The self-fulfilling prophecy strikes again
Jonathan Dimbleby said one particularly odd thing in his explanation of Index’s decision.
When John Kampfner alerted me to the prospective publication of an interview with Jytte Klausen and to our editor’s wish to illustrate it with the “offending” cartoons, it was plainly a matter for the board to determine. Any other course would have been irresponsible…A year earlier, in September 2008, four men had been arrested for allegedly fire-bombing the North London home of the publisher of Gibson Books who had proposed publishing The Jewel of Medina. Only the most cavalier attitude towards the safety and security of those directly and indirectly involved in the publication of the Index interview would have failed to note that outrage.
Wait…what? Why? What’s he talking about? The Jewel of Medina is a different book. Why is Dimbleby taking it for granted that what four guys did by way of reaction to one book, or rather to the entirely manufactured fuss about one book, is relevant to a different book, a different situation, a different issue?
Well…uh…because the cartoons fuss was about Angry Muslims, and because the manufactured fuss about The Jewel of Medina would have been about Angry Muslims if it had ever happened as opposed to being predicted and then conjured up by the coverage of the prediction, and because the putative, notional, predicted fuss about the publication of the cartoons in Klausen’s book would have been about Angry Muslims if it had ever happened, which it never has, and because the New Improved putative, notional, predicted fuss about the publication of the cartoons at Index on Censorship would be about Angry Muslims again.
In other words, Dimbleby is extrapolating from the fact that four random guys attempted to set a fire in response to a worked-up fuss about one book and concluding that therefore it is dangerous to do something quite unrelated to that book (unless the word ‘Muslim’ is enough to make the two related) and that therefore it is worth self-censoring an organization that claims to monitor censorship. That is, if you think about it, a fairly ridiculous conclusion to draw. It borders on not thinking.
It also involves a kind of block thinking that in almost any other context would be called racist, or something similar. ‘Muslim’ is not a race, as I and others keep pointing out, but on the other hand, to take crazily thuggish behavior of a very few members of a perceived group as likely behavior of members of that group on all possible occasions, is to treat that group with a level of suspicion and generalized fear that is not usually consistent with equal treatment. It’s reasonable to think of groups such as murderers or terrorists that way, but with broader, non-criminal groups, a certain amount of benefit of the doubt is necessary for equality and fairness. The US internment of Japanese citizens during WW II is a classic illustration of that. Dimbleby’s unexplained jump from The Jewel of Medina to a completely different book carries an unpleasant whiff of universal suspicion.
The fact is, there has been no fuss about Klausen’s book, except for the one that Yale itself created. No fuss. No angry emails, no nothing. The anticipatory fuss is the only one there has been.
This is what happened with Random House and Denise Spellberg, and it is what happened with Does God Hate Women? – a reporter predicted a violent reaction to that book and the publisher got temporarily nervous. Fortunately and admirably that publisher – Continuum, Oliver Gadsby, Sarah Douglas – did much better than Random House and Yale. But the point is, in all three cases, there were no Angry Muslims, there were only people predicting Angry Muslims and then treating their predictions as if they were reality.
This is not just bad for free expression – it’s also unfair to Muslims! It’s the soft tyranny of low expectations. It’s not the way to go.
Excellent piece, OB. You put into words some vague thoughts I had on the matter. Rather an example for Christians isn’t it? Some do get angry at their religion being lampooned. All they have to do is get one small gang of eg crazed Evangelists to do a little bit of mayhem and violence and then for no-one will dare be mocking or disrespectful again. And law-abiding CofE vicars and pacifist Quakers will be assumed to be likely to turn nasty as they’re Christians too.
I think you’re being pretty unfair on Dimbleby here.
From a basic risk assessment perspective it’s totally reasonable for Dimbleby (and his colleagues) to infer from the previous events surrounding the Jewel of Medina (and the violence surrounding the publication of the cartoons) that there was a non-trivial chance of violence against the Index staff or premises should they publish.
If Index did publish the cartoons and there was violence against Index staff or premises, it would raise a few eyebrows if Dimbleby offered a defence of a decision to publish based on the interpretation of events you offer above.
It’s also pretty unfair to imply (on the basis of his statement) that Dimbleby holds an unjustified or unreasonable view of Muslims. All I think we have to necessarily infer from what Dimbleby has said is that he believes there are at least a very small number of people willing and able to engage in acts of violence if they perceive particular publications as causing grave offence to Islam. He is quite entitled to hold this view without holding any particular view about the sentiments of those who identify with the larger religious group.
Even if Dimbleby’s decision is the wrong one, to call it ‘ridiculous’ is a misuse of the word. It is a difficult decision he has had to make on the basis of the available evidence. People may not agree with it but how does ridicule help to further the debate?
Totally reasonable? Really? I can see partly reasonable, but totally? No.
The ‘events’ surrounding Jewel of Medina amount to the arson of four men. It’s not necessarily obvious what conclusions can be drawn from a single incident of that kind. Furthermore, the reception of Jewel of Medina was contaminated before it began by the wild predictions of violence by Denise Spellberg. If one takes that as good enough reason to censor a book then all anyone who wants a book censored has to do is warn of potential violence and that’s the end of that book. I assume the implications of that are obvious; if we want to avoid such implications, we have to tolerate a certain level of risk (a minuscule level in this case, it seems to me).
Also, there was no ‘violence surrounding the publication of the cartoons’; there was violence that was worked up by two imams who shopped fake cartoons around the Middle East for the purpose. It is not the case that the cartoons themselves triggered instant intense violence.
I didn’t say Dimbleby held an unjustified or unreasonable view of Muslims. The point is that this kind of panicky prediction of violence followed by drastically illiberal surrender to the purely imagined violence conveys an unpleasant view of Muslims. I encountered this during the miniature fuss about Does God Hate Women? – people were fuming at threatening Muslims and I had to keep straightening them out – there are no threatening Muslims this time, no threats have been made, this is purely about other people predicting violence.
I didn’t call Dimbleby’s entire decision ‘ridiculous’; I called his conclusion from the particular passage I quoted ‘ridiculous.’ I think it is ridiculous, because Jewel of Medina is one book and Klausen’s is another. It is ridiculous to just lump together two books merely because somebody somewhere thinks each one might cause outrage.
How does ridicule help to further the debate…By pointing up the non sequitur in that particular passage, that’s how.
Besides…it is ridiculous for an outfit whose sole purpose is to monitor and protest censorship to censor itself for flimsy, notional, craven reasons. Continuum (publisher of DGHW) did far better than that and their sole purpose is not to monitor and protest censorship, it is to publish books. It is ridiculous that Index on Censorship couldn’t even match that.
The pathways to violence from publication of the Jewel of Medina and the cartoons may be complex. The attacks may be attributable to the actions of Spellburg and the violence may be attributable to a group of Imams misrepresenting what was actually published. If Dimbleby’s aim was to determine who was morally responsible for what happened then perhaps this is how he should have seen things.
But if his primary goal was the safety of his staff then it is totally reasonable for him to operate according to the competing hypothesis; that the nature of the original publications may have had a significant role to play in any eventual violence and therefore that publishing the cartoons again carries a non-trivial risk of violence.
Whether this risk means Dimbleby and colleagues should not then have published is, of course, a separate point.
—————
“I didn’t say Dimbleby held an unjustified or unreasonable view of Muslims.”
I didn’t say you said this. I said you implied it. For example:
“It also involves a kind of block thinking that in almost any other context would be called racist, or something similar. ‘Muslim’ is not a race, as I and others keep pointing out, but on the other hand, to take crazily thuggish behavior of a very few members of a perceived group as likely behavior of members of that group on all possible occasions, is to treat that group with a level of suspicion and generalized fear that is not usually consistent with equal treatment.”
And:
“Dimbleby’s unexplained jump from The Jewel of Medina to a completely different book carries an unpleasant whiff of universal suspicion.”
———————
“I didn’t call Dimbleby’s entire decision ‘ridiculous’”
I think it’s pretty clear from your analysis of his reasoning that you think his decision was ridiculous.
———————
“How does ridicule help to further the debate…By pointing up the non sequitur in that particular passage, that’s how.”
I’m sure there are many benefits to ridiculing people’s decisions or the things they say. One thing it probably does do is encourage support for one’s views while discouraging disagreement.
It is not “totally reasonable for [Dimbleby] to operate according to the competing hypothesis” if that competing hypothesis has almost no evidence to back it up.
To make a reasonable risk assessment, he should have looked at what caused the original Motoons violence to erupt 5 months after their publication; and he should have looked at the conditions which led 3 halfwits to try to burn down a publisher’s house with diesel (the event which he cites in favour of his decision). Had he done that, he would have seen that none of the causal factors pertain in this case, and that therefore the risk of violence was trivial.
He could also have looked at other situations in which the Motoons have been published – they have been republished thousands of times since 2005 – and taken note of how many times this has led to violent acts of retribution. He he done that, he would have found that this has happened once (when Danish newspapers reprinted the Turbomb) – and, again, that this situation is totally different to that of the IoC.
So his risk assessment was ridiculously inadequate, and has greatly damaged not only the reputation and authority of IoC, but also set back the cause of freedom of expression by handing a soft victory to the silencers.
“But if his primary goal was the safety of his staff then it is totally reasonable for him to operate according to the competing hypothesis; that the nature of the original publications may have had a significant role to play in any eventual violence and therefore that publishing the cartoons again carries a non-trivial risk of violence.”
No (to repeat) it isn’t totally reasonable.
For one thing, if his primary goal is the safety of his staff he should be in a different line of work. The primary goal of Index on Censorship is by definition monitoring and objecting to acts of censorship. If remote, notional, potential risks to the staff are its primary concern then it can’t do what its title implies that it’s doing.
What you call ‘the competing hypothesis’ is just one hypothesis, and a radically over-simplifying one. Of course it is true enough to say that the nature of the cartoons ‘may have had a significant role to play in any eventual violence’ but it is not a short straight line from that to ‘therefore publishing the cartoons again carries a non-trivial risk of violence.’ Just for one thing, as DavidMWW points out, subsequent publication of the cartoons has not invariably led to violence, to put it mildly. It is far from obvious that publication of the cartoons in Klausen’s book would have resulted in violence, and it’s even less obvious that publication of the cartoons by Index would have done so.
And it’s also the case that Index on Censorship has important goals other than the safety of its staff, and that people who take on advocacy work assume a certain small amount of risk in doing that. The risk is much much greater for people who work in agriculture or construction or mining or any number of other vocations, to say nothing of the military; but advocates presumably don’t take up advocacy because they think that’s the way to avoid all conceivable risk of controversy and dispute and even, very remotely, violence.
To be fair…I do think your claim can be made in a more convincing way. I think it’s fair to say that worries about the safety of employees loom large and tend to dominate other motivations. It’s also fair to say that thoughts about previous violence can distort rational risk assessment. That’s understandable. But understandable is not the same thing as totally reasonable.