Gideon Levy, Haaretz, February 26:
Words do not kill. So there is no statement for which it is permissible to send a person to prison. Freedom of speech is absolute, even when that which is spoken is as despicable and ridiculous as Holocaust denial. Those who start to doubt that principle will not know where to stop. Is denial of the Jewish Holocaust deserving of punishment while denial of the Armenian Holocaust, perpetrated by the Turks, is not? And why not? Because “only” a million and a half people were destroyed there?
And what about the world’s racist indifference to the destruction of a million Tutsi in Rwanda or the mass murder of 4 million people in the Congo? After all, the world ignores those holocausts even if it does not deny their existence explicitly, and nobody thinks about punishing someone for that outrageous apathy and indifference. The Danish cartoons, which also hurt millions of people, are not deserving of punishment and neither is the denial of the criminal activities of Israel in the territories, even if they are incomparable, of course, to any holocaust. The Jews had a Holocaust, it was the most horrifying crime in the history of mankind, there is nothing similar to it in its evil, and those who dare deny this deserve to be made pariahs, excommunicated and boycotted, even expelled, but not and never jailed.
Haaretz can be such a breath of fresh air.
It is proof that there are many living in Israel who are very reasonable and open mided thinker, willing to question the satus quo.
Indeed, but even Haaretz has moved to the right in the last years. Levy and Hass are the exception, not the rule, sadly.
i would have agreed with this i month ago, but i dont anymore.
for the first time in my life i am starting to wonder about those edifices of western thought, ‘rights’, ‘respect’,
starting to doubt these principles does not necassarily mean not knowing where to stop,
anyway, nothing is free, a number of people died in the cartoon riots, dialogue and understanding were smashed, jyllands posten, david irving, their speech is not free, nor is anyones, its a myth
i saw a speaker at the weeekend, mark kingmill, talking about philosophy and democracy, he suggested that the idea that every person just by existing has rights within a democratic system just doesnt work, that maybe rights can be granted when there is genuine participation in the system, genuine responsibilities taken.
also saw robert manne, what a fucking dude!
smiths
you seem to be suggesting that people died and violence erupted because freedom of speech was taken too far.
Freedom of speech (and cartoon) is a principle and it was expressed in a country which enshrines that principle in law.
The fact that people in other countries, who do not have freedom of speech, chose to react to it with violence reflects on them not the principle of freedom of speech being expressed in Danish law.
You are also suggesting that violence should be seen as a ’sign’ to change, even when the change betrays a fundamental principle of the civilized and democratic world.
In essence you are saying violence works. That is dangerous. It is even more dangerous to say that the violence of foreignes, which reflects their values, should be accepted as evidence that your values need to be changed.
And the idea that every person just by existing has rights within a democratic system is, quite simply the system. It does work and it should work. What ‘entity’ would you have doling out rights as and when they were deemed to be deserving?
That is the way things used to be for everyone and is the way things still are for anyone who does not live in the West. What you are suggesting, through fear since you cite violence as a cause to effect change, is a step backward and a betrayal of the principles of civilization and democracy for which so many fought so hard for so long and for which so many died.
Of course there is no absolute freedom of speech or anything. there are necessary rules by which we abide. But, beyond the laws which are applicable to the use and misuse of free speech there is the precious principle that those who live in the democratic world have a right to think as they wish and to speak as they wish, or even to draw as they wish.
Anything else is tyranny.
Also Smiths,
The idea you;re proposing ultimately means someone is apointed with deciding what degree of freedom of speech is acceptable, which in turm implies that some will be given greater lattitude than others.
That clearly wil never work outside of a tyranical system.
I wonder if the reverse is also to be protected. The freedom not to speak. Someone knows of a terror attack in which 1 million will die when the water supply is poisened; Does he have the right not to speak. And if he is found out, he should not be punished? Merely pariahs, excommunicated and boycotted?
And the expelling, isn’t that a punishment? How can you have a freedom od speech and still be punished? Does anyone have the right to single that person out and personally punish them?
the opening comment of the article,
it made me think of this story,
see the thing is, words can kill, there wasnt a suicide bomber in the crowd, and at least a thousand people died.
everyone has the responsibility to think very carefully about the things they say, the words they use, cos they can kill
As far as I know, this whole thing about freedom of speech is a bit of a myth. It is protected by law in the US, but not anywhere else according to Chomsky who was talking about this on the ABC recently (and is generally right about this sort of stuff). Otherwise that creep David Irving wouldn’t be looking at 3 years in jail.
I thought that was the equivilance of “fire!” in a crowded theatre which all should know is not protected speech in the freeist of societies.
Words can kill. Just ask 1 million Rwandans after their murderers listened to Rwandan Hutu nationalist radio for a few weeks.
You’re very very wrong
funny how the ‘free speech is an absolute right crowd’ seem to have muzzled themselves suddenly
smiths
Of course words have power. I actually believe they have more power than many might expect or be prepared to accept. What you say does make a difference in terms of the energy that you send out to others.
Dr Masaru Emoto did some interesting studies looking at the impact of written and spoken words on water: http://www.hado.net/index2.html and it has long been believed, since ancient times, that each letter had it’s own energy or power and words themselves had varying impacts in terms of energies.
It is in essence why Judaism for instance prohibits the use of the name of God.
But, beyond all this there are two issues:
1. is how people use words and what outcome they would like to see from the use of those words ….violence, peace,neutrality or simply communication.
2. the right of individuals to express their beliefs freely.
The latter is a foundation stone which underpins the democratic and civilized world.
The former is part of our day to day life and to some degree is disciplined by law in that we may not use words to incite violence, to deceive or to seek to bring harm to others.
And then there is the ’shit happens’ factor. The rumour on the bridge which saw Iraqis die comes into that category. I can’t believe you are suggesting that there should be laws in place to stop such a thing. It is simply not possible.
Like all things there is a downside to freedom of speech and that is because within the gift there is always a curse and vice-versa.
Everything has negatives as well as positives but is that a reason to ban them or to proscribe them to try to make them ’safer’? Falling in love, getting married, having children, training to be an Olympic athlete, working at being an artist or writer, learning to ride a bicycle ….. all of these things have negative aspects and some of them actually involve great physical or emotional suffering but they remain, like freedom of speech, valuable expressions of individual rights inour society.
What laws exist limiting free speech, on the most part, is to prohibit speech deliberately designed to cause death and destruction as occurred in Al-Kadhimiya.
Some countries have gone so far to end speech which deliberately provokes others to violence that they inadvertantly silence reasonable conversation.
Perhaps in 100 years, those laws will go by the wayside. But I am not looking forward to the day i see hundreds of psuedoaryans marching on Berlin in Jackboot and Brownshirts, Nazi flags held high shouting “Heritage, not Hate” at the top of their lungs, as we saw the same in former Conferderate states in America.