Khalil Yousuf has recently published a piece in the Economist deploring Geert Wilders’ proposed Muhammed themed cartoon competition. He asserts that modern communications have made this competition equivalent to shouting fire in a crowded theatre.
It’s true that the competition may further whip up anti-Islam/Muslim sentiment amongst some of those involved. Of course it may also – as a similar competition did a few years ago – result in violence from Islamists.
He argues:
The cartoon competition has only one purpose: to unite far right individuals into his anti-Islam cause. It has little to do with free speech.
The kind of speech which needs defending is rarely just ‘about’ free speech. It is by its nature controversial and often offensive, at least to some. However in a sense such competitions can be seen as a blow for free speech as in the past cartoons of Muhammad have been met with extreme violence. So I can’t agree with Yousuf’s claim that in planning his competition Wilders has
only further entrenched himself as an enemy of free speech rather than its saviour.
Although I have sympathy for Yousuf (despite disagreeing with him) his arguments seems paradoxical and contradictory. He says, when arguing that the competition should be banned:
Laws must adapt accordingly, not to prevent freedom of speech but to safeguard it.
This doesn’t seem a logical position. I find the regular Iranian Holocaust competition utterly vile but I wouldn’t say it made the organisers enemies of free speech.
A better challenge to Geert Wilders’ free speech credentials might be to remind readers that he has advocated banning the Qur’an. Now that move really could be said to have ‘entrenched [him] as an enemy of free speech rather than its saviour.’
Here’s Flemming Rose, the former editor of Jyllands-Posten, on Wilders’ inconsistency.
As a justification for his position on Islam, Wilders often quotes Abraham Lincoln’s words from a letter written in 1859: “Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves.” But one could turn Lincoln’s words against Wilders himself.
On a further more utilitarian note, and one more attuned to Yousuf’s understandable concerns about its impact on the Muslim community – banning this competition could actually inflame anti-Muslim sentiment more than holding it will.
