Free speech: An editor published a series of cartoons of Muhammad, so naturally Saudi Arabia withdraws their ambassador from the country.
Pictoral representations of the Prophet are an Islamic taboo, but they are not, to my understanding, against Danish law.
The shoe is in other foot in this case, in which a priest has been sued under Italian law for daring to assert that Jesus Christ actually existed.
At what point does "being sensitive" to other systems of belief (or un-belief, in the Italian case) begin to intrude on our liberties to believe and think as we like?
Update: A whole durn dialogue on the compatibility of world religions here.
Pictoral representations of the Prophet are an Islamic taboo, but they are not, to my understanding, against Danish law.
The shoe is in other foot in this case, in which a priest has been sued under Italian law for daring to assert that Jesus Christ actually existed.
At what point does "being sensitive" to other systems of belief (or un-belief, in the Italian case) begin to intrude on our liberties to believe and think as we like?
Update: A whole durn dialogue on the compatibility of world religions here.
posted by Joshua @ 8:55 AM
2 Comments:
Colgate alumni will note that our own Omid Safi is a featured speaker in this series! I just noticed that myself.
It is interesting that this comes up at this time, since our friend Kanye West is on the cover of rolling stone decked out with a crown of thorns. I think that the bottom line is this: If a given piece of art or writing (or speaking) is not directly inciting others to violence or similar crimes against a specific person or group (or is not a subtle part of a broader effort to do the same) then there is nothing a liberal society should do legally to restrict such expression. The outrage from muslim communities around the world is perhaps justified, towards the specific publisher, but standing on top of the EU headquarters with guns because one (private)paper in one country (with freedom of press and no official religion) in the EU printed tasteless and insulting cartoons displays a total lack of perspective. Jesus is all over the place in all sorts of cartoons, action figures etc. doing all sorts of silly things and the countries hosting the companies and papers who do this don't have ambassadors withdrawn from them.
Of course, this highlights a fundamental clash between (no, not of civilizations!) between liberal and illiberal ideologies. There is absolutely no way for a liberal society to maintain freedom of expression and simultaneously please illiberal citizens who want to impose their standards on the society as a whole. The deal in a liberal society, is that you get to do your thing, but you accept that other people get to do their things too. If that is not palletable, then you made a mistake moving to a liberal society.
Holding all of Europe to account on one's religion's own terms for the actions of a very small few (who, in their country have liberty to perform those actions) is downright incomprehensible.
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