Yawning Bread. February 2006

Free speech not for hijacking by hardliners

source: Straits Times, 14 Feb 2006, by Yang Razali Kassim

     

  

 

 
Amidst the worldwide Muslim anger over the Danish media's offensive caricatures of Prophet Mohammad, an unusual twist happened in Gaza where Hamas had just defeated Fatah in the Palestinian polls.

Armed Fatah followers had threatened to attack a Christian church in the Palestinian territory to retaliate against the Danish insult. But, interestingly, Hamas offered to protect the church, saying to its priest: 'We are brothers.'

In almost similar vein, a former Israeli diplomat who served in South-east Asia wrote in Singapore's Today newspaper on Feb 7 that the Hamas election victory had reshuffled the Middle East deck of cards.

Unlike many hardliners in Israel and the United States, diplomat Emanuel Shahaf thinks the Hamas victory will provide an opportunity for Israel. The rise of an Islamist party like Hamas, he says, will spur Middle East peace, not war. Muslims and Jews have a long history of living together. The common origins of their religion, Mr Shahaf says, gives rise to hope that religious leaders on both sides will advance a peaceful solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. 

There is a message here that seems to be drowned by the rage over the provocative cartoons of The Prophet. Those who are sometimes, or often, portrayed as militant may turn out to be moderate. Hamas, for all its radicalism, may well one day become an effective partner for peace in the Middle East.

History is full of examples of leaders who, despite being radical in origin, ended up as preachers of peace and understanding when in power. Some even paid the price of transformation with their lives.

Contrasting Muslim reactions

The Hamas position reflects the complex nuances that should be appreciated in the ongoing global outrage over the Danish cartoons triggered by Jyllands-Posten. Still, the divergent response from the Muslim world is a familiar one; it is between the Muslim 'street' and what can be broadly called the Muslim 'elite'.

 
Foreword by Yawning Bread

This commentary should be read in conjunction with that by Emran Qureshi (see The Islam the riots drowned out).

 

The Muslim street is reacting with strong emotion to what is seen as insensitive insults by some of the European media. The result has been the burning of Danish flags and property, threats to Danish lives and even the deaths of Muslim protesters at the hands of security forces trying to contain the fallout.

Members of the Muslim elite are responding more cautiously.

They prefer peaceful protests and choose the path of economic boycotts, legal actions and diplomatic counter-initiatives.

The media tend to characterise them as 'moderates' but this should not be taken to imply that the anger of the Muslim street is therefore militant, or radical, even extreme. 

It would be wrong to view these contrasting reactions in terms of a militant-moderate divide. Indeed, it would be a tragic fallacy to reduce the storm that has been unleashed by the Danish cartoons into an issue pitting freedom of speech, or expression, against Islam. 

Those who defend the crude caricatures in the name of free expression will have to be consistent. If the European media are free to 'publish and be damned', the logic then follows that, in the name of free expression, the Muslim protesters are free to vent their anger, whatever the consequences. Yet, it is no secret that the Western media can and do exercise restraint where necessary. Notice how during the invasion of Iraq, even CNN chose not to report news that was damaging to the US military campaign. 

The bigger danger of using the freedom argument is that it will increasingly turn the Muslim world off each time they hear freedom and democracy being preached at them by the West.

For if freedom of expression means one can wantonly spite and denigrate the faith of others, then what is the meaning of liberalism? The damage from the latest European stance is to plant the seeds of deep distaste in the Muslim world for the very values of liberal democracy that the West says it wants to promote in the Middle East now.

This will be tragic because there is inherently no contradiction between freedom and Islam.

Responses in US and Europe

IN THIS respect, the United States' response to the cartoons is significant. If this reflects new policy, the conciliatory US position will play a major part, ironically, in containing the Muslim rage and bridging the West and an agitated Muslim world. 

Some European government leaders and media have chosen to defy Muslim demands for apologies, arguing that the principle of free speech has to be defended. In contrast, the US has criticised the publication of the cartoons as an incitement to religious hatred. It has said there is no such thing as unbridled freedom of the press.

'We all fully recognise and respect freedom of the press and expression but it must be coupled with press responsibility. Inciting religious and ethnic hatreds in this manner is not acceptable,' the US State Department says. 

In choosing to stand with the Muslim world, the US has shown more sophistication. It seems to have learnt from its own experiences post-9/11 and is drawing a clear line between its war on terrorism and its respectful attitude towards Islam.

The stance taken over the cartoons will help win over some Muslim ground if it forms part of a consistent policy shift and if the same signal is heard from the lips of President Bush. As the self-declared champion of free speech, the US statement is powerful because it neutralises the European argument that freedom of speech is sacred and cannot be limited.

But while the US is showing more maturity in its understanding and treatment of the Muslim world, Europe is backsliding.

Free speech fundamentalists

THE shifting European attitude could stoke a new round of radicalism. There is a need to prevent this episode from spreading radicalism and terrorism. In this, the West and the Muslim world have their roles cut out for them.

At the same time, those radical liberals in Europe who argue for unbridled freedom of expression need to review their 'fundamentalist' interpretations of liberalism. Free speech or free expression is a noble value, certainly. But freedom must come with responsibility, which sadly has been missing in this tragic episode over the cartoons. 

The Muslim world, for its part, must show displeasure in no uncertain terms towards any violent response to the Western media provocation. The moderates must prevail over the Muslim street, no matter how difficult the exercise. The Muslim elite can play a part by showing the Muslim street that there can be a better way of showing displeasure. Hit back where it will be most painful, if they must, but choose the course of non-violence. Economic boycotts, if effectively carried out, are one example. Legal action, whatever the odds, is another. 

The Organisation of Islamic Conferences and the Arab League have asked the UN to ban contempt of religious beliefs and to punish with sanctions those who contravene such a ban. This seems to be a new development; although it may be tough to win support at the UN, there can always be a beginning. 

 

Other observers have pointed out that the street demonstrations, especially the burning of property, were hardly spontaneous. They appeared to have been organised by groups or governments (e.g. the Syrian government) that saw a golden opportunity to rouse Arabs and Muslims against the West.

 

These few paragraphs aren't clear. The writers says it's wrong to view this as a militant-moderate divide, but he doesn't say how he would characterise the matter instead.

 

Indeed, the criticism about consistency is a valid one. It does give rise to the complaint that the Western media is hypocritical to claim the defence of free speech when they don't always practice it.

But this point is too often used to obscure that point that free speech is a virtue in itself, for the larger scheme of a free society. Just because we can't find faultless practitioners does not mean the principle is void.

The more important corollary should be that the Western press should be challenged to make a better example of themselves, rather than abandon the principle altogether.

It's like saying, no government is 100% corruption free, and that, thus,  relatively clean governments have no moral standing to urge other governments, the World Bank, etc, to enshrine the principle. This is silly. The principle is still worth a lot even if everybody falls short.

 

Contempt towards religious beliefs is an issue of global security because more than just free speech, world peace is at stake.

For if the Muslim world concludes that there will be no end to Islamophobia, the extreme fringe will win more ground and the mainstream moderates will, once again, lose their voice in a world of free speech dominated by extremists on both sides of the fence.

The writer is a senior fellow with the Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies, Nanyang Technological University. 

 

This overblown. World peace is hardly at stake. If bigotted, anti-liberal groups in Arab and Muslim countries (and dictatorships keen to escape the doghouse) see this issue as a golden opportunity to stir resentment against the West and the notion of liberal democracy, then the solution isn't to appease, but defend the principle of freedom.

 

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