COMMENTARY, Jan 11 — The Charlie Hebdo shootings have seen a pushback against the defence of the French satirical weekly’s right to free speech, with critics accusing it of xenophobia and racism.
The hashtag #JeNeSuisPasCharlie (I am not Charlie) arose in response to #JeSuisCharlie (I am Charlie), with proponents of the former attacking Charlie Hebdo for frequently setting its sights on the French Muslim minority amid growing anti-Muslim sentiment in France and the rest of Europe.
While no one has come out publicly to say that Charlie Hebdo cartoonists deserved to be shot dead for lampooning Prophet Muhammad, which included nude sketches of the religious figure, there is the suggestion that the magazine should have expected some sort of “reaction” to their controversial works.
There’s nothing wrong with criticising Charlie Hebdo’s satire of Islam and other religions; that is a perfectly normal response in the exercise of free speech. People who find it offensive can fire back with peaceful protests or even by boycotting the weekly.
However, violence is never an acceptable reaction to mere words, no matter how offensive or incendiary.
Free speech is about having the freedom to say anything you like, without state sanctions or being assaulted by private citizens.
Of course, threatening to kill a person or a group of people crosses the threshold of free speech to criminal intimidation. Otherwise, everything else short of threatening violence should be protected.
That includes racist and bigoted speech against minority groups.
If such minorities face systemic discrimination in a democracy, it is the government’s responsibility to ensure that they enjoy the same rights as everyone else, but not at the expense of freedom of speech.
Protecting minorities from discrimination at work, for example, is a completely separate matter from giving other private citizens the freedom to say what they want to say.
Blocking free speech for the sake of minorities is also illogical.
How do we define minority groups? Muslims are a minority in France, but the majority in Malaysia.
Why should state boundaries be the defining criteria of minority groups? Christians are the biggest religious group in the world at 32 per cent of the global population as of 2010, according to the Pew Research Center, but they are the minority in Malaysia.
Would it then be acceptable to mock Jesus Christ on Facebook, where physical locations cease to matter in an increasingly borderless world?
Even the definition of minority groups in Malaysia itself is problematic.
Malay-Muslims are the numerical majority here. They dominate top government positions. There are also powerful Islamic institutions that increasingly encroach on the civil liberties of non-Muslims. Yet, the majority of low-income earners are Malay-Muslims.
It is misleading to treat minorities as a homogenous group.
Would it be acceptable for an atheist to mock Islam? Muslims far outnumber atheists here in Malaysia and in the world. Atheists also suffer discrimination. US news website Huffington Post reported last June the American Humanist Association as saying that 13 countries have laws that revoke citizenships, deny marriages of, and even kill people who lack religious beliefs.
At first glance, it would appear that atheists are in the minority. But throw in other factors and it becomes more complex. What if the atheist is a white male and the Muslim whose religious beliefs he’s criticising is an Asian woman? What if the atheist is an affluent Chinese businesswoman and the Muslim is a poor paddy farmer whose sole solace is his faith?
In the same vein, if we argue that we should not be allowed to criticise or mock minority groups, we should ban sexist and misogynistic speech. Women are a minority group everywhere on this earth.
Other common misconceptions about free speech should also be cleared up.
Free speech is not about speaking the “truth”. If that were the case, religious believers should not be allowed to say anything because many monotheistic religions claim monopoly over the “Truth” with a capital T.
Free speech is not about making clever, intellectual arguments. If that were the case, people would not have been allowed to say things that were once considered absolutely absurd, such as the earth being round instead of flat.
Free speech is also not about saying politically correct things. If it were, it’s not really “free” speech then.
The idea behind free speech is to allow a contestation of ideas – no matter how offensive or polite, stupid or erudite – so that people can choose what to believe in, without being oppressed by the powers-that-be.
Malay-Muslim groups like Perkasa and Isma have just as much right to spread their right-wing ideology as Charlie Hebdo has in lampooning Islam. The right to free speech should not be reserved for particular groups, nor should certain people be protected from it.
- See more at: http://www.themalaymailonline.com/malaysia/article/free-speech-is-for-racists-sexists-and-everyone-else#sthash.ByCmywXb.dpuf
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