Adios freedom of speech
Well at least someone is paying attention.
Pakistan and the other nations that have banded together in the Organization of the Islamic Conference have been leading a remarkably successful campaign through the United Nations to enshrine in international law prohibitions against “defamation of religions,” particularly Islam. Their aim is to empower governments around the world to punish anyone who commits the “heinous act” of defaming Islam. Critics say it is an attempt to globalize laws against blasphemy that exist in some Muslim countries — and that the movement has already succeeded in suppressing open discussion in international forums of issues such as female genital mutilation, honour killings and gay rights.
Quite. David Littman is one of those critics. He tells me that no one is talking about this, because it’s taboo. I knew hardly anyone was talking about it, from trying to find people talking about it. People should be talking about this, if they want to go on talking about other things without having to ask the OIC for permission. People should be talking about this and shouting their heads off about it so that nothing will come of it.
The trend has rights advocates worried for numerous reasons, beginning with the language used. If the notion of “defaming” a religion sounds a little unfamiliar, that’s because it is a major departure from the traditional understanding of what defamation means. Defamation laws traditionally protect individual people from being materially harmed by the dissemination of falsehoods. But “defamation of religions” is not about protecting individual believers from damage to their reputations caused by false statements — but rather about protecting a religion, or some interpretation of it, or the feelings of the followers. While a traditional defence in a defamation lawsuit is that the accused was merely telling the truth, religions by definition present competing claims on the truth, and one person’s religious truth is easily another’s apostasy. “Truth” is no defence in such cases. The subjective perception of insult is what matters, and what puts the whole approach on a collision course with the human rights regime — especially in countries with an official state religion.
If the right to free speech can be trumped by a subjective perception of insult, then there is no right to free speech. That’s it. All over. (Just ask Taslima Nasreen, to name only one.)
Susan Bunn Livingstone, a former U.S. State Department official who specialized in human rights issues and also spoke to the July 18 congressional gathering, said the developments at the UN are worrisome. “They are trying to internationalize the concept of blasphemy,” said Livingstone at the panel. She contrasted “the concept of injuring feelings versus what is actually happening on the ground — torture, imprisonment, abuse.” And, she added, “They are using this discourse of ‘defamation’ to carve out any attention we would bring to a country. Abstractions like states and ideologies and religions are seen as more important than individuals. This is a moral failure.”
A moral failure and also a gutting of the whole concept of human rights. Rights are for individuals, who can experience and suffer and feel and think; they’re not for states and ideologies and religions, which cannot suffer or feel anything at all. The whole idea is an absolute nightmare.
The fact that the resolutions keep passing, and that UN officials now monitor countries’ compliance, could help the concept of “defamation of religions” become an international legal norm, said Livingstone, noting that when the International Court of Justice at The Hague decides what rises to the level of an “international customary law,” it looks not to unanimity among countries but to “general adherence.” “That’s why these UN resolutions are so troubling,” she said. “They’ve been passed for 10 years.”
Well – that scares the hell out of me.
In March, the [OIC] held a summit in Dakar, Senegal. Their final communiqué ran 52 pages and included a comprehensive strategy on human rights that featured a plan to shield Islamic states from being pressured to change their more contentious practices through international human rights laws and organizations. The conference expressed “deep concern over attempts to exploit the issue of human rights to discredit the principles and provisions of Islamic sharia and to interfere in the affairs of Muslim states.” It also called for “abstaining from using the universality of human rights as a pretext to interfere in the internal affairs of states and undermining their national sovereignty.” The states also resolved to coordinate and co-operate “in the field of human rights particularly in the relevant international fora to face any attempt to use human rights as a means of political pressure on any member state.”
Oh did it. How impressive.
We either talk about this or we stop talking. Scares the hell out of me too. This jihad ain’t so soft!
Awful, awful, awful. Islamic Human Rights, as OB has pointed out so often, is simply a contradiction-in-terms (so with any prefix; Christian Human Rights, Atheist Human Rights, Gay Human Rights… the universality is the whole point).
The notion of protecting any system of ideas – and what is religion but just such a system like any other, whether political, artistic, cultural, philosophical..? – from criticism is one of the absolute worst ones for a fair, equal, secular modern society. There are huge problems with the law in many Muslim countries and they stem – not indirectly, not merely through human interpretation – from Islam, and it is a fact that should be re-iterated by other countries as often as possible, because it is at the root of so much misery, suffering and injustice.
But what can be done? Leaving comments and signing petitions is satisfying perhaps but doesn’t really affect goings-on at the UN, but we can’t all abandon our jobs and lives in order to go and protest at the UN or outside embassies. Any suggestions?
I think the best way to fight this kind of thing is to break the taboo against offending religious people as often and as publicly as possible.
Well, publicity at least, publicity for a start, publicity as a minimum. One aspect of this that is truly horrifying is how little attention it’s getting. I want to do my best to help change that, as a first step.
I think if this is prevented from flying under the radar it will have much less chance of continuing to pass the resolution year in year out.
While a traditional defence in a defamation lawsuit is that the accused was merely telling the truth, religions by definition present competing claims on the truth, and one person’s religious truth is easily another’s apostasy. “Truth” is no defence in such cases. The subjective perception of insult is what matters, and what puts the whole approach on a collision course with the human rights regime — especially in countries with an official state religion.
This is especially insidious, since Muslim leaders frequently deny plainly undeniable truths about their own religious beliefs, actions, and holy texts. It is irrefutably true that Islam oppresses women, denying them equal rights and insisting that they have a entirely and eternally subordinate position in society. It’s right there in the Quran and the Hadiths, in black and white. And it’s right there enshrined in both the formal laws and informal cultural customs of predominantly Muslim countries. These are truths, and it matters that they are true. There is no more fundamental form of totalitarian oppression than to make truth-speaking a crime – and to call it “defamation” yet, which implies that these truths are lies when they clearly are not.
*sigh*
Someone’s been reading 1984 as an instruction manual rather than a cautionary tale again.
Can somebody give me a practical example of how this would apply in the UK, given that we’ve just abolished our own blasphemy laws? Is the God Delusion suddenly going to disappear off the shelves and Dawkins prosecuted?
Makes me think that “Islamophobe” shouldn’t be a cheap, insulting political ploy, but a label one should be proud to wear – like “skeptic” or “critical thinker” or “paying some fucking attention to the world around you.” If you aren’t at least a little afraid of a large portion of what’s being said and done these days in the name of Islam – or Christianity, or Judaism, or Hinduism, or whativer-religion-ism – you either aren’t very bright or are remarkably lacking in a sense of self-preservation.
But…then what’s the point of having a concept of human rights? If it’s just something that people can go along with, or not, as they so choose, why even bother? There’s a reason we use the term “rights” to describe them, as opposed to, say, “privileges that you may or may not be fortunate enough to attain, based on the geography of your birth.” I’m so confused…
“Muslim leaders frequently deny plainly undeniable truths about their own religious beliefs, actions, and holy texts.”
Quite. That little fact is going to play a large role in this book. (This book is in danger of bursting into flames at the moment…People keep trotting up with more fuel…)
“what’s the point of having a concept of human rights?”
Well to a lot of people there is no point; on the contrary, the whole idea is a form of blasphemy. God tells us what rights we can have, not some interfering secular international body.
You’ve got to admire their cheek. On the one hand they promulgate an “Islamic ” code of human rights and on the other they wil not allow us to talk about how that plays out in practice.
I think we lose sight of the fact that Islam permits lying to the Infidel at our peril. And there’s certainly ample evidence of just how well simple denial works in the political arena.
This sort of thing makes me blind with rage. Has the UN completely lost sight of its mandate and rendered itself moribund?
Well, of course not, because they already have model societies – don’t you know: the best societies? – where these Islamic rights are alreayd exemplified in practice.
Sorry, Brian, must have had the comments window open while I was doing my walk. Missed yours. Mine was in response to Paul. The Western ‘powers’ seem incapable of action. The UN is not moribund; its very actively tending in a dangerous direction. Time for the West to get off its backside and put the record straight.