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February 23, 2006
More on Freedom of Speech
Bill Bennett and Alan Dershowitz together write in the Washington Post that the newspapers in the Western world have failed to do their duty. By not publishing the Danish cartoons "To put it simply, radical Islamists have won a war of intimidation. They have cowed the major news media from showing these cartoons. The mainstream press has capitulated to the Islamists—their threats more than their sensibilities."
Read the whole thing with comments here by Protein Wisdom.
Eric Raymond writes in a recent essay that the west is plauged by evil ideas which were created largely by Soviet intelligence operatives from 1930 to 1980. His essay is called Gramscian damage
- The most paranoid and xenophobic conservatives of the Cold War were, painful though this is to admit, the closest to the truth in estimating the magnitude and subtlety of Soviet subversion. Liberal anticommunists (like myself in the 1970s) thought we were being judicious and fair-minded when we dismissed half of the Right’s complaint as crude blather. We were wrong; the Rosenbergs and Alger Hiss really were guilty, the Hollywood Ten really were Stalinist tools, and all of Joseph McCarthy’s rants about “Communists in the State Department” were essentially true. The Venona transcripts and other new material leave no room for reasonable doubt on this score.
While the espionage apparatus of the Soviet Union didn’t outlast it, their memetic weapons did. These memes are now coming near to crippling our culture’s response to Islamic terrorism.
Lastly the Armchair Philosopher points out that the ideas which the Soviets came up with are, in fact, partly correct. See his very interesting essay here.
Posted by rakhier at 08:56 PM | Comments (0)
February 12, 2006
Hirsi Ali on the Cartoon War...
Hirsi Ali, a member of the Dutch legislature (a Somali woman who is now a former Moslem) writes a clear and serious defence of the publication of the cartoon. She calls it "The Right to Offend". Naturally, I agree with what she says. It was published at this web site. See the extended section for her essay.
The Right to Offend by Ayaan Hirsi Ali
I am here to defend the right to offend.
It is my conviction that the vulnerable enterprise called democracy cannot exist without free expression, particularly in the media. Journalists must not forgo the obligation of free speech, which people in other hemispheres are denied.
I am of the opinion that it was correct to publish the cartoons of Muhammad in Jyllands Posten and it was right to re-publish them in other papers across Europe.
Let me reprise the history of this affair. The author of a children’s book on the prophet Muhammad could find no illustrators for his book. He claimed that illustrators were censoring themselves for fear of violence by Muslims who claimed no-one, anywhere, should be allowed to depict the prophet. Jyllands Posten decided to investigate this. They -- rightly – felt that such self-censorship has far-reaching consequences for democracy.
It was their duty as journalists to solicit and publish drawings of the prophet Muhammad.
Shame on those papers and TV channels who lacked the courage to show their readers the caricatures in The Cartoon Affair. These intellectuals live off free speech but they accept censorship. They hide their mediocrity of mind behind noble-sounding terms such as ‘responsibility’ and ‘sensitivity’.
Shame on those politicians who stated that publishing and re-publishing the drawings was ‘unnecessary’, ‘insensitive’, ‘disrespectful’ and ‘wrong’. I am of the opinion that Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen of Denmark acted correctly when he refused to meet with representatives of tyrannical regimes who demanded from him that he limit the powers of the press. Today we should stand by him morally and materially. He is an example to all other European leaders. I wish my prime minister had Rasmussen’s guts.
Shame on those European companies in the Middle East that advertised “we are not Danish” or “we don’t sell Danish products”. This is cowardice. Nestle chocolates will never taste the same after this, will they? The EU member states should compensate Danish companies for the damage they have suffered from boycotts.
Liberty does not come cheap. A few million Euros is worth paying for the defence of free speech. If our governments neglect to help our Scandinavian friends then I hope citizens will organise a donation campaign for Danish companies.
We have been flooded with opinions on how tasteless and tactless the cartoons are -- views emphasising that the cartoons only led to violence and discord. What good has come of the cartoons, so many wonder loudly?
Well, publication of the cartoons confirmed that there is widespread fear among authors, filmmakers, cartoonists and journalists who wish to describe, analyse or criticise intolerant aspects of Islam all over Europe.
It has also revealed the presence of a considerable minority in Europe who do not understand or will not accept the workings of liberal democracy. These people – many of whom hold European citizenship – have campaigned for censorship, for boycotts, for violence, and for new laws to ban ‘Islamophobia’.
The cartoons revealed to the public eye that there are countries willing to violate diplomatic rules for political expediency. Evil governments like Saudi Arabia stage “grassroots” movements to boycott Danish milk and yoghurt, while they would mercilessly crash a grassroots movement fighting for the right to vote.
Today I am here to defend the right to offend within the bounds of the law. You may wonder: why Berlin? And why me?
Berlin is rich in the history of ideological challenges to the open society. This is the city where a wall kept people within the boundaries of the Communist state. It was the city which focalized the battle for the hearts and minds of citizens. Defenders of the open society educated people in the shortcomings of Communism. The work of Marx was discussed in universities, in op-ed pages and in schools. Dissidents who escaped from the East could write, make films, cartoons and use their creativity to persuade those in the West that Communism was far from paradise on earth.
Despite the self-censorship of many in the West, who idealised and defended Communism, and the brutal censorship of the East, that battle was won.
Today, the open society is challenged by Islamism, ascribed to a man named Muhammad Abdullah who lived in the seventh century, and who is regarded as a prophet. Many Muslims are peaceful people; not all are fanatics. As far as I am concerned they have every right to be faithful to their convictions. But within Islam exists a hard-line Islamist movement that rejects democratic freedoms and wants to destroy them. These Islamists seek to convince other Muslims that their way of life is the best. But when opponents of Islamism try to expose the fallacies in the teachings of Muhammad then they are accused of being offensive, blasphemous, socially irresponsible – even Islamophobic or racist.
The issue is not about race, colour or heritage. It is a conflict of ideas, which transcend borders and races.
Why me? I am a dissident, like those from the Eastern side of this city who defected to the West. I too defected to the West. I was born in Somalia, and grew up in Saudi Arabic and Kenya. I used to be faithful to the guidelines laid down by the prophet Muhammad. Like the thousands demonstrating against the Danish drawings, I used to hold the view that Muhammad was perfect -- the only source of, and indeed, the criterion between good and bad. In 1989 when Khomeini called for Salman Rushdie to be killed for insulting Muhammad, I thought he was right. Now I don’t.
I think that the prophet was wrong to have placed himself and his ideas above critical thought.
I think that the prophet Muhammad was wrong to have subordinated women to men.
I think that the prophet Muhammad was wrong to have decreed that gays be murdered.
I think that the prophet Muhammad was wrong to have said that apostates must be killed.
He was wrong in saying that adulterers should be flogged and stoned, and the hands of thieves should be cut off.
He was wrong in saying that those who die in the cause of Allah will be rewarded with paradise.
He was wrong in claiming that a proper society could be built only on his ideas.
The prophet did and said good things. He encouraged charity to others. But I wish to defend the position that he was also disrespectful and insensitive to those who disagreed with him.
I think it is right to make critical drawings and films of Muhammad. It is necessary to write books on him in order to educate ordinary citizens on Muhammad.
I do not seek to offend religious sentiment, but I will not submit to tyranny. Demanding that people who do not accept Muhammad’s teachings should refrain from drawing him is not a request for respect but a demand for submission.
I am not the only dissident in Islam. There are more like me here in the West. If they have no bodyguards they work under false identities to protect themselves from harm. But there are also others who refuse to conform: in Teheran, in Doha and Riyadh, in Amman and Cairo, in Khartoum and in Mogadishu, in Lahore and in Kabul.
The dissidents of Islamism, like the dissidents of communism, don’t have nuclear bombs or any other weapons. We have no money from oil like the Saudis. We will not burn embassies and flags. We refuse to get carried away in a frenzy of collective violence. In number we are too small and too scattered to become a collective of anything. In electoral terms here in the west we are practically useless.
All we have are our thoughts; and all we ask is a fair chance to express them. Our opponents will use force to silence us. They will use manipulation; they will claim they are mortally offended. They will claim we are mentally unstable and should not be taken seriously. The defenders of Communism, too, used these methods.
Berlin is a city of optimism. Communism failed. The wall was broken down. Things may seem difficult and confusing today. But I am optimistic that the virtual wall, between lovers of liberty and those who succumb to the seduction and safety of totalitarian ideas will also, one day, come down.
Berlin, 9.02.06
Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Posted by rakhier at 10:05 AM | Comments (0)
February 06, 2006
Belmont Club on the Cartoon Crisis...
You can't get a better handle on the Cartoon Crisis (round-up of the info on the Cartoo war here at the Mudville Gazette)
Read Wretchard's entries here : Re-reading William Manchester's 'Alone' and here: Interesting Times.
- It's possible to regard the cartoon crisis as either a strategic disaster or boon for the War on Terror. The argument for it being a disaster is the assertion that in the war against extremists it is necessary to win over the moderates. And even if winning them over is impossible one may still be capable of keeping them neutral or indifferent; but at all events to avoid raising the Muslim masses in an emotional war against the West. The Danish cartoon crisis has managed to ignite what the Bush administration hoped to avoid from the beginning: turning the War on Terror into a War with Islam. Now an incident arising from a relatively obscure newspaper in Denmark has forced a choice between the most deeply held of all Western values, freedom of speech, with the cherished strategic goal of keeping the Muslim "street" aboard in the War on Terror.
The argument for regarding the Danish cartoons as a boon is premised on the belief that President Bush's attempt to separate the War on Terror from Islam was doomed to fail anyway; that it was better to face that question now than later. According to this point of view, a view reinforced by the election of Hamas in the Palestinian territories, cultural and religious issues were at the root of international conflict. That mere voting -- in Palestine for example -- would never be sufficient to establish a liberal democracy for as long as the underlying culture remained hostile and aggressive to democracy's roots.
One wonders. One wonders how long the forces of the multi-cultural left are going to continue to protect and excuse the forces of intolerance, hatred, and bigotry which everyone can see in the Moslem world.
Freedom of speech? Hah. No freedom if you want to say something which someone else takes offence at. No freedom if your speech might make some other group angry. The Moslems want the freedom to tell everyone else to shut up. "Don't make us mad or we will kill you." "Don't insult Mohammed or we will kill you." "Don't practice your infidel religion openly or we will kill you."
Islamic fascism is incompatable with western ideals. Period. One of them is going to loose this war.
BTW: If anyone wants to know, there have been many depictions of Mohammed in Islamic art in history. Here are some examples. No doubt the Moslem fanatics will be out burning their own libraries to purge them of these unclean images of the prophet.
Posted by rakhier at 12:58 PM | Comments (0)
Attorney General Gonzales defends the NSA's International Surveillance
Attorney General Gonzales did an able job of defending the Bush Administration's authorization of the NSA's surveillance of Al Qaeda over the last four years. You can read an informed discussion of his points here at Powerline Blog.
The part which really hit me like a ton of bricks was a statement he made in response to a question from Senator Feinstein. She asked him where the administration found "escape hatches" from the FISA act because she could only find two, and neither one applied.
He responded by saying that Section 109 of the act talked about other surveillance that was authorized by statuate. The administration interperted this to mean that the Congressional authorization for the use of force against Al Qaeda was exactly the sort of statuate the act reffered to.
Then he dropped his bombshell: This, he said, was a reasonable interpretion of the act. The other interpretation of the act lead (in their opinion) to a constitutional "tension" between the law passed by Congress and the inherent powers of the President as defined by the Constitution. He said a fundemental principle of law in this country is that IF there are two reasonable interpretations of a law, and one of them leads to a constitutional conflict THEN THE OTHER interpretation is ASSUMED to be the correct one.
So, to decode this exchange, Feinstein asserts "how can you say you are following the law when the FISA act doesn't talk about exceptions like the President has authorized?
Gonzales responds "Look, there are two ways of looking at this law. One is that this law, FISA, severly limits the power of the President in ways that no previous presidents have been limited. This would be the 'constitutional crisis' way of looking at the law. The other way is the way we have choosen which is, the law is fine as it is, but the law admits that other statues (such as Congressional authorization for the use of force) can override FISA. This interpretation does not provoke a constitutional crisis and so this interpretation must be the correct one."
In my opinion, this is a very clever arguement which has a lot of merit. It is also a facinating deep issue in Constitutional law.
Posted by rakhier at 12:23 PM | Comments (0)