Is David Cameron not simply arguing for the right to bully?

Like much of what David Cameron says, his response to Pope Francis' condemnation of 'provocation' by Charlie Hebdo in its 'survivors' issue' sounds quite reasonable. Until you think about it for a while.

His argument is that "there is a right to cause offence about someone’s religion" (or anything else) "as long as it’s within the law." In a sense of course this is a truism: if something is not against the law then it is not against the law. However Cameron seemed to be exhorting the right to cause offence as a mark of a free society and seeing the law as the sole arbiter of whether one should exercise that right or not.

You see I think there are two issues here that Cameron and others are dangerously conflating:
1) Should the right to free speech (even where that free speech causes offence to some) be defended? and
2) Should people be encouraged to use their right to free speech to offend others?
For me the answer to the first question is manifestly Yes, but the answer to the second is Absolutely not. Or rather, people should be encouraged to cause offence to those who hold power and dominion over them (or others) and use it unfairly, but to cause offence to no one else.

David Cameron has of course put a caveat into his exhortation of the right to offend, namely that it applies only so far as is allowed within the law. On the face of it, does this not negate any possible danger? Well no. And in fact for me it points up the fundamental issue here.

The fact is that laws are written by those in power, so inevitably they are likely to reflect the morals, attitudes and priorities of those who define them, and this is where the problem lies. In previous generations in this country, when homosexuals constituted an oppressed minority, there were no laws against homophobic insults. So in David Cameron's formulation any right-minded person should have defended the right of small-minded bigots to use terms of homophobic abuse towards anyone they felt was insufficiently macho. The same applies to racial minorities. Would David Cameron have defended the right of B&B owners in the 60s to put up signs saying "No dogs, no blacks, no gypsies"?

Or if you want a more extreme example, there were no laws against anti-semitic language in Nazi Germany (or I imagine in present-day Iran). Should the right of citizens in those jurisdictions to cause offence to people of Jewish heritage be defended?

Thankfully the right of present-day citizens of this country to offend people on the basis of their sexual orientation or racial background is severely curtailed. I am eternally grateful that it has been deemed unacceptable to use the racist words that I know deeply offend many black and asian people or the homophobic language that in the past used to eat away at the self-esteem and confidence of gay people. It would (thankfully) be unthinkable now to tell a black girl who has been called a nigger that the person saying it had the right to free speech and she simply had to live with the offence it caused if she wanted to get by in this country.

So why does the same logic not apply to a young muslim girl who has been hurt and offended by the breaking of one of the central taboos of her religion?

The answer is simple. It is because the views of the muslim community as to what does or does not constitute unacceptable offence are not yet well represented (or even understood) amongst those in power who write our laws. That is not particularly surprising- a few decades ago the same was true of homosexuals or those of black or asian origin.

Yet surely, even before the law deemed it to be unacceptable the right-minded in our society did not defend the right of bigots to use racist or homophobic insults, did they? Yes, people like Bernard Manning peddled their filth to large audiences, but would any prime minister of the day have responded to outrage in the afro-caribbean community with a sanctimonious "there is a right to cause offence ... as long as it’s within the law"? The powers-that-be were guilty of even worse blindness to the offence caused to their society's underclasses than are today's but would they honestly have gone on national television to hail that blindness as a principled commitment to free speech?

The thing is, David Cameron's line is really nothing more than a bully's charter. What he is saying is that until and unless the powers-that-be step in to defend a particular group they are fair game as regards causing offence. He comes close even to encouraging that offence (that abuse) as the defining feature of a free society.

There is (as far as I am aware) no specific law forbidding the causing of offence to Jains- members of an ancient religion that prescribes a path of non-violence towards all living things. Devout Jains wear mesh over their mouths to avoid inhaling and accidentally killing flying insects and walk barefoot to avoid crushing ants and beetles. The death of any living thing is a source of distress to a Jain.

Let us suppose that someone took against Jainism for some reason, and stationed themselves at the door of a Jain temple spraying insecticide in the air and scattering ant-killing powder on the ground. Say they went further and set up a (legal) abattoir next door, for the sole purpose of causing offence to the worshipers. Would David Cameron go on national television to defend that person's right to cause offence and distress in that way?

Myself, I think that one of the key markers of a civilised society is that people behave in a civilised way, whatever the law may or may not permit them to do. I am not so prudish as to wish to outlaw the causing of any offence to anyone, but in a civilised society the boundaries for such causing of offence are drawn not by what is deemed legal by those in power but by what is acceptable within the universal code of human interaction: do as you would be done to. And whilst causing offence is sometimes part of the natural cut-and-thrust of a vibrant society causing distress never should be.

The thing is, the less like oneself another person is the less certain one can be as to where they draw the line between offence and distress. And in such a situation it behooves all of us (and most of all our prime minister) to adopt the precautionary principle. If you are not sure whether what you are saying (or drawing) will cause offence or actual distress, then DON'T DO IT.

Whether it is against the law or not.

Does this mean war?

Much of the commentary I have read about the Charlie Hebdo atrocity seems to present it in the context of a vast ideological war which is perceived to be brewing between the (variously) medieval, barbaric or fanatic Islamist jihadis and the liberal, democratic West. Even comment such as my previous post that criticizes some of the values or approaches adopted by the Charlie Hebdo cartoonists have taken it more or less as read that the actions of these two brothers have a crucial importance for the future of the world. Terrible as the killings were, there is a strong sense that they are merely a foretaste of what might come and that effectively war has been declared (though it is not clear by whom).

In the wake of an appalling and shocking tragedy such catastrophic thinking is hardly surprising, but it does behoove us I believe to stand back a little and seek some sort of objectivity. When Adam Lanza shot and killed 26 people at Sandy Hook Elementary School just over two years ago I don't remember the language of warfare being used. Yet his was by no means the first and will not be the last mass killing in a US school, and together such shootings have killed 111 and injured 123 since 2010 alone.

The thing is, that Adam Lanza and his like can only very rarely characterised as "other" in the way that Cherif ands Said Kouachi all too easily can. So school shooters can be contained with labels such as mad, disturbed, alienated and loner that somehow diminish the threat they pose to civil society in the US. Yet they are, objectively, more of a threat than those such as the brothers Kouachi. It is not just that school shooters and the like have killed far more people in the West than jihadi terrorists. They have also (to me bizarrely) fueled the US citizenry's desire for liberal gun possession laws, with all that that implies in terms of the breakdown of civilised values.

So in discussion of the appalling incident in Paris, please let us avoid the language of "us" and "them", unless "us" comprises the vast mass of law-abiding, tolerant citizens of whatever religious persuasion and "them" includes both the brothers Kouachi and Adam Lanza and his ilk.

Suis-je Charlie?

Yesterday's attacks on the offices of Charlie Hebdo in Paris were utterly horrific and indefensible, that goes without saying. It is not just the actions themselves that were appalling but the motivations behind the actions- this was an attempt to use brutal violence to suppress free speech, to impose a particular ideology and to drive a wedge between Islam and the rest of the world. The current crop of ruthless ideologically motivated terrorists are not the first of course, but it is a long time since the Red Brigade or the Bader-Meinhoff gang carried out similar atrocities and in the current world of instant global media we all feel the shock and outrage all the more keenly.

I hope that nothing I write here in any way softens the condemnation of those who carry out, or intend to carry out, such barbaric and anti-democratic acts of violence.

However there are are other questions to be considered here, and for me the main one is raised by the social media response that takes the hashtag #JeSuisCharlie as its rallying cry. This is the (understandable) response of many to align themselves with the intentions and values of the victims of this outrage. There is a solidarity in this that I find heartening, even uplifting, but it raises questions too.

France has a tradition of crude and brutal satire that would shock citizens of many other countries. In fact Charlie Hebdo, like its more successful counterpart Le Canard Enchaîné, revels in its ability to shock and disgust. Its ethos is defiantly iconoclastic and it uses satire to tear down anything with any pretensions to power or influence. Its journalists and cartoonists, many now tragically gunned down, were utterly unafraid of controversy and intimidation and continued to publish despite actual firebombing as well as a multitude of threats.

So what is there to criticise? Is Charlie Hebdo not then a manifestation of democracy and free speech at its rawest and finest?

Well, there is another side to it too, and it is worth considering Charlie Hebdo's attitude to organised religion specifically. France has a vibrant tradition of secularism and specifically religious iconoclasm, and many of Charlie Hebdo's most outrageous cartoons have aimed at the heart of organised religion- all organised religion. They have published cartoons of masturbating nuns and the pope in a condom, as well as many others. For French secularists organised religion is a fundamentally oppressive force that has to be repelled by any means possible to retain the national commitment to liberté, égalité and fraternité and Charlie Hebdo has been at the forefront of that struggle for many many years.

Recent cartoons lampooning Islamic symbols and values are well within that tradition of course, so should they not simply be applauded as part of an attempt to normalise public attitudes towards Islam by demonstrating that Islam, like Christianity and Judaism, is susceptible to humorous and satirical comment? Or should they be seen, as many moderate Muslims see them, as almost the opposite- as an attempt to force them and their values out of modern Western society? Is this satire, or is it bullying?

For me the key consideration in this question is that of power. Where satire is used against entrenched power I would defend it no matter how outrageous or distasteful it becomes. However the position is very different when it used by the powerful against their enemies, and even against those they oppress. The Nazi parties were great users of satire against the Jews- so would we defend the right to free speech of creators of cartoons such as this?

Not that I am saying that Charlie Hebdos offerings are remotely similar of course, but attacking another's religion is very different from attacking ones own, particularly when the religion one is attacking is that of the poorest and least empowered citizens of ones country. Iconoclasm is literally the destruction of venerated images, and whilst doing this within ones own church is clearly an act of defiance, doing it in someone else's can veer close to cultural intimidation.

In the aftermath of incidents such as yesterday's it seems to go without saying that free speech must lie at the heart of any civilised community's values. Yet a moment's thought calls that assumption into question. Should a civilised nation defend the right to free speech of internet trolls? Of the perpetrators of racial hatred? Of the distributors of paedophile pornography?

And if it doesn't, who gets to determine which speech should be free and which suppressed?

I heard the view expressed this morning that the correct response from those offended by something like Charlie Hebdo's mohammed cartoon should be made not with guns but with other cartoons. The thing is, whilst I absolutely agree with the first part of this formulation, the second part is nonsensical. You see, for all their iconoclastic, anti-authority, revolutionary ethos, cartoonists such as those so brutally killed at Charlie Hebdo were and are central to the educated, white 'ruling classes' they lampoon. Whenever they wish to tear down, to attack and to mock they have the means at their disposal- they simply go into print. How many muslims offended by their attacks on symbols central to their world view have the same option?

The ideology of those who respond to any statement of which they disapprove with murderous violence is as incomprehensibly barbaric as President Hollande said. However that does not by definition imply that its victims were justified to exercise their right to free speech in the way they did. Islam is not an organised religion in the way Catholicism is and in general its adherents are not in positions of power in Western society to the extent that adherents of Christianity or Judaism are. So attacks on Islam veer uncomfortably close (for me) to attacks on the belief systems of the disempowered and marginalised rather than on the wielders of power.

True, Islam needs to be normalised within Western society, and its ethos and values need to come to terms with values such as those of free speech, equal rights and pluralism, just as the world's other religions have had to. It needs to change and it needs to expunge its extremist and repressive elements (mind you, if it does succeed in doing that it will be doing better than Chrisitanity). But to what extent will viciously sardonic, borderline racist satirical cartoons drawn by world-weary representatives of the cultural establishment help in that process?

  I condemn utterly the killers of the Charlie Hebdo cartoonists, but I for one will not be using the hashtag #JeSuisCharlie.