«Hvis frihet betyr noe, så er det retten til å si noe som folk ikke ønsker å høre.» Sa George Orwell. Akkurat det sitatet tar på kornet hva som holder på å skje: noen grupper tvinger gjennom sine krav om hva de ikke vil høre. Vi får et samfunn hvor man gjensidig respekterer hveranderes tabuer. Et slikt samfunn kan virke harmonisk på overflaten. Men det er ikke stabilt og det er ikke fritt. Skriver Flemming Rose i Wall Street Journal.

Han forklarer hvorfor det er så viktig å forsvare Kurt Westergaard. Det er en trend over hele verden at bestemte kontroversielle meninger settes under trykk. Rose nevner også Oslo-galleriet Lautom Contemporary, som refuserte Lars Vilks miniatyrer av Profeten. Lederen Randi Thommessen hadde nok ikke drømt om at hennes avslag skulle gi ekko i amerikanske aviser. Men slik er den globale verden: det er ikke bare den provoserende kunstneren som blir kjent. Det gjør også galleristen som sensurerer ham. Kan det overraske? Men Thommessen trodde nok at hennes begrunnelse – «denne debatten er vi ferdig med» – var akseptert og gangbar. Det er den ikke, og Rose forklarer hvorfor.

Sadly, the plot to kill Mr. Westergaard is not an isolated story, but part of a broader trend that risks undermining free speech in Europe and around the world. Consider the following recent events: In Oslo a gallery has censored three small watercolor paintings, showing the head of the prophet Muhammad on a dog’s body, by the Swedish artist Lars Vilks, who has been under police protection since the fall of 2007. In Holland the municipal museum in The Hague recently refused to show photos by the Iranian-born artist Sooreh Hera of gay men wearing the masks of the prophet Muhammad and his son Ali; Ms. Hera has received several death threats and is in hiding. In Belarus an editor has been sentenced to three years in a forced labor camp after republishing some of Jyllands-Posten’s Muhammad cartoons. In Egypt bloggers are in jail after having «insulted Islam.» In Afghanistan the 23-year-old Sayed Perwiz Kambakhsh has been sentenced to death because he distributed «blasphemous» material about the mistreatment of women in Islam. And in India the Bengal writer Taslima Nasreen is in a safe house after having been threatened by people who don’t like her books.

Every one of the above cases speaks to the same problem: a global battle for the right to free speech. The cases are different, and you can’t compare the legal systems in Egypt and Norway, but the justifications for censorship and self-censorship are similar in different parts of the world: Religious feelings and taboos need to be treated with a kind of sensibility and respect that other feelings and ideas cannot command.

This position boils down to a simple rule: If you respect my taboo, I’ll respect yours. That was the rule of the game during the Cold War until people like Vaclav Havel, Lech Walesa, Andrei Sakharov and other dissenting voices behind the Iron Curtain insisted on another rule: It is not cultures, religions or political systems that enjoy rights. Human beings enjoy rights, and certain principles like the ones embedded in the U.N. Declaration of Human Rights are universal.

Unfortunately, misplaced sensitivity is being used by tyrants and fanatics to justify murder and silence criticism. Right now the Organization of Islamic Countries is conducting a successful campaign at the United Nations to rewrite international human-rights standards to curtail the right to free speech. Last year the U.N. Human Rights Council adopted a resolution against «defamation of religion,» calling on governments around the world to clamp down on cartoonists, writers, journalists, artists and dissidents who dare to speak up.

In the West there is a lack of clarity on these issues. People suggest that Salman Rushdie, Theo van Gogh, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Taslima Nasreen and Kurt Westergaard bear a certain amount of responsibility for their fate. They don’t understand that by doing so they tacitly endorse attacks on dissenting voices in parts of the world where no one can protect them.

We need a global movement to fight blasphemy and other insult laws, and the European Union should lead the way by removing them. Europe should make it clear that democracies will protect their citizens if they say something that triggers threats and intimidation.

Free Speech and Radical Islam
By FLEMMING ROSE
February 15, 2008; Page A14