This month of bloody riots against blasphemy in the Muslim world is scheduled to end just as it began: with a provocation. Today, a scattering of atheists and freethinkers will celebrate something called International Blasphemy Rights Day, a coordinated recognition of the freedom to slander any religion or prophet. The day’s most prominent festivities will occur on college campuses, where in the three-year history of the event, students have arranged philosophical panel discussions, showings of blasphemous art, and open-mic nights that welcome speakers whose speech might in another context draw a barrage of rocks or bullets.
If Hallmark makes a card for this particular holiday, it’s unlikely to be sold in the gift shops of Cairo or Benghazi. Those cities are still recovering from reactions to a California-made YouTube video ridiculing the Prophet Mohammed, which caused riots in countries from Libya to Pakistan. It is tempting for observers in the West to write off these eruptions of street-level anger as local and temporary, fanned by religious sectarians and anti-US feeling. But the riots are also symptoms of a bigger clash in understandings of human rights, one taking place at the level of government and UN declarations, with one side defending the freedom to blaspheme, and the other calling for international law to enshrine a freedom from blasphemy.
Comments
The issue at stake is not just freedom of speech versus perceived blasphemy. A related issue of growing seriousness is physical violence by Muslims against Christians, Jews, Hindus, Bahai, Buddhists and fellow Muslims. Today's Globe reports the destruction of numerous Buddhist temples by Muslim "protesters."
Blasphemy of the sort that sets off riots does not rise to the level of free speech - it is insulting behavior. I would argue it is a dominance behavior - "here, I can provoke you to rage, and there is nothing you can do about it. See how superior I am? You can insult me, and our culture does not care."
Except that is not true - we do care. For example, we properly inhibit racist and antisemitic speech, and we are able to somehow prevent the painting of swastikas in public places. As the article mentions, the Canadians anti-religious behavior. The Germans prohibit the promotion of Nazism. And Canada and Germany, it seems to me, are just as free as the USA.
People who invest themselves in the freedom to blaspheme ought to realize - there accomplishment is no more a contribution than a person who campaigns in Germany for the right to promote Nazism, where such promotion is prohibited.
Acting out and insulting behavior does not rise to the level of free speech, and that is what is being defended - not the right to reasoned, logical speech that contributes to the public conversation. Woe to the culture that cannot discern between acting out and speech.
So are you justifying bombings of churches and temples?
Oh please!! These Muslims don't want anti-blasphemy laws against religion in general. They only want it for their religion. It seems to be perfectly legal and socially acceptable to harass, brutalize and murder in their twisted view of their religion. I realize that not all Muslims feel this way. But until they stand up and take back their religion, most people in the West will view all Muslims as irrational fanatics. No amount of politically correctness can ever be allowed to limit our free speech in any way!
Humanity is doomed if it gives in to Islamic fascists who can't handle free speech here in the modern world. Liberals and Democrats, of all people, should understand the dangers of allowing these people to control speech. That Canada would allow these laws in their country, so close to ours, is disconcerting at best. Obscene is more like it.
Replace "Islamic" above with "Religious" and I would agree with you
I think that the Reformation saved Christianity from itself - of course it had to go through a lot (remember the Puritans) to come out on the side of what we in America decided would be the !st Amendment...is it too much to hope that Islam will have its own reformation.
I was struck by this quote: “What you see in these countries is that they might not have blasphemy laws but they do have laws against insulting people’s feelings, because insulting them will incite them to violence,” De Dora said. " It seems to me the real problem lies precisely in that observation: that insulting someone incites them to VIOLENCE. Laws should not justify violence. If anti-blasphemy laws enshrine a system that believes violence is an appropriate response to an insult then the laws or proposed laws are simply wrong. Outlaw the violence. Because excusing it or justifying it becomes a never-ending spiral.