Sunday, March 23, 2008
Cataloging the violence veto
Regular readers know that I periodically inveigh against the "violence veto," which involves censorship -- including self-censorship -- of perfectly lawful speech because of the fear that people who choose to be offended by that speech will vandalize, assault, and murder on account of it. I was, therefore, interested to read a ranty enumeration of vetos to date in George Weigel's excellent and previously TigerHyped book, Faith, Reason, and the War Against Jihadism
The 2006 Danish cartoons controversy -- or, better, the Danish cartoons jihad -- brought these patterns of appeasement and self-imposed dhimmitude to international attention. Despite the fact that the Danish government of the time was beginning to address some of the problems of Islamic nonintegration into Danish society, the original publication in the Copenhagen daily Jyllands-Posten of a set of cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad caused little comment, in Denmark or anywhere else. But after several Islamist Danish imams began agitating throughout the Middle East (aided by three additional, and far more offensive, cartoons of their own devising), an international furor erupted, with dozens of people killed by rioting Muslims in Europe, Africa, and Asia. As Henrik Bering wrote at the time, "the Danes were suddenly the most hated people on earth, with their embassies under attack, their flag being burned, and their consciousness being raised by lectures on religious tolerance from Iran, Saudi Arabia, and other beacons of enlightenment."
And the response from Europe, in the main, was to intensify appeasement.
Thus the French government encouraged the French Union of Islamic Organizations and the Grand Mosque of Paris to sue the satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo in order to prevent the magazine's publication of the cartoons; when the suit was thrown out, French president Jacques Chirac offered Muslim groups the services of his personal lawyer in order to help them file suit against the magazine's editor on charges of racism. The Italian "reforms minister," Roberto Calderoli, resigned under pressure from Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, because Colderoli had worn a T-shirt featuring one of the offending cartoons -- which "thoughtless action," Berlusconi deduced, had caused a riot outside the Italian consulate in Benghazi in which eleven people were killed. Newspapers that ran the cartoons were put under intense political pressure; some journalists faced criminal charges; websites were forced to close. The pan-European Carrefour supermarket chain, bowing to Islamist demands for a boycott of Danish goods, placed signs in its stores, in both Arabic and English, expressing "solidarity" with the "Islamic community" and noting, inelegantly if revealingly, "Carrefour don't carry Danish products." The Norwegian government forced the editor of a Christian publication to apologize publicly for printing the Danish cartoons, at a press conference at which the hapless editor was surrounded (appropriately enough) by Norwegian cabinet ministers and imams. EU foreign minister Javier Solana groveled his way from one Arab capital to another, pleading that Europeans shared the "anguish" of Muslims "offended" by the Danish cartoons. And, not to be outdone by those appeasement-obsessed national governments that were in headling flight from tradition concepts of freedom of the press and free speech, the EU's justice minister, Franco Frattini, announced in early February 2006 that the EU would establish a "media code" to encourage "prudence." Which in this instance was a synonym for "surrender" -- irrespective of one's view of the artistic merits of, or the cultural sensitivity displayed by, the world's most notorious cartoons.
What these cheese-herring-sausage-pasta eating surrender monkeys failed to realize -- or at least acknowledge -- is that the right of freedom of speech is only relevant if the speech in question offends. Nobody cares about uncontroversial speech, so it needs no right to defend it. Therefore, any censorship or threat to censor in response to violence or complaints from foreign religious leaders -- who are demanding, in effect, that their speech prevail over the putatively offensive speech -- eviscerates the freedom of speech in its entirety, not partially as the appeasers would protest.
MORE: Whoa! Latest violence veto here.
15 Comments:
By 
D.E. Cloutier, at
Sun Mar 23, 08:26:00 PM:
"...eviscerates the freedom of speech..."
Many people around the world know that. But they often want a stable society more than they want freedom of speech. Fact of life.
"Americans have too much freedom," a well-traveled Egyptian military general once told me. (He was the same guy who told me 15 years ago: "We need helicopters so we can shoot terrorists in the back when they run across fields.")
By 
, at
Sun Mar 23, 08:40:00 PM:
Demands never stop. Today it's cartoons and a speech from the Pope. Tomorrow it will be forbidding Christian services in the West. Next day after that, forbidding pork. After that, all women veiled.
It never ever stops. Until the West pushes back. Violently, in response to violence.
Because the appeasement has a price. It ups the ante of the Muslims, and creates an appetite for more demands plus the view that Westerners will ALWAYS surrender everything. So violence is more likely the earlier and more frequently the West surrenders.
By , at
Sun Mar 23, 08:46:00 PM:
"Americans have too much freedom," a well-traveled Egyptian military general once told me."
May such words always be spoken.
By , at
Mon Mar 24, 01:31:00 PM:
Man can never have enough freedom when dictators are still in power. I guess your friend from Egypt got used to his high-powered position too.
By , at
Mon Mar 24, 01:47:00 PM:
"cheese-herring-sausage-pasta eating surrender monkeys"
Might I suggest you look into the response of the US in this matter? To be honest, the Danish government and media (and probably those of many other European countries) showed much more courage in this matter than American ones.
So maybe lay down the stereotypes for just this once, and be a bit more self-critical.
/pro-American Danish dude who strongly supports the Cartoons and freedom of speech
By DWPittelli, at
Mon Mar 24, 01:53:00 PM:
1) I'm with you on your point in general. But it was not deplorable that an Italian minister was forced out because he publicly wore a cartoon T-shirt. Can you imagine a US cabinet secretary (of now or in the past) staying in office after wearing an embarrassing or controversial T-shirt such as "Israel out of Palestine" or "Kahane was right" on the other hand? Cabinet secretaries routinely lose their jobs for unplanned verbal gaffes, and I don't see how the standard should be laxer for planned T-shirt wearings (not that a T-shirt would generally be acceptable wear to a normal political meeting, anyway).
2) But the same standards should not apply to anyone not employed in a political position. It's too bad the European press doesn't have the cojones of an Ezra Levant (to paraphrase: "I have the right to be offensive, and you are being a fascist" is the proper response to a government making such demands for apologies).
3) Let us not be too harsh with the victims: The politicians are much more culpable than are the publishers; they are indeed acting as agents for their jihadist attackers.
By Chad, at
Mon Mar 24, 02:10:00 PM:
Here is an article in today's New York Times that ties in nicely with your point. "Illegal Signs and a Broken Camera"
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com
/2008/03/24/illegal-signs-and-a-
reporters-broken-camera/index.html?hp
I love how the reporter excuses the behavior by saying, "Well he told me to stop taking pictures and I didn't so I deserved what I got"
By TigerHawk, at
Mon Mar 24, 02:31:00 PM:
Danish Anon 1:47 pm:
You are, of course, correct, although in my defense Americans eat all those foods...
Seriously, the Bush administration has done a terrible job defending and promoting freedom of speech with regard to Muslim affairs -- you are absolutely correct in that. However, our First Amendment and the cultural tradition around it provide guarantees that do not exist in most European countries. We have nothing akin to the British libel laws, for example, which chill a great deal of speech, and no American politician would propose standards of behavior for the press in this sort of thing. So while I would not dream of defending the Bush administration and hope that the next president does a much better job, I also believe that our legal structure gives us somewhat better defenses against the "violence veto."
Thank you for your comment.
By , at
Mon Mar 24, 05:16:00 PM:
TigerHawk:
I'm glad you brought this up.
I believe that standing up to the "violence veto" is the first order of business when we talk about counterterrorism against fanatical political Islam (whether of the Sunni or Shia variety---for the purposes of this argument, it makes no difference; both are equally dangerous, because both claim supremacy over our Enlightenment-inspired freedoms).
The "violence veto" is precisely what makes the "fascism" part of the term "Islamofascism" an apt term to describe the threat.
Totalitarian movements (of both the right and the left) are usually propelled into power by thugs (both of the physically imposing kind and of the intellectual variety--the smooth-talking Swiss-born Tariq Ramadan, grandson of the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, is one example of the latter) who mount intimidation campaigns to silence their opponents.
Once gained, this power is easy to hold on to by continued intimidation, by the bribing and blackmail and leveraging and co-opting of elites, by forming networks of informers and institutions where they can be denounced, etc., etc. (In process, it's not unlike the institutions and rules that keep political correctness in place now in the West, except that in a totalitarian society it's backed up by the apparatus, and force of arms and monopoly on violence, of the police state.)
The "violence veto"you describe---and not nukes and dirty bombs and mass-casualty attacks---is, I believe, the first thing we should fear from radical Islamists, and it's also the kind of terrorism we should be fighting against tooth and nail.
It's an attack on the bedrock principles of all Western democracies.
To answer the commenter who said most people care about security, not about political freedom: It's true. That doesn't make it less necessary to fight it.
The counterterrorism fight will probably fall, like everything else, into the 80/20 rule. It'll be the 20% who fight it and the 80%who keep their heads down.
By , at
Mon Mar 24, 08:41:00 PM:
TigerHawk, thanks for the reply.
You are probably correct that the American First Amendment is a stronger formal guard of freedom of speech than what exists in most European countries (although I'm not that much of an expert).
But I think the deeper reason for this is the cultural tradition, as you also mention. I really like how immediate protests arise if someone introduces anything that can be interpreted as a limitation on freedom of speech in America. On the other hand, your "culture" isn't completely free in this regard: look at censorship of sex and profanity in the media, for instance.
But I don't really want to discuss that. My main beef is probably the disappointment I felt over the American media's refusal to be "aggressive" in the Cartoon affair, at least at the time. If not in America, then where? was my response, I think.
Also, many were probably disappointed in the administration's response. Denmark is one of the US's closest allies at the moment (you might not know this, but we are) and expected better. I'm not personally that mad about this part, as I recognize how relatively unimportant Denmark is, and the US can't please everyone...but still. :)
Anyways, keep up the good work.
/Same anonymous Danish dude from before
By TigerHawk, at
Mon Mar 24, 09:00:00 PM:
Danish dude:
We on this blog absolutely know that Denmark is one of our closest allies, and sincerely thank you for it. Indeed, in our family we made a special effort to buy Danish products (beer and cheese!) when the Muslim world started promoting its boycott following the cartoon jihad.
Thank you again, and please come back regularly.
By , at
Mon Mar 24, 09:14:00 PM:
They want the "violence veto?" Screw 'em! One of the best reasons for a concealed carry permit is so I can exercise my "violence override."
By , at
Mon Mar 24, 11:05:00 PM:
Yes, some of us are definitely aware of Denmark and its possession of an actual spine, which can't be said for many European countries. And it's not just that they are our allies and are doing what we want. I gather they are doing what they are doing because they know it's right and wise and their actions are based on principle. That's what makes them an ally in deed as well as in name, namely shared values. More power to them.
By , at
Tue Mar 25, 08:16:00 PM:
Allow me to second (third?) my respect for Denmark's *ahem* balls in standing up to Islamist intimidation where so many larger states fold up and whimper like little girls at a horror movie.
I even remembered a comment I made here, April 3, 2006.
"Wow. Waving a 'provocative' flag (like the Confederate flag) could be banned? Why? Because it offends someone?
Color me Danish. - Dawnfire82"
:D
By Pax Federatica, at
Tue Mar 25, 10:41:00 PM:
hepzeeba: The "violence veto"you describe---and not nukes and dirty bombs and mass-casualty attacks---is, I believe, the first thing we should fear from radical Islamists, and it's also the kind of terrorism we should be fighting against tooth and nail.
Which brings us to the elephant in the room: How do we respond when the "violence veto" begins to take the form of nukes and dirty bombs and mass-casualty attacks?
It's one thing to brave the "violence veto" when it is only directed at yourself. It's another thing entirely when thousands to millions of other people who have no connection to your work could nonetheless end up dying over it as well. That you may not be morally at fault for all those deaths is, for most folks, a beneath-trivial consideration against the sheer weight of all that potential carnage. A stupid little cartoon, editorial or song just isn't worth that kind of risk, or at least so most people in that situation will likely conclude.
