In Defence Of Liberalism, Offensive Speech Against Religions Can At Best Be Tolerated, Not Encouraged Or Valorised
By Pratap Bhanu Mehta
October 31,
2020
A
middle-school teacher in France, Samuel Paty, is beheaded for showing cartoons
of the Prophet as part of a class on free expression. Subsequently, three more
people are killed. The killings have drawn condemnation. But almost as if on
cue, this horrible incident is being scripted to bear the weight of every
historical grievance: Illiberal states like Malaysia, Turkey and Pakistan are,
in a cowardly way, positioning themselves as defenders of Islam. Every single argument
over the failures of French multiculturalism or its neo-colonial past is being
trotted out as an explanation. Islam is being put on trial. The French State is
being described as a provocation. All in the service of avoiding some plain
truths.
Political leaders,
associations and unions demonstrate on the Place de la Republique in central
Paris. (Photo Source: DW)
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No liberal
should equivocate on the right to freedom of expression. President Macron was
absolutely right to robustly defend free expression as a principle. Liberals
have been too squeamish about defending freedom of expression. There is a
mistaken belief in some circles that defending robust norms of freedom of
expression, especially in Europe, is to license colonial impunity or expressions
of cultural superiority. But every single time you compromise on freedom of
expression, you set back the struggle of millions of people, including Muslims,
struggling to free themselves from the yoke of oppressive blasphemy laws
everywhere across the world.
To put the
point bluntly, the use of caricatures or writings about Muhammad as a paradigm
case to limit free speech does incalculable harm to liberal freedom across the
world. It does more to cement stereotypes of Muslims than the vile propaganda of
Islamophobes. To take one example, the much misused Section 295 of the Indian
Penal Code had its origins in the controversy over Rangeela Rasool; and the
Satanic Verses affair irrevocably transformed free speech politics in India for
the worse.
Reform is
not going to be possible if you do not swallow the idea that occasionally
offensive speech will get through, including about the Prophet. There are
reasons for liberals to worry about colonialism and orientalist caricatures.
But these cannot be alibis to compromise on liberal freedoms. The idea that
Muslims need to be especially protected from offensive speech, paradoxically,
is itself an expression of a kind of anti-Muslim sentiment.
Liberals
often have a well-motivated desire to respect, or at least not give offence to
millions of believers. Standing steadfast behind the right to freedom of
expression does not require valorising offensive speech; those who offend are
at best to be tolerated, not encouraged. They might sometimes require
condemning. Defending legal toleration cannot close off the question of what
forms of ethical practices are appropriate for society. It, in fact,
presupposes this difficult conversation. These are fine distinctions all
liberal states should understand.
But
liberals have also got the politics of offence backwards. Many people who want
to gratuitously offend religion are puerile; often the motivation is to display
a kind of impunity, especially towards minorities. But restricting freedom of
expression, or violently reacting to it, ideologically rewards such impunity.
It makes it more, not less politically potent. It unwittingly confirms the
stereotypes the minority groups cannot handle freedom. The more it becomes
acceptable to circumscribe speech because it is offensive, the more offence
people take. Offensiveness has become a competitive community sport in many
contexts, precisely because it can be weaponised for political mobilisation.
Moreover,
it is otiose to think that in a globalised context, where images and ideas circulate
instantly and speech is decontextualised and re-contextualised in ways no one
can control, freedom will better served by promising any religious community a
sanitised public sphere that could never cause them offence. If even a
pedagogical project in a protected classroom can be re-contextualised as an
offensive assault on Islam, then it is a fool’s paradise to promise a world
where the sacred will never be seen to be violated.
It is a
cardinal liberal principle that no one should be targeted for being a member of
a particular community. But the liberal expression of this commitment is to
retreat into a taciturn silence over the connection between religion and
violence. There is the rush to go into the comfort zone of “root causes”, some
secular experience or deprivation, discrimination, colonialism, poverty. These
do matter in understanding how particular forms of violence are nourished. But
the response that “religion has nothing to do with it” is historically
inaccurate. Politically mobilised, fanatical religion has often not been safe
for individual freedom, whether it is a form of Islam, Christian or Buddhist
fundamentalism or Hindu nationalism.
The idea
that true religion would never incite anyone to violence is neither here nor
there — the point is that people kill and behead in the name of religion. It is
an interesting question what cultural power allows some incidents to be
labelled as religiously motivated. In the same month as the beheading in
France, a Dalit lawyer was killed in Gujarat for posts allegedly prejudicial to
Brahmins. Which will be constructed as a religious killing?
It is,
however, not for liberals to get into theological disputes and define people’s
religion for them. When they do this, they come across as if they want to exercise
power over the religion. All liberals should be interested in is making sure
that freedom is not compromised. What kind of religion is compatible with this
freedom is for believers to decide. Getting into this hornet’s nest, as Macron
did, is overreaching, and muddies the principle at stake.
Liberal
states are right to take actions against the perpetrators of violence, and
should worry about the atmosphere that nourishes a fear of freedom. But if they
are doing it in the name of liberal principles, they will need to, as much as
possible, adhere to those principles. They have to ensure that the asymmetries
of power do not discriminate against communities. They will have to ensure that
the purpose of public policy and public discourse is to protect freedom and not
to stereotype or subordinate another culture or produce a forced uniformity.
This is a
moment where the one thing that unites the political currents of the time is a
sneering glee at exposing the fragility of liberalism. All kinds of forces will
muddy the ideological waters around the violence in France to serve their ends.
But remember the believer who thinks they exist to protect their God, and not
the other way round; and those who think human beings cannot handle individual
liberty are both taking our humanity away from us. It is time to cut through
complicated politics and defend the simple principle of liberty, against all
its challengers.
Original Headline: In Defence Of Liberty: It Is
Time To Stand Up For Individual Freedoms, Against All Challengers
Source: The Indian Express
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