The banner of free speech has been unfurled again, as it often is in times like these. Who knew cartoons could evoke such a response?
We all did.
Free speech should generally be invoked as a shield and not a sword; it is for saying things you believe in that are also offensive. It should not be used as a weapon against those who believe differently than you do. When used in this way, it undermines the goals it was created to accomplish.
I do not argue that the lone Danish paper that ran the cartoons should not have. The cartoonist might judge religions by their most visible and least faithful adherents, but there is always someone waiting to wield the undeniable power of religion in a self-serving manner, often to violent and self-gratifying ends. But these are the exceptions. Judging any system, country or religion by its most unfaithful members is both an affront to those being judged, and a sign of poor character in those judging.
But then other newspapers ran the cartoons, not because they resonate with truthfulness or make an important statement, but because it really ticks Muslims off… or no, that’s not it… it’s because their countries practise what’s called “freedom of speech”. But abuse of this noble concept is far below the minimum requirements of civil society, and far beyond anything intended by those who conceived it. Freedom is not always exercised in DOING; often it is most beneficially enacted by resisting wrong action.
Many columnists have become missionaries of the deceitful application of the principle. Sadly, their justifications themselves have taken on the characteristics of an intolerant religion. It even has its own mantra: “We must, because we can… “
A fine line exists between free speech and avoidable provocation, and that line has been crossed. It seems almost automatic in democratic societies to publish what is controversial regardless of quality or validity. The reprinting of the cartoons is not an act of freedom but is rather a clear case of the opposite: automation. It offends, therefore it should be printed. The very state of being offensive validates it, regardless of its content.
British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw should be commended for acknowledging that every freedom must be both exercised with confidence and tempered with restraint, lest it become something other than freedom. “There is freedom of speech,” he said “we all respect that. But there is not any obligation to insult or to be gratuitously inflammatory.”
Columnist responses seem short on variety. Rex Murphy accuses protestors of insolence while other editorial comments write the affair off as over-reaction. However, the number of responses, while overwrought and unjustified, are still in proportion to the number of offences. Had a single Danish newspaper published the cartoons there would have been a level of protest but it would not have reached the volume it is at now. The divisive effects of these actions are now clearly seen. Are you on the side of the insolent fundamentalists or of free speech? Make your choice!
To say the choice of how to react is theirs alone is true, but it is a choice imposed upon them as one of two that are equally distasteful. They can ignore the insult and dishonor their religion or they can react to the insult and reinforce, as Globe and Mail reader William E. Henry writes, “the negative stereotype of Islam as a religion of intolerance, repression, and violence.” Such a stereotype may be reinforced, but equally reinforced is the stereotype of Western nations that offend because they can and not because they believe in the truthfulness of their actions. We are nations that often make a sport of offending.
“Artists, writers and the press in the Western democracies have the right to create and write as they please. And so they must.” Murphy writes, “And no fundamentalism, of religion or any other variety, should be given the slightest leverage over that right.”
True enough, but maybe common decency should
