Once Again Fear Trumps Free Speech

Admittedly Pakistan is in a world of hurt currently. In this context it is important to recall that the country brought most of this unpleasant present upon itself. In large part the cause of its current place midway between the hammer of the contemporary world and the anvil of Islamism is the necessary consequence of decisions made by General Zia during the Eighties.

One of General Zia's splendid ideas was to force feed Islamist doctrine on the nation's youth through an ambitious program of building madrases. This seemed a good idea in several respects. The emphasis on religious indoctrination was believed to be a sure way to bring greater social and political cohesion. The construction costs in the main would be borne by Saudi Arabia and thus indirectly by the US, Europe, and Japan. Finally, the madrases would provide a simultaneous means of keeping young men off the job market while providing willing personnel for Zia's far less than covert war against India.

A second Zia-made contribution to Pakistan's current world of hurt was his taking over the war in Afghanistan, first against the Soviets and then to assure a pliant tool gaining power in Kabul. That tool, Taliban, was a direct product of the madrass construction program. The US contributed mightily to this aspect of the developing evil stew in Pakistan by willingly giving money without restriction to Zia's regime and then blithely ignoring just what was happening in the post-Soviet withdrawal internal war period.

Even though General Zia long ago left the scene, the Law of Unintended Consequences which his actions necessarily invoked now drives the dynamic in Pakistan in all of its bloody and repressive features. As the slow-on-the-uptake Pakistani government, Army, and Directorate of Inter-Services Intelligence finally came to realize, the growth of Islamism (or political Islam, if you prefer) came to be an existential threat to the status quo.

The actions taken by the government, army, and ISI as a result of this belated awakening have been a mixture of repression and placation. The army has launched a series of operations against Pakistani Taliban with mixed success. At the same time the government has made efforts to placate Islamist opinion.

In the most recent of these obnoxious genuflections to the very vocal adherents of political Islam, the government has ordered the banning of Facebook and YouTube. The reason given for this draconian action was, as is drearily expectable, the charge of "blasphemy."

More specifically, the Pakistani government alleges that it is in a royal snit over the Facebook site inviting one and all to "draw Mohammad." The specifics regarding YouTube's exercise in blasphemy are not so clearly delineated. However the Pakistani Ministry In Charge Of Protecting Muslim Sensitivities assures the world that the site is awash with videos which somehow or another deprecate Islam, the Prophet (PBUH), and whatever just makes Muslims all over go weak in the knees from the insults.

The Pakistani ministry has shown the sort of open minded attitude which one can expect from an official governmental protector of all things Muslim. The responsible(?) official has invited representatives from both of the offensive sites to send representatives so as to "resolve the dispute in a way that ensures religious harmony and respect."

Duh?

Is it credible that this Pakistani equivalent of the pope commanding King Henry to stand barefoot in the snow of Canossa will be taken seriously or that such will result in repentance on the part of the purported malefactors? Does this official exemplar of Pakistani sweet reason really, really believe that the Internet will genuflect before the alleged sensitivities of Muslims?

The answer, unfortunately, is, "Yes."

Pakistan has a record of blocking "offensive" Internet sites. Along with other Muslim majority countries such as Iran, Morocco, Indonesia, and Turkey, Pakistan has played the embargo game before albeit for short periods. Taken together, the record of Muslim countries rivals that of China in blocking access to the Internet on the part of citizens.

Driven by naked fear, these governments have done their dead level best to isolate citizens from the contemporary world. These are all governments which live in fear of social turbulence, political unrest, and the potential of violence on the part of citizens who come to realize just how much the government has suppressed, prevaricated, and manipulated perceptions for the sole benefit of the governing elite.

In the case of Pakistan the fear is prompted by the existence of Islamist jihadists who by and large exist because the government made them. The Taliban of Pakistan and akin groups are creatures of Islamabad. Now, like the fictional monster created by Frankenstein, they have escaped the control of their maker and threaten the continued existence of the men who manufactured them.

Of course, the restrictive efforts of the Pakistani government are assisted powerfully by the widespread hypersensitivity present in all-too-many Muslims. Unlike adherents to other monotheistic faiths, Muslims are routinely indoctrinated with fear. Fear that they are marginal. Fear that they are victims of discrimination. Fear that they are under constant attack.

A pervasive climate exists within much of the Muslim opinion molding community not only in Pakistan but throughout the Islamic majority societies. That climate can best be described by the word, "insecurity." There are too many opinion molders and thus far too many Muslims who are insecure in the worth and validity of their belief system. This is self-evident given the constant drive for censorship sponsored by Islamic governments.

A person--or a group--which is secure in fundamental beliefs need not seek the false security afforded by limiting free expression. Christians, Jews, even Buddhists, are repeatedly subject to critical, even insulting, expressions from people who do not share their community of faith. Yet they do not demand "respect for religion," particularly one which is imposed by legislation or fiat.

The government of Pakistan has been at the forefront of efforts to impose a global convention under the auspices of the UN which has as its only intent the "protection" of Islam against any criticism, any questions, any raising of doubts on the part of its adherents. It is an effort to protect Muslims which can be rooted only in the belief that Islam and Muslims alike are too weak, too insecure, too fear ridden to accept dissenting or disapproving views.

Of all the Muslims alive today, the most insecure, the most fear driven are those who subscribe to political Islam, Islamism. These people and the groups they comprise are so unsure as to the worth and validity of the faith to which they subscribe that they are more than simply willing to employ any and all methods including the most violent and indiscriminate to achieve their ends. Ends which include absolute protection against questions or criticism by world domination.

The equation is simple: free speech makes free people. Freedom is the most fear producing of all possibilities to an Islamist. These people can exist only in a society of complete submission as the word, "Islam," makes abundantly clear.

Ironically, the government of Pakistan is willing to submit to the dictates of the Islamists who seek the destruction of the government which bows before them. The only losers are those Pakistanis who seek to live a simulacrum of a free life, think and express ideas without the specific permission of a religious authority, that is Pakistanis who are secure in their identity and their faith (if any.)

What About Muslim Anti-Semitism?

In an add-on to yesterday's post on the PRESS-TV article (http://www.presstv.ir/Detail.aspx?id=56834&sectionid=3510303) and a closely related interview confusing "hate" speech and free speech (http://www.presstv.ir/Detail.aspx?id=6244&sectionid=3510302), the Geek has a question for the alleged signers of the open letter to the West, "Thousands of academics, intellectuals, poets, writers, artists, journalists and scientists of the Islamic countries."

The question?

Here it is. Where are your righteous protests regarding the decades of anti-Semitic diatribes, cartoons, films, songs and writings?

Or don't Jews count as religious people deserving the same respect as that which you demand for Muslims?

It can't be that Jews are not a religious people, can it? After all your whining missive specifically mentions Moses and Abraham. Aren't they major figures in the Hebrew Bible, the Christian Old Testament? Doesn't the Prophet Mohammad make some favorable reference to them?

If it is--as your own writing implies--true that Judaism is a religion deserving respect then why don't you condemn the defamation of Jews and Judaism conducted for years, decades, centuries by Muslims?

Or perhaps your "intellectual" sensibilities are non-existent with respect to the vile billingsgate spewed by Muslim governments, Muslim non-governmental entities, Muslim clerics, Muslim individuals. Perhaps you don't believe that true believers in the Religion of Peace and Tolerance would--could--act in such a disgusting, inhuman way.

Well, Deep Thinking and Profoundly Offended Intellectuals, take a look at the web. You might try http://www.jcpa.org/JCPA/Templates/ShowPage.asp?DRIT=3&DBID=1&LNGID=1&TMID=111&FI=D=253&PID=0&IID=644&TTL=Major_Anti-Semitic_Motifs_in_Arab_Cartoons. That particular post dates back a few years, so you might take a virtual walk through http://www.terrorism-info.org.il/site/html/search.asp?isSearch=yes&isT8=yes&searchText=T99&pid=119&sid=15&preview. This site is current through the past month.

Both sites are Israeli but don't worry, neither has cartoons of Mohammad. They only show Muslim cartoons, children's books and scribblings for grown-ups(?) of a virulently anti-Semitic nature. The Geek is sure that no Muslim "academic, intellectual, etc" could possibly be offended.

Before the Geek leaves this subject and returns to matters of the real world, there are a couple of final points regarding the open letter.

The Geek would really appreciate it if the folks at PRESS-TV or whoever wrote the open letter could use the English language with precision. It would. for example, be both nice and accurate if the term "intellectuals" had not been employed to describe the "signers."

Why?

Simple. Intellectuals have been long noted for their constitutional inability to subscribe unquestioningly to dogma. An intellectual has too darn much fun playing with ideas to believe for a nanosecond that censorship is somehow justified. This, after all, was why the Communist Party not only in the US but the USSR had so much trouble co-opting authentic intellectuals and why intellectuals made up such a distinguished portion of the population in the frozen Gulag.

Then there is the word, "scientists." Islamic science is an oxymoron. For centuries the best that could--or can--be said of Islamic countries is that they produce technologists. Derivative technologists at that.

Science cannot flourish in rigid, authoritarian environments such as those which typify Islam dominated countries. While the Geek acknowledges the accomplishments of Muslim astronomers, physicians and mathematicians a thousand and more years ago as Europe lay intellectually prostrate under the heel of a repressive Church, in recent times, science--the methodical seeking after incremental truths about the universe and all that is in it--has been conspicuous by its absence in Muslim societies.

The Geek can believe that the letter was written by journalists. It has all the superficiality and notes of special pleading that characterize the product of journalists. The Geek can even believe that poets were involved in crafting the letter. It has the lack of firm connection with the cold world of reality which gives poetry its piquancy.

Most of all, the Geek can believe that the letter, like the interview and all the other outpourings of outraged Muslim sensibilities, was the product of insecure men.

Men driven by fear.

Men who accept the principles of doublethink.

Men who would mob together and chant, "Death to -----!" Men who accept, even applaud the killing and maiming of women as the will of the deity.

Men who approve of suicide bombers attacking non-combatants.

In short, men lacking in courage. Men without manliness.

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.