February 09, 2006
"Honestly, I do not understand why any newspaper will publish the cartoons today," Annan said. "It is insensitive. It is offensive. It is provocative and you see what has happened around the world."Annan said this did not mean he opposed freedom of the press, but he said it did entail "exercising responsibility and judgment" and media should not "pour oil on the fire".
He again condemned violence as unacceptable and said: "They should not attack innocent civilians. They should not attack those who are not responsible for the publication of the cartoons."
Let's unpack some of that, doing a little reading between the lines.
"Honestly, I do not understand why any newspaper will publish the cartoons today," Annan said. "It is insensitive. It is offensive. It is provocative and you see what has happened around the world."
"I don't understand why Westerners are so hung up on freedom of speech and freedom of the press. Don't they understand that feelings trump rights?" Besides, most of the people of the world live in dictatorships that routinely deny such rights -- why should Westerners get to exercise them freely?
Annan said this did not mean he opposed freedom of the press, but he said it did entail "exercising responsibility and judgment" and media should not "pour oil on the fire".
"I'm merely opposed to meaningful exercise of the right to freedom of the press. It should all be happy news that offends no one but the Americans and the Israelis."
He again condemned violence as unacceptable and said: "They should not attack innocent civilians. They should not attack those who are not responsible for the publication of the cartoons."
"On the other hand, I don't have a problem with attacking and killing those guilty kaffirs who dare to express sentiments I disagree with. Like the signs in London said, those who blaspheme the Prophet should be killed."
Of course, there is the little issue of the Secretary General's endorsement of a "human rights" document that would effectively place religious "tolerance" on a higher plane than freedom of speech and press.
The text proposed by 57 Islamic countries, obtained by Reuters, would promote universal respect for all religious and cultural values.It would "prevent instances of intolerance, discrimination, incitement of hatred and violence arising from any actions against religions, prophets and beliefs which threaten the enjoyment of human rights and fundamental freedoms."
It also notes that "defamation of religions and prophets is inconsistent with the right to freedom of expression" and emphasized that states, organizations and the media have a "responsibility in promoting tolerance and respect for religious and cultural values."
In other words, the provisions of this document would override the guarantees of freedom of speech and the press contained in, among other documents, the Bill of Rights. Muslims would then be able to place any speech critical of Islam into an international forum such as the International Criminal Court, stripping from Americans even teh most basic of protections of civil liberties. In giving hurt feelings primacy over human rights, the UN wuld effectivly be trashing the Universal Declaration on Human Rights, one of the organization's founding documents, and replacing it with a Universal Denial of Human Rights.
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Posted by: Sam at Thu Feb 9 17:34:46 2006 (O38Ro)
Do you really want freedom of speech and freedom of the press constrained by the dictates of religious groups? Jewish groups will try to shut down speech that offends against their religious belief that they were given Israel by God (though the anti-Semites of the Arab world and of Europe will never support that use of this provision). Muslims will shut down any criticism of the barbaric excesses of sharia law. I could go on, but you get the point -- any speech that constitutes such "intolerance" will be subject to ban.
Now I will partly agree with you that the original printing of these cartoons was a stunt by the paper. Subsequent reproductions by others were not -- they were intended to emphasize the right to publish freely. I have nown about the pictures since they were published -- and i did not put them on my site out of consideration to Muslim religious sensibilities. Had i ben ased by the editors, I might well have suggested that the cartoons did not merit publication because of quality and offensiveness.
But when the threats and the violence started, I decided I had to post them to make a stand against force and the threat of force being used to silence the point of view they express. If I had had a website in 1989, I would have posted whole chapters out of The Satanic Verses for the same reason, despite the fact that I would probably have advised Rushdie to tone down the offensive material prior to publication.
What I am saying is that questions of taste apply only before the violence and the threats come -- once they come, the only acceptable position is a defense that gives offense to the censors. And if that causes would-be censors to die in pursuit of their evil goal, I think that is a fine thing, and I celebrate each and every one of those deaths as a victory for liberty.
By the way, what have I said that is like saying "nigger"?
Posted by: Rhymes With Right at Thu Feb 9 18:07:02 2006 (rrvmz)
Restricting free speech because its offensive is wrong, but publishing it just because it's offensive is wrong as well. The magazines, newspapers, and blogs who have published the cartoons recently might be taking a stand for free speech, but ask the people in the European Union office that was raided by gunmen in Gaza what they think about that stand. In exacerbating the problem and continuing to publish these cartoons, these establishments are putting at risk countless lives other than their own. People's lives are being lost because certain media entities think they are defending free speech, but look at the speech they are defending! These groups don't make this same moral gesture when American rockets are shot at Al-Jazeera headquarters, because I guess reporting on an ongoing war is on a slightly lower level than cartoons that offend in the extreme an entire religion and region of the world. This is a region that the West has not had the best relations with in the past. These cartoons come at a terrible time, and, if we're trying to show these people how great our version of democracy and freedom is, can we find some other way to do it than offending one of their most sacred laws?
Also, for some reason, your website considers the BBC to be "questionable content." So, I tried to post a link to the BBC's article about the American missle shot at Al-Jazeera in Baghdad, the journalists' whose hotel was shot at, and the other reporters who have mysteriously come under fire in Iraq, but I guess your blog, in its continuing quest for freedom of speech, doesn't thinks some speech is freeer than others. That said, the article is called "Foreign Media Suffer Baghdad Losses," and if you go to the BBC's website and type that into their search engine, you will find the article.
Posted by: Sam at Fri Feb 10 10:56:42 2006 (O38Ro)
Can't embed but its good.
Use of Nigger and the Pope. BOW..This is my country, my land, my freedom. Get over it.
Posted by: GeMatt at Fri Feb 10 12:13:18 2006 (4hC8l)
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