Amendments
There’s also the Vatican’s view of this, of course.
The right of freedom of thought and of expression, as contained in the Declaration of Human Rights, cannot imply the right to offend the religious feelings of believers.
Well – so much for the Declaration of Human Rights then. How fortunate to have a supreme court in the shape of the Vatican.
Somebody ought to hurry up and write that into the Declaration, so that we can all be working from the same page. And at the same time (efficiency is good) somebody ought to add that new right we heard about the other day – from the editor of the Indpendent, it was, not Louise Arbour, as I mistakenly said in comments (I heard it on the World Service, it was early in the morning, I wasn’t firing on all cylinders yet) – the right not to be offended. Let’s make it official. The right of freedom of thought and of expression cannot and shall not and must not imply the right to offend the religious feelings of believers. And the right of every individual not to be offended is hereby asserted to be absolute and inviolable. Have a nice day.
Of course, that’s why it’s called “the right of limited freedom of thought and expression.”
The hedged narrowly-defined restricted right of limited cautious sensible inoffensive freedom of decent respectful conformist thought and tactful polite tame respectful speech. Hooray for the Enligtenment!
Oh god damn it Tingey – now I have to waste five minutes messing with the database again so that I can delete that. What the hell is the point of that? How does a sexist obscenity-rape-fantasy forward the discussion? Will you please stop posting things like that!
Surely what GT does with second-hand tropical fruit, and from whom he got them, is his business? Personally I think if a single parent can find the energy to run a fruit stall, good luck to her…
Eye of the beholder, OB.
What I came to say, though, was that this, whíle completely tasteless, was also probably inevitable under the circumstances: http://drawmohammed.com/
There are times, of course, when one realises that those of us committed to rationality without prejudice, and freedom without exploitation, are a small, small, minority, and that the rest of the world would rather just carry on f*cking with its head until a hurricane of pointless, self-defeating hatred overwhelms every last remnant of civilisation…
But I have just been to the dentist…
Don’t the “religious feelings” of one set of believers frequently offend the “religious feelings” of another set? Unless, of course, the feelings in question aren’t very strong.
Indeed they do, as Matthew Parris pointed out in that Times piece. But hey, we just won’t offend any of them, and maybe the contradictions will simply melt away in the sun.
Where’s the apology from the Vatican for calling gay people mentally sick? Hm?
Should we burn down their embassies so they’ll be more understanding of why we’re offended?
…Where’s the apology from the Vatican for calling gay people mentally sick?
Should we burn down their embassies…
How about ignoring them?
They have the right to insult us and we have the right to be offended. In some countries, we also have the right to take our grievances to a court of law.
Both parties also have the right to ignore each other and to get a grip. I am not sure how this can further the debate over these silly cartoons (or any other silly provocation) and these silly protesters. But do you have any better idea?
Shafika
Great. We’re getting clarity here. We in the West have oodles of laws to either permit offence or make threats or incitements criminal. There’s a lot of wiggle room to insult and protest and the police and courts can step in if it starts looking dangerous, not to mention that any private citizen also has the option of legal redress long before physical violence manifests itself, or even in the complete absence of a physical element. If anyone were to bump off the editor of the Danish paper or one of the cartoonists it’d be a murder case, a rather clear-cut criminal offence. Our problem here is that we have masses of people not merely protesting, as is their right, but claiming that a violent, explicitly criminal reaction would be and is their right and violence and fatalities have already ensued. All those laws we’ve put in place over the centuries to regulate an order that is acceptable to Western society, they’re not acceptable to a large group of people born in Western countries and bearing their citizenships. Laws that permit them to be offended, laws that prevent them from deciding when violence and murder are the appropriate response, these are laws they cannot tolerate. This is the maddening blind spot of the people who think the cartoons are the problem. What is permitted or forbidden or not permitted or not forbidden in Western countries – that is the problem in the eyes of the rioters and protesters. The gamut of Western secular life, not a dozen cartoons, is what is unacceptable to the threateners. I’ll say something that’s been going through my head the last couple of days which is not intended to be gratuitously offensive, but is a serious thought: at least the Nazis went to the trouble of getting Polish uniforms to stage the fake attack on the radio station at Gleiwitz in order to start WWII; even they didn’t think they could just march in without a physical provocation. Sorry if anyone thinks that’s tasteless. Or maybe the three extra cartoons in Abu Laban’s dossier were his “Polish uniforms.”
I have read a lot of articles decrying the tyranny of sentimentalism, in relation to the business of PC attacking freedom of expression in the guise of protecting people’s feelings. And now the Pope has jumped on that bandwagon! “Never thought I’d see the day….why oh why oh why..” and other cliches of right-wing punditry.
Off-thread, but this has cheered me up somewhat
“New species found in Papua ‘Eden’.
An international team of scientists says it has found a “lost world” in the Indonesian jungle that is home to dozens of new animal and plant species.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4688000.stm
There is no confirmed evidence that Sky-Daddy did this.
“What is permitted or forbidden or not permitted or not forbidden in Western countries – that is the problem in the eyes of the rioters and protesters.”
Like that deranged guy Dawkins talks to in Jerusalem, who keeps foaming at the mouth about what ‘you’ (atheists) let women do. Dawkins keeps saying nobody ‘lets’ them, women make their own decisions, and deranged guy keeps answering yes you do, yes you do. And of course in his terms he’s right – in his terms, men are supposed to stop women doing things. All men are supposed to interfere with and tyrannize over all women, because men are men and women are women, and that’s how it is. Same with cartoonists and newspapers – governments are supposed to tell them what to do and what not to do, and so are religious zealots, because that’s how it is.
OB — oh that moment in Dawkins’ documentary is brilliant, isn’t it? the whole programme was. I didn’t really like Dawkins before but now I’d be willing to worship him as my own personal Mohammed. (There, my own silly and ooh offensive joke. My embassy is open for burnings every Saturday, nine to five, but please call in advance).
Shafika – I think you missed the sarcasm in my post.
As for the Vatican and gays, I think the ignore approach works sometimes, but other times, what the gay rights groups do by highlighting that kind of not-very-nice speech is far more useful, because even people who are not gay activists and not gay and don’t particularly care will notice the inconsistencies in a supposedly peaceful and loving religion spreading such unloving ideas. And they will care. And they will stop going to church. And sending money to the church. And then, in a very Catholic country, 70% of them will vote a law in favour of gay marriage, and the Chuch will only whine and whine but won’t be able to do anything about it. Viva Zapatero.
As for the Danish cartoons. Well. We’re not contemplating a situation where they have been ignored, right? So? Who is supposed to ignore what, at this stage?
And speaking of what is forbidden or allowed in the West:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4690224.stm
Abu Hamza gets sentenced to 7 years
In a statement outside the court, his solicitor Muddassar Arani, said: “Sheikh Abu Hamza considers himself to be a prisoner of faith and he is subject to slow martyrdom”.
____
She also said they were not allowed to bring their evidence in court, evidence about “conflicts in the world and how Muslims have been oppressed”.
Oh I wonder why they didn’t think that ‘evidence’ was admissible in court?
Reminds me of Jacques Verges using the Klaus Barbie case to put French history, and nothing else, on trial.
NickS,
‘There is no confirmed evidence that Sky-Daddy did this.’
Really? Science didn’t know about these critters, right? So science doesn’t know everything. Right? So God did it. No other explanation. Anyway, that bird of paradise, how could evolution have created exactly that shade of turquoise? huh? huh? A shade either side and it would have been useless. Your arrogance astounds me.
“A search of Finsbury Park Mosque, in north London, also led to the discovery of forged passports, CS gas, knives, guns, tents and guns capable of firing blanks.”
If Islam and its adherents are the moderates they are frequently claimed to be, there will be a surge of Muslim hatred towards Abu Hamza for misusing a place of worship in such a way likely to cause Londoners to start giving anxious glances at every mosque they see and no cries whatsoever of “unjustified Islamophobia.”
Joke of the day, Don. V. good.
Nina – yeah, brilliant. Me, I like Dawkins’s indignation. What else should we do about such things, smile blandly?!
re: the “Eden” story
Funny, isn’t it, how the one certain sign no humans have ever been somewhere before is that when they finally get there they find creatures that aren’t afraid of them?
Well, presumably, if tigers finally got there they would find the same thing.
Probably true, but apparently their written accounts of these situations haven’t survived. We’ll just have to take it on… (uuuuugggghhhhh) faith.
Looks like the s**t (suit?/slat?silt?/smut?/mango?) is really hitting the f*n now. Never, in my worst nightmares, did I ever dream I would live to see such a day. There are apparently rumours – still unconfirmed – that Ahmadinejad has begun hinting, so far only to his closest advisors, the possibility of threatening to cancel his subscription to “Jyllands-Posten.”
BTW, does anyone have a citation for the Vatican quote that we are discussing. I always like to check the original before getting upset.
Jim,
http://in.today.reuters.com/News/newsArticle.aspx?type=worldNews&storyID=2006-02-04T225206Z_01_NOOTR_RTRJONC_0_India-235272-1.xml
Sorry it’s such a crap link, I’m sure someone has better.
Oh, damn, I seem to have forgotten to put the link in. For the Vatican thing. Sorry – careless! I had to google for it meself, because I’d seen it days earlier but couldn’t figure out where. This is what I found, but it’s not where I originally saw it. South African Indy. Google news turned up others.
http://www.int.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=24&art_id=qw1139060160913B213
Don. I would like to apologise unreservedly for any offence or emotional trauma suffered by you, your culture, or heavenly chattles, as a result of that thoughtless and damaging assertion of a Male Materialist Western Value. Please feel free to bomb my nearest consulate without prejudice.
Nick S
OB, I’m surprised you haven’t commented on the story in the Guardian that the Danish newspaper had refused to publish cartoons about Jesus on the grounds that they would be needlessly offensive.
I’ve been thinking about why I don’t sympathize more with the paper, here, and with the perpetrators of blasphemy, since I do think blasphemy is a good thing in a society. I think it is partly because the blasphemy really isn’t translated. The courage of putting out cartoons that transgress against the interdiction of Muhammed’s image is harder, perhaps, to translate into Christian terms, since sacrilege is more performance oriented in this religion. But I do think that the newspapers could have mingled some cartoons of Jesus that would have translated some of the shock. I’ve been thinking of that old Calvinist saying, the floor of hell is lined with the skulls of unbaptized babies, so maybe a cartoon of Jesus smushing babies into the floor of hell might have evoked some shock, as well as being true to the spirit of Christianity for a thousand years (although this part of Christianity is not so emphasized any more).
Sacrilege, it seems to me, can easily be confused with the criticism of religion, but it isn’t the same thing. And when you combine a sacrilege against a belief system you don’t share with the social inequalities experienced by the people who share the belief blasphemied, the liberal goody goody in me (as somebody called me on my blog, making me laugh) begins to think that something is wrong with this conversation. It seems to me it has been hijacked in the name of a very selective Enlightenment — one that proclaims that we are all equal and autonomous, while at the same time supporting an international system that mocks that claim. It is wierd to me that the Danish Prime Minister would not see the ministers from the Arabic League while having troops stationed in Iraq — that just seems dumb, frankly, and arrogant. I know you don’t like the mealy mouthed “don’t offend religious sensibilities” line coming from public officials, but I think it was really dumb to violate that convention in this case, if only to mouth things about freedom of the press while doing a Jack Straw.
Oh, that is such a piss-off! Why didn’t those stupid bastards offend equally? Apparently it wasn’t the same editor then as now. This might be an excellent time to print what they didn’t then.
Stewart, my point. My further point, however, is that the paper, according to the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, is pretty well known for printing anti-Islamic things.
What if the editorial paper just doesn’t like Islam?
Surely the reason they gave for printing the caricatures makes no sense whatsoever. At least according to the FAZ, again, the illustrators didn’t want to violate the Islamic taboo — it wasn’t that they were afraid of the fate of Theo Van Gogh. Given that the book was supposed to be “friendly” to Islam, the illustrators were right. Why is it so hard to admit that other religions have other forms of sacrilege?
But I am with you about equal offense. I think secularist support should be, in part, about translating the transgression.
Ok, the first two pieces I read only quoted the main story in the Guardian and they don’t mention that the pictures were unsolicited. How helpful of them. I suppose it’s hard to insist that a newspaper print every piece of unsolicited material it gets, even if some of it might be offensive to most readers. May I please revise my previous and now apply “stupid bastards” to the papers quoting the Guardian that omitted the very significant differences between the two cases? Thank you.
But, Roger, very seriously, if there’s no right not to be offended, it does mean others have the right to offend. And that has got to mean everyone. For our sakes, no one else’s, we have to insist that Jyllands-Posten has the identical right whether they’re courageous fighters for freedom of expression or incorrigible persistent Muslim-baiters. How we react to what they do may be different in both cases but their right to do it must be identical either way. And I mean it: for no one’s sake but our own. It’s our morals that go down the toilet if we discriminate on the issue of the right to commit the act of publication.
Stewart, if I didn’t make it clear, I should have: I think Jyllands-Posten has the right to print whatever cartoons it wants, including Hustler style ones. However, I was trying to make a larger point — obviously I didn’t succeed. Weber talks about the difference between Law (Recht) and Convention, and very justly observes that convention can be a worse tyrant than law. Obviously, the struggle to make sense of what is happening should be embedded in convention, not in law. Furthermore, the threats directed against the journalists should have encouraged other papers to join the Danish paper in solidarity. I have no problem up to this point. But …as this becomes a test of freedom of opinion, it seems weird to me that the only people whose opinion — their religious beliefs — is being transgressed against is a minority with, shall we say, little economic or political power. And if, as I suspect, a double standard is being applied, then, firstly, let’s be honest about it. Look, we don’t like Islam, it is a lousy religion, there’s no groovy Jesus in it, it subordinates women and also we find the Arabs scary.
I myself am opposed in a general way to much of the sentiment in that last sentence. And I find it particularly … odd that commentators act as if the Islamic taboos should exactly correspond to Western Christian taboos. So that I’ve heard things like, well, Rolling Stone had a cover that dressed some rapper like Jesus Christ. As if that is a taboo in Christianity — that’s actually a trope in Renaissance painting, taking some european type and making him Jesus Christ. It sort of misses the point, doesn’t it? That is why I find the idea of a children’s book with pictures of Muhammed in it rather incomprehensible. If I decided to do a friendly book on a tribe that had a taboo about being photographed, and I sent a photographer down to get pics of them, I really am not making a friendly book. I don’t have to make a friendly book — but I should have the good faith to make that clear.
No, I think we still agree on this. I’m with you on their right to do it, the solidarity under threat, I’m against any double standard, I think people should be honest about why they do what they do, I agree that the taboos are not comparable and agree that a children’s book about a religion that violates a key tenet of that religion cannot be considered friendly to that religion. Maybe some cross-posting made you think I didn’t get it. It just sucks that the not-comparable case of the rejected unsolicited Jesus pictures is now being widely reported as if it were a comparable case, simply because it makes for a sensational headline.
I don’t know about the FAZ in this case; most sources I’ve seen say that at least one of the declining illustrators specifically mentioned Van Gogh. Whatever the reasons they really printed the pictures, that’s the one I think they should have given. I’ll go further and say that it would have been smarter to have printed a mix of Mohammed pictures with some that might be risque to other religions, precisely to avoid any Muslim charge that Islam was being singled out. Then we could also compare reactions, even if it’s a poor comparison, because the other religions don’t have a taboo like Islam (alright, Judaism has a graven image taboo, but no rabbinical authorities claim it extends to non-Jewish Danes). That opportunity has been lost, because anything done now seems insincere anyway and the reactions of the three antisemitic ones making the rounds and the proposed Holocaust competition are just infantile.
Roger, I haven’t commented on that story because I haven’t seen it – I mean, that’s the chief reason at the moment. I don’t see everything! And I have rather a lot to do, so I don’t have as much time to cruise periodicals as I would like.
Don’t ask me what convoluted set of synapses led me to this, but it’s a bit more like what we ought to be seeing now. It’s from a 2004 article on Warren Mitchell, the star of “Till Death Us Do Part.” For what OB calls “Murkans,” that was the British original of “All in the Family.”
“When the original cast was re-assembled in 1972 sparks were to fly. Mike made a suggestion that the reasons for the scarcity of Messiahs in history was because the Virgin Mary was on the pill. Mary Whitehouse had apoplexy and demanded apologies. Warren and Johnny Speight refused, so she asked the Director of Public Prosecutions to endorse a charge of blasphemy against the BBC. The attempt failed and ratings went up to 18 million.”
“Sacrilege, it seems to me, can easily be confused with the criticism of religion, but it isn’t the same thing.”
That’s similar to what I was saying in Words and Pictures. No, it’s not the same thing. I’d be a lot happier if this disagreement were over a pamphlet or article, a carefully argued one. But it isn’t.
Jyllands-Posten should damn well publish some Jesus cartoons now, that’s what. I’m not sure the refusal three years ago is particularly relevant now. What were they supposed to do, intuit that they were going to want to publish commissioned Prophet cartoons later and so accept unsolicited cartoons that they didn’t like then? That would require a lot of foresight. But they should commission some now. Or publish stills from Life of Brian and JSTO, or both.
OB, I thought you had an all seeing eye! Another faith based concept crumbles to the ground…
Nope. An all talking mouth, but no all seeing eye. Shame, isn’t it – I need both.
Reading about Warren Mitchell reminds me of a story he told, of how someone congratulated him on the racist character he played in that sitcom, because the character said things that needed saying etc. Mitchell exploded and pointed out that the character was in fact the butt of almost all of the show’s humour, that in fact he and his attitudes were being ridiculed.
Which leads to the thought that perhaps all the offended in the present furore are a little slow of intellect?
nina wrote:
“I didn’t really like Dawkins before but now I’d be willing to worship him as my own personal Mohammed. “
Perhaps we should start a meme: “I accept Richard Dawkins as my personal saviour”. Born again at last!
Thanks for giving me the Vatican citation yet I find that my upset is coming less from the comments of the defenders of censorship and more from the actions of the hypocrites.
I have now seen several newspapers (and blogs) which condemn the Moslem overreaction but print anti-Jewish cartoons to demonstrate the media’s right to free speech and not the Danish cartoons which may be criticized.
Roger –
“Given that the book was supposed to be “friendly” to Islam, the illustrators were right. “
But why? The book was being written by non-muslims for a general audience. Children’s books are usually illustrated. Non-muslims do not subscribe to this taboo , so why?? (as has been said lots of times before..)
Children’s books about religion are dire, precisely because they seek not to possibly offend anyone – so they focus on the charming details “this is what we eat at our festival”, “this is what a menorah looks like”, “this what we do in our marriage ceremony” etc.. — you can read these books (and go through years of RE lessons) without picking up the notion that religions make truth claims, that might be questioned. They pussyfoot around contentious cultural/relgious practises with statements like “In islamic family life there are different roles for men and women. Men have responsibility for the interface between the family and the public realms”
So no, I don’t accept that in factual but friendly children’s books (especially not in children’s books!) the authors and illustrators should be motivated so strongly by the desire not to offend.
Islam is not the only religion to specify how non-adherents are to be treated. God never seems to say to any group he addresses “I’m talking to you, this is how you shall live and people who follow another religion are none of your business.” Any group that thinks it has been addressed by god also thinks it’s Number One and therefore, even if it tolerates (sometimes explicitly temporarily) the existence of other religions, it is determined to be the ultimate arbiter of the conditions under which their followers will be permitted to live in territories where it (already) holds sway.
That’s why the argument “But I don’t believe in Islam, so I don’t have to follow its taboos for myself” cuts zero ice.
Well, yes, historically. But that has become somewhat less true recently, in some parts of the world. (It would be helpful if the UK would get rid of that damn blasphemy law…) Islam could choose to do likewise, but it mostly chooses not to.
That’s a really good point, Maya.
Clearly B&W needs an article about religion books for children, or that and RE…