Defend to the death your right to say it
Jan. 27th, 2010 09:51 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
livI was tangentially involved in a consultation between Staffordshire police and the local interfaith group regarding the police response to the EDL protest here at the weekend. Kudos to the police for even bothering to have such a consultation; admittedly the kind of people who attend interfaith groups set up for police-community liaison are not exactly representative of the general population of Muslims, but I definitely approve of a serious initiative to learn what affected communities want rather than imposing policing on them top-down. Plus, the police attitude was incredibly sensible: they knew that the EDL were looking for trouble, and were working hard to avoid being provoked into fights, but were prepared to intervene against any actual violent incidents.
They were operating from the standpoint that these people have a right to peaceful protest even about distasteful topics. (They very much don't have a right to vandalize mosques and other Muslim-owned property, much less to attack anyone.) But yeah, I can definitely support the philosophical position that free speech isn't much use if only warm fluffy liberal speech counts. I could only wish that the police were equally committed to peaceful protest rights when the protests in question are against corporate interests (cf environmental and anti-globalization demos) rather than vulnerable immigrant communities, but that's another thing. They did the right thing in Stoke on Saturday. Official numbers say 2500 protesters, apparently bussed in from all over the country and mostly not local, and to have a protest that size, by a group who are setting out to cause trouble, and end up with nothing worse than a handful of arrests for minor property damage and public order stuff, is a very positive outcome.
This isn't an abstract issue for me, by the way; I am absolutely terrified by a neo-fascist protest on that scale in my town. And not in the least reassured when they claim that they "only" hate Muslims and not "established" (ie white-skinned) immigrant groups. Neither am I reassured by the fact that it's "only" a few thousand extremists, which is a small proportion of the population of the UK. A few thousand people still outnumber me! Even so, I do think the police made the right decision in allowing the protest to go ahead and handling it with the lightest possible touch.
As the BBC article I linked alluded to, some Muslims are upset by the way that the establishment has suddenly decided to be all about free speech and tolerating diversity and so on when the out-group is a bunch of racist thugs. Why do we not hear these kind of righteous proclamations about free speech when the issue is for example a Muslim cleric preaching about the decadence of western society? Or a bunch of Muslim teenagers on a web forum somewhere debating whether democracy is the best form of government? The response to this sort of thing is very far from pious statements about how we might disagree, but people have the right to free speech even if we don't like their opinions! Instead there's a lot of hand-wringing and worse about how "Muslims" don't "support British values".
Trying to discuss this issue led to a sort of tragically hilarious argument about media representation of Muslims; one of the Muslim reps repeated the standard canard that phrases like "Muslim extremist" and "Islamic terrorist" are clichés, but you never hear about "Christian terrorist" attacks. The Christians in the group got very angry about this, claiming that people who commit violence are absolutely not in any sense Christian. When asked why we are not hearing this message from Christian pulpits, why there is no official condemnation of violence and hatred perpetrated in the name of Christianity, the Christians were offended again and said that it's totally unnecessary because nobody who attends any church would ever subscribe to racist and intolerant views... They were really not seeing any irony in this discussion.
But on a serious note, it does seem that a lot of media reporting about the EDL is buying into their rhetoric. They are reported as objecting to Muslim "extremism", or "radical" Islam, when in fact it is very clear that they are against all Muslims and everybody whose ancestors come from an area where Islam is the predominant religion, regardless of their own personal beliefs. It's taken as a given that EDL people are just thugs who don't represent the general population, even though there is a constant stream of islamophobia from supposedly respectable people. Any Muslim or Muslim-origin person anywhere who says something offensive, much less commits violence, is used to argue that "Islam" is a danger to civilization and that Muslims are fundamentally opposed to "our" values.
The other point I want to make is that free speech is not a catch-all excuse for hatred. Graffiti-ing offensive slogans on a mosque does involve saying something, but that doesn't make it an expression of free speech that must be protected at all costs. People have the right to express racist opinions, but they do not have the right to harass and torment people from minority ethnic backgrounds by constantly subjecting them to racist abuse. Inciting racist violence is not exercising your right to free speech, it's suppressing somebody else's right to free speech, not to mention their right to a peaceful existence free of fear and assault.
I'd question just how much effort is needed to protect the right of some hooligans to gather together and chant islamophobic slogans. They're often only a few shades cruder than the kind of thing that is absolutely mainstream in the tabloid press, and more highbrow media often just repeats the same stuff with longer words. If you really believe in free speech, you ought to be putting at least equal effort into protecting the right of Muslims to express their own religious beliefs, even if that includes criticizing British society. The worst thing that will happen to someone expressing racist views is that a small minority of people may disparage their opinions. That's not a free speech issue; a person may have the right to whatever racist rant they want, but I have just as much right to call them a vile racist scumbag. Freedom of speech doesn't mean freedom from criticism! In contrast, Muslims are in danger of being attacked or killed for expressing unpopular opinions, and that's a much more serious restriction of free speech.
auntysarah makes a very similar point about the "free speech" rights of transphobic fuckwit Julie Bindel. She has the right to express transphobic views; she absolutely does not have the right to impose those views on a venue where trans and other Queer people gather to feel safe and comfortable. She doesn't have the right to use her freedom of speech to encourage violence against trans people. There is no free speech requirement for all organizations everywhere to invite her to speak in order to provide "balance" between her hatred and more tolerant attitudes. She doesn't have the right to a complete exemption from criticism when she says hateful things; calling her a bigot doesn't obstruct her freedom of speech. She doesn't have the right to receive awards for her contribution to society when her negative actions so much outweigh her positive achievements. And if I refuse to buy newspapers which publish her hateful, transphobic journalism, I am not restricting her free speech; she has the right to say whatever she likes, but she does not have the right to my money to support her having a prominent, national platform for her views.
They were operating from the standpoint that these people have a right to peaceful protest even about distasteful topics. (They very much don't have a right to vandalize mosques and other Muslim-owned property, much less to attack anyone.) But yeah, I can definitely support the philosophical position that free speech isn't much use if only warm fluffy liberal speech counts. I could only wish that the police were equally committed to peaceful protest rights when the protests in question are against corporate interests (cf environmental and anti-globalization demos) rather than vulnerable immigrant communities, but that's another thing. They did the right thing in Stoke on Saturday. Official numbers say 2500 protesters, apparently bussed in from all over the country and mostly not local, and to have a protest that size, by a group who are setting out to cause trouble, and end up with nothing worse than a handful of arrests for minor property damage and public order stuff, is a very positive outcome.
This isn't an abstract issue for me, by the way; I am absolutely terrified by a neo-fascist protest on that scale in my town. And not in the least reassured when they claim that they "only" hate Muslims and not "established" (ie white-skinned) immigrant groups. Neither am I reassured by the fact that it's "only" a few thousand extremists, which is a small proportion of the population of the UK. A few thousand people still outnumber me! Even so, I do think the police made the right decision in allowing the protest to go ahead and handling it with the lightest possible touch.
As the BBC article I linked alluded to, some Muslims are upset by the way that the establishment has suddenly decided to be all about free speech and tolerating diversity and so on when the out-group is a bunch of racist thugs. Why do we not hear these kind of righteous proclamations about free speech when the issue is for example a Muslim cleric preaching about the decadence of western society? Or a bunch of Muslim teenagers on a web forum somewhere debating whether democracy is the best form of government? The response to this sort of thing is very far from pious statements about how we might disagree, but people have the right to free speech even if we don't like their opinions! Instead there's a lot of hand-wringing and worse about how "Muslims" don't "support British values".
Trying to discuss this issue led to a sort of tragically hilarious argument about media representation of Muslims; one of the Muslim reps repeated the standard canard that phrases like "Muslim extremist" and "Islamic terrorist" are clichés, but you never hear about "Christian terrorist" attacks. The Christians in the group got very angry about this, claiming that people who commit violence are absolutely not in any sense Christian. When asked why we are not hearing this message from Christian pulpits, why there is no official condemnation of violence and hatred perpetrated in the name of Christianity, the Christians were offended again and said that it's totally unnecessary because nobody who attends any church would ever subscribe to racist and intolerant views... They were really not seeing any irony in this discussion.
But on a serious note, it does seem that a lot of media reporting about the EDL is buying into their rhetoric. They are reported as objecting to Muslim "extremism", or "radical" Islam, when in fact it is very clear that they are against all Muslims and everybody whose ancestors come from an area where Islam is the predominant religion, regardless of their own personal beliefs. It's taken as a given that EDL people are just thugs who don't represent the general population, even though there is a constant stream of islamophobia from supposedly respectable people. Any Muslim or Muslim-origin person anywhere who says something offensive, much less commits violence, is used to argue that "Islam" is a danger to civilization and that Muslims are fundamentally opposed to "our" values.
The other point I want to make is that free speech is not a catch-all excuse for hatred. Graffiti-ing offensive slogans on a mosque does involve saying something, but that doesn't make it an expression of free speech that must be protected at all costs. People have the right to express racist opinions, but they do not have the right to harass and torment people from minority ethnic backgrounds by constantly subjecting them to racist abuse. Inciting racist violence is not exercising your right to free speech, it's suppressing somebody else's right to free speech, not to mention their right to a peaceful existence free of fear and assault.
I'd question just how much effort is needed to protect the right of some hooligans to gather together and chant islamophobic slogans. They're often only a few shades cruder than the kind of thing that is absolutely mainstream in the tabloid press, and more highbrow media often just repeats the same stuff with longer words. If you really believe in free speech, you ought to be putting at least equal effort into protecting the right of Muslims to express their own religious beliefs, even if that includes criticizing British society. The worst thing that will happen to someone expressing racist views is that a small minority of people may disparage their opinions. That's not a free speech issue; a person may have the right to whatever racist rant they want, but I have just as much right to call them a vile racist scumbag. Freedom of speech doesn't mean freedom from criticism! In contrast, Muslims are in danger of being attacked or killed for expressing unpopular opinions, and that's a much more serious restriction of free speech.
auntysarah makes a very similar point about the "free speech" rights of transphobic fuckwit Julie Bindel. She has the right to express transphobic views; she absolutely does not have the right to impose those views on a venue where trans and other Queer people gather to feel safe and comfortable. She doesn't have the right to use her freedom of speech to encourage violence against trans people. There is no free speech requirement for all organizations everywhere to invite her to speak in order to provide "balance" between her hatred and more tolerant attitudes. She doesn't have the right to a complete exemption from criticism when she says hateful things; calling her a bigot doesn't obstruct her freedom of speech. She doesn't have the right to receive awards for her contribution to society when her negative actions so much outweigh her positive achievements. And if I refuse to buy newspapers which publish her hateful, transphobic journalism, I am not restricting her free speech; she has the right to say whatever she likes, but she does not have the right to my money to support her having a prominent, national platform for her views.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-01-27 12:47 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-01-27 02:34 pm (UTC)But there is definitely a True Scotsman fallacy going on. I'm basically ok with Christian ministers claiming that anyone who commits mass violence isn't really Christian, as long as they allow the same reasoning to Muslims. What I did say was that if I'm faced with a crowd of thugs who are waving crosses in my face, they are Christian as far as I'm concerned, I don't care how often they attend church and whether they are sincere in their beliefs. That got the response that it's just a flag, and the thugs are expressing English nationalism and not Christianity. Again, this argument somehow doesn't apply when an Arab nationalist shouts "Allahu Akbar", the fact he mentions Allah makes him an example of what's wrong with Islam, not a crazy, violent individual.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-01-27 11:11 pm (UTC)Oy, good point.
This is depressing - she is. My country's laws do not support false facts, i.e. one could (and would, successfully) make a claim against hate speech that includes lies, but I don't know if her brand of transphobia falls into this or the more legally protected and actually more evil category...
(no subject)
Date: 2010-01-28 10:17 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-01-28 10:57 am (UTC)On a hunch, based on the fact that I don't believe I've ever seen her name mentioned in any LJ without some similar epithet appended, I did a quick google. You might be entertained to hear that she is not merely a transphobic fuckwit: she is in fact (as of me posting this) Google's #1 hit for "transphobic fuckwit".
(no subject)
Date: 2010-01-28 10:57 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-01-28 10:19 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-01-30 10:26 am (UTC)Free speech: I'm even uncomfortable with no-platform tactics. However, I don't think anyone has the right to any platform as a rule - it's not as if everyone in the country has "a platform" from which to express their views, and only undesirable groups lose their platform. Platforms are themselves a privilege.
I don't think I'd call the EDL "neo-fascist", because they lack that level of comprehensive political agenda, AFAICS. I'd just call them racist and Islamophobic. Confusion in the mainstream press about exactly what various different nationalist groups stand for only increase tension, IMHO, because they contribute to the (obviously self-interested) feeling by those groups that they are disenfranchised, ignored or demonised.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-01-30 11:36 pm (UTC)Good point about not misusing the term fascist to mean just nasty people I don't like. I am classifying EDL that way because I severely doubt their cover story that they are just a bunch of concerned citizens who spontaneously formed a protest group because they were so outraged at al-Muhajiroun yelling at soldiers. I am almost certain there are specifically fascist groups pulling their strings. But that doesn't make them directly a fascist group themselves, and my shorthand was problematic for just the reasons you say.
No-platform as a tactic is definitely a blunt instrument. It doesn't make sense for media outlets, I don't think, it's more applicable to groups that are supposed to be acting in their interests of their members. I think it was the NUS who started the whole No-platform thing, right? In that case, one could well argue that they had more of an obligation to protect their black and minority ethnic students from hatred, than to the abstract principle of free speech.
The trouble is that sometimes the opposite of No-platform sometimes means that organizations have to keep giving time and energy and space to speakers who oppose everything they stand for, because otherwise it's "censorship". That's sort of obviously ridiculous, but it's amazing how often people seem to argue that way, when the org is devoted to improving the position of marginalized people, and the opposing speaker wants to take the current status quo and unbalance it even more towards the powerful group.
My usual glib phrasing is that people have the right to say whatever they like, but they don't have the right to an audience. They don't have the right to the attention of people who are going to be hurt by what they say, and they don't have the right to my attention or my money or my support either.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-01-31 12:16 am (UTC)I think it's problematic to overuse the term "fascist" in all sorts of ways - I'm basically with George Orwell on the political (mis)use of terminology in "Politics & The English Language" (one of my fave essays ever).
Pertinently, I don't refer to the BNP as "fascist", because as far as I can make out, they do not appear (as far as one can make out) to be promoting a fascist political structure (centralised, hierarchical, corporatist). Insofar as it's possible to determine what they *really* want (and that assumes there is in fact a consistent long-term political goal or goals across party members, rather than simply providing a haven for racists), they appear to be promoting a sort of small-scale grass-roots protectionist socialism, with forays into a sort of nationalist anarchism. And there are much more peculiar variations around the fringes of nationalism - "radical traditionalist" are particularly curious, and are often much more in a sort of post-Benoist "Nouvelle Droite" model than any obviously fascist arrangement.
A lot of people find this approach overly detailed, and prefer the "smash the Nazis!!!1!" attitude. I find that completely counter-productive for numerous reasons, not least that one aspect of far-right paranoia is that they a) aren't allowed to speak freely and b) have their views consistently misrepresented in the grossest of ways, and overtly playing into that only confirms those fears, and aids recruiting among groups of people who often are genuinely disenfranchised in one way or another, or at any rate feel it.
The trouble is that sometimes the opposite of No-platform sometimes means that organizations have to keep giving time and energy and space to speakers who oppose everything they stand for, because otherwise it's "censorship". That's sort of obviously ridiculous, but it's amazing how often people seem to argue that way, when the org is devoted to improving the position of marginalized people, and the opposing speaker wants to take the current status quo and unbalance it even more towards the powerful group.
I think it depends entirely on what the organisation is, and what its aims, resources, etc, consist of. I think, for example, that calling for the BBC to ban Nick Griffin from speaking (and, indeed, throwing eggs at him) was not only misguided but morally wrong. (There's a whole separate series of interesting discussions about the BBC's manifesto commitments to "balance", and the ways in which they can in fact constitute propaganda in their own right - John Pilger wrote an excellent article about this in the '80s, have you read it? I think it's in "Heroes".) A tiny voluntary organisation? Not so much. I do still think it's a very good idea to allow those views to be aired in a setting where they can be challenged, though. We do have to believe in the superiority of our ideas, I think - I don't at all like arguments which imply that people are so hopelessly suggestible that they have to be protected from dangerous concepts.
I think it was the NUS who started the whole No-platform thing, right? In that case, one could well argue that they had more of an obligation to protect their black and minority ethnic students from hatred, than to the abstract principle of free speech.
*snort*
Once I see the fucking NUS give a shit about the actual concerns of their members, I might give a stuff. Grandstanding about the Nazis is easy; deciding you can't be arsed to represent the majority view of your members who oppose tuition fees because all the 3 main political parties like them, and you don't want to spoil your chances of turning your student role into a proper political career, is a bit more subtle.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-01-31 12:18 am (UTC)They *never* have the right to my attention. That has to be earned.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-02-02 08:20 am (UTC)I could introduce them to a few people. My mother's church is inviting a guest preacher who has publicly supported the death penalty for gay sex. Her diocese funds his diocese in Africa. His writings tend to be historically inaccurate diatribes about the immoral state of the decadent West. Imagine the headlines if it were a mosque rather than a little village church.