Islamic leaders, in the recently concluded OIC summit in Dakar (13-14 March), adopted "A Ten-Year Program of Action" to meet challenges facing the Muslim Ummah. The action plan, among other goals, calls on the United Nations to combat Islamophobia, and to enact laws to counter defamation, denigration and stereotyping of Islam, including penalties as deterrent.
The UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) was waiting on its toes to follow the OIC agenda. On 29 March, UNHRC adopted a resolution, proposed by Islamic countries, condemning defamation of religion and urging nation states to ban it, on a 21-10 vote, despite opposition from Europe and Canada.
Western countries voted against the resolution because of its potential usage to limit freedom of expression. The Saudi delegation, spearheading the resolution, countered the European position by charging that "it is regrettable that there are false translations and interpretations of the freedom of expression."
The problem with the Saudi position is that their society has no concept of free expression. It existed in pre-Islamic Arabia and the Prophet Muhammad used it to its limit, allowing him to openly preach that the existing pagan religion of Mecca was false and condemned by Allah and that Judaism and Christianity were perverted, corrupted or misunderstood. He preached these messages without ever suffering any violence or physical harm, whatsoever.
While exploiting the existing tolerance and freedom of expression to its extreme, the Prophet also banned any freedom of expression that questioned his actions and doctrines. He ordered the poets, critics and apostates to be killed as recorded in Quranic passages and in his original early biographies written by pious Muslim historians. The Saudi society has never seen freedom of expression ever since.
Even today, carrying the Bible or any other religious scripture is banned. One faces imprisonment for preaching non-Muslim religions and definite death for converting Muslims to other religions. Saudis are building mosques all over the West and spreading virulent Islamist extremism, but a Catholic delegation, seeking to negotiate the building of a church in Saudi Arabia, recently returned empty handed from the holy kingdom.
This is the concept of Saudi freedom of expression, of religion and of human rights. Probably, the Christian West should apply this correct interpretation of freedom of expression and religious rights in their countries to make the Saudis happy.
Article comments
1 - Dan Miller
The author is to be commended for trying seriously to comment on a complete farce. There is no apparent reason to think that the UNHRC is better able to pontificate on freedom of speech and religion than was the Roman Catholic Church back during the inquisition. For the most part, Western societies now have a better understanding of these concepts, unfortunately not shared by the UNHRC or, for that matter, by the United Nations itself.
I do take issue with the following statement:
"Of course, one must be responsible for what he expresses. Any complaint against someone's views must be brought to the court of law to determine whether the person expressed views are correct or not and where those ideas came from. If incorrect, then whether they are motivated by mischievous goals or not!"
I hope the advice which follows the first sentence in the quotation is not intended to be taken literally or even very seriously. Does it mean that if Senator Clinton resents a view which I articulate in public that she was disingenuous during her "Bosnia Moment," she should be able to sue me and be taken sufficiently seriously by the court to have it consider the matters raised in the remainder of the quotation? Good grief. If that were the case, the courts would not have time to deal with important stuff, such as personal injury actions initiated by people who spill hot coffee in their laps when driving away from a McDonald's drive-in window.
A bit more seriously, the threat of litigation has long been viewed as an horrific restraint on freedom of expression. The standards you suggest would be extraordinarily oppressive, and totally inconsistent with life in a free society. Whether views are correct and where they originated are not relevant. Views are not facts; I may hold many stupid or frivolous views. Expressing them may be silly, but one of the bases of freedom of expression is the notion that by airing stupid views, they will be discovered to be such and rejected. Facts are different: if I proclaim to a prospective buyer that a house which you desire to sell is infested by termites, I have proclaimed something as a fact. If it is not a fact, you can take the matter to court.
If I decide that Christianity is a stupid religion, that the Holy Trinity is a silly concept, that Jesus is a myth, and that the Only True God is Zeus, I should be allowed to proclaim it as widely as I wish. You may not like it, others may not like it, and I may be kicked out of the local country club. That is the way it is in the United States, and to get the courts involved in this sort of nonsense would be a very bad idea.
Dan Miller
2 - Dave Nalle
This is indeed an excellent article, but it does gloss over the basic problem that the UNHRC includes in its membership nations which it ought to be condemning instead of consulting.
Dave
3 - Alamgir Hussain
Thanks Dan.
We probably have a slightly differing perception.
I do not think, I deserve to be labeled a pedophile, when I am not. Such accusation may spoil the social, political and career life of a person forever. That's no derserving of anybody in a decent civilized society for the sake of freedom of expression or whatever else.
I strongly feel that the person who accuses me of the same without any grounds whatsoever, he/she deserves to be held accountable.
4 - Dan Miller
Alamgir Hussain,
The work ""pedophile" nowhere appears in my post. I certainly did not accuse you of any such thing, and never would, not knowing you and without solid basis in fact; even then, I probably would not do so because there would be little point and the possibility might well exist that I would be wrong. Specious allegations of that sort are despicable.
To accuse someone of being a "pedophile," or a murderer, or a thief, or of being something else which is grossly socially unacceptable can only properly be done as an allegation of fact. We have laws governing libel and slander to deal with that sort of thing; but even when those laws are invoked, the damage is frequently already done, and cannot be rectified.
To offer an opinion that Christianity, or Islam, or Global Warmism, or any other religion is perverse, is quite a different matter. It involves an opinion, rather than a statement of fact. I would no more suggest that a religion is, as a matter of fact, based on egregious errors of fact, without adequate factual support, than I would suggest that someone is a "pedophile."
Distinguishing statements of purported fact from statements of opinion is sometimes very difficult. It is necessary to review the context in which the statement is made.
We are the slaves of language, and often we don't understand what we, or others mean. Lord Chesterfield, in his published letters to his son, wrote that a gentleman never unintentionally gives offense. I adhere to that view, and aspire to be deemed a gentleman.
Nonetheless, if you thought I accused you of something wicked, I regret it.
Dan Miller
5 - Alamgir Hussain
Thanks Dan,
I think I could not put my argument properly. I was just trying to give an example, such as an accusation of pedophilia (against me or anyone else), robbery or anything like that -- where the accusers might face the court. They cannot get a pass in the name of free speech.
That being said, I believe we roughly have similar understanding of freedom of expression.
6 - Uncle Ralph
FWIW -- Lionel Shriver has written:
"It is rapidly becoming accepted social cant that to 'tolerate' other people's religions is to accord them respect. In fact, respect for one's beliefs is gradually achieving the status of a hallowed 'human right.'
"I am under no obligation to respect your beliefs. Respect ... is not an entitlement. I may regard creationists as plain wrong, which would make holding their beliefs in high regard nonsensical. In kind, if I proclaim on a street corner that a certain Japanese beetle in my back garden is the new Messiah, you are also within your rights to ridicule me as a fruitcake."
And Lord Justice Sedley stated in the Redmond-Bate decision:
"Free speech includes not only the inoffensive but the irritating, the contentious, the eccentric, the heretical, the unwelcome and the provocative provided it does not tend to provoke violence. Freedom only to speak inoffensively is not worth having."