Policing belief
The Freedom House report on blasphemy laws underlines the distinction between blasphemy and incitement.
There is an important distinction in international law between blasphemy—meaning critical, insulting, or offensive expression against religious doctrines, figures, and deities—and incitement—meaning expression that explicitly encourages and calls for hostility and violence. Of the two, only the latter appears to fit the limited circumstances in which restrictions on freedom of expression are considered acceptable.
It’s easy to understand why the two get blended together, because hatred of a set of ideas can lead to hatred of people who espouse them. This is obvious to me with regard to people like Glen Beck; to the pope’s ravings about atheism; to sexist rants about feminism. In that sense, I can understand at least in principle the worry that criticism of Islam may lead to hatred of Islam’s followers. But I also realize that neither Glen Beck nor the pope nor sexists can be silenced on those grounds. They can be disputed, but not silenced. So it is with religions.
As the special rapporteurs on freedom of religion and belief and on contemporary forms of racism pointed out in a joint annual report to the Human Rights Council in 2006, “the right to freedom of expression can legitimately be restricted for advocacy that incites to acts of violence or discrimination against individuals on the basis of their religion. Defamation of religions may offend people and hurt their religious feelings but it does not necessarily or at least directly result in a violation of their rights, including their right to freedom of religion.”
And for that reason, the risk has to be tolerated. The alternative is an unacceptable level of policing of discussion and belief.
UN member states from the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) and the African group—particularly Egypt, Algeria, and Pakistan—have been leading an initiative to incorporate a prohibition on defamation of religions into the international human rights framework. Pakistan, acting on behalf of the OIC, introduced the first resolution on this issue at the Commission on Human Rights in 1999, and similar resolutions have been passed each year since. The 2009 version of the resolution, introduced in the Human Rights Council, explicitly linked defamation of religions with states’ obligations under Article 20(2) of the ICCPR to legally prohibit “incitement to hatred.” The move represented an attempt to expand existing international norms on incitement.
The move goes beyond simply seeing how criticism of a religion can lead to hatred, to assuming that it does. That step is one step too many.
[An international blasphemy law] would insert into the international human rights framework a concept that essentially turns human rights upside down, restricting the speech and actions of men and women for the sake of disembodied ideas as such, and replacing equality and the rule of law with deference to religious orthodoxy and subjective feelings of outrage. An internal contradiction of this magnitude would cripple international human rights law as a whole and leave little recourse to victims of persecution around the world.
Let’s not replace equality and the rule of law with deference to religious orthodoxy and subjective feelings of outrage.
[…] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Skeptic South Africa and Jim Nugent, Ophelia Benson. Ophelia Benson said: Policing belief http://dlvr.it/7slwr […]
Obviously, the intent is to restrict political speech, not to protect religion from defamation.
The criticism itself is mostly provoked by the actual doctrine of Islam and the fanaticism with which it imposes itself on the minds of the true believer. Nothing quite underscores incitement as does the visceral hatred of the non-believer in Islam. It is certainly one of its most vicious aspects.
If a religious leader calls for the hanging, drawing and quartering of all atheists he is defending his faith – he should have every right to do so.
If an atheist asks the religious leader to give a good reason why all atheists should be hung, drawn and quartered, he is attacking an established faith – he has no right to do so
Quod licet Jovis non licet bovis
From http://www.iheu.org/blasphemy-2010-old-whine-new-battles
“Last autumn the OIC opened a new front in their attempt to use the UN to outlaw blasphemy. At the obscure Ad-Hoc Committee on the Elaboration of Complementary Standards, the OIC is proposing to add an amendment about “defamation of religions” to the International Covenant on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (ICERD). The wording for the amendment is taken verbatim from the new Irish blasphemy law. Since ICERD has the force of international law, the amendment would outlaw ‘defamation of religion’ in all countries that ratify it.”
This is exactly why I’m pissed off about the Irish law. It’s a huge mistake to think that its an old fashioned “Don’t insult God” law. It’s not. It’s a law designed to prevent people saying things that upset religious people. It says nothing about Gods or deities, just religious groups. It’s far more accurate to call it an accomodationist law rather than a blasphemy law since it puts into legal effect the principle that one MUST not say anything that upsets the sensitivities of religious people. The law was narrowly passed on the vote of the minority partner in the Irish government – the left wing environmentalist Green Party.
Here’s the full wording of the Irish law that is now being taken up by the OIC:
36.—(1) A person who publishes or utters blasphemous mattershall be guilty of an offence and shall be liable upon conviction onindictment to a fine not exceeding €25,000.(2) For the purposes of this section, a person publishes or uttersblasphemous matter if—(a) he or she publishes or utters matter that is grossly abusiveor insulting in relation to matters held sacred by anyreligion, thereby causing outrage among a substantialnumber of the adherents of that religion, and(b) he or she intends, by the publication or utterance of thematter concerned, to cause such outrage.(3) It shall be a defence to proceedings for an offence under thissection for the defendant to prove that a reasonable person wouldfind genuine literary, artistic, political, scientific, or academic valuein the matter to which the offence relates.(4) In this section “religion” does not include an organisation orcult—(a) the principal object of which is the making of profit, or(b) that employs oppressive psychological manipulation—(i) of its followers, or(ii) for the purpose of gaining new followers.
Jovi and bovi? Dative case after licet? Otherwise, nicely put.
Religions have a good line in abominations and defamations. They’ve had years of practice. They quite naturally assume that no one else can do it. After all, that would be blasphemy, wouldn’t it? And any self-respecting god must feel very hurt. Fortunately, they are allowed to do his punishing for him.
Silence is golden, especially when it comes from the opposition.
By the way, I seem to remember that Jove actually became an ox on one occasion. Didn’t stop him doing what he pleased, did it? Makes you think, dunnit?
When governments start collecting bibles and korans for hate speech, then I will take blasphemy laws and hate speech laws seriously. Until then, it is hypocrisy and stupidity.
“he or she intends, by the publication or utterance of the matter concerned, to cause such outrage” – how would they prove intent?
“that employs oppressive psychological manipulation” – an interesting out. While I imagine many of us think many things called religion do this, is it possible this is a “Scientology escape clause”?
Ken Pidcock is surely right. The threat is fundamentally a political one, for any so-called ‘universal’ religion, particularly Islam and, for historical reasons, to a less extent Christianity (though Roman Catholicism certainly makes it clear what it is after), is in a very fundamental way a political organisation that seeks as much power as it can gain. Blasphemy laws or ‘prohibitions’ are surely a kind of Trojan horse: get that brought inside a liberal democracy, and it provides a base from which the religious can extend their influence and power, and a means whereby they can do this. England, incidentally, still, I think, has a blasphemy law on its books, dating from the 13th or 14th century, under which a man I knew in Japan, the poet James Kirkup, was successfully prosecuted, together with Gay News that published it, for a homo-erotic poem about the dead Jesus Christ (I’m afraid it’s not a very good poem, not one of Kirkup’s better ones). There was some sort of demonstration in favour of getting the law rescinded that was organised a few years ago (A.C. Grayling was one of its backers) in which the poem was publicly read aloud, but apart from taking a few names, so far as I know the police did nothing. And the law hasn’t, so far as I know, been taken off the books, and so it could become a live letter again. But at least it’s 600 or 700 years old; those Irish politicians who are not fervent Roman Catholics and who voted recently in favour of the Irish blasphemy law are out of their minds. But the Roman Catholic church, those fundamentalist Christians who would like to see such a law, and the Islamists are very much not out of their minds and they should be soberly opposed. On the bright side, if such a law or prohibition is passed, it might lead to some amusing problems for Christians and Islamists, whose beliefs are mutually blasphemous…
philosopher-animal asked:
“While I imagine many of us think many things called religion do this, is it possible this is a “Scientology escape clause”?”
It is definitely a Scientology escape clause. Given the love of the Scientology organization for using the legal process in order to prevent criticism it was assumed that there needed to be some way to prevent the law ending up as simply a Scientology tool. The clause was directed against that religion but as you’ve noticed it can probably be applied to many other religions (any religion that uses threats of hell, for instance, or promises that you will meet again your deceased loved ones).
The Irish law has an interesting history since the original wording proposed by the committee that wrote the bill made the ‘blasphemous’ statement ‘unblasphemous’ if the reason for making the statement was not purely to cause outrage. In other words if you said something to both cause outrage and to mock or educate people on a point about a religious teaching (say, for instance, every Jesus and Mo cartoon). This was altered by the minister in question such that causing outrage was enough. He instead rewrote the bill to include a 100,000 euro fine for the offense but with a clause that might allow mitigation
“It shall be a defence to proceedings for an offence under this section for the defendant to prove that a reasonable person would find genuine literary, artistic, political, scientific, or academic value in the matter to which the offence relates.”
This would still require a court proceedings to occur and it being a blasphemy case would result in a huge legal bill falling on the accused (simply being charged blasphemy would be enough to lose the equivalent of your house, whether or not you were found innocent or guilty!)
As you can see from the wording it is fairly unlikely that anyone would be found guilty of blasphemy for doing the sort of things most atheists do – mocking or questioning faith. It is not, however, certain that atheist need not fear about being charged. That was certainly a threat.
The general consensus was that the whole law was not originating from the Catholic Church in Ireland, but from business corporations worried about trading difficulties if a Danish cartoon incident originated from Ireland with a resulting boycott of Irish products in Islamic countries. The newspapers in Ireland are very religion friendly and were in general supportive of the law – or more accurately they completely ignored the implications of the law of the rights of free speech.
This is the poisonous chilling effect of such a law. The potential legal expenses, the placing your life on hold, over an extended time, the uncertainty about your future while you defend yourself for a simple utterance can do a good job of silencing dissent even without convictions.
“Let’s not replace equality and the rule of law with deference to religious orthodoxy and subjective feelings of outrage.”
I wholly agree with this last point (and several others). But the sligthly-cynic in me wonders how an “internal contradiction of this magnitude” (or the blasphemy law) “would cripple international human rights law as a whole and leave little recourse to victims of persecution around the world” any more than is already the case. The UN is frequently ignored, after all. And, for comparison’s sake, treaties such as NAFTA (affecting the US, Canada, and Mexico) already “cripple” worker’s rights (human rights, too, no?) by placing international labor agreements over a particular nation-state’s laws–often better laws at that.
Of course, the absurdity of it all, as mentioned above, is in “restricting the speech and actions of men and women for the sake of disembodied ideas…and replacing equality and the rule of law with deference to religious orthodoxy and subjective feelings of outrage.” Perhaps a counter effort at the UN could be mounted: a council of member states who agree to prohibit the incitement of sloppy thinking and require deference to good reasons.
@ GordonWillis
I’m afraid I spent barely 10 months attending Latin classes, which was simply not enough. However, I quoted the tag from memory – I use it often, since it is applicable in many cases. You may be perfectly correct on the use of the dative, I wouldn’t know. However, I’ve checked out the tag on the web, and I find both versions used. The ones with “Jovi” and “bovi” seem to be used by English-speaking writers, the “Jovis” and “bovis” by people who learned their Latin in Middle and Eastern Europe. Any comment?
As regards Jove’s change into an ox, you presumably refer to his abduction of Europa, when he changed himself into a bull. Not an ox, since oxen are usually (but not always) castrated bulls, and Jove had all his powers unchanged.
As regards silence being golden, that is the very point of the article. A good way to shut the mouth of the opposition is to threaten (judicial or even physical) violence, but a better way is to scatter gold profusely, about which method there has been written rather a lot recently. Now we are seeing both methods used.
Jan
Off-topic comments now on
http://schnackpot.blogspot.com/2010/11/quod-licet-jovis-non-licet-bovis.html
Egbert, in Switzerland, someone just asked to have the Bible banned from kids due to its violent content, which may damage kids :-). In Hungary, the new govt. is just passing a new media regulation bill that bans anything that could be offensive to (among others) religious groups and churches (they don’t even let the litigating work to the faithful but entitle churches (which do have resources) to take legal procedures.