By Joel Thurtell
When authors and cartoonists have to hide to protect themselves from threats of murder and mayhem from Muslim radicals, it seems like the biggest threat to free speech comes from Islam.
But the real menace to our freedom of expression comes from the West itself.
The West is at war within over whether people should be allowed to speak their minds in public or have their dissident views suppressed because they may “offend” or “insult” some members of society.
This point clarified for me when I read a pair of stories on the same (paper) page of the January 12, 2010 New York Times.
First, we learned that the Brits are so peeved at critics of the West’s war in Afghanistan that an English court convicted five Muslims who had shouted critical comments at British soldiers returning from military service in Afghanistan. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/12/world/europe/12britain.html We also learned that Danish authorities have labeled as a terrorist the Muslim man who tried to kill an artist whose cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad insulted many Muslims to the point of riot and murder. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/12/world/europe/12briefs-Denmark.html
It seems the Muslims in England were convicted for hurting people’s feelings. What did the “offending” Muslims shout in the streets of a suburb north of London? For calling the soldiers “murderers” and “rapists” and “baby killers,” the Muslims were convicted of “harassment and using insulting language.”
They didn’t attack anybody physically, although some Brits, angered by the Muslims, had to be restrained by police from harming the protesters.
“Murderers.”
“Rapists.”
“Baby killers.”
That’s about as wild and offensive as the comments of many American opponents of the Vietnam War back in the 1960s. The “murderers” and “baby killers” remarks remind me of insults that are commonplace at anti-abortion protests today in the United States.
In the winter of 1967 I lived in London. I recall reading irreverent comments in English newspapers and hearing soap-box tirades from speakers at Hyde Corner. Why, members of Parliament would make remarks that were very insulting. Yet nobody charged them with a crime.
Have Britons become more sensitive?
Or are they selectively less tolerant to insults from Islamic speakers?
Now, at the same time we’re learning that the Muslims were convicted of being less than polite in England, we’re reminded that police in Denmark are protecting the cartoonist whose newspaper cartoon images of the Prophet Muhammad—one with a bomb-shaped turban–insulted some Muslims to the point of riot.
Muslims have issued fatwahs, or edicts, calling for believers to murder cartoonist Kurt Westergaard. The Muslim fanatic who recently tried to kill Westergaard in his home has been charged—correctly, I believe–with terrorism.
Most Westerners would say that Westergaard had a right to draw his images of Muhammad, and that newspapers have a fundamental right to publish the cartoons without fear of coming under physical attack.
But if we believe in an artist’s right to offend Muslims, how can we convict Muslims for offending us?
Don’t the Muslim critics—in Western society, at least– have rights as fundamental as those of Westergaard?
Are not the British—and Americans if we condone the Brits’ censurious behavior–succumbing to the same penchant for suppression that drives the Muslim fatwa-hurlers?
If we in the West continue suppressing Muslims—or anybody—for expressing their beliefs in a peaceful way, we are only admitting that we too can’t tolerate the kind of dialogue that should exist in an open and free society.
By suppressing peaceful commentary, we encourage those we censor to seek more violent forms of expression.
We who believe in an open, free society need to think carefully about the contradictions we telegraph to the world by defending cartoons that were offensive to Muslims, while convicting Muslims for merely expressing views that offend some Westerners.
Drop me a line at joelthurtell@gmail.com
