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Is Freedom Absolute, Debates in Arab World
Posted on: Friday, August 06, 2004
Shalom aleichem!
You may know that as of lately, particularly post-9/11, there has been a rather heated up debate going on in parts of the Arab world. The protagonists of change who mostly utilize the Internet are the Arab version of the Anti-Defamation League or those opposing creationist "science" in the US. Of course, they are weak both numerically and in terms of strength but nevertheless they have attracted fierce opprobrium from the fundamentalist, nationalistic and authoritarian circles. (For an example of the level and content of these debates, see the latest MEMRI piece: it features a rant by Dr. Faysal Al-Qassem (conservative) and the response by Dr. Shaker Al-Nabulsi (liberal).)
I won't attempt to scrutinize Al-Qassem's call-it argument but one thing I will comment on because it is relevant to us in Israel and the so-called "western" world. He said: "How is it that the neo-liberal Arabs call for tolerance while taking the lead in accusing [others] of heresy? Doesn't liberalism advocate acceptance of others and interaction with all factions?" So, he is putting to us that a liberal professes to be tolerant, therefore they have to be tolerant of ALL, ie. something along the lines of Voltaire's famous "Je hais vos idees mais je me ferai tuer pour que vous ayez le droit de les exprimer." In the same vein I got a multitude of comments from diverse Jew-haters a couple of years ago when I was campaigning for the Italian government to rescind permission for a Shoah-denial "conference" to take place. My word, the torrent of accusations: I'm against freedom of speech, I'm against freedom of association, I'm against freedom of expression. Name a freedom, I was against it.
Was I? No. But I recognize and accept that any freedom is absolute so long as exercising it is not transcended by its negative impingement on another individual, part or whole of society. Freedom of speech is already rightly curtailed: there are provisions against hate-speech, incitement, libel and slander, criminal provocation, etc. Why are you not allowed to say n*gger? Because the upset your saying so is likely to cause to an "officious bystander" is of more precedence in a civilized and progressive society than your right to say it. It not just actions likely to offend or defame but also actions aimed at altering the character and fabric of the society, be it demographically, intellectually or integrationally. And so if your speech has the potential effect of altering people's understanding of historical facts with a view to getting them to change their views about the subject(s) of those facts, the likely result is more perilous to the society than abridging your right to propagate such speech. Concretely, seeking to convince people that haShoah never took place is designed to change the wider public's perception of Jews for the worse (not just portray us as liars and profiteers but feed that into the various wacko theories about the Institute's involvement in 9/11 or our absolute domination of banks, this military, that government, the Earth's orbit around the Sun and whatnot). Given the humankind's experience of what happens when goyim's view of Jews is negatively changed, banning attempts to convince people that haShoah did not occur is preferable to risking even just a lot of hurt and upset, never mind another Kristallnacht.
You may retort: shouldn't people be allowed to make up their own minds? In an ideal world, yes. But we all know this is not it. In a perfect world, the vast majority of people would invest the time to undertake a thorough study of both or all points of view regarding an issue. They would studiously and impartially examine the evidence for, against and otherwise and be intelligent and critical enough to make up their own minds. And even once they did make up their own minds, they should be advanced enough not to act rashly, with bile, intolerance or belligerence. But as we all know, that simply does not happen. We saw what such propaganda can occasion; and I'm not even talking about the Nazi Germany. Think of Rwanda and the Tutsi "cockroaches" or Yugoslavia with Milosevic's "all Serbs in one state" or Tudman's "red devils" or indeed al-Queda and all the "infidels". This may sound patronizing but people do not have the time, desire, sense of urgency, responsibility or even intelligence to do this for every contentious issue. (That is why pure democracy could never work in practice but more on that some other time.)
So, in response to Al-Qassem's postulate, being a liberal does not entail accepting, let alone fraternizing, with elements which are deliberately pernicious vis-a-vis an individual or (part of) society, never mind those who actively seek to change the very character of that society into what is generally perceived as a retrograde direction.
Posted on: Friday, August 06, 2004
ב''ה
Shalom aleichem!
You may know that as of lately, particularly post-9/11, there has been a rather heated up debate going on in parts of the Arab world. The protagonists of change who mostly utilize the Internet are the Arab version of the Anti-Defamation League or those opposing creationist "science" in the US. Of course, they are weak both numerically and in terms of strength but nevertheless they have attracted fierce opprobrium from the fundamentalist, nationalistic and authoritarian circles. (For an example of the level and content of these debates, see the latest MEMRI piece: it features a rant by Dr. Faysal Al-Qassem (conservative) and the response by Dr. Shaker Al-Nabulsi (liberal).)
I won't attempt to scrutinize Al-Qassem's call-it argument but one thing I will comment on because it is relevant to us in Israel and the so-called "western" world. He said: "How is it that the neo-liberal Arabs call for tolerance while taking the lead in accusing [others] of heresy? Doesn't liberalism advocate acceptance of others and interaction with all factions?" So, he is putting to us that a liberal professes to be tolerant, therefore they have to be tolerant of ALL, ie. something along the lines of Voltaire's famous "Je hais vos idees mais je me ferai tuer pour que vous ayez le droit de les exprimer." In the same vein I got a multitude of comments from diverse Jew-haters a couple of years ago when I was campaigning for the Italian government to rescind permission for a Shoah-denial "conference" to take place. My word, the torrent of accusations: I'm against freedom of speech, I'm against freedom of association, I'm against freedom of expression. Name a freedom, I was against it.
Was I? No. But I recognize and accept that any freedom is absolute so long as exercising it is not transcended by its negative impingement on another individual, part or whole of society. Freedom of speech is already rightly curtailed: there are provisions against hate-speech, incitement, libel and slander, criminal provocation, etc. Why are you not allowed to say n*gger? Because the upset your saying so is likely to cause to an "officious bystander" is of more precedence in a civilized and progressive society than your right to say it. It not just actions likely to offend or defame but also actions aimed at altering the character and fabric of the society, be it demographically, intellectually or integrationally. And so if your speech has the potential effect of altering people's understanding of historical facts with a view to getting them to change their views about the subject(s) of those facts, the likely result is more perilous to the society than abridging your right to propagate such speech. Concretely, seeking to convince people that haShoah never took place is designed to change the wider public's perception of Jews for the worse (not just portray us as liars and profiteers but feed that into the various wacko theories about the Institute's involvement in 9/11 or our absolute domination of banks, this military, that government, the Earth's orbit around the Sun and whatnot). Given the humankind's experience of what happens when goyim's view of Jews is negatively changed, banning attempts to convince people that haShoah did not occur is preferable to risking even just a lot of hurt and upset, never mind another Kristallnacht.
You may retort: shouldn't people be allowed to make up their own minds? In an ideal world, yes. But we all know this is not it. In a perfect world, the vast majority of people would invest the time to undertake a thorough study of both or all points of view regarding an issue. They would studiously and impartially examine the evidence for, against and otherwise and be intelligent and critical enough to make up their own minds. And even once they did make up their own minds, they should be advanced enough not to act rashly, with bile, intolerance or belligerence. But as we all know, that simply does not happen. We saw what such propaganda can occasion; and I'm not even talking about the Nazi Germany. Think of Rwanda and the Tutsi "cockroaches" or Yugoslavia with Milosevic's "all Serbs in one state" or Tudman's "red devils" or indeed al-Queda and all the "infidels". This may sound patronizing but people do not have the time, desire, sense of urgency, responsibility or even intelligence to do this for every contentious issue. (That is why pure democracy could never work in practice but more on that some other time.)
So, in response to Al-Qassem's postulate, being a liberal does not entail accepting, let alone fraternizing, with elements which are deliberately pernicious vis-a-vis an individual or (part of) society, never mind those who actively seek to change the very character of that society into what is generally perceived as a retrograde direction.
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