The wave of public emotion that has washed over Europe since the murder of the cartoonists at Charlie Hebdo is generous in its indirect support of the victims even if that has not been what the placards and slogans are proclaiming. Instead, the demonstrations and editorializing have been all about the defence of free speech, which can only be described as slightly ridiculous and hypocritical in its gross oversimplification of a complicated issue.
It is vital to separate the murders associated with Charlie Hebdo from the issue of freedom of expression. It’s commendable that the core emotion driving the demonstrators should be abhorrence of killing someone for what they said or wrote, but that is a ridiculous context for a debate on free speech. Extreme provocation under the banner of free speech needs to be defended and attacked on its own battleground, not in the context of jihadist atrocities, which must be ruthlessly pursued and punished by the authorities responsible for protecting us from terrorism.
The first thing we need to recognize is that we don’t really have total freedom of expression in the Western civilization today – nor would we ever want it. We do not have the right to incite others to murder, nor do we have the right to incite others to unjustified hatred. In addition, libel laws protect us (with varying degrees of efficacy) from people who want to tell outright lies about us. So there are already important restrictions on our right to say and write whatever we feel like. Moving down the malice scale to deliberate provocation with intent to offend (presumably with the motivation that people will never change their ways unless you insult them outrageously), the issue of freedom of expression becomes much more complicated. This kind of abuse has an important role to play in our society, but it must be viewed in a much wider context than Charlie Hebdo.
More to come
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