Free Speech and When To (Not ) Use It

[andrewducker]

I'm somewhat torn over the recent events with the Islamic comics. In case you haven't been following it, the story goes something like this:

A Danish newspaper, covering a story that a writer had been unable to find an illustrator for their children's books about Mohammed (for fear of Islamic extemists), asked a group of cartoonists to draw something about Mohammed. They then published the resulting cartoons, as part of a piece on freedom of speech and the problems of people fearing reprisals for said speech.

This had the expected effect of causing mass uproar across the Islamic world, because (a) Islamic tradition is against images of any of the prophets and (b) one of the images implied Mohammed was a terrorist.

Now, on the one hand, I firmly stand behind people's right to any speech that isn't directly causing harm (i.e. shouting "fire" in a packed cinema, giving out the addresses of people to those that want to kill them, descriptions of how to construct nuclear weapons, etc.). On the other hand, just because you have the right to free speech doesn't mean that you ought to go around insulting people.

I have several comics that are deeply offensive - Preacher is deeply offensive about Christianity, for instance. Many Northern Irish people of the Unionist persuasion wouldn't be impressed with Troubled Souls. Obergeist is unlikely to go down well with people who lost family in the German concentration camps, and Faust is pretty much offensive to anyone in a 50 foot radius. Should I give them all up and toss them on a pyre?

I was deeply offended that people campaigned against Jerry Springer the Musical. And I'm deeply offended that they are trying to suppress the cartoons. Should the Muslims stop trying to get them banned because _I'm_ offended that they want to?

Should it matter that many Islamic newspapers routinely publish pieces referring to Jews as dogs and eaters of shit? Should we really care if they're offended by other people's imagery when they're publishing their own? Or is that like saying that all British people are responsible for the terrible nonsense published in the Daily Mail?

I think, in the end, that in one sense I wish they hadn't published the cartoons, largely because they mostly aren't any good - they're not that clever, and they aren't saying anything that couldn't be said in a less offensive way. In another sense, I think that not doing something _purely_ because someone out there will be offended will lead to people doing nothing. Everything will offend someone, and people should publish what they feel is right, without worrying too much about their audience.

Free speech includes the right to offensive speech, and much as I'm against the recent attempts to make "reckless" (i.e. accidental) incitement to violence illegal, I'm against any restraint on speech just because it will offend someone. Doing things _just_ to be offensive is generally the resort of the childish, and it doesn't interest me, but I'd rather that people were allowed to be childish than that they weren't.

Comments

[thishardenedarm.livejournal.com]

sorry, but thats either really naive or willfully stupid, the whole point about the call for universal sufferage was that half the population felt they were excluded, external, had no power within, no place within, were not excepted as a part of, etc. society. Ditto blacks, see also gay liberation circa 1968. The only sense in which these groups were within society was that they lived in the same country. If thats your argment, use "country" not society. If thats not your argument, well see the first sentence.

Lets go back to the cartoon, and it's context then i'm leaving you to your "if only every one was reasonable we could all get on and the bad things would stop " fantasy. Lets look at Ayaan Hirsi Ali, someone who is genuinely "within". escaping from the forced (sexual and domestic) servitude of many muslim women she decided to speak out against this in the Netherlands. She made a film about the widespread abuse of muslim women. One image showed passages from the Koran projected onto a womans whiplashed body. For daring to voice this, very oblique, critique of female abuse she is now under 24 hour police guard. The filmmaker she worked with, Theo Van Gogh, was shot dead in holland. Pinned to his chest was a note addressed to Ayaan, it said, "we are willing to die for our beliefs, are you?". (Really, google her)

Now, lets go back to the cartoon. I'm guessing that there may be some people within the Muslim world who, far from being offended, might actually feel a little bit of hope that someone has stood up against the bullies, the murderers and abusers, the men who run these societies in the name of God. I' thinking that for every protester burning down Ikea there will be a thousand silenced women who can't fucking wait for the day when this edifice crumbles. Who would be pleased with any show of solidarity. That anyone from the outside or inside was daring to provoke the bullies, the murderers and the abusers, to provoke them and not back down. Because they really are a bunch of cunts.

[andrewducker]

your "if only every one was reasonable we could all get on and the bad things would stop " fantasy.

If you're going to wildly attack me, you can at least do so in ways that match something I've said rather than just making shit up.

I' thinking that for every protester burning down Ikea there will be a thousand silenced women who can't fucking wait for the day when this edifice crumbles. Who would be pleased with any show of solidarity. That anyone from the outside or inside was daring to provoke the bullies, the murderers and the abusers, to provoke them and not back down.

"Look," the silenced woman cries, "they've called Mohammed a terrorist! I feel freeer already! Now that the Westerners are insulting everything we hold dear, the moves towards more Western-style thought are bound to increase!"

I believe someone was talking about naivety earlier.

Pretty much _every_ Islamic country is moving towards democracy, allowing in outside influences and opening up so that new ideas can at least be seen inside. All of these things are affecting the way that ordinary people think in these countries, and they are demanding more democracy. Even Saudi Arabia, bastion of Wahhabism and religious-backed dictatorship has started having limited elections and allowing more rights for women. All of this is great - and all of this should be encouraged. Criticism of Islam goes on all the time, and there aren't massive riots, because it's not all done in ways designed to cause massive offense.

But if you want to push the Islamic countries away, and make them think that all Western/Liberal society has to offer is insults, then go for it. I, personally, can't see how screaming insults at them helps at all.

[thishardenedarm.livejournal.com]

ok one final angle, the idea of "the subject supposed to believe", the fictional other who believes what we no longer do. The idea that whilst we in the west are sophisticated, post-modern, cultural relativists, "they" are all sitting around believing, thinking thoughts like:

"Now that the Westerners are insulting everything we hold dear"

I really wonder if "they" do think that, or if thats not just another western cartoon, one that functions to distance us from the real human suffering that happens under these regimes, by designating them "other". I wonder if in fact the silent but very scared majority could give two fucks about idolatory.

[andrewducker]

I wonder if in fact the silent but very scared majority could give two fucks about idolatory.

Good question. And the answer is that "I dunno". I _do_ know that the Iranians recently elected a fairly hardline Islamic president, who believes in the destruction of Israel - what I don't know is whether they did that because of other promises he made to do with jobs, etc. and whether they would have voted that way if there had been less societal pressure.

[andrewducker]

*some time later, after much reflection*

It suddenly occurs to me that we also shouldn't make the opposite mistake - assuming that if we wave liberal democracy at them they'll suddenly go "Yes, that's what we all wanted all along, how could we be so silly - please sign us up for income tax and a national train service at once!"