?”.
The problem is that too many religious people identify so strongly with their religion that they can no longer tell where their identity as individuals ends and where the religion itself begins, and vice versa. For example, a great many religions exhort their faithful to make their religious belief the most important aspect of their character; their love for their gods should eclipse anything a mere mortal might expect to receive, regardless of relationship; and they are expected to live their lives according to the rules established and emphasized by their religious leaders (typically based on religious texts). This becomes a flagpole around which the faithful rally for the sake of establishing a social community (only the devout need apply) wherein they reaffirm to themselves and each other how truly superior and righteous only they are.
So for these individuals whose personalities and individuality have been compromised so significantly, to the point they can’t identify themselves without invoking their religion, we can understand that *they* have a problem. *They* might have a mental illness, along the lines of a man who thinks he’s a chicken. (“Why don’t you bring him ’round for treatment?” says the psychiatrist. “I would, but we need the eggs,” replies the wife.”) The fact that their religion tells them all they should be the bosses of the rest of us, that their gods want them to rule over the rest of us (and, yes, Christians believe this, too – just look at the anti-abortion and anti-same-sex-marriage movements), and that they must abridge and circumscribe our rights so as to please their gods. Because their gods are more important than any person – that justifies this boorish, bigoted behavior.
It should be entirely fair to discuss any religion, its tenets, its doctrines, and its significant personages, to the point of criticizing, lampooning, and even condemning. Because this is not personal – it’s examining what’s essentially a political system that affects how people behave and interact with others within society. As such, it’s of concern to us all. If its basic structure and principles are not consistent with the modern reality of a great many of us, often very different from each other, living in close quarters and needing to get along, we should be free to publicize that as a prudent and proper warning to others in society (similar to warning the neighbors if the dog down the street threatened your child). When religion encourages people to flout society’s laws and customs, this should be immediately and loudly condemned, because we’ve already worked out our own laws and customs, thankyouverymuch. And if a religion’s doctrines and tenets countermand the Enlightenment principles which have resulted in our acknowledgment of the fundamental equality of all people and their basic, inalienable rights and freedoms, then this must ABSOLUTELY be discussed. Widely and loudly. And if the faithful don’t like it, they don’t have to listen, now do they?
The problem with allowing people to talk and otherwise share information is that people thus become informed and much more difficult to control and rule.
Well, I gotta pile on, even though I’m late.
Differences between the Frat Rats and Motoons/Hebdo:
1) Expressing nothing but hate, contempt, disgust, bigotry, whatever you want to call it.
1) Expressing ideas, specific points, about the hypocrisy of a religion.
2) Expressing violent intentions.
2) Expressing irony, humor, sarcasm. No violence.
3) In your face. If you’re on that bus, you have to bear it or make a scene.
3) Requires an action that depends on interest in the subject matter to see the cartoons. You have to open the magazine or newspaper, at the very least. Not in your face. Not on billboards. Can be easily avoided by people who find them offensive.
Those differences by themselves are plenty to show up the Frat Rats as abusers and the Motooners as people exercising their free speech. I’m not sure what’s even hard to see about the great gaping distinctions.
@qwints, at least, seems to be so fixated on potential government abuse of power that he/she is ignoring actual abuse of (social) power by nongovernmental people. The first is very very bad. But it is not the cause of the problem here. And using the theoretical eventual potential of government abuse as an excuse to allow actual abuse to happen does make it seem that there’s a deficiency of attention to the real abuse suffered by real people.