The Understatement of the Century: 'Islam Sometimes Has Problems in Understanding Free Speech'
The cartoon of the prophet Muhammad that caused all the hullabaloo. Image courtesy of Google Images
MIDDLE EAST TIMES: Two years ago Denmark's daily newspaper Jylland-Posten published cartoons of Prophet Muhammad, depicting the most holy figure in Islam with a ticking bomb in his turban. The newspaper's decision to run the caricatures caused millions of offended Muslims to protest against Western values in front of Danish embassies around the world. The outrage mainly stemmed from a growing sentiment that the West opted for indifference when it came to empathizing with the Muslim plight in places such as Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine.

In late February, encore appearances of the cartoons in four other Danish papers to show solidarity to cartoonist Kurt Westergaard who received death threats, deepened the crisis further. While most Muslim leaders called to" forgive, but not forget" despite the continuing anger, the West questioned its own values of liberal democracy and how to accommodate others.

On the eve of the Eid, the Muslim holiday celebrating the end of the month-long dawn-to-dusk fasting of Ramadan, Denmark's Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen defended the publication of the cartoons and repeated that Islam had difficulty accepting core values of freedom and democracy.

Nevertheless, Rasmussen also sent a message of peace and positive dialogue to the Muslim world.

Photo of Anders Fogh Rasmussen courtesy of Google Images
The following interview was conducted last week at Columbia University in New York City, after the Danish prime minister addressed the university community in the World Leaders Forum. 'Islam Sometimes Has Problems in Understanding Free Speech' >>> By Afsin Yardakul | September 30, 2008

The Dawning of a New Dark Age (Paperback – Denmark) >>>

Pat Condell: Islam’s War on Freedom

The Dawning of a New Dark Age – Dust Jacket Hardcover, direct from the publishers (UK) >>>
The Dawning of a New Dark Age – Paperback, direct from the publishers (UK) >>>

When “Tolerance” Trumps Freedom
DENVER POST: Canada has a lot to answer for: Rush, Celine Dion, Barenaked Ladies, Tom Green and Howie Mandel, to name a few. But its latest transgression is serious.

In certain parts of Europe, "hate speech" already is a criminal act. When the late journalist and author Oriana Fallaci wrote books critical of Islam in 2002, she was sued in France. Later, Swiss and Italian judges ordered her to stand trial for "defaming Islam."

In France, Brigitte Bardot — the former film starlet turned animal rights activist — has been convicted five times of "inciting racial hatred." In one instance, her crime was writing a letter to French officials, objecting to the ritual slaughter of sheep by Muslims.

Sheep to the slaughter, sadly, is a perfect analogy for European states that allow Muslim activist groups — which rarely object to the near-complete lack of freedom of expression in the Islamic world — to dictate what is and isn't tolerable speech.

But Canada? When “Tolerance” Trumps Freedom >>> By David Harsanyl | June 17, 2008

The Dawning of a New Dark Age – Dust Jacket Hardcover, direct from the publishers (US)
The Dawning of a New Dark Age – Paperback, direct from the publishers (US)

Muslim World Wants to Shut Down West’s Freedom of Speech
Cartoons courtesy of the Infidel Blogger’s Alliance
INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRIBUNE: KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia: A Muslim political leader urged Western governments Monday to hit out more strongly against acts that are offensive to Islam.

Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, secretary-general of the 56-nation Organization of the Islamic Conference, warned there seemed to be a growing "campaign of hate and discrimination" against Muslims by a small number of individuals and organizations.

In a speech to a conference in Kuala Lumpur on improving ties between Muslims and the West, Ihsanoglu praised Western nations for criticizing acts such as the recent release of an anti-Quran film by a Dutch lawmaker, but said more should have been done.

"Mere condemnation or distancing from the acts of the perpetrators of Islamophobia will not resolve the issue, as long as they remain free to carry on with their campaign of incitement and provocation on the plea of freedom of expression," Ihsanoglu said.

Earlier this year, the release of the film "Fitna" by Dutch politician Geert Wilders sparked protests by Muslims for showing images of terror attacks interspersed with text from the Quran.

Ihsanoglu also urged the media to reject "proponents of hatred and intolerance totally," citing other incidents such as the republishing in Denmark of cartoons considered an insult to the Prophet Muhammad. Muslim Leaders Urge Western Governments to Condemn Acts that Insult Islam >>> (Associated press) | June 9, 2008

DAILY TIMES (Pakistan):
Pakistan to Ask EU to Amend Laws on Freedom of Expression >>> By Tahir Niaz | June 8, 2008

The Dawning of a New Dark Age – Dust Jacket Hardcover, direct from the publishers (US)
The Dawning of a New Dark Age – Paperback, direct from the publishers (US)

We Should Fear Holland’s Silence
This article, from February 2006, deserves to be read and re-read by all who love liberty! Our craven leaders are giving our freedoms away.

THE SUNDAY TIMES: Islamists are stifling debate in what was Europe’s freest country, says Douglas Murray

‘Would you write the name you’d like to use here, and your real name there?” asked the girl at reception. I had just been driven to a hotel in the Hague. An hour earlier I’d been greeted at Amsterdam airport by a man holding a sign with a pre-agreed cipher. I hadn’t known where I would be staying, or where I would be speaking. The secrecy was necessary: I had come to Holland to talk about Islam.

Last weekend, four years after his murder, Pim Fortuyn’s political party, Lijst Pim Fortuyn, held a conference in his memory on Islam and Europe. The organisers had assembled nearly all the writers most critical of Islam’s current manifestation in the West. The American scholars Daniel Pipes and Robert Spencer were present, as were the Egyptian-Jewish exile and scholar of dhimmitude, Bat Ye’or, and the great Muslim apostate Ibn Warraq.

Both Ye’or and Warraq write and speak under pseudonyms. Standing at the hotel desk I confessed to the girl that I didn’t have any other name, couldn’t think of a good one fast. I was given my key and made aware that the other person in the lobby, a tall figure in a dark suit, was my security detail. I was taken up to my room where I changed, unpacked and headed back out — the security guard now positioned outside my bedroom door.

I had been invited to deliver the closing speech to the memorial conference on what would have been Fortuyn’s 58th birthday. I said I would talk on the effects of Europe’s increasingly Islamicised population and advocate a tougher European counterterror strategy. There was no overriding political agenda to the occasion, simply a desire for frank discussion.

The event was scholarly, incisive and wide-ranging. There were no ranters or rabble-rousers, just an invited audience of academics, writers, politicians and sombre party members. As yet another example of Islam’s violent confrontation with the West (this time caused by cartoons) swept across the globe, we tried to discuss Islam as openly as we could. The Dutch security service in the Hague was among those who considered the threat to us for doing this as particularly high. The security status of the event was put at just one level below “national emergency”.

This may seem fantastic to people in Britain. But the story of Holland — which I have been charting for some years — should be noted by her allies. Where Holland has gone, Britain and the rest of Europe are following. The silencing happens bit by bit. A student paper in Britain that ran the Danish cartoons got pulped. A London magazine withdrew the cartoons from its website after the British police informed the editor they could not protect him, his staff, or his offices from attack. This happened only days before the police provided 500 officers to protect a “peaceful” Muslim protest in Trafalgar Square.

It seems the British police — who regularly provide protection for mosques (as they did after the 7/7 bombs) — were unable to send even one policeman to protect an organ of free speech. At the notorious London protests, Islamists were allowed to incite murder and bloodshed on the streets, but a passer-by objecting to these displays was threatened with detention for making trouble.

Holland — with its disproportionately high Muslim population — is the canary in the mine. Its once open society is closing, and Europe is closing slowly behind it. It looks, from Holland, like the twilight of liberalism — not the “liberalism” that is actually libertarianism, but the liberalism that is freedom. Not least freedom of expression.

All across Europe, debate on Islam is being stopped. Italy’s greatest living writer, Oriana Fallaci, soon comes up for trial in her home country, and in Britain the government seems intent on pushing through laws that would make truths about Islam and the conduct of its followers impossible to voice. We Should Fear Holland’s Silence >>> By Douglas Murray | February 26, 2008

The Dawning of a New Dark Age (Paperback - UK)
The Dawning of a New Dark Age (Hardback - UK)

Speech Row Rocks Multi-Ethnic Canada
BBC: Canada is often thought of as a land of bland consensus and multicultural harmony - the last place where you would expect to see a religious minority up in arms, and journalists accusing the state of gagging freedom of speech.

Yet in recent months, these have become fixtures of the country's public debate.

The Canadian equivalent of Denmark's cartoonists, or the Netherlands' Ayaan Hirsi Ali, is the outspoken conservative columnist Mark Steyn.

In a 2006 article he used demographics to suggest that the West would succumb to Muslim domination.

The piece, entitled "The future belongs to Islam" and published by the Toronto magazine Maclean's, argued that Europe was "too enfeebled to resist its remorseless transformation into Eurabia".

Mr Steyn summarised the presumed global advantage of militant Islam with a stark equation: "Youth + Will = Disaster for whoever gets in your way."

To some, he had crossed the line between vigorous polemic and Islamophia.

The notion that Muslims should be feared by virtue of their numbers and purported militancy is "quite inflammatory", says Toronto law student Khurrum Awan. Speech Row Rocks Multi-Ethnic Canada >>> By Henri Astier

Mark Alexander (Paperback)
Mark Alexander (Hardback)

Churches Ask Wilders Not to Show Film
NIS NEWS BULLETIN: UTRECHT, 13/03/08 - The Protestant Church in the Netherlands (PKN) has appealed to MP Geert Wilders not to broadcast his Koran film. "Would it not be a proof of real freedom if you decided not to show the film?" the PKN asked rhetorically.

PKN represents the protestant churches in the Netherlands. Its Secretary General Bas Plaisier invites Wilders to show the film privately at the PKN head office in Utrecht so that they can enter a debate with him if the film is offensive.

"We will watch the film with respect for you and your convictions and discuss the content of the film with you," Plaisier writes in the protestant opinion magazine Centraal Weekblad. "It is possible that all the commotion is unwarranted, and if so, we will say so honestly. But if your film could hurt people and put many thousands of people around the world in danger, will you then reconsider your intentions?"

Plaisier says the church "does not properly understand" what Wilders is trying to do. "Have you ever considered not making use of your freedom to say what you think? Would it not be a proof of real freedom if you decided not to show the film? We would esteem you for this." [Churches Ask Wilders Not to Show Film]

PR-INSIDE:
Council of Europe Warns Dutch Lawmaker Against Releasing Anti-Quran Film - AP

Mark Alexander (Paperback)
Mark Alexander (Hardback)

Muzzled (Again) in Finland
GATES OF VIENNA: Tomashot is a Finnish blogger who has just been convicted of “incitement against a national group” (in Sweden it would be hets mot folkgrupp). I can’t link to his blog, since he was required as a part of his sentence to take it down.

The case seems to resemble that mounted against Mikko Ellilä last year, only in Tomashot’s case the government pushed it all the way through a trial.

Our Finnish correspondent Sludge reported the verdict in our comments this morning. I managed to find an online report in Finnish, and KGS of Tundra Tabloids translated it.

Tomashot is quoted by Turkkilaista Tuumintaa as saying:

Tuusula circuit court found me guilty today of incitement against a national group. My sentence was a fine of €850 and all of my web pages were ordered to be closed down. Even though I insisted that my pages which were part of the factually based “News From Finland”, which publishes news concerning the crimes committed by immigrants and should be spared, they were also ordered to be closed down as well.

Muzzled (Again) in Finland >>>

Mark Alexander (Paperback)
Mark Alexander (Hardback)

Turning Free Speech into a Negotiable Commodity
SP!KED: ‘Why make a big deal about free speech?’ a student asked me after one of my lectures recently. Such a cynical attitude towards the principle of free speech is common today. An army of self-selected censors is currently demanding: ‘How dare the Oxford Union invite Nick Griffin, leader of the British National Party, and the anti-Semitic historian David Irving to participate in one of its debates?’ The fevered response to tonight’s debate on free speech and extremism at the Oxford Union highlights the exhaustion of a genuine democratic commitment to freedom of expression. If there is one powerful argument in favour of holding the debate, it is as a way of countering this illiberal outlook.

There was a time when those who called themselves radical or progressive marched and struggled for the realisation of the right to freedom of speech. These days, so-called progressives are far more likely to demonstrate against the right of people that they don’t like to speak openly. They demand the censorship of public expressions of extremist views. Mainstream public figures and officials embrace the role of the censor, and proclaim that freedom of speech is not an ‘absolute right’. In an era that finds it difficult to uphold any absolutes – absolute truth, absolute good – the devaluation of speech from an absolute freedom to a conditional one fits in well with the prevailing ‘common sense’. However, once a right ceases to be an ‘absolute’, it becomes a negotiable commodity. Devaluing the freedom of speech so that it becomes a relative right (in other words, a privilege) simply means upholding the right to speak of those whom we like, and censoring the views of people we find obnoxious or offensive.

The censorious response to the Oxford Union debate comes at a time when attacks on freedom of speech are being widely institutionalised. In recent years, numerous laws have been introduced to punish various forms of speech as ‘incitement to religious hatred’, ‘glorifying terrorism’ or ‘expressing homophobic views’. The New Labour government is set to launch a new crusade against the expression of extremist views on university campuses. Such illiberal attitudes are not confined to Labour. Julian Lewis, the Tory shadow defence secretary, sought to capture the limelight with his very public resignation from the Oxford Union over the Irving/Griffin debate. Of course, Lewis informed us, he is not against free speech – well, he is not absolutely against it. ‘I think there are people who are confusing this with an issue of free speech’, he said. In fact, there is no confusion here; this is a free speech issue. >> By Frank Furedi

Mark Alexander

The Limits to Freedom of Speech
Freedom of speech is indivisible: Either you have it, or you don’t. Period! It cannot be limited without losing freedom of speech altogether. And in any case, once you start saying that this or that cannot be said, then who is to decide what is seemly? If we start limiting our freedom of expression in this manner, we will soon be on a slippery slope: We might well find ourselves in a situation as has happened in Khartoum just recently, a situation in which a teacher has been arrested for allowing her classroom children to call a teddy bear Muhammad. That poor young lady has been arrested for blasphemy!

BBC: The debate at the Oxford Union featuring BNP leader Nick Griffin and historian David Irving highlights fundamental questions about the limits to free speech.

Some protestors called for the debate to be cancelled, both because it might offend people and because it could stir up racial hatred.

But there are others who think people should be allowed to say whatever they think - regardless of the offence it might cause, and even if there is a potential threat to public order.

For some anti-fascist campaigners like Donna Guthrie, the fact that David Irving's views are offensive to large numbers of people is enough to prevent him from speaking.

'Racial attacks'

"Irving is a Holocaust denier, and giving him a platform is an insult to the millions who were murdered by the Nazis."

Ms Guthrie - National Campaigner for the group Unite Against Fascism - said there had also been a rise in racial attacks whenever Nick Griffin's BNP party gained seats on local councils.

She added: "Free speech is not uncontrolled. Speech does not happen in a vacuum. We know that when a fascist organisation speaks, there are real consequences."

In Britain there are laws protecting our right to free speech. But they are so hedged with qualifications that there is still plenty of room for arguments. >> By Julian Joyce

Mark Alexander

US-UK ‘Ally’ in Gulf, Kuwait, Demonstrates Its Commitment to Freedom of Expression!
KUWAIT TIMES: KUWAIT: All newspapers, magazines, publishing houses and printing presses in Kuwait were yesterday issued a list by the government of the types of articles, advertisements and banners that can no longer be printed or published without official approval. Government limits freedom of expression (more)

Mark Alexander

Do Muslims Belong in a Secular Europe? Indeed in a Secular West?

If a cartoon such as this one bothers them so much, then I guess the answer is 'NO'!


It is heartening to note that the European press is making a firm stand on this matter. Die Welt went ahead today and published the cartoon in defiance of the Muslims living in Germany, as did France-Soir in defiance of the Muslims living there.

The New York Times: European Papers Publish Cartoons in Stand for Press Freedom

CNN: Papers reprint Islam row cartoons

Die Welt: Mohammed-Karikaturen: Dänische Zeitung gibt sich geschlagen

The Moscow Times: Cartoons of Mohammed reprinted

Die Neue Zürcher Zeitung: Streit um Mohammed-Karikaturen geht weiter

Le Figaro: Caricatures de Mahomet : la polémique gagne la France

Le Monde: La polémique sur les caricatures de Mahomet s'invite en France

WARNING! Freedom of expression, once lost, will be lost forever!

Mark Alexander