It seems that every day brings a new censorship controversy involving Islam. Just a couple of weeks ago, I wrote about Comedy Central’s censorship of South Park for its attempted (and mild) portrayal of Muhammad. I’d be remiss to ignore something that happened earlier this week.
On Tuesday, controversial Swedish artist Lars Vilks was attacked by a Muslim student during a lecture at Uppsala University. Vilks played an offensive film that juxtaposed homoerotic images with Christian and Muslim images. Many in the audience took offense, and less than a minute into the film the room erupts into chaos.
My friend Marc over at My Daily Roast had this to say about the incident:
While I think that Lars Vilk’s video was tasteless, I am appalled by the incident. I can’t believe someone can get shouted down (especially in an academic setting), for offending the religious sensitivity of viewers.
He goes on to relate these censorship controversies to a “crisis of pluralism” that Europe (and increasingly the United States) is experiencing.
We want to promote diversity and acceptance, but how do we incorporate those who reject the very liberal principles upon which [the United States] was founded? Can true pluralism exist without an adherence to real freedom of speech?
Now, thankfully, I think our “crisis of pluralism” pales in comparison to much of Europe’s (the situation in the UK is especially a joke). Even with our overheated immigration rhetoric and that draconian Arizona law, the United States is better at welcoming and integrating immigrants than Europe. We have long been a nation of immigrants. Immigration is a more recent phenomenon for Europe, though. Germany, for example, only begrudgingly liberalized its immigration policies after World War II, when it needed a labor force to replace its war dead. And it was Muslims (namely Turks) who supplied that demand. Germans are largely uneasy with the growing Turkish population and their culture, I think because Germany has not historically been a nation of immigrants. Germany has been for Germans. France for the French. And so on. So European Muslims are not alone to blame; some native Europeans have been lousy hosts.
To rephrase Marc’s questions somewhat: What lessons can America draw from Europe’s troubled project of pluralism? And is there a way we can retain and exercise our free speech without radicalizing moderate Muslims?
This is one of the main topics I struggle with trying to solve, especially with regards to Islam. I love and support multiculturalism, but at some point, it has to give way to secularism and stable government. Islamic culture poses an especial problem because of how unsecular most majority Islamic countries are, and how used to deference and unused to criticism many Muslims from these countries are. When you come from a country where death is the penalty for any perceived insult to your religious beliefs, it’s hard to acclimate to a culture where you not only have to accept such insult, but aren’t allowed to retaliate – where ultimate freedom of speech is allowed (and I’m not sure that really exists in any country, US included).
This is the problem, and I have no idea how to de-radicalise immigrants, or how to combat anti-secularism in general. You’re correct in that the US isn’t as intensely experiencing this problem as Western Europe is, but here we’re dealing with not just some Muslim extremists, but a great deal of (mostly) nonviolent, but nearly as extreme Christian extremists who fundamentally oppose our secular government.
I’m not sure what, besides education and zero tolerance for religious incursion into secular government, we can do. And where, how and what sorts of education work best, are yet other questions.
To create a genuinely pluralist society there is one value that must be imposed. Pluralism. When a mob assaults someone of saying something offensive, as many of the mob as possible need to be arrested for assault. Basically we must be willing, and able to strongly defend the right to offend.
Ultimately, I don’t think you can paint all of Europe with the same brush. Nor simplistically dismiss Europe’s pluralism as “failed.” And one line about France, implying that it has the same integration traditions as Germany…? Sorry, that’s just wrong. France’s tradition of cultural assimilation is closer to the US tradition.
And on that note, if you’re looking for examples of incomplete integration leading to extreme racial hostility, you don’t have to look all the way across the pond — the situation in AZ is not trivial. I’ve lived in both the US and Europe, and — as bad as some of the cultural situations are here in Europe — it is not realistic to claim that the situation for US black people or Spanish-speaking Americans “pales” in comparison to the situation in Europe.
Fair enough. Why, then, do you think European Muslims are more radical than American ones?
I didn’t mean to imply that France has the same integration traditions as Germany. My only point was that the French, like the Germans, treasure their national identity. I’d dare say that the French actually have a much stronger national identity than Germany does (because Germans are somewhat reticent about nationalism given WWII). And like the Germans, the French feel that that national identity is being threatened by immigrants. I think this concern is evident in the discussion in France about banning the burqa.
The same thing we haven’t entirely learned as a nation every time we have a new wave of immigrants. Xenophobia is only cured through exposure, education and understanding.
I believe the very struggle many of us (namely secular humanists, atheists and free thinkers…I’ll add agnostic here too) experience when we ‘come out’ reflects what people actually think about skeptical minds. Questioning faith undermines the power behind the Vatican and every major world religion. Seen as immoral and unelectable. Something needs to change there.
Is it any wonder that they might then radicalize after a less than warm reception in a strange land where the values are considerably different? America will only become stronger in the process. One thing we could stand from Europe is to pick the language of our neighbors.
One thing I’m slightly embarrassed by is that with all the languages brought to (and indigenous to) our shores that we are so afraid of a little Spanish or a different religion.
Most religions have the power to become lethal and in this day and age in a global community we have to make a concerted effort.
Worth pointing out that fanatical secularism can lead to the same free-speech stifling ugliness. In this case, a man in England was arrested for simply saying, on a public sidewalk (which sure seems like a part of the “public square”), that homosexuality is a sin.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1270364/Christian-preacher-hooligan-charge-saying-believes-homosexuality-sin.html
Actually, the case was dropped.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1278664/Charges-dropped-Christian-preached-homosexuality-sin.html
That is good to hear. It doesn’t change the point – secularism is not necessarily a friend of free speech, that was my point. This is just part of a general trend in England, where “secularism” really just means “silence the religious”. Just this fall there was debate on an “equality law” in Britain which would have essentially criminalized Catholicism by making it illegal to not hire married men and women as priests. I don’t think the law passed.
The point is this – fanatical secularists love free speech and free thinking (ironically, all the “free thinkers” in lock-step!) so long as it not a religious person expressing himself. Secularists should be careful to not suppose that their own point of view is incapable of the same dangerous excesses that those icky religious points of view are capable of.
edit: WOW this is long. I apologize for the size.
I don’t know of anyone who’s afraid of spanish, I have a bigger problem with people who enter a nation because it facilitates their needs or desires and then demands that nation conform to them. No buddy, you need us, you learn the language, laws, history, culture so that these things you came here for are more available. the people who spent weeks on boats and then months in prisonlike conditions to get here did the same thing, and those that refused suffered immensely for it, but nothing is free. I’ve worked with both forms of this issue, the father of 6 working 95 hours of hell every week to provide for his home and family, and the guys on welfare who are here to feed drug habits. For whatever reason, people want to pretend, if not demand, that the latter group doesn’t exist, or we shouldn’t act as if it does because “we don’t understand” or whatever.
Anyway, regarding the video, it reminds me of one of the leaders of the British Nationalist Party speaking at Michigan and the liberals in the audience acting the same way. They shouted for a while so he wasn’t heard, and after a while they walked out of the auditorium in chants and pulled the fire alarm. Stupidity and extremism go both sides politically and religiously. The Arizona law, which allows enforcement of a federal law already in place, and which they are mostly free to do as they please anyway, has been attacked at the low level by things like boycotting Arizona Iced Tea, which is made in Long Island. Its no less stupid than the freedom fries bit.
This discussion about marketplace of opinion allowing those that might shun it isn’t new, it was around in the 1950s with the American Nationalist Socialist parties who some tried to block from running for office or campaigning. I’m not sure it can ever be solved. The failure of multiculturalism in reality, regardless of the dogma of “more education! more exposure!” is that someone is going to be held down, held back, marginalized and oppressed. Democracy fails because it presents a system where majority opinion becomes reality, and our nation’s founders fought to avoid that like they did factioning. My home state of Louisiana seems to love the liberal laws of Huey Long and kept Davey Duke in office or in substantial running well into the late 90s, it may be popular but that doesn’t make it functional. On the other side though you have, as Plato said, a lack of real consensus because of a desire to have “diversity.” A marketplace of ideas all about the individual. It sounds nice to newspapers to say everyone can do what they want but sooner or later you have someone making a retarded film like this guy and a group who want to destroy him for the film. To protect either one is to shun the other, sometimes this is good (I’m not too concerned with the shunning and hurt feelings of a child murderer) but where is the line drawn, and can it be drawn properly? I don’t believe in censorship, hate the leftist FCC, because it assumes you can pretend a problem isn’t there by covering it up to appease others’ feelings. If you don’t like porn and alcohol, ban them, don’t hide them behind curtains or whatnot. Tell me they’re wrong and why, censorship is trying to pretend it isn’t there, like “solving racism” by interbreeding everyone into a gray paste. Trying to remove religion from the square is that same idea, and in this country? Good luck. We aren’t anything even remotely approaching a theocracy (not even here in Utah despite the psychosis with liquor laws), what we are is a republic where states can choose their fate based on consensus values, and much of that stems from localized religion and culture. You can’t just rip it away, and looking over at California, it would probably be pretty damn stupid to do so.
So the question (at long last) is: can we sustain a free expression environment in a multicultural place of this kind and avoid radicalizing people? For the most part no. Most people are incapable of grasping concepts like nationalism and faith and reason properly, that’s why they attend church, to seek guidance, but that of course means they don’t act so prudentially in the moment, so they’re going to radicalize as certain things from majority of the other side (who has the same problem) come forward.
This is the tyranny of the majority, people grasping at basics to use as weapons, without the nuance needed to understand them, and massing up to enforce their view of law. This is why true elites (Obama is certainly no elite, neither was Bush) build civilizations, to better the masses (statecraft-soulcraft), but that only matters if you consider the point of a free expression environment to assist in discovering truth (through art, satire, education, statements, whatever else). If its just a swamp of Derrida’s traces, it’ll either go nowhere into illiterate stupor or turn to violence.
Blasphemy is healthy sometimes because it’s the gadfly to the great beast of faith, (Austin Dacey’s speech mentioned this) it forces a better evaluation and more precision with areas that may have been left vague, it cuts the fat to find the real muscle and makes for a stronger animal, but it can also devolve into cheap punk vandalism if there is no cultural standard to hold such things to. If Jon wants to make a video like that to criticize religion (assuming this guy even had the brains for that) I’d probably just ignore it as pointless trash, but others might fight back because, as the people in the video said “its just porn.” I think Jon’s speech should still be protected, and the crowd would be wrong to beat him senseless and then hang him outside covered in honey so the ants will eat him, but he’s engaging them on that kind of level and that’ll be the result. Of course, a response to that might be that it sometimes takes such a provocation to get discussion going (think the killer from Seven, you need a sledgehammer to get attention). I would agree, but I think it can be done viscerally and intelligently. Metal music at its best does this better than anything I see these days (certainly better than a cross in a urine bottle.) It hits with power and nihilistic violence but still finds beauty and questioning of a high degree in its attack.
That sounds nice, so we should make sure our discussions in a free marketplace are intelligent and clear while being sharp, but how to enforce that, when we are more democratic than we ever should have been? Not a damn clue.
It appears that we are calling Lars Vilks a hero and the shouts and aggressive action of many in the audience evil. Just a question. At what point does provocative speech to entice a violent response become wrong? Or is provocative speech always the hero?
At some point an absolute right to free speech has to become a villain too. Right? At want point does provocative speech of any kind become an evil in civil society?
Perhaps if the audience had protested non-violently against the use of an educational opportunity to show a film of hate-speech against a religious world view, then one might turn back towards the film and considered it inappropriate at least. Or does free speech have carte blanche?
I don’t think anyone here is making Mr. Vilks out to be a hero. That certainly was not my intention.
So. Perhaps the voicing of being offended by an inappropriate film was suitable expression? The problem was the attempt at violence against Lars Vilks? I think I can agree to that assessment.
Unrelated to Islam … but related to the public square.
I got a really stupid and offensive flyer taped to my door today. It is a rant about the proposed Logan ordinance that would prohibit housing discrimination against homosexuals. SLC recently passed a similar law. This flyer is really over the top. You can read some of their materials here:
http://americaforever.com/lds_gay_ord_endorsement.html
They are having a “town hall meeting” tomorrow (Monday, May 17). Crystal Inn in Logan. 853 South Highway 89-91, in the Diamond Room. 2-8pm.
I would encourage you all to go. Make your voices heard. Protest. Or just go and listen. Whatever. Look, I’ve made some unpopular arguments on this blog about gay marriage (which I do not support). But a law making it explicitly illegal to discriminate in housing based on sexual orientation is a no-brainer. The ordinance looks like an obviously just law that would stop people from being treated wrongly. I just can’t imagine that anyone thinks it is okay to discriminate with housing/rentals just because someone is gay.
Actually I think social conservatives harm themselves by opposing these just measures. It energizes the push for hate crimes laws, some of which I think tread too closely to thought crime laws. But that is a conversation for another day. For now – go and be heard at this anti-gay “townhall”. And I think the city council meeting to discuss the law is on Tuesday.
(For those not following this local story — the ordinance was introduced but quickly tabled. One councilman in particular was extremely skeptical of it. So it was to be tabled until next year. But then all of the sudden a few council members did an about face … I am wondering if they got a call from LDS headquarters, since the LDS Church backed this same law in SLC. I guess we can wonder about their motives – PR stunt? – but give credit where credit is due, the LDS Church is putting its weight behind some valuable measures here).
I know this rhetoric is harmful and a little scary, but this sentence is so myopic I had to laugh: “An old lady who rents a basement to two young men, not knowing they are gay and later sees them in their backyard barbecuing with their gay friends kissing and she doesn’t want to be around that, she cannot tell them to move.” Damn those gays and their gay friends!
I would like to address Jon’s question as to why “European Muslims are more radical than American ones?”
As you mentioned in a few of your responses, Muslim immigration to Europe was under vastly different circumstances that Muslim immigration to America. Muslims immigrating to Europe came primarily as laborers and blue-collar workers. Because of this, many Muslims had limited education, skills, and opportunities for social mobility. Many Muslims in Britain, France, Germany, and Holland are trapped in social ghettos, plagued by poverty, crime, and gangs. For example, according to Gallup polling 69% of Muslims living in France and 72% in the UK consider themselves “struggling” economically.
Poor economic opportunities for Muslims in Europe is in stark contrast to the economic opportunity available in America. Muslims in America make, on average, more than the median income. More significantly, among nonworking American Muslims, 31% are full-time students as compared to only 10% in the general population. Furthermore, nearly 70% of American Muslims report having a job; in stark contrast to 38% in the UK, 45% in France, and 53% in Germany.
Furthermore, the belief of a “vanishing Christianity” in Europe is coupled with the rise of Islam- the fastest growing religion (mainly because of birth rates). For example, the Muslim population in Europe has grown from roughly twelve million to twenty million in a decade; not to mention the exponential growth of mosques in Britain, Germany, France, and Italy.
What this shows, to me at least, is that Muslims in Europe are reacting to poor social conditions, lack of economic opportunities, and perceived political oppression. However, when riots or protests they are portrayed as “Muslim” or “Islamic”, rather than as against poverty and despair. European Muslims are defined largely in terms of their faith and, therefore, violence or protests are seen as a consequence of Islam’s inherent violence or lack of pluralism.
You mention the Turks in Germany and I think you allude to a major setback for Muslims in Europe. A sense of second-class citizenship, social exclusion, and marginalization contribute to a “identity crisis” and lead otherwise non-radical Muslims into the hands of radical preachers. These preachers are often illegal immigrants or are foreign militants seeking to spew their theologies of hate.
The answer, then, is social integration and economic opportunity. Nationalism, in my mind, stands as the greatest barrier to these policy prescriptions and I’m not sure how that can be addressed. Thoughts?
Also, it is quite apparent that Muslims, or religious people generally, are not the only group to oppose, often violently, unpleasant images, ideas, or people. For instance, many Americans are proud of the First Amendment to the Constitution, which declares that Congress may make no law “abridging the freedom of speech, of of the press…”. Indeed, these “liberal principles” are what America was founded on!
What most people in America do not know is how this eloquent defense of civil liberties has been regularly ignored. The Alien and Sedition Acts criminalized “false, scandalous, and malicious” statements about government officials “with intent to bring them into disrepute”; for example, many people who criticized the policies of John Adams’s administration were arrested and sent to prison under this act.
The Supreme Court, at the time of the First World War, decided that freedom of speech could not be allowed if it created “a clear and present danger” to the nation. The court case in question was in reference to a man named Schenck, who had been imprisoned under the Espionage Act of 1917, which made it a crime to say or write things that would “discourage recruitment in the armed forces of the United States”.
World War Two brought even more repressive legislation in the form of the Smith Act, with made it a crime to “teach and advocate” the overthrow of the government by force and violence. During the war, eighteen members of the Socialist Workers Party in Minneapolis were given prison terms, not for specifically advocating the overthrow of the US government, but rather distributing literature like the Communist Manifesto; not to mention the more than 100,000 Japanese Americans who were put into detention camps simply because of their national origin.
Granted, the previous examples are during “war time” in the US. However, even during the Cold War (virtually a meaningless term at this point) an atmosphere of hysterical fear of communism led to loyalty oaths for government employees, imprisonment of men and women based on their political beliefs, and jail terms for anyone refusing to answer questions put to them by the House Committee on Un-American Activities about their political affiliations.
Furthermore, a popular example of Muslim opposition to free speech is the 2005 Denmark cartoon controversy; a Danish newspaper published cartoons that showed the Prophet Muhammad with a bomb in his turban. This event led to mass protests in Europe, Africa and East Asia, as well as vandalism and violent attacks against Danish embassies and property.
To be sure, the decisions to vandalize property and violently attack people are not justified. However, we should be mindful of the major complaints by Muslims around the world; namely, that Islam and Muslims are consistently denigrated and equated with terrorism. Note, for example, that the cartoon did not satirize or ridicule Osama bin Laden but rather the venerated Prophet Muhammad.
While no one should be denied the right to speak their mind, the questions is whether the outrage was against free speech or against the continuos denigration and vilification of Islam. There is a distinct difference between the cause of violence and the trigger that sets off violent action. The cartoons that were published were merely the trigger that ignited passions, fears, and grievances from decades of poor economic policy and opportunity, despotic political regimes, and lack of cultural and social cohesion in Europe.
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I watched most of the video and here’s my take:
The video by Mr. Vilks was obviously designed to provoke a response – which it did. I believe that was fully within Vilks’ right of freedom of speech, just as much as the girl shouting “Allahu akhbar!” over and over again had the right to the same. Attacking people, getting violent – that is not at all within the right of the student who attacked Vilks, and this is what it boils down to. Kleiner mentioned secular suppression of free speech above – and I agree that it is a problem as well. Speech is either free or restricted, even if the restrictions are relatively light. I don’t agree with the Westboro church and their disgusting, vitriolic signs that target soldiers and homosexuals, but they have the -right- to say what they wish as long as they are not violent. (To my knowledge, they have refrained from violent acts). Words can be hurtful and painful to here, they can dismiss suffering of others (holocaust deniers, people who blame rape victims for being sexually assaulted) but they all have the RIGHT to say what they wish even if it is horrible and/or untrue.
Should Vilks have made the film? Why not? Should those offended have stood up and said something? Why not? It was in the right of both factions. They also could have simply gotten up and left – as long as they were not forced in the room, or kept in there under lock and key, that was within their power. The demands to stop the film ALONG WITH the expectation to be obeyed simply because of their beliefs was ridiculous – they obviously expected their beliefs to be put before the right to freedom of speech by others, and that is not a request that should be acquiesced, particularly in the face of violence and vitriolic intolerance. The threats directed at the police/event overseers “If you don’t want trouble, do such and such” do not indicate tolerance of other people’s views, or even the fundamental ability to admit that other people have rights to SAY what they wish, even if it offends you. The saddest part of the video is where they do give in to the demands of people whose only response to things they don’t like is violence. It’s sad and it’s a terrible violation of the support of free speech. “Successes” like this only encourage radical behavior. The appropriate actions would have been to call in more police and give a statement indicating the following: 1 – the film would be continued, 2 – those offended by the film thus far will have the following amount of time to leave, if they so wish 3 – those who react violently will be immediately arrested. The suggestion to “go outside and protest in true democratic fashion” should have been given prior to playing the film instead of giving in to the demands of people -actively threatening- police officers and venue officials.
Multiculturalism can be a big load of bullshit when taken to the extreme. There is a difference between preserving traditions/beliefs that are non-harmful and preserving traditions/beliefs that ARE harmful and go against basic human rights (stoning for “crimes” of adultery, apostasy or being raped, infant circumcision, genital mutilation, marriage of young children, child slavery, etc.) Traditions that have a positive or benign effect on society should be welcomed and accepted as part of functioning societies, but behaviors/traditions that break down the ability of a society to function peacefully should be immediately and harshly stopped. Multiculturalism at the expense of society itself is not multiculturalism, but the attempt to overthrow other beliefs/traditions through intimidation, fear and violence.
Cherie,
Infant circumcision — I had to think about that one in your list of harmful traditions.
I was. I did to my sons.
I applaud you for taking the consistent position against genital mutilation.
It was interesting to have my 8-day-old son circumcised in Munich, Germany at the Catholic frauen clinic where my wife birthed my son. All the nurses that worked at the small women’s clinic (about a dozen) attended the circumcision because they had never seen one. They murmured their disapproval as the Doctor performed my request for my son. The doctor had practiced in the U.S. so he knew what he was doing. By the way, as a foreign worker in Germany I never saw a bill for any medical procedure or visit to a doctor — except for the circumcision (200DM).
Cherie,
I do not agree that free speech should always be protected as an absolute right. To me, there are situations where some speech can be prosecuted as wrong. Obviously, one must include false damaging slander or libel. (Damaging is a necessary item.) I would also include provocative or obscene speech in certain situations. This speech might be considered acts of speech violent, for instance, porn stars walking onto a public school playground to give explicit descriptions of porn sex to young children. An act of speech violence might be the Westboro Church members crashing funerals of soldiers to shout damnation to gay soldiers. I consider this type of free speech is violence speech.
It may not need a heavy punishment, but I think a civil society should have the expectation that free speech be civil speech.
With this in mind I consider Mr. Vilks’s film to be speech violence if he did not alert students before hand (maybe he did). He should have stated that the movie may offend some people and muslims in particular. He should have stated that they could leave without punishment in the course. He should have stated that there would be a discussion after the movie.
If he launched the movie without warning in an educational context, then I hope the university administration would handle the event as speech violence designed to attack certain religious students rather than to hold civil discourse on issues. There is a fuzzy line, but there ought to be at least a thought that there may be a line beyond which the speech is violence. I also think the earlier examples I mention are easier to judge.