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Defend to the death your right to say it
Feb. 7th, 2006 05:13 pmToday, Ayatollah Khomeni said, regarding the Mohammed cartoons, "The West condemns any denial of the Jewish Holocaust, but it permits the insult of Islamic sanctities." [link]
Look at that again. One of those words doesn't belong.
Got it yet? It's Khomeni's "but." "The West condemns...but it permits." Your conjunction of choice should be "and." There is (or should be) no conflict, in the west, between condemning something and yet permitting it. That's what freedom of speech is all about. I can despise the KKK while defending their right to publish their newsletter; I can mock the antiabortion bozos who wave their fetus-posters without wanting to ban them from the sidewalk. Condemning and permitting go hand in hand here (except when radicals and fundamentalists get involved—don't get me started). But if you fail to grok that lack of conflict, if you live in a country where condemnation naturally leads to censorship, the logical conclusion to draw is, "If the west permits something, then they approve of it." Once you've reached that point, it makes sense that the west would look pretty infuriatingly evil—look at all of the things we endorse! And so the reaction becomes a little more comprehensible (if not forgivable).
(Of course, Khomeni is just turning our arguments back on us—by raising the prospect of making some speech illegal and actionable in this country, we have opened ourselves up to accusations of endorsement. "If you really think X is bad," someone might say, "why isn't it illegal, like you say hate speech (or porn, or what-have-you) should be?" But that's another issue.)
You're jumping in on the middle of my thought process, dear reader; this situation has had me pretty worked up all week. I don't think freedom of speech is an American thing, or a western thing—I think it's a fundamental human right, even when people get offended. Tomorrow morning, assuming I can drag myself onto campus, I'm attending a "Chaplain's Noontime Discussion" called The Mohammed Cartoons: Free Speech, Racism or Blasphemy? And, once again, that "or" doesn't belong—it can be all three, without conflict (though I think it's primarily a free speech issue). Perhaps I will learn something there to change my mind; I'll report back, regardless.
Look at that again. One of those words doesn't belong.
Got it yet? It's Khomeni's "but." "The West condemns...but it permits." Your conjunction of choice should be "and." There is (or should be) no conflict, in the west, between condemning something and yet permitting it. That's what freedom of speech is all about. I can despise the KKK while defending their right to publish their newsletter; I can mock the antiabortion bozos who wave their fetus-posters without wanting to ban them from the sidewalk. Condemning and permitting go hand in hand here (except when radicals and fundamentalists get involved—don't get me started). But if you fail to grok that lack of conflict, if you live in a country where condemnation naturally leads to censorship, the logical conclusion to draw is, "If the west permits something, then they approve of it." Once you've reached that point, it makes sense that the west would look pretty infuriatingly evil—look at all of the things we endorse! And so the reaction becomes a little more comprehensible (if not forgivable).
(Of course, Khomeni is just turning our arguments back on us—by raising the prospect of making some speech illegal and actionable in this country, we have opened ourselves up to accusations of endorsement. "If you really think X is bad," someone might say, "why isn't it illegal, like you say hate speech (or porn, or what-have-you) should be?" But that's another issue.)
In a new turn, a prominent Iranian newspaper, Hamshahri, invited artists to enter a Holocaust cartoon competition, saying it wanted to see if freedom of expression—the banner under which many Western publications reprinted the prophet drawings—also applied to Holocaust images. [link]Of course it does, or I hope it does, and I hope the west's reaction proves me right. Have they never seen South Park? Probably not, actually—which is part of the problem. If they really understood how little respect anyone is afforded in the west, perhaps it would be easier for them to accept that we have the right to mock their prophet, too.
A radical Muslim group in Belgium put on its Web site a cartoon of Adolf Hitler in bed with Anne Frank, a Jewish girl who wrote a wartime diary of hiding from Nazi persecution. [link]To them I say: good job. You're hitting the wrong target—can't you publish an anti-Dane cartoon, like Stephen Colbert did?—and your motivation is suspect, but at least you're responding in the appropriate vein. You have every right, in my eyes. People may judge you or boycott you, but I sincerely hope they don't threaten to blow you up, or otherwise try to censor you. (And the cartoon is funnier than any of the Mohammed ones.)
You're jumping in on the middle of my thought process, dear reader; this situation has had me pretty worked up all week. I don't think freedom of speech is an American thing, or a western thing—I think it's a fundamental human right, even when people get offended. Tomorrow morning, assuming I can drag myself onto campus, I'm attending a "Chaplain's Noontime Discussion" called The Mohammed Cartoons: Free Speech, Racism or Blasphemy? And, once again, that "or" doesn't belong—it can be all three, without conflict (though I think it's primarily a free speech issue). Perhaps I will learn something there to change my mind; I'll report back, regardless.
