Some Muslims Are Awesomely Insecure

The Geek was all cranked up to post on the current violence in South Africa, but a post from PRESS TV ( ohttp://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=56834&sectionid=3510303) out of Iran caught his attention. And rankled him.

Once again (some) Muslims are making a mighty moan about the West. The West apparently is a monolithic monster breathing satanic fumes of Islamophobia and similar foul odors of blasphemy. Worse, the loathsome Moloch of the West justifies its conduct by invoking a patently secular totem--Free Speech.

The nerve of the Secular Savages of the West astonished the writers of this open letter, identified on as "Thousands of academics, intellectuals, poets, writers, artists, journalists and scientists of the Islamic countries."

It strikes the Geek that this panoply of deep thinking desperately offended academics, intellectuals, et cetera, possess an extremely shallow understanding of the post-Enlightenment trajectory of Western Europe and the United States.

Perhaps they have to appreciate that the Enlightenment and its aftermath are not universally well-regarded in either Europe or the United States.

Perhaps the size of the Christian Fundamentalist movement which contains a significant number of Enlightenment deniers (at least in the US) has eluded them.

Perhaps they have missed the explosive rise of multi-culturalism in the post-Modernist period not only in the US but Europe as well.

More importantly these anonymous "academics, intellectuals" et cetera have overlooked that the West has undergone a number of fierce, violent conflicts over the past centuries all of which have been predicated to a significant extent upon the right of the individual as opposed to the authority of the community.

Ultimately the conflicts have ended in favor of the individual. The individual has been acknowledged to possess certain basic rights. Chief among them has been the right to free expression construed broadly and its essential twin, freedom of inquiry.

The rights of free inquiry and expression are particularly protected in the United States. As a result expression is notably raucous, boisterous and occasionally quite tasteless in the US.

(Intellectual honesty requires the Geek to admit he is periodically offended by some of what he sees, reads or hears.)

Religion is not off-limits for discussion--even attack. Nor should it be. Religion, like politics and economics is part of the human experience and as such is fair game for investigation, debate and disagreement.

That's the way it should be. As soon as one area of human discourse is ruled sacrosanct, no other area is safe. The reasons for insulating one specific arena of discourse out-of-bounds are immaterial. The harm is done by the prohibition.

Most Western governments and societies recognise this. They are secure enough in their values and identities not to seek the imposition of cordons sanitaires.

Apparently most Islamic governments and societies lack the same measure of security in values and identities. They not only need off-limit signs--they demand them.

If these insecure Muslims demanded thought police and mental shackles be applied only to themselves, this might be lamentable, unfortunate and ultimately counterproductive, but it would be their right.

The problem comes when the Legion of the Insecure demand that all humans be confined in the prison of Islamic sensibilities. This is neither ethically justifiable on any grounds nor allowable.

If Islam is the final, most highly perfected form of monotheism as the open letter from the Terminally Offended indicates, then why are they so insecure about it?

It seems to the Geek that certainty of correctness should lead to serenity when under putative attack. If cartoons, or grade school kids naming a rabbit Mohammad or even a US Army sergeant shooting up a copy of the Quran shakes the base of a religion adhered to by 1.5 giga-people, one can only wonder about the strength of that base.

Muslims howling about slander under the rubric of free speech are not the first to seek limits on the ability of individuals to write, speak, read or hear all forms of opinion or the manifold contradictory facts abounding in the world. Limits have been attempted--and failed--even in the US.

Remember all the well-intentioned efforts by assorted state legislatures back during the Fifties to purge our university campuses of "communists?" Recall all the state imposed bans on "communist" speakers or the possession by libraries of "communist" literature?"

The Geek thought at the time as did many of his contemporaries--the supposed beneficiaries of these "protect our precious children" enactments--that if free enterprise economics and democratic processes were so inherently good, what was the need to stifle opposing perspectives?

Censorship whether for political or religious reasons, no matter how presented, is not simply wrong. The imposition of limits on speech whether to protect the minds of children or to guard the sensitivities of (some) Muslims is simply a sign of underlying insecurity.

Censorship screams, "Maybe what I/we believe isn't right after all."

Censorship screams with fear, deep and primordial, "Maybe I'm wrong."

Censorship is the coward's way out of real debate.