Publishing offensive content about the Prophet

[Blobbenstein]

yes, very thoughtful, intelligent people have contributed to probably all religions down the ages. Most probably have worth......I should probably study more, but I am lazy amongst other things.

 

[Blobbenstein]

Christianity is probably the number one for me as it is a family religion but I also like Hinduism and Buddhism as I have ancestry which practised these religions.

yes, Christianity is the one I give most credence, but I wonder how much it, and some of the ideas around it may have been damaged down the centuries...

 

[Freesia]

Yes, there is a lot of problematic stuff there- people have seemingly taken many of their personal hangups and made them part of the religion over time. And that can make it very hard for a number of people who are brought up Christian- some of which choose to leave it because of the restrictions which clash with an important part of who they are.

 

[Blobbenstein]

Yes, there is a lot of problematic stuff there- people have seemingly taken many of their personal hangups and made them part of the religion over time. And that can make it very hard for a number of people who are brought up Christian- some of which choose to leave it because of the restrictions which clash with an important part of who they are.

I think people should just take from a religion stuff that makes sense to them, stuff they connect with......no need to buy it all......it might mean you won't be accepted in some of the groups, but that doesn't have to matter. People don't have to go to church to be a Christian, for example.

 

[Freesia]

True.

 

[Blobbenstein]

Je ne suis pas Charlie Hebdo

In the hours after the murder of 10 journalists and 2 police officers in Paris, my inbox has been popping with strident messages in defence of free speech. They come from bloggers and columnists, from left and right. This is perhaps the only issue on which Paul Goodman and Emma Burnell stand united. We must, we are told, stand in solidarity with the people who were massacred. ‘I am Charlie Hebdo’ has become a viral sensation across the world. We are told we need to decide which side we are on, to defend free speech or give in to tyranny, to choose, as Alex Massie puts it in the Spectator, ‘between civilisation and barbarism,’ or ‘modernity and a kind of fanaticism we’ve known in our own past’.

I’m very uncomfortable with this kind of language. Despite its championing of freedom and its talk of modernity, there is a deep-rooted authoritarianism behind it. First of all it assumes that ‘our’ civilization is a good thing which must be defended at all costs, that the distribution of power and wealth in our society is right, that our biggest problems come from enemies outside. Secondly, it tries to construct a set of absolute moral polarities, suggesting we possess a single ‘way of life’ which is in danger. It subjugates our differences to an artificial unity which can only be imposed by an elite or the state – it’s that which makes it right wing. The assumption that ‘we’ share a common set of values which differs from our enemies stops us from understanding the particular circumstances which shape our lives and actions. This language of absolute moral opposites is uncivil and strident, with a totalitarian edge. What if your idea of civilization isn’t mine?

To explain what happened in Paris we need to be more concrete, more specific. I don’t think the murders of 12 journalists in Paris was an attack on free speech. I don’t think the murderers wanted to turn France into a Muslim country. Their violent actions were driven by an exaggerated and irrational sense of humiliation and victimhood. The journalists at Charlie Hebdo believed they were attacking an assertive global religion. But Charlie Hebdo is not a samizdat publication dangerously exposing the brutality of a totalitarian state. It did not stand up for freedom or democracy. Satire’s strength comes from its capacity to expose the hubris of those who claim to be great. In contrast, Charlie Hebdo wanted to provoke and humiliate Muslims who, while in some places are powerful, in France feel victimised and powerless. Their frenzied violence was a sign of the killers’ belief in their weakness not their strength.

The murder of 12 journalists in Paris was a disgusting crime, an act which should be condemned with equal force as the killing of every other man or woman who does not threaten the perpetrators with violence. My response is sympathy for the family and friends of the dead and hope that the killers are quickly punished, but not solidarity. Of course, the magazine should have the right to publish what it did. I support the absence of legal restrictions on many things which I believe are stupid, immoral and harmful, just as I support the use of the state’s capacity to use force against people who violently stop them. In the case of Charlie Hebdo’s cartoons, I’d rather they weren’t published. That isn’t because I think we should give in to the threat of violence, but because they cause people harm without achieving any good.

For left-liberals, the kind of people who make up Labour activists, that view shouldn’t be controversial. We don’t believe people should deliberately set out to harm others. We should be non-judgemental about what harm is (one person’s harm is another person’s pleasure), so should be able to imagine how a cartoon about a religious leader causes damage. But, because legal prohibition is itself a brutal form of violence, we should oppose using the power of the state to stop it. There are many things we can condemn but should not ban.

But too many on the left have been seduced by a right-wing language of absolute moral struggle. It is a language invented during the McCarthy era and Cold War to keep conservatives in power, and now used to talk about Islam. Something funny happens when it comes to Muslims and free speech. We, the left in particular, seem so desperate to prove we’re on the side of freedom against tyranny, we confuse what should be legal with what is right. We’re told that we need to do everything we are allowed to – however offensive it is – otherwise we’re accused of being appeasers (as I will be for this article). We forsake our sense of solidarity with those who feel victimised for the sake of a wrong-headed moral stridency. Charlie Hebdo’s defence was that if could offend, it must. We don’t have the same trouble in other spheres of life. I don’t think adultery should be banned, but that doesn’t mean I should sleep with someone else’s wife.

The attack on Charlie Hebdo was a heinous crime, not an act of war. The response to it should be to combine good policing with a confident civility. Despite occasional moments of terror, we – unlike the people of Syria or Afghanistan – should stop pretending we are under attack. Compared with other causes of unnecessary mortality, relatively few people die in Europe from political violence, Islamist or otherwise. We need to remember that our society is not only held together by law and rights. It also depends on practical civility, on our willingness to converse with respect with people who don’t share all our beliefs. In Europe, free speech is not under threat. Instead of championing supposed liberal civilisation against its alleged enemies, we should treat those we live amongst with civility. Here, the danger is not Islam or Islamism, but the assumption that people who are different from us cannot be our friends.

Je ne suis pas Charlie Hebdo | LabourList

a good article.

 

[Moll Flanders]

No ban on depictions of prophet Mohamed as BBC changes guidelines - TV & Radio - Media - The Independent

Interesting, I saw the start of Question Time this week where David Dimbleby read out the BBC guidelines but now they are saying that they are outdated and now they will be revising them.

 

[Moll Flanders]

I just read back through the thread and I find that this whole issue and the events in Paris have made me think a lot about freedom of speech and whether it needs to have limits.

I saw this on channel 4 news where they were discussing whether satire should only target people in power.

Should satire only target people in power? - video - Channel 4 News

 

[Blobbenstein]

I think people have to be prepared to die, in order to uphold free speech.....not just die, but be made homeless; put in prison; tortured; have lies told about them...I think that is the bottom line, for this world.....the emergent media, mainly serve the status quo; the rich....this is why minorities, and those without power, end up as targets for so called satire.....it is simply safer to target them; then those in the media can keep a roof over their head, and their jobs.

 

[Blobbenstein]

If only I could be so brave.

 

[Tom L.]

I know of a rock group that called themselves "Conehead Buddah"; there was also a comedy television show about several women sharing an apartment and they had a white Persian cat whom they named Buddah- but I don't remember any protests from the Buddhist community about such things. (For the record: I do think it is/was disrespectful to make such a reference to the Buddah, even though I'm not Buddhist.)

 

[beancounter]

I think that is the bottom line, for this world.....the emergent media, mainly serve the status quo; the rich....this is why minorities, and those without power, end up as targets for so called satire.....it is simply safer to target them; then those in the media can keep a roof over their head, and their jobs.

There is plenty of satire aimed at the rich and powerful...

 

[Blobbenstein]

There is plenty of satire aimed at the rich and powerful...

yes, ok, but we don't know what satire is withheld, do we?

 

[Freesia]

I know of a rock group that called themselves "Conehead Buddah"; there was also a comedy television show about several women sharing an apartment and they had a white Persian cat whom they named Buddah- but I don't remember any protests from the Buddhist community about such things. (For the record: I do think it is/was disrespectful to make such a reference to the Buddah, even though I'm not Buddhist.)

Buddhists do not ask for people to not depict or talk about the Buddha though. Getting angry about people insulting the Buddha would actually be seen as a form of Attachment- Buddhists make an effort to view insults with equanimity.

It is very different to Islam, and Christianity, and Judaism, all of which have sacraments.

 

[Calliegirl]

Buddhists do not ask for people to not depict or talk about the Buddha though. Getting angry about people insulting the Buddha would actually be seen as a form of Attachment- Buddhists make an effort to view insults with equanimity.

It is very different to Islam, and Christianity, and Judaism, all of which have sacraments.

And it's fine for followers of those individual religions to follow whatever rules/laws they have set up. But why does everybody else in the world have to follow them also? Why do these particular groups get to decide for everyone else what they can and can't say?

What if a cult was started by some lunatic (I guess that kind of goes without saying) and they worshiping dogs as Gods and said no one was allowed to take pictures of them because it captured their souls (this is a real belief by some groups). Does that mean that now no one in the world is allowed to take pictures of dogs so as not to offend members of the cult?

 

[Freesia]

This is a holy figure from 1500 years ago,not a non human animal that is around today.

And in many cultures it is forbidden to take photos of certain things. In Australian Aboriginal culture, and Maori culture, there are protocols around filming and photographing of certain things and people.

Strangely, we in Australia and New Zealand at least make some efforts to respect these things, well a number of people do, because we believe that it isnt really up to white, Western people (or any non-maori/aboriginal) to tell tribal people what they should or should not call sacred...

and it really isnt the same as the Waco guy or the Kool Aid guy, those are not legitimate religions followed by millions of people. They are not peoples and they are not indigenous groups or religious groups.

 

[Blobbenstein]

a lot of the so called satire is no better than some chap nailing a pig's head to a mosque door, or a vegan's door for that matter...simple trolling....a lot of the media is just trolling, and the adverts are just spamming, which are the two things which people don't like on the internet.

 

[Blobbenstein]

I think the world's media should invent a random Mohammed insulting app.....random pictures of Mohammed doing disgusting things, along with articles of a similar nature. These could be printed and put through Muslim's letter boxes, in envelopes made from pig skin.
This will be conclusive proof that we have a free press.

 

[Freesia]

Honestly, if people really were interested in free speech, they would be out tomorrow protesting outside every main stream newspaper and news channel and demanding that the news they were received were not oked and filtered by corporate interests and that we can hear real, balanced news from all sides. I have not seen this happen though.

For most people, free speech seems to be the freedom to draw a racist cartoon, not the freedom to be a journalist at a main stream newspaper and keep your job when you say things that dont agree with moneyed interests. So many journalists have been fired in the west for just that.

 

[Spang]

Some folks seem to think that freedom of speech means freedom from criticism.