Western Cartoon Hypocrisy

When the Danish cartoon controversy broke out my immediate impulse was to criticize those calling for censorship. Although grossly offensive and racist, in a free society people are at liberty to offend. And this sanction extends to religion as well. The consequences imposed on the offender should be, first and foremost, non-violent and within the private sphere. The government should never censor anyone and should not even apologize on behalf of private publications, but free citizens are at their will to strongly criticize and boycott such persons and their writings. By doing so they send a message that newspapers engaging in the propagation of hate will suffer demise as their ad revenue and subscriptions dry up. Something most papers will want to avoid. This measure of civil action will enlighten public discourse without relying on the heavy hand of the state.

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And, as a caveat, it is rich that authoritarian regimes (some of whom pedal their own hate on state television like Iran and Saudi Arabia) think they are fit to lecture the Danes on tolerance and the principle of freedom of speech when these nations have not yet established even more basic rights.

But the point of this essay - as the title informs - is not on the question of freedom of speech per se, but on Western hypocrisy toward that question. There was a moment of Atlantic solidarity during the Danish episode as one newspaper after another reprinted the cartoons and stated that they indeed have the right mock Islam. Fair enough. But do they apply this right selectively or on universal principle? Clearly the former.

The Western world is not home to unrestricted freedom of speech. There are strong penalties for certain rhetoric: primarily that surrounding the Holocaust. Many Western nations explicitly ban such admittedly grotesque practices like denying or 'water-downing', so to speak, Nazi crimes against the Jewish people. Mockery of the Holocaust is also often grounds for political prosecution.

These are vile deeds - and better someone be ostracized from polite society than become a martyr for neo-Nazis - but they are, or should be, protected free speech. No group may rely on the state to protect its sensibilities from historical distortion. In a free society, it should be beyond the remit of government to ensure that any group is legally protected from verbal offense. Many European governments disagree and believe that some groups should be accorded special protection, however. France's parliament, to cite one example, recently banned the denial of the Armenian genocide - which, unlike the Holocaust, it is a contested point amongst historians whether Ottoman explosion and crimes amounts to genocide. Under French law, historian Bernard Lewis, say, would be charged with a crime for stating otherwise as he did in his definitive book on modern Turkey. Will European governments start passing laws declaring that only one interpretation of, for example, the Crusades is allowed? Not only are such parliamentary decrees illiberal - to rule that one side of a debate or malicious lies are now not just wrong but illegal - but they testify to Western hypocrisy.

If European governments are going to be in the business of protecting the hurt feelings of people, then why is this selectively applied? More to the point: why is it that whenever Muslims take umbrage at cruel racism directed toward them it is not only that they are met with indifference, but, rather, Western politicians and editorial pages suddenly discover a backbone for unlimited freedom of speech and they scold Muslims even for peaceful protest. Furthermore, European Muslims who attacked the rightist Danish publication were themselves attacked by the European press for their seeming inability to assimilate into the 'Western world' and that if they were integrated properly they would not be offended by a direct assault against their faith - turning the targeted victim into the scorn of European newspapermen whom use the opportunity to once again smear the continent's Muslims for their alleged inability to accept 'Western' values. That Muslim protest is moved by the same sense of dignity as Armenian efforts for international recognition of their tragedy is apparently not considered. Instead, whatever form it may acquire, it is made to be illegitimate and due to an innate, one surmises, backwardness and the failure of the people to accept more enlightened 'Western' values. When Muslims are offended instead of attending to their offense European editorial pages prefer to through salt on the wounds. Armenians and Jews have legal protection against even a disagreeing narrative and none of press' self-described champions of freedom of speech (when Muslims are concerned) have challenged such laws. They reprint Danish cartoons in support of a right-wing publication dedicated to maligning Muslims, but they would never dare to publish the hateful writings of a vulgar neo-Nazi (such as in the case of convicted British 'historian' David Irving) in support of their right to say whatever they wish without fear of losing their liberty as principle would dictate.

This is blatant and opportunistic hypocrisy: to be sensitive to the sensibilities of one group to the point of codifying it in law and then to hold in contempt another group not for asking for the same legal protection, but for simply registering complaint. The self-righteousness of the West during the Danish episode is hollow.

Muslims should not feed into the West's racist stereotypes and react violently to offenses, but the Western world needs to respect Muslim criticism of such racism and if it is interested in enlightening European Muslims then it should start be setting a noble example and rediscovering that freedom of speech means freedom of speech Full Stop.