A commenter writes,
A survey of Muslims in Britain (Patrick Basham, NRO Online, Aug 2006) revealed that attitudes many would consider radical are in fact widely held in the British Muslim community. For example,
"When asked if free speech should be protected, even if it offends religious groups, 62 percent of British Muslims say No, it should not."
The Islamic Revolution is seeking conquest and subjugation of the world, and offering no respect for the lives of those who disagree with them. The "Religion of Peace" line is ludicrous propaganda.
I am certainly troubled by the finding that 62% of British Muslims conclude that free speech should not be protected if it offends religious groups. (I haven't yet gotten a copy of the survey, but I'll assume for now that it is sound.)
At the same time, opposition to protection for offensive religious speech — at least such religious speech in public places (I don't know whether the British Muslim survey expressly asked about this) — is unfortunately not "radical" in the sense of being far from the mainstream. When asked from 2000 to 2006 whether "People should be allowed to say things in public that might be offensive to religious groups," 42% to 53% of American respondents — overwhelmingly non-Muslims — said no. In the surveys, 27% to 38% said they "Strongly disagree" with the pro-religiously-offensive-speech position. Only 22% to 31% strongly agreed (though fortunately the mild agreers consistently exceeded the mild disagreers).
Now it may well be that British Muslims would endorse broader restrictions than Americans would. And 62% is higher than 42% to 53%. Nonetheless, I think it's a mistake to assume that the 62% number itself illustrates "radical" attitudes on the part of British Muslims. Unfortunately, it represents attitudes that are shared by many non-Muslims in America.
I'd also be curious what the view about protection for religious speech among British non-Muslims would be. British law generally offers less protection for offensive speech than American law does, and it's possible that Britons generally oppose protection for religiously offensive speech more than Americans would (though the opposite is also possible, perhaps because of greater secularism among non-Muslim Britons than among Americans). If anyone can point to data on general British sentiment to free speech as opposed to British Muslim sentiment, I'd love to see it.
UPDATE: I just got a copy of the survey of British muslims, and it reports not only that 62% of British Muslims generally disagreed with "Free speech even if it offends religious groups" (31% agreed), but 78% supported the position "Punish the people who published the cartoons" (15% disagreed), and 68% supported the position "British people who insult Islam should be arrested and prosecuted" (23% disagreed). So the support for some specific restrictions on religiously offensive speech among British Muslims may be even higher — but it may well be that support for some specific restrictions on religiously offensive speech among Americans (or Britons generally) may be higher, too.
Related Posts (on one page):
- "Radical" Attitudes About Protection for Religious Speech:
- Islam, Religion of Peace?
I'm sure that Muslims are far more anti-speech than your average Briton. But maybe this attitude there could galvanize the British to realize the importance of defending truly free speech. While they're at it, maybe they could change their ridiculous libel laws too.
But now imagine the question, "The government should not allow people to..." or, "The Constitutions should protect the right to..."
"Allowed to" is an ambiguous phrase that doesn't press our ingrained American-freedom buttons.
I believe that further research would reveal a much greater willingness by Brittish Muslims than average Americans to restrict religious speech.
But I think EV's post was that it was actually not just a view of a poweless European religious minority. He used a survey of American folks to show that it's a prevailing view over here, too.
I disagree with EV- I think the survey is not strong evidence for his point.
I agree with you, wm13, that we should not be looking to Brits for advice for leadership on free-speech issues. After all, they don't even speak English properly. :P
Apparently their is enough support in the UK for restricting religious criticism for them to actually do it!
It seems to me that the Muslims here are just suffering from a PR failure. Without the same level of western cultural grounding they don't understand you are supposed to claim that free speech is inviolate and argue that this speech isn't really part of what free speech protects rather than being upfront about favoring restrictions on speech.
Also I feel Muslims get the short of end the stick on this issue because they have somewhat different sensibilities about what is horribly offensive. Just compare the reactions people have to someone suggesting those 'God hates fags' protesters at military funerals should be muzzled versus someone suggesting that something Muslims find deeply offensive be muzzled.
That struck me as well too. I generally think in legal terms but when I hear the phrase “allowed to” in terms of what I can say it doesn’t automatically trigger the government putting restrictions on my speech but rather non-State actors such as my employer, significant other, or community mores. Those are the people to whom I’m answerable to for my words and actions and whose opinion of me encourages me to know when to hold my tongue. I suspect (gut feeling) that many people may have heard “allowed to” and been thinking in terms of social pressure rather than calling for the government to punish people for offensive speech.
Well in fairness to the former group, I don’t think they were calling for the funeral protesters to be “muzzled” so much as place a time and place restriction on where they could protest military funerals (e.g. so many feet from the cemetery when a funeral is in process).
Personally I’d be satisfied if the cops just looked the other way while the people who were there for legitimate reasons tried to convince them of the errors of their ways.
;)
Perhaps you could enlighten us with a specific example of something that a Briton was able to freely say before Tony Blair was elected but for which they are now criminally prosecuted?
And no, I don't think anything but the tiniest fraction of American Evangelical Christians think that people should be put in jail for dissing them.
No, I don't support criminal speech or hate speech, but anyone who has seen the result of overreaching speech codes on college campusses knows that speech laws can and will go too far, leading to self-censorship and chilling. (not chillin', chilling.)
Speech restrictions may find support in American religious groups, but I don't think that's where the biggest free speech threat is coming from these days...
Right, if they were more PR savy there would have been no fatwa pronounced on Salmon Rushdie's life, nor the actual taking of Theo Van Gogh's life, nor so many other violent reactions on their part to speech that offended them.
EV: I don't want to speak to particular numbers and to particular groups without more data, but I expect that we might reach 62% as to some group.
Even if 62% of respondents in this country gave that same answer, it would mean little unless we could say what exactly respondents understood by "not protected." If 62% understood it to mean that blasphemers deserved to be put to death, that would indeed be alarming. I don't imagine that that is what 62% of British Muslims think, but I would bet that a much, much greater percent of British Muslims believe that than non-Muslims in the UK and here. (And I wouldn't be surprised if 62% or greater of respondents in many Muslim countries [e.g., Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Bangladesh] thought death was an appropriate punishment for blasphemy.)
Having grown up in the South, I'd guess that close to 98% of Americans there would approve of some sort of sanctions for dissing (their) religion if they could get away it. Heck, about 90% believe in forcing children to pray, even to gods they disbelieve in.
But, call me pollyanna, I still think only about 0.0% still think death is the right penalty for blasphemy.
I don't know what the percentage is among Muslims, but whatever it is, it's way too high.
Places where Muslims live outside the UK are not exactly famous for free speech, either. It ought to be there you look if you want to know 'what Muslims think.'
Agreed and it’s probably smaller than the percentage of environmentalists who would jail people for dissing their faith in AGW or the percentage of feminists who would jail men for comments they deamed sexists or the percentage of people in the rest of the grievance industry who would jail people who would jail people for speech they deemed “offensive.”
I suspect that, if a survey were run, you'd make any excuse to avoid learning the results. What you say in public may be all very well, as long as you aren't called on it by...reality.
Only a very, very small minority of people actually believe in absolute free speech. Most Americans are willing to place restraints on speech that they find offensive from cursing on television to insulting someone in public to impugning someone's religion, deity, prophet, etc.
Scratch most Americans and you will find something that they would likely be willing to suppress speech about (at least speech that they do not agree with). That Muslims and evangelical Christians feel this way over their religions is not surprising in the least. It is disappointing, but not surprising.
I think any pus-brained maggot who wants to burn the American flag has a seriously stretched version of the First Amendment to protect him. If I have been very good, helped old ladies across streets and so forth, the pus-brained maggot might try to take my flag to burn.
Not fatwas exactly. But we do have a group of evangelicals honoring abortion doctor murderer Paul Hill with "Paul Hill Days" in Milwaukee next month. Among the listed activities are "Activities at [Milwaukee's] two remaining killing centers" and "Reenactment of 7-29-1994 [the date Hill killed an abortion doctor and a clinic escort]." Now, is there a fatwa out? No. But "reenactment of murders" plus "activities at abortion clinics" doesn't exactly make me think that evangelicals are peaceful people.
http://www.ezekielsystems.com/paulhillmemorial/
I think we can understand your point.
If you had to choose between evangelicals who thought you'd been a potty mouth, and Muslims who thought the same, you'd have to flip a coin.
Easily said.
Could your sample size for judging evangelicals have gotten any smaller?
It's a rhetorical question - the answer is Yes. Once.
Nick
Doesn't the above tell us that we cannot place too much reliance on the numbers reported? If 78% support punishment for those who published the Danish cartoons depicting Mohammed, then how can only 62% hold that speech which offends religious groups should not be protected?
The numbers reported are problematic enough, given that among other things we can't scrutinize the survey questions and know what exactly the answers mean. Any attempted "meta-analysis," that is a combining of British and American survey results obtained by different pollsters at different times with different methodologies, would be still more problematic, if not hopelessly unreliable.
In the absence of solid data, I personally will go with "anecdote," that is the fatwa on Rushdie, the Van Gogh murder, the Hirsan Ali case, the Danish cartoon mayhem, death penalties for apostates in Muslim countries, Muslim pronouncements on "infidels," etc., which causes me great concern about Muslim populations in the West.
The problem is that with a big enough population, even a small fraction are enough to make big trouble.
The Canadians found that 12% of their Muslim population--by survey--thought the plot to behead the PM and blow up Parliament was a good idea. That amounts to 84,000 folks. The number who wouldn't think so but would also not drop a dime is probably as large. If Muslim fanaticism is on a normal distribution between violent whackjobs on one end and slackers on the other end, 24% is 'way into the first SD.
There is a difference between having the belief that someone should not be able to offend one's religious beliefs and how one would actually prevent it from occurring.
It is also not surprising that Muslims, coming from cultures that are generally less liberal than the West, would be willing to resort to physical punishment to stop offensive speech while American evangelicals would perhaps only be willing to go so far as fining or suing the individual in question. It's a matter of degree but also an issue that is separate from the one I commented about.
Or it may not. There is an understanding in American culture that the tolerance each enjoys for their own religious viewpoint stems from the precept that all religions will enjoy the same freedoms, and that no particular religion will enjoy special status. Islam seeks to assert special status while denying tolerance to other religions, such as Judaism for example.
The "Religion of Peace" line is propaganda, analogous to the Nazi’s asserting there will be peace after the conquest when the entire world is ruled by Nazi’s and the troublesome dissenting factions are gone.
Because they don't consider "insults" to be speech.
A far better term to use than "liberal" orthodoxy would be "left-wing" orthodoxy. Liberalism is by its very nature opposed to government intrusion in private spheres of life, like speech, be it political or non-political. Conservatism, on the other hand, is willing to use established institutions, like the government, to dictate what is ostensibly private behavior, such as religious speech.
We basically have two conservative parties in America, one from the left and one from the right. The left/right dichotomy in America is based upon what each side is conservative about, not upon liberalism versus conservatism.
Besides, the original post referenced personal beliefs and not state actions.
Then the difference is....?
Not if you're Rushdie or van Gogh. Being dead is qualitatively different from being alive.
I think it'd be more accurate to call left-windgers liberal than conservative. And while censorship may not be considered a classical 'liberal' value, those self-identifying as liberals are much more likely to criminalize 'homophobic' speech, for example, than are the 'conservatives.'
There are words, and there are meanings. Censorship may not be a 'liberal' value, but they are the 'liberals' who are leading the charge against thought crimes.
Personally, I deal with this contriversy by simply calling everyone who disagrees with me a 'hippie.' Because if we're going to redefine terms, I'm going to do it on my own terms, dang it.
Recent studies of the BBC revealed bias that favored coddling Muslims more than Christians. Despite all the hippies whining about laws against insulting the Church of England, in practice, the BBC can air a picture of throwing away a Bible... but they wisely decided not to throw away a Koran. Someone would have gotten their head chopped off.
Heh. No, that's not enough -- we all have different sensibilities about what's horribly offensive. The trick is what we're willing to do about it.
Not if you're living in Cleveland. Then it's just a matter of degree.
OK, so I'm a godless heathen American... but this sort of farcical reductio ad absurdam is one reason why (despite fundies, foreign and domestic) our First Amendment still seems a good idea to me.