In a few posts lately, I have connected the apparently unconnected incidents of the riots and deaths over the alleged offense of the Mohamed cartoons, the David Irving imprisonment over Holocaust denial, and the suspension of Mayor Ken Livingstone in London over an offensive insult. In today’s Guardian, Timothy Garton Ash writes an eloquent column that also ties together these threats to chill speech under what he calls the “creeping tyranny of the group veto.” And he adds one more case, a story that has been getting much attention here in the U.K.: The bravery of a teenager to stand up against animal-rights fanatics and to stand for research and science, which has led to counterdemonstrations in favor of reason. Ash writes after watching this counterprotest in favor of an animal-research lab at Oxford:
…I was proud of the demonstrators who were reminding my university what, at best, it is still about: the pursuit of truth and the defence of reason. Protests against student loans or higher rents – these we expect. But here were students turning out on a chilly Saturday morning to stand up for science.At stake was much more than the particular issue of using scientific tests on animals in order to save human lives. For a few minutes, Mansfield Road, Oxford, was at the front line of a new struggle for freedom that is being fought in many different places and guises. These days, the main threats to freedom of thought, freedom of speech and freedom of association no longer come from the totalitarian ideological superstate that inspired George Orwell to write his 1984…. That totalitarian horror still exists in places like Burma, but the distinctive feature of this new danger is the creeping tyranny of the group veto.
Here the animal rights campaign has something in common with the extremist reaction to the cartoons of the prophet Muhammad, as seen in the attacks on Danish embassies. In both cases, a particular group says: “We feel so strongly about this that we are going to do everything we can to stop it. We recognise no moral limits. The end justifies the means. Continue on this path and you must fear for your life.” …
If the intimidators succeed, then the lesson for any group that strongly believes in anything is: shout more loudly, be more extreme, threaten violence, and you will get your way. Frightened firms, newspapers or universities will cave in, as will softbellied democratic states, where politicians scrabble to keep the votes of diverse constituencies. But in our increasingly mixed-up, multicultural world, there are so many groups that care so strongly about so many different things, from fruitarians to anti-abortionists and from Jehovah’s Witnesses to Kurdish nationalists. Aggregate all their taboos and you have a vast herd of sacred cows. Let the frightened nanny state enshrine all those taboos in new laws or bureaucratic prohibitions, and you have a drastic loss of freedom.
Ash argues that direct incitement to kill or commit violence deserves prosecution; saying something offensive does not. For someone to say ‘kill the Jews’, or ‘kill the Muslims’, or ‘kill the Americans’, or ‘kill the animal experimenters’, and points to particular groups of Jews, Muslims, Americans or animal experimenters — is one matter. Saying something that offends these groups and, they think, justifies their violence is not incitement.
So, Ash concludes:
That’s why, of all the recent high-profile cases where free speech has been at issue, that of the London-based hatepreacher Abu Hamza is the only one where I feel a criminal conviction was justified. Not because he was a Muslim rather than a Christian, a Jew or a secular European. No. Because he was guilty of incitement to murder. This is the line on which we must take our stand. Facing down intimidation, backed by the threat of violence, is the key to resisting the creeping tyranny of the group veto. Here there can be no compromise.
What a dubious article.
Most of the Muslim cartoon protesters weren’t calling for anyone to be killed. The people who were killed during the protests were protesters themselves, shot dead by the police or soldiers.
Most opponents of animal experimentation don’t call for killing scientists.
The protest group which really does kill people is abortion protesters who kill abortion doctors. Of course most abortion protesters don’t support that either, but somehow the author left them out.
The point is valid; the example is, however, unfortunate and plain bad.
The “right” to harm and kill creatures “in the name of science” is not “speech.”
The tactics of the terroristic “animal liberation” groups may be almost (but not quite – they rarely place humans in danger) as abhorrent as the more fanatical “cartoon” protestors, but that’s the only part of the equation that comes close to balancing.
We all get it wrong sometimes. Sorry.
Dear Jeff,
Since your blog was mentioned on Marketwatch.com I read it almost every day. I am disappointed though to see you drift towards intolerance.
According to your logic, individuals or groups that have a different opinion to the one you have, have no right to publicly express it and are immediately called “fanatics”. As I previously stated, your vision of equality is Orwelian with your opinion being more equal than the rest.
Why shouldn’t right-wing Christian groups in the US put pressure on Ford to withdraw advertizing from gay publications? It’s their right, as long as they use means that are legal!! Why shouldn’t I boycott Danish products? It’s my damn right as it was the Danish newspaper’s right to express their anti-Muslim opinion.
If you go to http://www.arlafoods.com you’ll see that according to Arla Foods, each Swedish milk producer will see his income drop by around 5,000 euros in 2006 and this is the best case scenario. Whose fault is it? The Arab cosumer’s that deliberately avoids buying Arla milk or the newspaper’s that published the cartoons? Why don’t you then criticize the tyranny of the newspaper that caused small Danish and Swedish dairy producers a severe economic blow?
My view is that in the 21st century we have to accept that there is no mainstream any longer. All opinions and attitudes are acceptable as long as they are well within the legal framework.
As for the mob attacks on Danish embassies, these have nothing to do with the lawful expression of one’s opinion. They were orchestrated by Arab governments that wanted to distrct attention from their growing problems and found an easy outlet.
You guys aren’t getting the point. It’s one thing to express one’s opposition and disapproval with a boycott. It’s quite another to rage outside a research scientist’s home and issue death threats against his family. Or torch laboratories or newspaper offices. Or disrupt peaceful assemblies at university campuses with shrieking, apoplectic, spittle-flecked protestors that don’t simply protest but outright scare those in attendance, and thus discourage future gatherings.
But apart from that — it’s laudable of Pablo to say tolerate all opinions so long as they act within the legal framework, but with that we also need to start believing again in the principles of the Enlightenment on which Western democracies are based. Total relativism will reduce us to mush and then the nasty guys, who want to (pick one or more):
- crush gays under walls
- enslave women
- abolish pornography and art
- destroy scientific inquiry and elevate animals to an equal plane with humans
- revert to an agrarian, subsistence economy while hugging the Mother Goddess Earth
… well, they will get their way. Because we will have done nothing.
Sorry, but I believe in liberty.
Well said Dan!
I agree the example is perhaps not stellar, but it, and this discussion, highlight the rarely considered interconnectedness of interests (milk producers suffer due to the reaction to the acts of a newspaper).
Once again, both Dan and PW express intolerance and confusion between the right to express your opinion and impose it.
If somebody wants to elevate animals to an equal plane with humans that’s their damned right. That doesn’t mean that ALL of us should accept their belief and implement it!!!! That’s completely different. If 1% of a country’s citizens believe dogs are sacred and want to build a temple they have the right to do it but nobody has right at all to impose this belief upon the rest of society!!! That’s absurd. All Western democracies function under the principle of majority.
In addition, if someone breaks the law trying to “protect” his beliefs then he should be punished. This is also one of the fundamental principles of modern states. Anyone that breaks ANY law is brought to justice. I believe Ash’s article just repeats trivialities and is a clear example of intolerance in disguise.
Pablo, read the post — he makes that distinction. It’s the violence, the chilling effect of group intimidation imbued with the threat of PHYSICAL retribution, that is the crux of this issue. Thugs are getting away with this, and our civil liberties are suffering.
Eric Jaffa–most of the protesters WERE calling for death to anyone who criticized mohammad–their posters were proof of that.
And what about all the innocents killed In Nigeria over a cartoon of some dumb bearded fanatic that gave the rampaging herds a reason to torch dozens of churches? You see what you want to see-selective blindness.
Should you have a voyeuristic penchant for hearing to right-wing nut bags speaking in public places, listen to this Utah State Senator in a recent floor debate on gay-straight alliances in high schools.
Eric Jaffa –
By selecting those bits of the story that support an already-hardened opinon, it’s easy to sound reasonable.
“Most of the Muslim cartoon protesters weren’t calling for anyone to be killed.”
As though the recorded statements of a majority of mob members are all that we may comment upon?
When you walk out and join up with an outraged street mob full of self-righteous religious fervor, you’ve already made a statement, and that statement is that violence is going to happen and you are part of it.
When the mob surges upon an embassy and sets it afire, chanting anti-Western slogans, you have just said with your feet what others in front of the CNN camera said with their mouth.
“The protest group which really does kill people is abortion protesters who kill abortion doctors. Of course most abortion protesters don’t support that either, but somehow the author left them out.”
Somehow *you* left out that someone/thing else dies in an abortion. I am a reluctant full supporter of abortion, but even I know that what gets killed in the womb is human. How many abortion doctors have been killed? Four?
You seemed to zip right past what happened in Nigeria, too.
Look, we all have different points of view, and that’s cool. But drive-by commenting using presifted “evidence” – as always, delivered with a whiff of condescension – says one thing loud and clear. You are a True Believer. I read a long article on Scientology in Rolling Stone last week, and after perusing your web site, could see no real difference between how you support and profess your religion, and they support and profess theirs.
Peace.
I’m with Dan, except that I think his list, which exaggerates what the Right wishes, is a product of total relativism masquerading as Enlightenment.
I think the real debate is between those of us on the Left & Right who are agreed that speech can be a form of violence in itself, or really bloody close to violence, and those that think speech is almost always harmless. The latter I think naive, but consistent: they can point to laws that clearly show when speech doesn’t involve physical harm, and when it does. The clarity and simplicity of the position is a strength not to be ignored.
The former, of whom I am one, need to start thinking seriously about the question of how ought we to speak in a democracy, and celebrating freedom by using it wisely. The irony of free speech is that he who is virtuous – the best man in any given society – doesn’t need to use rights. He can act perfectly well without rights. In order to preserve our rights, then, we might need to be better than them. The morality we observe may have to be stricter than what is legal.
btw, I am an elitist, and I should admit now I have no defense for my lack of trust in people, and I am mooching off the very rights that I attack most times. I don’t care that I’m a hypocrite, or that my opinions are flawed. I’m willing to wager my opinions are better than 99% of the “truth” that’s out there.
This debate is very interesting but there is still a question that really puzzles me: What were the TRUE motives of the Danish editor that published the cartoons? What was he thinking when he decided to give the green light?
I can only come up with two plausible answers:
1. He is just an extremist, racist, Arab-hater that expressed his opinion. Scandinavian people, unlike what most people think, are racist, especially Danes and Norwegians. Until a few years ago, Italians, Greeks and Spaniards faced discrimination in those countries, except Finalnd.
2. He is a ruthless, opportunistic person that deliberately chose a controvertial subject, hoping to become famous, appear on television talk-shows, strike a lucrative book deal and why not some Holywood movie.
I honestly cannot think of any other motive. I cannot believe that out of the thousands of subjects that he could have used to test the limits of freedom of expression he chose that one!!!
That might be a little bit off subject in this particular article but after all he is the reason all this debate started
Gee, Pablo, could you tell me the motive for the Jesus in piss art, or Mary in Camel dung? Would you say they were racist bastards who allowed that?
Dan, I don’t think the point was missed by anyone.
The example undermines the point, and that’s what makes it a bad piece.
“I honestly cannot think of any other motive.”
Whereby Pablo comes rather close to proclaiming himself a troll, as he fails to even acknowledge statements by the editors of the Jyllands-Posten:
or
(These found after about 5 minutes of search.)
What were the TRUE motives of the Danish editor that published the cartoons?
Pablo
You aren’t getting it.
You’ve trotted that pathetic question out before. And again, who cares. It’s not the issue.
What motivates Louis Farrahkan to spew his hate speech? Who cares. He isn’t being gunned down by angry white mobs. He spews his racist crap and the 1st Amendment protects him. Civilized people understand that and can counter him in print without violence.
The protest group which really does kill people is abortion protesters who kill abortion doctors
Erica, how much of an idiot can you be for trying to create a symmetry to the one, two, maybe three dead abortion doctors at the hands of lone individuals and the systematic abuse/murder of women in Muslim cultures? Perhaps Darfur has escaped your attention. The body count over the last 30 years by the terrorists is their form of protest. They are a protest group – a murder and mayham one.
Oh, and do you think that the staff at the torched Danish embassies got a thoughtful evacuation call beforehand by the mob?
I know, I know, Erica, but the dead abortion doctors……..
Give me a break.
Old Grouch – I disagree with Pablo, but he’s most certainly not a troll. The idea the cartoons may have been a hype is somewhat validated by the quotes you pull: In order to defend freedom of speech, we call for cartoons that we know are going to be insulting? We want to “test” freedom of expression? What does that mean?
I’m not saying this is the case, and your quotes could very well be reflective of the integrity of the Danish paper and the Truth. But your “evidence” doesn’t refute Pablo.
Penny, I think, is a troll. She puts people down openly. I could care less if she made the greatest argument in the world: to call people idiots online when there is no overt provocation is just a grasp for attention.
Penny, I think, is a troll. She puts people down openly. I could care less if she made the greatest argument in the world: to call people idiots online when there is no overt provocation is just a grasp for attention.
Penny pre-dates you and most of the posters currently on this board. Ask Kate.
When you post idiotic remarks, you are an idiot.
I am an elitist, and I should admit now I have no defense for my lack of trust in people, and I am mooching off the very rights that I attack most times
And, your “elitist moocher” comment is idiotic.
“I disagree with Pablo, but he’s most certainly not a troll.”
Well, I did say “close to…”
I can accept the argument that there might have been some hype involved. (Why do newspapers do things? At least partly to sell newspapers.) But if I start with Pablo’s “only… two plausible answers” (racism, ruthless opportunism) and then add the readily findable statements by Rose and Juste, I now have three plausible answers, unless Pablo is implying that both editors are liars.
“In order to defend freedom of speech, we call for cartoons that we know are going to be insulting? We want to “test†freedom of expression? What does that mean?
Well, IMO you can’t “test” freedom of expression by printing something innocuous. (If everybody approves, it ain’t much of a test, is it?) And as Juste said, the test was “…whether the threat of Islamic terrorism had limited the freedom of expression in Denmark.”
I think their test has succeeded in revealing that the threat of Islamic terrorism is limiting freedom of expression in a lot of other places besides Denmark. Like New York, Washington, Los Angeles, Chicago…
Old Grouch – thanks for your thoughts. I do appreciate them, although I have my reservations.
[...] An interesting entry in Buzz Machine on a concept called the “group veto,” and how it is slowly being resisted. An example is how a university student finally dared go against animal-rights activists and protested in defense of science. Read the entry and the links. [...]
[...] – BUZZMACHINE: Defending speech against the chill … (buzzmachine.com) [...]