Speech: free or expensive?
Ok, looks like I’m going to have to talk about the cartoons, (thanks Paul for the galvanizing comment!).
Ho-hum, so where to start? I suppose as Charlie Fort said “one measures a circle beginning anywhere” so let’s kick off with “Free Speech”. I don’t usually wade into politics as such but I guess that my areas of interest and the political have finally converged (been sequestered?) so may as well embrace it.
Free Speech: this is apparently the root of the issue. Only it isn’t really is it? It’s just been spun that way because, as Paul suggested in his comment on my last post, Free Speech is a species of sacred cow and invoking it here has the desired effect of blocking the roadway. Which is strange really because one could construct a fairly coherent argument that we do not in fact possess free speech at all.
In fact, when examined objectively, we can see that even what little rights we have in this area are being eroded. Let’s just give some brief examples, I won’t list them in depth but this UK Times article gives a pretty coherent overview.
The money quotes:
It was after Lynette Burrows, an author and mother of six children, took part in a discussion on BBC Radio 5 Live that the new thought police struck.
She had said that placing boys for adoption with two homosexual men was as obvious a risk as placing a girl with two heterosexual men. The next day she was contacted by a policewoman who said that a homophobic incident had been registered against her.
“The PC only told me that it wasn’t a crime because I asked her straight out” said Burrows last week. “Otherwise I could have been left thinking, Well, I must have missed this legislation, it must have gone through parliament without me noticing, and now I’ve broken the law”.
She believes we are now living in a police state. “We really do” she said. “Somebody, somewhere, can decide that they don’t like your opinions, and in response the police will either lean on you or threaten you. It is insidious, it really is.”
And then this:
Two years ago in Bournemouth, Harry Hammond, an elderly evangelical Christian, held up a poster calling for an end to homosexuality, lesbianism and immorality. This caused a furore as 30 to 40 people gathered round. Soil was thrown at him and water poured over his head. Yet he was prosecuted on a public order offence and convicted. He has since died.
And again:
John Catt, an 80-year-old RAF veteran, was stopped and searched, the official record of the encounter confirmed that the “grounds for intervention (under the Terrorism Act) were that he was ‘carrying placard and T-shirt with anti-Blair info’.
Walter Wolfgang, 82, a veteran party member who fled Nazi Germany, was bundled out of the Labour conference after shouting ‘nonsense’ as Jack Straw, the foreign secretary, defended Britain’s role in Iraq. Wolfgang was stopped under anti-terrorist powers as he tried to re-enter the hall.
Isabelle Ellis-Cockcroft was 11 when she was stopped and searched under the Terrorism Act two years ago. She had gone with her father to a protest outside Fairford air base in Gloucestershire.
Lindis Percy, a 61-year-old veteran of the peace movement, was electronically tagged and ordered to stay indoors in the evenings. The Ministry of Defence had applied for an antisocial behaviour order, but the judge refused.
And there are many more examples. But one does not even need to search for similar incidents - in any case they are possibly emblematic of a move towards totalitarianism rather than absence of free speech, though obviously the two go hand in hand.
To my mind, free speech is intertwined with debate. Debate is the mark of a civilized society but in this present issue we have been deprived of that debate. and fed misinformation. We are back in the hall of mirrors that have come to be a potent symbol of modern life. everything has become it’s own opposite. War is peace, freedom is slavery and prevention of debate is free speech.
Consider this: the ‘point’ the cartoons were allegedly making was that there is an extremist element in Islam. Or, conversely, I have also heard the argument (excuse) that they were ‘testing to see what would happen’. In both cases: duh. Yes, we know there are extremists. Yes, we all knew what would happen if you published those cartoons. Are they really that stupid? No.
How do we know this? Because the cartoon was not of bin Laden. The cartoon was not of Zarqawi. The cartoon was of Muhammad. And that means they ipso facto equate Muhammad with those figures. Otherwise why not use OBL and crew? Just as recognizable - more so. There would have been no trouble had they done so, they would have achieved the same aims they claim they were shooting for and they would also have got moderates onside. They didn’t do it. They didn’t even try, it wasn’t the plan.
So they are saying that Islam = terrorism. And they do not now (now that some aggro has kicked off) have the guts to admit it. So they spin. And the media pitches in to help them do it.
If you listen to media reports on this matter you will not be able to avoid hearing the following: “The problems have arisen because Islam bans all figurative images especially of the Prophet”.
Cute. Except it is completely false. There is no such ban. Nor could there be - there is no unanimous ‘Islam’ nor established ‘Church’ or ‘Pope’ to enforce it. Which is why Islamic art is full of representations of living things and pictures of Muhammad, Jesus and other Prophets. I have written on this elsewhere on this site and there are even examples of paintings of Muhammad attached. So this is not the reason.
The reason is clearly that Muhammad is portrayed as a terrorist. Is this being discussed? No. It is portrayed as being all about the ‘sensitivity’ of Muslims to seeing the Prophet depicted. I’m all for the discussion but it isn’t happening. I’m even up for a discussion on why it isn’t happening but that’s off the menu too.
Unfortunately the menu is a sacred item at the Free Speech Cafe. It’s famed far and wide for its hundred and one items , its lovingly grilled steaks and beautifully fattening desserts - in fact you can have anything you could possibly want. And the guy at the next table can have whatever he wants too - even if it’s something you hate. You might not like the Chevignon Blanc but he sure as hell has a right to order it.
Just one big happy family.
But there’s a problem: the Free Speech Cafe specialises in the cuisine of one specific region solely created for the palattes of customers from that region and the people in that region only ever eat steak. If (God forbid), an out-of-towner managed to ever gain a reservation he might scan the menu for his favourite seafood, let’s say lobster, but his searching and enquiries would be in vain. You see the clientele of the Free Speech Cafe never order lobster, never ever. So it’s not on the menu.
The menu from which you can have ‘anything you want’. Just like the ballot paper where you can ‘vote for whoever you want’. The only thing you can’t do is have a say as to what goes on to that menu or on to that ballot paper. But it’s all ok - we’ve got the right to offend people (even if it’s a right I don’t personally want or ever want to use). Surely that’s enough?
But I’m ranting. Re the cartoons themselves: to my mind there is no question of banning them but to actively support their right to be published I think it depends on why they are published.
Personally I would welcome debate on extremism in Islam (like there isn’t any already though) but this could not be intended to stir such debate as I outlined above. The cartoonist chose Muhammad. Simple message “Islam = terrorism”. Really, the claim that this was done for debating reasons is ridiculous. A cartoon is not a question. It is a statement. Any newspaper could quite easily frame a debate on this issue more effectively through other means. Simply run a header with a question like “Is Islam inherently extremist?”.
I would have no objection to that - I’d even join in. That would be free speech in action. But the unfortunate truth is that his cartoon in fact takes away free speech - it deprives people of the right to reply because of what it is (and I have no doubt that is why this medium was chosen).
One cannot answer a cartoon. A cartoon is a brand like a logo. It is a statement not a question. As such it needs no reply nor can it have one - that is why cartoons have traditionally been used to demonize people as in Nazi Germany. And that is why a cartoon was the chosen vehicle here - to make a statement that could not be replied to whilst claiming that the purpose was to elicit a reply.
And that’s exactly what happened and is still happening.
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