Last October, French teacher Samuel Paty was beheaded on Paris streets by a Muslim who was angry that Paty had shown his students cartoons of Muhammad. In January 2015, Muslim jihadists murdered 12 at the offices of French satirical weekly newspaper Charlie Hebdo as a response to its having published Muhammad images. The same year in Garland, Texas, two Muslims motivated likewise attacked a “Draw Muhammad” contest and shot a security guard. Now, a U.K. “Islamophobia” advisor wants to end such violence:
By instituting a Sharia law norm and making such images’ display as unacceptable as the n-word.
As National File reports:
Batley Grammar School in Yorkshire in the north of England faced protests this week from Muslim parents, after one teacher dared to show images of Muhammad during class. The school, which was about to break up for the Easter holidays, had had to switch to remote-learning as a result of the protests. The headteacher “unequivocally apologised” for the actions of the teacher in question, and suspended him, despite the fact that he had received a number of serious death threats from angry Muslims.
However, rather than criticising the actions of the protestors for attacking the free speech of the teacher, Imam Qari Asim MBE, chair of the Mosques and Imams National Advisory Board (MINAB), and the Government’s adviser on Islamophobia, called for a “change in social attitudes” as a result of the protests, and suggested that sharing images of Muhammad should be as socially unacceptable as saying the n-word:
“I guess when we talk of a potential curb or limitation on free speech, I think that sets alarm bells ringing, leaving some people [wrongly] thinking that Muslims are asking for restrictions on free speech. But I think what we should try and emphasise is that there’s already a phenomenon in place in that actually there are boundaries to free speech. Like, for instance, people cannot use the ‘n-word’ — and quite rightly so — because this is derogatory and causes deep pain and hurt. I’m not in favour of restriction and curbing or free speech, but I think we already have boundaries based on social norms.”
The first problem here is intellectual dishonesty. “Asim is calling for restrictions on the freedom of speech while claiming not to be calling for restrictions on the freedom of speech,” as Jihad Watch proprietor Robert Spencer puts it. “Many Leftists in Britain and elsewhere will be fooled” (partially because they want to be).
The first step, before we even begin formulating policy, is to be honest with others and with ourselves, the latter being a prerequisite for the former. It’s much as with a scientist who rationalizes away questions about his experiments’ ethical status: You can easily descend into error or evil if you lie to yourself about what you’re doing.
Obviously, it’s unlikely we’ll forge Truth-oriented policy if we’re not acknowledging and telling the Truth. Of course, this isn’t a priority for those who don’t believe in Truth, properly understood (as absolute); in other words, our rampant moral relativism/nihilism ensures that we’ll subordinate Truth to fashionable “yardsticks” — such as “feelings” about what’s “offensive.”
And here’s one truth: “Of course there are restrictions on the freedom of speech,” Spencer further writes. “There is no freedom to call for violence or criminal acts [that is, unless you’re a left-wing Democrat, apparently]. There are also societal parameters that make for other common-sense restrictions, such as the taboo on using racial slurs such as the one to which he refers here in the adolescent way that it has come to be commonly referred to.”
As to drawing distinctions, Spencer also quotes academic and theologian Adrian Hilton, who tweeted:
But I actually disagree in part. First, the n-word isn’t “racism,” settled or otherwise; it’s a term that can reflect racism. It doesn’t always, however.
Black youths use it as a greeting and rappers put it in what we loosely call songs. Moreover, the idea that it can’t be used for illustrative purposes — such as saying “So-and-so used the word n****r” — is a bit ridiculous. What’s the message here: that you can use one thing (an illustration of Muhammad) that offends some people, but not another thing (a word) that offends some people? Why?
This would only make sense if the issue goes beyond offensiveness, if there’s Truth informing that there’s a relevant distinction between the two.
This brings us to a response to Hilton’s comments. “What a lot of psychobabble,” one tweeter wrote. “If we carry on as we are … any communication at all will be offensive to someone.” In point of fact and as I’m wont to say, most everything offends someone and most everyone is offended by something.
As indicated earlier, we’ll always have some kind of social speech code. The problem is that since we are, again, awash in moral relativism/nihilism, we’re confused about what Truth is. We’re thus confused about what good is and, corresponding to this, confused about what bad is and what should be stigmatized.
A serious civilization would seriously ask: What, if anything, is holy? What should be revered? What should be proscribed? Racial slurs? Taking the Lord’s name in vain? And, most importantly, what is true?
Ignoring Truth or denying its existence doesn’t make social prohibitions go away, as “wokeness” proves daily (and painfully); it just ensures that these prohibitions will be determined by feelings, with the squeaky and fashionable wheel getting the grease. And currently, Muslims and their Islamophile enablers are squeaking more effectively than most.
Meanwhile, as Netflix and others demean Christianity, Pakistan actually executes people for blasphemy. Of course, Pakistan is obviously far more Islamized than we are — at least for now.
