CSotD: Protecting freedom of ignorant, toxic expression
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I wasn't able to find the original French-language version of this Damien Glez cartoon, so let's just agree that it's a lousy translation and deal, instead, with the substance, which I find compelling on a couple of levels.
The Black-African is justified in questioning the violent response to a movie that, some speculate, has never actually been completed, much less screened.
But the Arab-African is justified in being angry at how little Americans know about Islam and how quick they are to indulge in ignorant, hateful stereotypes.
Last night, a tweet went out (and ended up on Facebook) linking to a BBC report of mass demonstrations against dissident Islamist militias in Benghazi, and asking why it wasn't being reported in the US.
My wiseass response was that we needed to devote that news space to the more important international issue of the Duchess of Cambridge's titties, but I think the original poster simply jumped the gun: As I write this Saturday morning, the anti-militia rioting is Number Two at Google News, led only by Romney's latest tax revelations.
Still, the fact that people are reading it on the Internet and boosting it to the position of #2 story doesn't necessarily mean it will be covered at so high a level in media that the average non-newsjunky will see, much less covered at the hammer-it-into-your-thick-skulls level that could overcome what people have already decided to believe.
As discussed here before, coverage of the riots over the anti-Muslim film has been marked by unconscionable ignorance of who's who in the Middle East and even who's who in Islam.
The issue of free speech in this matter seems a blend of consummate ignorance with the arrogant assumption that the rest of the world is simply waiting for us to explain how they should approach life.
This is the innocent but toxic attitude of Kipling and the rest of the Victorian jingoists, the assumption that our way is correct and that "progress" consists of getting other people to adopt our superior perspective.
And here we step into the quicksand of conspiracy theories, because, just as many around the world — and not just in mud huts — assume that an American film has some kind of government approval, many who criticize the Kipling approach to international relations assume that people sat around a table and formulated it.
Not the case. We simply believe that we are at the pinnacle of civilization and that everyone else is eager to join us, though they may not realize it. In fact, they may not realize it to a degree that requires us to shoot a few of them.
Mr. Dooley spoke for the mass of Americans a century ago:
"Whin we plant what Hogan calls th' starry banner iv Freedom in th' Ph'lippeens," said Mr. Dooley, "an' give th' sacred blessin' iv liberty to the poor, down-trodden people iv thim unfortunate isles,—dam thim!—we'll larn thim a lesson."
"Sure," said Mr. Hennessy, sadly, "we have a thing or two to larn oursilves."
"But it isn't f'r thim to larn us," said Mr. Dooley. "'Tis not f'r thim wretched an' degraded crathers, without a mind or a shirt iv their own, f'r to give lessons in politeness an' liberty to a nation that mannyfacthers more dhressed beef than anny other imperyal nation in th' wurruld. We say to thim: 'Naygurs,' we say, 'poor, dissolute, uncovered wretches,' says we, 'whin th' crool hand iv Spain forged man'cles f'r ye'er limbs, as Hogan says, who was it crossed th' say an' sthruck off th' comealongs? We did,—by dad, we did. An' now, ye mis'rable, childish-minded apes, we propose f'r to larn ye th' uses iv liberty."
I expect the Bill O'Reillys and other conservative bags of Victorian bluster to declare how all nations must come to accept our values and to reform their own laws to match ours. After all, Patrick Buchanan once declared that we should annex Canada, and his wisdom is highly regarded among those stuck in the 19th century and still developing their sense of internationalism on the playing fields of Eton.
What is painful to watch now is that we're seeing people who would absolutely, categorically reject Kipling and Victoria and all their works and all their pomps, but whose own cultural arrogance convinces them that the way to bring the Islamic world to our side is to demonstrate our freedom by deliberately going out of our way to insult their religion.
There are even people declaring that the way to end the problem is for all artists everywhere to simultaneously insult the Prophet, which apparently means that, never mind knowing what happened in the Philippines 100 years ago or how British gunboat diplomacy functioned a half-century before that, these folks can't even cast their minds back two years to recall the debacle of "Draw Mohammed Day" and how little that did to change things for the better.
I get frustrated, as a defender of the First Amendment, at having to defend the rights of idiots to behave like idiots. And yet, while most other countries have some kind of "hate speech" exclusion in their freedom of speech laws, I fully realize that defining and excluding "hate speech" can be a slippery slope.
But I also know that insulting, racist attacks tend to drive groups together, that, for instance, while there are many in Iran who pray five times a day for the overthrow of the mullahs, they will band together in the face of external threats, that you ought not to make the work of your allies harder by shooting your mouth off while they are trying to keep things copacetic.
Now here's your moment of zen:
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