The event in Paris at Charlie
Hebdo was a very tragic and horrific affair. “Je suis Charlie” quickly became
the meme. There was no justification for this brutality, period; full
stop. But I also think the story, its
lessons and consequences, are not as simple and straightforward as the media and
most politicians have presented.
The 2.5+ million people in the
streets of Paris and perhaps another 1.5+ million in other French cities were a
spontaneous outpouring of solidarity. But why were these citizens on the street,
did they really consider what got them out? I believe if questioned and after
some reflection the majority would say they were not there mainly in support of
free speech; rather they were there to decry and denounce terrorism.
Terrorism’s evil cannot be debated; however, the question of free speech should
be, it is more nuanced.
Free speech in most advanced
societies is not without strings attached; nowhere is it permitted to write, say, print, post or draw anything you
want – it is tethered to civil or criminal regulation. Defamation, the action
of damaging good reputation, has a long history of statute. The crime of
“libel,” (written defamation); and “slander,” (oral defamation) are upheld in
courts every day.
Blasphemy, loosely speaking,
defamation of someone’s god, is more troublesome. France abolished the offence
of blasphemy
in 1791. But this is far from universal in the world at large. A Pew Research
analysis finds that as of 2012, nearly a quarter of the world’s countries and
territories (22%) had anti-blasphemy laws or policies, and one-in-ten (11%) had
laws or policies penalizing apostasy. The legal punishments for such
transgressions vary from fines to death. In Europe, Germany, Poland, Ireland,
Italy and Greece still prohibit some forms of blasphemy and are enshrined in their
laws.
Hate speech regulation further limits free speech. Laws in many
countries stop child pornography and hate speech against GLBT communities.
Holocaust denial and other genocide denials are considered hate speech in
Germany and most other EU states.
Sorry to belabor the point, but speech is abridged in many ways; and
free speech is a very fluid concept.
David Brooks, columnist for the NY Times, published a thoughtful piece
on January 8 titled “I am not Charlie
Hebdo” and took a bit of heat for it.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/09/opinion/david-brooks-i-am-not-charlie-hebdo.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/09/opinion/david-brooks-i-am-not-charlie-hebdo.html
Still, he got to the heart of the matter. We do need to be vigilant to
protect our rights to free speech from infringement by the state; but we also
need to nurture societal filters for respect and understanding of others and
their beliefs.
Throughout history cartoonists and satirists have exposed “emperors with
no clothes” to the long term health of us all; but there have also been fowl
mouthed blowhards with no respect for anyone’s feelings – journalists with not
much talent, just a bad case of coprolalia.
Modern times and the atomizing of media are giving these types a
megaphone that was not available to them before the Internet.
I think of a civic minded and pious Muslim; these cartoons must have
been an ugly affront to him – I imagine his conflicted thoughts about the
tragedy. Think of other speech disrespectful to the beliefs of other religious
people – Christian, Jew, and Buddhist. I am not religious, but I’m not so
prideful to think I know what really is in the great unknown.
I’m still not sure where I come down on all this. Inayat Bunglawala former spokesman for the Muslim
Council of Britain, backed its demand for a “religious-hatred” law designed to
shield Muslims from offensive speech or even sharp theological debate. Now, he
says, his views have changed completely: the cost of seeing and hearing things
you don’t like is more than outweighed by the benefit of being able to say
anything you want. For me, I’m not sure I’m ready to endorse “being able to say
anything you want.” Therefore, my heart is murmuring “Je ne suis pas Charlie,” even if I’m not saying it out loud. I
reject terror, but I do not embrace unbridled and unthinking free speech.
But there is hope. On our walk this morning in Hyde Park and Kensington
Gardens, we bumped into the end of the “Gaza Winter Walk,” the seventh such
five mile walk in support of Gaza’s children, held in London and other cities.
We passed a returning family; husband, wife and a small and pretty little girl.
She was holding her pale blue foam hand pointy finger (think football game
souvenir) with “Allahu Akbar” printed on it. Our meeting took place right at
the Peter Pan Statue, an iconic sculpture of Sir George Frampton, installed
here in 1912.
Pointing her foam finger at the bronze, she sweetly said to her parents
that “she liked Wendy the best.” Someday maybe all of us will see the wonder in
cultures and beliefs that are not our own, with less hatred and violence the
result.
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