Yesterday during the yearly UN confab where leaders of various countries come to NY, tie up traffic, get the NYPD brass overtime and get up and make speeches that don't matter all that much in terms of actual war and peace, a few leaders made blatant threats against those persons who wish to live in a society where they can speak freely, even disrespectfully and not have to worry about the state locking them up, possibly torturing them or worse, being killed.
First we had the new President of Egypt Mohamed Morsi who
said:
“Egypt respects freedom of expression, freedom of expression that is not used to incite hatred against anyone.”
I'll stop here for a moment to note that his position is not much different from many persons on the liberal left in the United States. In the United States, much to my strenuous disagreement, we have things called "hate crimes" and "hate speech" in which persons can be prosecuted not only for say a physical assault, but have extra time thrown at them for what they were thinking at the moment. I have repeatedly warned that such "thought prosecution" (which is what these really are) is entirely against the purpose and point of the First Amendment to the US Constitution but also the basis of criminal law, that is that one is punished for actions not thoughts or beliefs. On various university campuses people are fired, suspended and the like for engaging in "hate speech" which is usually covered under "harassment" laws.
In Europe Judaism and Jews are afforded state protection against things such as Holocaust denial. I've said repeatedly that these laws, even given WWII, are hypocritical and certainly do not serve the interests of the state since it merely pushes those things underground where they go unchallenged by the light of truth. Some European nations also have laws against any speech that "incites" racial or religious hatred and the like. Yes, people have gone to jail for saying things that the state has deemed 'too offensive". I suppose the entire concept of being responsible for one's own behaviors is lost on these folks.
Anyway, the point being here that the liberal left and the Muslim Brotherhood have much more in common than they think. Morsi continues:
We expect from others, as they expect from us, that they respect our cultural specifics and religious references, and not seek to impose concepts or cultures that are unacceptable to us,” said Mr. Morsi, a former leader of the Muslim Brotherhood. “Insults against the prophet of Islam, Muhammad, are not acceptable. We will not allow anyone to do this by word or by deed.”
Let us deal with the "expectations". Morsi as well as others fail to understand the "expectations". The expectation is as follows: In your country you do what you want to do. In your religion you do what you want to do. You don't want to draw Mohammed? Don't do it. You don't want Mohammed satirized or critiqued? Fine. Don't do it. After all if you are
in the religion
you are obligated to follow the rules.
The flip side is that those who are outside the religion (or the country) are not subject to your rules. I can draw Mohammed if I feel like it. I can do Mohammed satire if I so chose. I can write a book about his life and opine on what I think of his behavior if I so chose.
I can do that because I am
not subject to the rules of a religion to which I am not a part. That said let us deal with the threat.
Now it is entirely acceptable for a person to declare that they will not tolerate x,y or z action. No one
has to put up with any behavior they do not like. However; the choices that person has in not tolerating certain behaviors is quite limited.
There are two choices for those persons who are offended by someone's speech or actions:
1) They may physically attempt to stop the person from speaking or acting via physical means.
2) They may remove themselves from engaging in the person making the offensive speech (that includes not watching videos, reading newspapers, etc.)
One may say that one could use "the law" but if we understand government and it's monopoly on authorized use of force; "the law" is simply an extension of option one.
Therefore the only obvious response to a statement of "We will not allow anyone to do this by word or action" is:
"Exactly what are you going to do about it?"
You have to understand that "we will not allow" is a declarative threat. Certainly if you say "I will not allow" something and then when someone does it, you do nothing, you really did not mean "will not". If on the other hand you mean to enforce this "we will not allow" statement, then one must be willing to do whatever is necessary to enforce such a statement. This means that violence is on the table.
Let us be clear then, Morsi stood in front of the world's nations as a leader of a country and a representative of the Muslim Brotherhood and issued a threat. Either you toe the line of
our religion regardless to your own faith, non-faith, etc
or else
This should not be taken lightly in the least bit. It is classic Jihadism. And do not allow yourself to be fooled by the commentary of apologetic type Muslims who will insist that Jihad
only means inner spiritual warfare. Do not be fooled in the least bit. What Morsi said is classic physical man-to-man Jihad ideology. Submit to our rules,
or else
And do not think that Morsi is simply one person. This man knows full well that he has high support, whether it be a majority or not is not known nor important, that he has enough support to issue such a blatant threat on an international stage as a representative of a legitimate government should bother a
lot of people.
Not to be outdone the president of Yemen, Abed Rabbu Manour Hadi, threw his two cents into the argument saying:
“These behaviors find people who defend them under the justification of the freedom of expression,” he said. “These people overlook the fact that there should be limits for the freedom of expression, especially if such freedom blasphemes the beliefs of nations and defames their figures.”
Anyone with a knowledge of history of religion in Europe knows full well the stupidity of such a statement. People have been disemboweled, burned at the stake, impaled by stakes and left to bleed to death, dismembered, Had every bone in their bodies broken on water wheels, and tortured with all manner of devices for the "crime" of blasphemy and other "major crimes" like speaking ill of religious leaders, religious institutions and of course, royalty.
No one in their right mind would even give a first thought to returning to anything resembling that bullshit.
Not to be left out Asif A. Zardari, President of Pakistan said:
“Before I take up my speech, I want to express the strongest condemnation for acts of incitement of hate against the faith of billions of Muslims of the world and our beloved prophet, Muhammad,”
“The international community must not become silent observers and should criminalize such acts that destroy the peace of the world and endanger world security by misusing freedom of expression,” he said. The United Nations should take up the issue immediately, he added.
The Arab League put itself on the record with:
spiritual harm should be treated as a crime, even as he condemned the recent riots. “If the international community has criminalized bodily harm, it must just as well criminalize psychological and spiritual harm,”
Ahh yes, the attempts of religious people with thin skins and poor impulse control to have the criticism, satire or other commentary on religion, but especially Islam, criminalized world wide.
Spiritual harm? Really? Criminalization of "psychological harm"? Where do they get these ideas from (aside from US liberals who seem to have the same opinion)? You get your feelings hurt (which is essentially what this "spiritual harm" is about) and someone ought to be arrested, tried and imprisoned? No one at the UN laughed out loud when that shit was said?
Seriously. Usually when Ahmedinejad gets up to make a speech various Western leaders rudely get up and leave because I take it they do not want to dignify his "rant" by sitting through it. I would think that people that understand just how stupid the statements made here should have gotten up and walked out because THAT nonsense is far more out of order than anything I've heard Ahmedinejad say.
I realize that the reason that most of the "leaders" of places where supposed "freedom of speech" is practiced do not speak up (as of this writing) is because of fear. They have business relationships they are afraid will be threatened. They also have large minorities of Muslim populations in their countries that they are afraid of offending. They are afraid of being seen as "racist" or whatever (in their own countries at that). They have feelings of guilt from former colonial activities in these areas of the world (well earned IMO) and so they are afraid to speak up.
So long as the so called leadership of these few places where people do not have to fear mob violence for religious insult or state violence for the same, do not speak up forcefully, unapologetically and with the same "or else" message for those who kill and threaten their citizens, they will find their future generations less free than they are now. The warning signs are right in your face.
