Blame Denmark
So the UN rapporteur explains what’s going on and whose fault it is. His report is apparently not available in English yet; this rather right-wing blog translates from the excerpts Politiken and Jyllands-Posten published.
Finally, the Danish government’s first reaction – rejecting to take an official position on the nature and publication of the cartoons while referring to Freedom of Speech as well as rejecting to meet with the ambassadors from the Moslem countries – is symptomatic not only for the political trivialisation of Islamophobia but also, due to its consequences, to the central role those politically responsible have for the national extent and the international consequences in the shape of demonstrations and expressions of Islamophobia…Judicially, the Danish government ought therefore, especially considering its international obligations, to have, respecting Freedom of Speech, taken a position not only on the consequences of the caricatures for its community of 200.000 Moslems but also for the protection of peace and order.
So it’s the Danish government’s fault. It should have met with the ambassadors from ‘the Moslem countries’ and – what? Agreed to arrest, prosecute and punish the cartoonists and editors? Pass new laws banning prophet-mocking? Sworn a great oath that no Dane would ever make a joke about anything to do with Islam from now until the ending of the world?
Their uncompromising defense of a Freedom of Speech without limits or restrictions is not in accordance with the international rules which are based on a necessary balance between Freedom of Speech and Freedom of Religion, especially to combat calls for racial and religious hatred, and which all the member countries of UN have decided are the basic rules for Human Rights. This attitude shows an alarming lack of sensitivity and understanding of the religious conviction and deep emotions of the groups of society in question.
There it is again. Just what Frattini talked about: the ‘very real problem’ of balancing ‘two fundamental freedoms, the freedom of expression and the freedom of religion’. The idea that freedom of religion requires silencing people who would mock or dissent from a particular religion – thus making freedom of religion itself a joke, and a very unfunny one at that, and making freedom of expression an empty phrase. The freedom of religion does not require the ‘freedom’ never to hear anything one might find irritating or disconcerting. That is not the meaning of freedom. That has never been the meaning of freedom. Translating it to that is a shortcut to theocratic tyranny. It takes considerable gall to name censorship and tyranny and silencing ‘freedom’. The idea that religious conviction and ‘deep emotions’ should determine which speech can be free is also not a very good idea.
There are more extensive excerpts here.
More later.
Amen! Ophelia :) I mean, we can’t even criticize that utterly ridiculous collection of drivel known as “Scientology” anymore.
And the 11 September 2001 attacks are just ‘another factor’!!!
The man’s an idiot – how do these people get picked for these roles?
Pace Chris Whiley, I don’t think Doudou Diéne is necessarily an idiot, but he is what I will presume to describe as a “thermos-bottle person”: doubly insulated from the hurley-burley of life as most of us live it. (BTW, consider the trouble into which cognates may get us. “Special Rapporteur”– does this mean that he enjoys extraordinary rapport with racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance?)
First degree of insulation: although Doudou Diéne is a citizen of Senegal, he could afford an education in France. Not your average senegalese, by any means. He was already upper middle class at home. Second degree: as a U.N. functionary he enjoys a “bully pulpit”, but has very little real power, or real responsibility. He may hope to persuade, but he cannot coerce. He may undertake to be as postmodernist-new-leftist-if-it -thinks-bash-it as he wants. Who cares?
Elliott
based on http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/606
“Diene emphasized that the UN are taking the matter very seriously because, he says, “Islamophobia is the greatest component of discrimination within Europe.””
– yes he is an idiot. I would have thought perpetual inequality in wages between men and women accross the euro-zone would put something else up front in the discrimination hit parade, but being a priviledged chap with no doubt devout beliefs, perhaps women are probably just ‘different’, and actually just like hanging out together in the evening cleaning beaurocrats’ shit off their subsidised toilets.
What about that f@cking discrimination Diene?! Excuse my potty mouth, it’s been a long day.
Well, we could come up with a theory here. We could argue that a certain level of insulation amounts to a kind of idiocy, by definition. It would apply to George ‘W’ Bush, too. And it’s a good Aristotelian kind of use of the word, too – apolitical in a broad sense, because of inability to perceive what is outside the thermos.
I’m serious, actually. I think that’s quite true of Bush. There is something preternatural about his level of insulation and consequent incomprehension and unawareness – his insulation leading to cluelessness. You can hear it in press conferences and such – he’s just in a bubble.
In all seriousness too – I think the ultra-right are missing a trick here too with all this free-speech/free-belief delusionality – if they started marketing themselves much more along devout xtianity lines rather than ethnic purity (they already cite spurious biblical stuff on their ghastly web-sites) they could perhaps then claim all kinds of special deals and concessions from our pitiful, hamstrung governments and all the new-age ‘faith-liberals’ who respect belief more than knowledge. I wonder how long it’ll be before Nick Griffin of the BNP starts taking up ‘human rights’ strategies based on freedom of his religious beliefs? It’s a wide, wide open door… they just need the focus.
Thanks for reminding us, OB, of the etymological connection between idiocy and what we may describe as radical privacy, radical disconnection from the exigencies of life. I can’t help wondering if the neocon cry for privtization of such things as (in Canada, especially) medical services isn’t a form of this idiocy.