The world
would be a better place if those who place such value on freedom of speech were
to realise that, once gained, its highest expression can be the discipline to stay silent.
To expend something of such value on a few bawdy cartoons, solely aimed at inflaming feelings, is to pour scorn on that which has been won at such high cost.
Just because you “can” doesn’t mean you “should”.
The high cost of freedom of speech was paid by Aung San Suu Kyi who dared to speak of the repression of her people by military dictators, accepting that for this freedom she must suffer house arrest for fifteen of the last twenty years of her life.
The price of freedom of speech was paid by Nelson Mandela spending 18 years as he struggled on behalf of black people to claim the right to walk on the same footpaths as white people, swim on the same beaches, urinate in the same toilet block and sit on the same park bench.
Freedom of Speech was a prize of such value that it led millions of men and women to give their lives to overcome the tyranny of the Nazi party, heroes all of them, so often drawing their last breath in their teens and twenties. If that war had been lost any notion of free speech would have been gone for decades.
And, with particular reference to the current controversy, amongst them were heroes of the French Resistance such as Jean Moulin, arrested in 1940 and tortured mercilessly by Gestapo chief Klaus Barbie and others before dying in 1943 without disclosing a single thing they wanted to hear.
So let there be no doubt, freedom of speech is one of the most basic, most foundational and therefore most important human rights. It says we are all created of equal worth, and any ordering of society, be it democracy or theocracy, republic or monarchy should not deny that right to express myself. It’s a freedom that we so often take for granted. But it is truly a priceless treasure.
So, like Voltaire we should be willing to die for the right of the French magazine Charlie Hebdo to print their cartoons of Mohammad, whether they be offensive, vulgar, bawdy or just plain tedious. Artistry is not the point here.
But I tell you what is the point. Men like Stephane Charbonnier, the editor of Charlie Hebdo who thinks he knows what freedom of speech is about, has lost sight of how valuable this freedom is.
They have cheapened it in a way that deserves no plaudits, but only the condemnation that will surely come when innocent people find themselves facing murderous crowds in the days to come. How tragic that there are innocent, talented French men and women serving as diplomats, teachers or cultural ambassadors somewhere in the world tonight who may be dead within a week because of his crass stupidity.
But let’s tackle the other side of the issue. It will be said that it isn't the cartoons that will kill, if that is what happens. It will be people whose rage allows them to justify the destruction of those they define as a legitimate target. Strictly speaking this is so, it isn't the cartoons that directly kill and if such murders happen they are also indefensible.
In law, its clear that freedom of speech isn't an absolute. You can’t racially abuse someone, or incite violence. Even in the United States, that bastion of free speech, the famous remark of Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr in a 1919 US Supreme Court ruling is pertinent here:
“The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic… The question in every case is whether the words used are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger.”
In those terms, Charlie Hebdo could be prosecuted, for only someone without a brain would argue that they didn’t realise that violence would follow publication of these cartoons.
But this doesn’t help us in the impasse. Finding fault with one side or the other, declaring a victor and a victim, only perpetuates the problem. The answer, if one is to be found, lies elsewhere. And it’s going to revolve around restraint and respect.
The restraint not to publish what you know you can publish out of respect for those who do not value what you deem important.
The restraint not to turn to violence even though you know that violence is an option out of respect for people who clearly do not value your faith.
In that sense, when the French publishers point the finger at Muslims turning to violence in the coming days, they themselves stand guilty of the same charge. A fundamental lack of restraint and respect.
Just because you “can” doesn’t mean you “should”.
David Kerrigan
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