One of the
largest stories last month was the beheading of a teacher, who had shown
cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad. Three teenagers were charged with his murder
and the result was something of a diplomatic row between France and the Muslim
World. French President, Emanuel Marcon was even declared an “enemy of Muslims,”
in Indonesia:
https://www.pmnewsnigeria.com/2020/11/02/macron-an-enemy-of-muslims-indonesian-protesters/
Details of the background
story can be found at:
https://www.dw.com/en/france-three-teens-charged-in-beheading-of-history-teacher/a-55526223
The dispute
between France and the Islamic World is the second time that a European nation
has come into conflict with the Islamic World over the topic of blasphemy.
Shortly before heading to Saudi in 2006, I remember living through the Jyllands-Posten incident
when the Danish newspaper published “offensive cartoons,” of triggered off mass
protest across the Muslim world, which included the burning and the burning of embassies.
The main argument in the Western World was the fact that
this was a freedom of speech issue. While most rational heads in the Islamic
World had condemned the violence, there were many who were critical of the
Western government’s failure to protest religious sensitivities and “respect
for religion.” I remember interviewing Saudi Deputy Minister for Islamic
Affairs, Dr. Abdullah Ilhidan in 2006, who argued that there was a need to protect
everyone’s religious sensitivities.
Let’s start with the obvious point here. The cartoons from
the Jyllands-Posten and Charlie Hebdo were downright offensive. If you leave aside
the Islamic prohibition against depicting live images of anyone, let alone “God’s
Last Prophet,” the cartoons were by all accounts provocative and accused the
Muslim world of causing every terrorist incident around. For the sake decency,
I am publishing a cover from Charlie Hebdo, which can be interpreted as a France’s
attempt find common ground with its Muslim population.
There is also the question of whether it was necessary to
publish the cartoons. In layman terms, it’s your right to say and publish what
you want but do you need to go out of your way to piss people off? I remember
asking PN Balji, who had just retired from his second stint in Today, whether
he would have published the cartoons of the Jyllands-Posten. He said no because
it was potentially explosive.
Singapore tried to straddle the middle ground between the
Western view of “Freedom of Speech,” and “Respect for religion,” line. Our “least
conflicted,” Minister, Mr. K Shanmugam, said that in the Singapore context “Freedom
of speech stops at the boundary of giving offense to religion.” fe
Having said all of that, there is no justification for
the violence that was perpetrated against Danish Embassies in 2006 and against
Charlie Hebdo cartoonist in France and calls to boycott Danish (in 2006) and
French businesses more recently are what you’d call overblown. The French, for
example, have since World War I not invaded any Muslim countries for personal
gain (the French loud critics of the 2003 invasion of Iraq) and both the French
and Danes have been relatively generous in giving asylum to Muslims freeing
persecution from Muslim countries.
So, how is it
such that Western countries that have a record of relative benevolence against
Muslim majority states would be the subject of ire in the Islamic world over a
couple of cartoons?
While I don’t
have direct answers to the question, one might suggests looking at who is
calling to defend the “honour” of the faith. In the 2006 Jyllands-Posten incident,
it was found that in Palestinian controlled areas, the charge against all
things Danish was instigated by Fatah, the secular party that runs the
Palestinian Authority (PA) and the party that both the USA and Israel see as a “partner
for peace.” Hamas, the Islamist party that both the USA and Israel, regard as a
terrorist organisation, did not instigate violence against things Danish. In
Egypt it was the foreign minister of the “secular” Egyptian government that branded the Danish cartoons a scandal and
launched a multinational effort to prevent recurrence of such insults to Islam.
In Iraq, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani condemned
the cartoons but also commented about militants who discredit Islam by their acts.
Sistani underlined how un-Islamic acts of extremism are used as justification
to attack Islam. Khaled Al Maeena, my former editor at Arab News described the
violence against all things Danish as “Foolish.”
There was no doubt that an
amount of religious fever involved in the violence, one needs to look beyond
the headlines. The events of 2006 and the current events might indicate that there
are a good number of secular political players exploiting religious passions
for good old fashioned secular purposes like power and money.
So, the question would be
where does one draw the lines between freedom of speech and religious respect
come. Freedom of speech, as they say, will involve a huge amount of offensive
speech. As a rational person, I’d say that the best way to deal with offensive
speech is to ignore it – a case of I don’t like what you say so I won’t listen.
I’m also fortunate where I live in Singapore where people express their frustrations
online but don’t take to the streets.
I also understand the
government’s position when it says freedom of speech stops when it causes
offense to religion. While our last race-based riot was in the 60s, the
government is not wrong to argue that our religious and racial harmony cannot
be taken for granted.
Having said that, there is a
problem, namely the problem of “definitions.” Hence, when a minister talks
about “responsible” speech, the question is one of “responsibility.” When you
talk about “not offending,” there is a question of what defines “not offensive.”
The ground level compromise in
Singapore is fairly visible. In any given hawker centre you’ll see how trays
are divided into halal and non-halal sections. Muslims happily sit alongside non-Muslims,
who may guzzle pork dishes. On the ground level, there seems to be a working
compromise.
However, when things go a
level above the ground, there is a grand flip-flopping on what constitutes
offense to religion. This is a government that has barred Muslims from serving
beyond a certain level in the military but at the same time, sees no issue in reserving
the presidency for a particular race and religion. We say that we must not be “offensive
to religion or race,” but at the same time we had a former politician who was
in the habit of writing all sorts of “Truths” about how people of a certain faith
were not integrating, remarks which did hurt the community.
So, perhaps we need to relook
at the rules and their application. Yes, there should be certain limits on
freedom of speech but these limitations need to be there for a good reason. As
a Buddhist I may get offended if you call Gautama Buddha a mad oversexed hippy.
It may be offensive to me as a Buddhist but it’s not provocative or done with
the possibility of getting some nut job to do me or my family harm. What should
be limited is if you label say, “All Bald Singapore Chinese men as serial rapist,”
in the public sphere. Such comments are likely to damage my ability to get a
job as a toilet cleaner or worse put me in the cross hairs of some nut case.
Secondly, we need to raise our
standards. If we are to say that provocative speech ends where it causes
offense to a religion or even a race, we also need to look at who says it. If a
coffee shop auntie says something offensive, the answer should be – who cares, the
old lady is entitled to an opinion, no matter how offensive. However, if we
intend to make causing offense a public issue, surely politicians should be
slapped harder when they do so – after all their words have a greater impact on
society.
We live in a world that
currently needs to find more opportunities for dialogue. There should be
freedom of expression and people should listen to opinions that they don’t
necessarily like (as anyone who contributes to the internet will testify to). Having
said that, we do need to accept that harmful and inciteful speech needs to be watched.
It’s how you ensure there’s a social dialogue with rules that everyone can
agree on.
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