Where does the right to free speech end?

I’ve only seen one of those by now infamous 12 Danish cartoons that have got so many people up in a lather. It’s the one of the prophet Mohammed, wearing a turban that hides a bomb. Looking at it now, knowing its history and background, and the storm of violence it has unleashed, it’s impossible to say whether or not in an entirely different context, I’d have given it a second thought if it had been submitted by a regular contributor to Hot Press. Maybe I wouldn't.
The cartoons appeared in a Danish newspaper, Jyllands Posten, in September of last year and the controversy has been rumbling on in the meantime, with death threats and intimidation being focussed initially on the editor of the newspaper and other members of its staff.
Anger among extremist Muslims worldwide escalated when the cartoons were reprinted, first in a Norwegian magazine and subsequently in newspapers in France, Germany, Spain and elsewhere. The French newspaper France Soir published the cartoons under the headline “Yes, we do have the right to caricature God”. The managing editor, who made the decision to proceed with the publication, was subsequently sacked.
The ferocity of Muslim hostility in the wake of the re-publication of the cartoons by European papers has taken many people by surprise. In Gaza, the offices of the European Union were shut by gunmen, with the warning that they would remain closed until the European Union apologised to Muslims. In the Lebanon, the Danish embassy was torched. In Indonesia, 150 protestors stormed the building in which the Danish embassy is housed and burned the country’s flag. And that pattern was replicated in a series of protests all over the Middle East, involving tens of thousands of Muslims, including many in Iraq.
However, the intellectual battle lines in this controversy are not as clear as might have been expected. The majority of Muslims – though not all – regard it as an offense to depict Mohammed because to do so runs the risk of promoting idolatry. Writing for the Independent in London, the normally reliable Robert Fisk was highly critical of the decision to publish the cartoons, seeing in it a crass desire to provoke Muslims at a highly sensitive moment. Unusually, Fisk found himself on the same side as the British Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, who also criticised the newspapers who reprinted the caricatures. Straw’s views may have been coloured by the protests in London, at which obscene placards were brandished that promised a repeat of the atrocities of July 7th 2005, when a co-ordinated series of bomb blasts around London, orchestrated by Islamic extremists, killed over 50 people and caused horrific injuries to others.
Separately, Kurtis Cooper, of the State Department in Washington, was also quoted in Reuters’ reports as agreeing that the cartoons were offensive. “Inciting religious or ethnic hatred in this way is not acceptable,” he added. The hint of appeasement by the US government angered many liberals in America, who felt that the onus was on the US to defend a democratic understanding of the concept of freedom of speech – all the more so since this was ostensibly what the US had invaded Iraq to promulgate.
Well, this is one occasion when I can’t side with Fisk. It’s clear that no freedom is absolute and that the right to freedom of expression must always be balanced against potentially competing rights. I also understand that there is an argument in favour of the kind of legislation which makes Incitement to Hatred an offense. However, the purpose of legislative instruments of this kind should be to protect potentially vulnerable individuals against attack – and not to prevent the free debate of ideas.
Is there a link between Mohammed and terrorism, as suggested in the cartoon? Not at all, in the sense that the Koran is certainly not a manual for any terrorist organisation. But which is worse: an image that depicts Mohammed as having this link or the terrorists who quote chapter and verse from the Koran to justify their violent and bloody actions? Which is more offensive – the cartoon or the threats of murder, violence and intimidation that have followed it?
In Europe and indeed even in Ireland, which lagged behind in this regard in many ways, the working assumption is that people are capable of engaging in open debate and that nothing is so sacred that it can’t be questioned. And in practice, that’s the way it is: in the modern world, neither satire nor humour, even about religious beliefs, is likely to inspire death threats.
Sure, the veneer can seem thin at times, as was the case when a Christian extremist torched a cinema in the U.S. in which the Martin Scorcese movie, The Last Temptation of Jesus Christ was showing – but it is one of the great achievements of western democracy that the vast majority of people respect this freedom as being fundamental and are happy to pass on by, even if their most deeply held beliefs are being held up to ridicule.
Me, I see nothing more unreasonable in the basic beliefs of Muslims than in the tenets of Christianity, or Judaism for that matter. On the contrary, they are all long lost brothers, the sons of Abraham, who find themselves trading under different spiritual flags some 1,500 or so years on. And they are all, in my view, equally wrong. But that’s just one man’s opinion.
What is decidedly more unreasonable is the failure to accept that those who do not subscribe to those beliefs have the right to comment on, criticise, lampoon or otherwise oppose them in whatever way they see fit – as long as it doesn’t involve any direct form of intimidation, threat or violence.
Ain’t no one going to convince me otherwise.