Cartoon Controversy Shows We Need More Liberals in the World

Who's Afraid of Offensive Speech, Art, and  Ideas? 

I believe in the freedom of speech. I am a thinking, rational person. I have my own set of morals and values, and, yes, I do find several things that other people say &do as offensive or disgusting. However, I do not see vile speech as an infectious threat, thus I do not need to inoculate myself by killing it as a “virus of the mind.” Being a liberal doesn’t mean I have to accept everything thrown at me. On the contrary, I have a very discriminating brain, which is skeptical but open. Being a liberal also means that I can tolerate expressions I don’t like. Want to know a main difference between liberals and the "Taliban of all stripes" ? Here it is: The Al Qaeda type wants to kill everything they don’t like; the American type wants to ban everything they don’t like. We liberals laugh at, we may get angry at, and we boycott stuff we don’t like!

As a liberal, I welcome being in charge of myself and accept the responsibility of my actions. I want to be trusted with all sorts of information, even exposed to ideas that may contradict my own point of view. I see life as something to be treasured, enjoyed (in the here and now), and take it as an opportunity to explore whatever is out there and tickles my fancy. I choose not to live my life trying to avoid offending the gods, be in fear of them, always try to strike a bargain with them. Nor do I think I have to resort to violence in the extreme to prove that I’m a worthy believer and a soldier against offensive speech, particularly against anything that offends the divine.


Who Accepts the Devil?

That is why I do not buy the argument, "the devil's out there ready to destroy us." The Devil does not exist; evil does! However, evil is perpetuated by humans alone. “The Devil made me do it,” is a lame argument in my judgment, though it’s been amply used, and, worse, many people even buy into it! How? Well, when they say that they want to kill offensive speech because it may incite violence. When they say that we must be protected from anything that threatens our soul and the "fabric of our society." In other words, we're not to be trusted with what they deem "dangerous material." Well, some of us are up to the task.

I don’t doubt that offensive speech can make people violent, but is this a good reason to limit speech? In this country we protect, as we should, the free speech rights of vile organizations like the KKK, the neo-Nazis, and all the other idiots--who are tryinng to appeal to the other closed-minded bigots since they can't put forth any thoughtful argument. They can't reach me. I am more suspicious of people who are after my soul than of those who are after my money. As for accessing my grey matter, they need to come up with some good rational argument to gain access.






Orwell's a Classic
 
I understand the world a bit, so I do realize that those cartoons (originally appeared in a few European publications months ago and republished recently) featuring the Prophet Mohammed do offend a great number of Muslims. Art has been known to inflame and insult. Art is speech, and, like George Orwell said, “if liberty is to mean anything, it means the right to tell people what they don’t want to hear.” Those cartoons weren’t gratuitous in the abstract, but they had a point of view (I’m posting a couple of them for you to see here). I agree with Keenan Malik who wrote, “Far from censoring offensive speech, a vibrant and diverse society should encourage it. In any society that is not uniform, grey and homogenous there are bound to be clashes of viewpoints. Inevitably some people will find certain ideas objectionable.” I suppose that any cartoon that would critize the status of the (subjugated) women in a traditional Muslim society would also be provocative, insulting, and inflamatory to millions of people in the world today. Some of the rioters might be women too!

The Need for Liberal Democracies
Since there aren’t any liberal democracies in the Arab world, it’s hard to know how many Muslims find the on-going violent attacks justified. But, the lack of a liberal political system breeds intolerance and promotes a suffocating religious conformity. I want to emphasize the “liberal” aspect of the political system. Democracy is indeed a good political system since the majority elects its leaders; the people have to be consulted regularly & frequently; there is freedom of speech, etc. But, it is the liberal democracy which guarantees minority rights—be that of a small group or an individual.

We are fighting to maintain and strengthen our liberal democracy here in our country, something that the American “Taliban” (religious Christian fundamentalists) sees as a threat. For them liberalism is like the Devil who can manipulate the hearts & minds of the people. Again, it’s a “protection” thing—protects us from evil; and, the God’s emissaries know best. I believe that our Christian religious extremists have much in common with the Muslim extremists; the name of the prophet is different and God has written & delivered different versions of his book to the different groups which are utterly convinced only they hold the authentic copy.


Graphic Depictions of Violence
 
There are many brave persons in the Muslim world, like those Jordanian newspaper editors who published the controversial cartoons while saying, “Muslims of the world be reasonable!” They were promptly fired and arrested! Here’s a great point by Jihad! I’m talking about Jihad Momani who wrote, “What brings more prejudice against Islam, these caricatures or pictures of a hostage-taker slashing the throat of his victim in front of the cameras or a suicide bomber who blows himself up during a wedding ceremony in Amman?” How true!

There are also reasonable religious leaders who have urged restraint. I welcome the comments of the Iraqi Grand Ayatollah, Al Sistani, who said that militant Islamists were partly to blame for distorting the image of Islam. On the other hand, the rioting continues, people are being killed, and there is no shortage of bigots who want to escalate the controversy; like the biggest Iranian newspaper that has launched a Holocaust cartoon competition! Who said that God made us in his own image… I wonder what exactly this means… With all the terrible things humans have been doing to each other, he probably has second thoughts about including this creation in his resume. But who knows for sure?
Effort Required
 
What I know through observation and reason is that the world would be a better place if we had more liberals in it. It would be better for the non-liberals too! They would be free to believe whatever they want and would have equal opportunities to offend the rest of us—as they do today in this country and in other liberal democracies. So, let’s make sure we protect this precious thingy we call liberty!