28 Jan 2015 | Draw the Line, mobile, Youth Board
Censorship, and the degree to which we self-censor, is becoming an increasingly difficult, yet pressing and vitally important, topic of debate amongst an ever-growing international community.
Now, in the internet age, it has never been easier to connect and communicate with so many different people from all across the world. With these wide reaching forms of communication, and various people calling for censorship at different levels, the extent to which offence is considered an acceptable and fundamental part of free speech, has been called into question.
In the wake of the Charlie Hebdo killings, some world leaders have spoken publicly against self-censorship. Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbot urged media in the country to not resort to self-censorship. Some believe that certain groups, communities or organisations should be exempt from satire, criticism or insult. Others might argue that without the right to offend, a proper line of communication can never truly be attained, that no group should be exempt, and that people have the right to offend and be offended, but not to resort to violence and extremism.
This poses the question: is causing offence, and the ability to be offended, a fundamental part of freedom of expression? And, if we remove the right to offend, does this then close down the space for free and open debate?
Tweet your thoughts to #IndexDrawtheLine to get involved in the debate.
This article was published on 28 January 2015 at indexoncensorship.org
15 Jan 2015 | Europe and Central Asia, France, News and features
People marched in Paris to show their unity. Photo: European Council President / Flickr
There can be few more insulting coinages than the tedious phrase “moderate Muslim”. What does it mean? Who does it benefit? In the past week, since the atrocities in Paris, we have heard it often: “moderate” Muslims must condemn terrorism. Or, alternatively, the images of Mohammed printed by Charlie Hebdo (and others in solidarity) were alienating “moderate Muslims”: “free speech fundamentalists” must reach accommodation with “moderate Muslims”.
The suggested dichotomy — that one cannot believe in free speech and in Allah, is a dangerous one. More dangerous still is the underlying implication that the “moderate Muslim” is less of a believer than the Muslims who murder, supposedly in the name of God.
It is now eight days since a murderous gang set about killing cartoonists because they had blasphemed and Jews because they were Jews. The gang was composed of men who were Muslims (it is disingenuous, as British Culture Secretary Sajid Javid pointed out, to suggest that these people were not really motivated by Islam, unless you are willing to put yourself forward as the ultimate authority on what is and isn’t Islamic).
Since then, we have gone from revulsion at the acts of the killers to an obsessive focus on the actions of their victims (or at least their victims at Charlie Hebdo: there is relatively little discussion of the slain shoppers in the kosher supermarket).
The function of all this, unwittingly perhaps, is to reinforce a power dynamic. This is about “us” and what “we” did to “them”. “Us”, roughly, being liberal democracy: “them” being European Muslims who somehow, “we” have decided, are something outside.
Worse, we have decided that there is a continuum of “Muslim anger”, at the end of which is inevitable violence. This is to imagine a homogenous bloc of believers, and to ignore the sectarian and political struggles that exist within Islam. By ignoring these struggles, we in fact junk normal Muslims (enough of the “moderate”) in with those for whom the faith is a political project and even an imperial war with the intention of “restoring the Caliphate”.
Meanwhile, “we” have the comfort of decrying our own hypocrisy.
Crying “hypocrite” is enjoyable; indeed, it’s an essential part of how the British press, and British political and social advocacy, works. Beloved satirical institutions thrive on pointing out double standards.
But tempting though this tack is, it is not an argument in itself: yes, the French state is hypocritical on free speech, lauding Charlie while arresting racist comedian Dieudonné for a Facebook post, and announcing a “crackdown” on hate speech. Of course it is rich for world leaders to march for “free speech” when practically every single government you can think of has mechanisms for censoring its citizens in one way or another. But then what? Does that somehow mitigate the horror? Does that mean we shouldn’t stand for free speech? Does that mean, even, that censorship is OK because everyone does a little bit of it?
What is achieved by this is a focus back on our own ability to control things that seem beyond us. These attacks will stop, we imagine, when we find a way to avert them. The murderous ideology motivating these attacks was created by “us”, through, say, “our” support for the 80s jihad against the Soviet occupation in Afghanistan (as Christopher Hitchens pointed out in his 2001 article Against Rationalisation, it was the CIA that “first connected the unstoppable Stinger missile to the infallible Koran”).
But the fact our governments did some things in the past that have come back to haunt us is, again, not a reason for inactivity or passivity on our own parts now. Rather we must deal with what is in front of us, while hoping not to make mistakes that will come back to us.
It is a good and honourable thing that so many people’s instinct, when confronted with aggression, is conciliation. But loathe though my conciliatory soul is to admit it, there is nothing I can concede that will appease the ideology that led to the carnage in France. To quote Hitchens once more, what the murderers and their co-thinkers hate are the parts of liberal democracy that are worth defending: “its emancipated women, its scientific inquiry, its separation of religion from the state.”
None of these things are perfectly achieved in any society, but they should be clung to as aspirations, and defended when needs be. Moreover, they must be maintained as universal, emancipatory values. To portion them off, or worse, to present them as a weapon of one part of society against another — “free speech fundamentalists” versus “moderate Muslims”, is to give succour to those whose only perception of a universal ideal is universal subjugation.
This article was posted on 14 January 2015 at indexoncensorship.org
12 Jan 2015 | Events
On the day when the four surviving copies of the original 1215 Magna Carta are being briefly brought together for the first time, join us to debate whether we need a US-style written First Amendment?
With a panel hailing from both sides of the Atlantic, speakers include former Attorney General Dominic Grieve, academic Sarah Churchwell, Artistic Director of the Bush Theatre Madani Younis and political analyst Peter Kellner.
Please note that the debate is invitation only, please email [email protected] if you are interested in attending.
WHERE: British Library, London
WHEN: Monday 2 February 2015, 5:30pm
This event is presented in association with the British Library
12 Jan 2015 | News and features, Statements, Turkey Statements
Tout est pardonne or all is forgiven, the first post attack cover of Charlie Hebdo
If you said “I believe in free expression, but…” at any point in the past week, then this is for you. If you declared yourself to be “Charlie”, but have ever called for an offensive image to be removed from public viewing, then this is for you. If you “liked” a post this week affirming the importance of free speech, but have ever signed a petition calling for a speaker to be banned, then this is for you.
Because the rush to affirm our belief in free expression in the wake of Charlie Hebdo attacks ignores a simple truth: that free speech is being eroded on all sides, and all sides are responsible. And it needs to stop.
Genuine free expression means being able to articulate thoughts, feelings and ideas without fear of harm. It is vital because without it individuals would be subject to the whim of whichever authority dictated what ideas and opinions – as opposed to actions – are acceptable. And that is always subjective. You need only look at the world leaders at Sunday’s Paris solidarity march to understand that. Attendees included Ali Bongo, President of Gabon, where the government restricts any journalism critical of the authorities; Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, whose country imprisons more journalists in the world than any other; and the UK’s David Cameron, who declared his support for free expression and the right to offend, while his government considers laws that could drive debate about extremism underground.
It is precisely the freedom for others to say what you may find offensive that protects your own right to express your views: to declare, say, your belief in a God whom others deny exists; or to support a political system that others dismiss. It is what enables scientific and academic thought to progess. As soon as we put qualifications around “acceptable” free expression, we erode its value. Yet that is precisely what happened time and again in response to the Charlie Hebdo attacks, with individuals simultaneously declaring their support for free expression while seeming to suggest that the cartoonists and anyone else who deliberately courts offence should choose other ways to express themselves – suggesting that the responsibility for “better” speech always lies with the person deemed to be causing offence rather than the offended.
“The free communication of ideas and opinions is one of the most precious of the rights of man. Every citizen may, accordingly, speak, write and print with freedom…”
French National Assembly, Declaration of the Rights of Man, August 26, 1789
Index believes that the best way to tackle speech with which you disagree, including the offensive, and the hateful, is through more speech, not less. It is not through laws and petitions that restrict the rights of others to speak. Yet, increasingly, we use our own free speech to call for that of others to be limited: for a misogynist UK comedian to be banned from our screens, or for a UK TV personality to be prosecuted by police for tweeting offensive jokes about ebola, or for a former secretary of state to be prevented from giving an address.
A project mapping media freedom in Europe, launched by Index just over six months ago, shows how journalists are increasingly targeted in this region, including – prior to last week’s incidents – 61 violent attacks against the media. Globally, the space for free expression is shrinking. We need to reverse this trend.
If you genuinely believe in the value of free speech – that all ideas and opinions must be heard – then that necessarily extends to the offensive and the vile. You don’t have to agree with someone, or condone what they are saying, or the manner in which it is said, but you do need to allow them to say it. The American Civil Liberties Union got this right in 1978 when they defended the rights of a pro-Nazi group to march in Chicago, arguing that rights to free expression needed apply to all if they were to apply to any. (As did charity EXIT-Germany late last year, when it raised money for an anti-fascism cause by donating money for every metre walked during a neo-Nazi march).
Countering offensive speech is – of course – only possible if you have the means to do so. Many have observed, rightly, that marginalisation and exclusion from mainstream media denies many people the voice that we would so vociferously defend for a free press. That is a valid argument. But this should be addressed – and must be addressed – by tackling this lack of access, not by shutting down the speech of those deemed to wield power and privilege.
Voltaire has been quoted endlessly in support of free expression, and the right to agree to disagree, but British author Neil Gaiman, who discusses satire and offence in the latest Index magazine, also had it right. “If you accept — and I do — that freedom of speech is important,” he once wrote, “then you are going to have to defend the indefensible. That means you are going to be defending the right of people to read, or to write, or to say, what you don’t say or like or want said…. Because if you don’t stand up for the stuff you don’t like, when they come for the stuff you do like, you’ve already lost.”
In the coming weeks, Index will redouble its efforts to build greater understanding of the benefits of free speech, to promote a better informed and wider public debate on censorship, and on offence. We will run a series of articles, public debates and workshops to encourage people to consider what it really means to support free expression, with the aim of reversing a tide of censorship-by-offence, and encouraging more speech, not less.
What can you do? Join the debate. #Keeptalking
This article was posted on 12 January 2015 at indexoncensorship.org
