Faith, fervour and free speech

Which begs the question: if it is so easy to press the buttons of thousands of believers around the world, that even a mischievous schoolboy could accomplish pandemonium, shouldn’t we, as a responsible society, silence the provocateurs?

Politicians in both the US and Australia have approached Google with requests or encouragement to remove the video, resulting in YouTube bypassing its own policies to block viewing in certain Middle Eastern countries. These are short-term, short-sighted political responses to the situation. They do no good once the material has gone viral, and will serve only to ensure similar violence on the next and inevitable instance of religious offence, in addition to providing legitimacy for such reactions.

If we do not censor for security reasons, should we do so – as best we can, given the constraints of the internet – on the basis of material that could be categorised as hate speech?

The term ‘hate speech’ has become a convenient label of late, but I see few attempts in the media to define what it is. Hate propaganda has been used throughout history to enable human beings to overcome instinctive taboos against killing each other. It involves lies and manipulation to dehumanise the target individual or group and to instil fear or repugnance for that group in the wider community. Thus Nazi propaganda described Jews as ‘beasts of prey’, literally depicting them as vermin or swarming rats, while Rwandan Hutus referred to Tutsis as parasites, cockroaches. Hilaly’s description of women as ‘cat meat’ could well fall into this category.

There are two key points to be made here. The first is that hate speech incites violence against the group, rather than by the group. The second is the distinction between commentary assigning negative attributes to people, and that directed at ideas. People are not ideas. People have ideas, change their minds about ideas, reject ideas. A society that embraces the free competition of ideas is a society that is capable of change; if this were not so we would still be stuck with a White Australia Policy. Religious beliefs are ideas, and like all ideologies are subject to any form of criticism, including satire and mockery; they cannot claim exemption simply because those beliefs are deeply held. Religious offence, or blasphemy, is not hate speech, however hurtful it may be.

Religious ideas are not only personal convictions; they also have a nasty habit of crossing over into the political sphere. Some religions, in particular the three great Abrahamic faiths, are political systems as much as they are religions, due not only to the fact that many proponents cannot accept any rule of law over and above that of scriptures. In today’s world we have theocracies, ranging from the Vatican State to Iran. We see the tragic consequences of blasphemy laws in Pakistan, we see extreme religious positions of Republican Party leaders in the US, and even in Australia we see religious incursions into politics and legislation. Blasphemy laws therefore become not only undesirable, but dangerous.

In the case of ‘Innocence of Muslims’, the alleged writer and producer, however disreputable his background and unsavoury his tactics, is an Egyptian-born Coptic Christian. In this light, there could well be a political context to the film. Had he produced, instead, a sober and well-researched critique of Islam, it could have achieved similar levels of violence, as evidenced by the threatening reactions to UK-based Tom Holland’s historical documentary.

There is also an argument that suppression of free discourse will fail to have the intended effect. In the case of Nazi Germany and to a lesser extent the Weimar Republic, the anti-Jewish propaganda flourished in an environment of extreme censorship, where voices that would have condemned the bigotry were muzzled. Furthermore, as Russell Blackford points out in ’Freedom of religion and the secular state’, ‘Laws relating to hate speech or vilification can vary widely between jurisdictions, defy legal interpretation, lead to tortuous and expensive litigation, and prove counterproductive in promoting mutual tolerance.’

It is unfortunate that some people find reasons to mock the beliefs of others. It is even more unfortunate that certain religious leaders find it necessary to make racist, misogynous or homophobic pronouncements to their followers. In some parts of the world and at former times in history they are/were free to put such ideas into practice. Here and now in Australia they are criticised, but are still free to speak. When religion itself is the subject of criticism or parody, the same must hold true.

Most unfortunately, it seems there is a renewed push within the United Nations to capitulate to the demands of violence, and to reintroduce blasphemy laws at the international level. For the sake of us all, I hope these attempts fail. Freedom is a two-way street, otherwise it is not freedom at all.