By CAROLINE GLICK
The West stands by idly as its foundations are rent asunder.
| Some in the West have wrecking bars in their hands ... |
Last Friday the UN's Human Rights Council took a direct swipe at freedom of expression. In a 32-0 vote, the council instructed its "expert on freedom of expression" to report to the council on all instances in which individuals "abuse" their freedom of speech by giving expression to racial or religious bias.
| If someone else determines when you're "abusing" it then it's not freedom. It's something you're allowed to do by your betters. |
The measure was proposed by paragons of freedom Egypt and Pakistan.
| Pak just shut down a couple teevee stations because they "abused" their freedom of speech by televising PPP thugs beating somebody up. |
It was supported by all Arab, Muslim and African countries - founts of liberty one and all. European states abstained.
| They're trying to breed all the testosterone out of an entire continent. |
The US, which is not a member of the Human Rights Council, tried to oppose the measure. In a speech before the council, US Ambassador to the UN in Geneva Warren Tichenor warned that the resolution's purpose is to undermine freedom of expression because it imposes "restrictions on individuals rather than emphasiz[ing] the duty and responsibility of governments to guarantee, uphold, promote and protect human rights."
| The UN demonstrates once again that "human rights" isn't remotely the same thing as "individual rights," and that in fact the two are in many ways mutually exclusive. |
By seeking to criminalize free speech, the resolution stands in breach of the UN's Declaration of Human Rights. Article 19 of that document states explicitly: "Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers."
| It's a difference in interpretation, I suppose. We Americans are "endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights, among them life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." Being granted by God, no one of lesser stature can take them away, though there's enough nibbling around the edges to make some of us uncomfortable. Most everyone else, especially those abstaining, has had their rights granted by a gracious, if sometimes hard-pressed lord of the human sort. Those countries pushing for the ban are the ones where either the gracious lords of the manor haven't granted those "rights," or there's a really good chance of rule by holy men as God's representatives on earth, who'll do the interpreting of the Lord's will without any input from the rest of us, thankew. |
The Europeans' decision to abstain rather than oppose the measure seems, at first glance, rather surprising.
Given that the EU member states are among the UN's most emphatic champions, it would have seemed normal for them to have opposed a resolution that undermines one of the UN's foundational documents, and indeed, one of the most basic tenets of Western civilization. But then again, given the EU's stands in recent years against freedom of expression, there really is nothing to be surprised about.
| Of course not. They're frightened pissless. |
The EU's current bow to intellectual thuggery is of course found in its response to the Internet release of Dutch parliamentarian Geert Wilders' film Fitna. The EU has gone out of its way to attack Wilders for daring to exercise his freedom of expression. The EU's presidency released a statement condemning the film for "inflaming hatred." Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende issued statements claiming that the film "serves no other purpose than to cause offense."
| Someone posted it to the 'Burg. I saw it. It's the Religion of Peace™ in its own words. |
Then, too, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon blasted the film as "offensively anti-Islamic."
| Pontius Pilate is thoroughly washing his hands of Fitna. There is right and there is wrong. The religion depicted in Fitna is wrong. Period. There is civilization, there is barbarism. The enemy's civilization makes it into barbarism on its best days, and the participants in Fitna mostly don't make it out of savagery. |
These statements follow the EU's quest to restrict freedom of speech following the 2005 publication of cartoons of Muhammed in Denmark's Jyllands Posten newspaper. They also come against the backdrop of the systematic silencing of anti-jihadist intellectuals throughout the continent. These intellectuals, such as Peter Redeker in France and Paul Cliteur in the Netherlands, are threatened into silence by European jihadists. And the governments of Europe either do nothing to defend the threatened thinkers or justify the intellectual blackmailers by sympathizing with their anger.
| It must be something going around. India did the same thing with Taslima Nasreen. |
IT IS axiomatic that freedom of expression is the foundation of human freedom and progress. When people are not allowed to express themselves freely, there can be no debate or inquiry. It is only due to free debate and inquiry that humanity has progressed from the Dark Age to the Digital Age.
This is why the first act of every would-be tyrant is to take control of the marketplace of ideas.
| The first task of a "ministry of information" is to license journalists and newspapers, isn't it? |
Yet today, the nations of Europe and indeed much of the Western world, either sit idly by and do nothing to defend that freedom or collaborate with unfree and often tyrannical Islamic states and terrorists in silencing debate and stifling dissent.
| I keep coming back to the same concepts: whether you're ruled or governed. It's much more than a semantic difference. |
There are two reasons why this is the case. First, the political Left, which rules supreme in the EU's bureaucracy as well as in most of the intellectual centers of the free world, has shown through its actions that it has no real commitment to democratic values. Rather than embrace democratic values, the Left increasingly adopts the parlance of democracy cynically, with the aim of undermining free discourse in the public sphere in the name of "democracy."
Writing of the leftist uproar against Wilders' film in Europe in Der Speigel, Henryk Broder noted that almost across the board, the European media has castigated Wilders as "a right-wing populist." As Broder notes, on its face this assertion is absurd, for Wilders is a radical liberal.
| As Broder notes, by calling Wilders a "right-wing populist," the Left seeks to silence both him and his call for an open discourse. The underlying message of such labeling is that Wilders is somehow beyond the pale of polite company and therefore his message should be ignored by all right thinking people. |
In Fitna, the outspoken legislator shows how verses of the Koran are used by jihadists to justify the most heinous acts of mass murder and hatred. His film superimposes verses from the Koran calling for the murder of non-Muslims with actual scenes of jihadist carnage. It also superimposes verses from the Koran vilifying Jews with footage of Islamic clerics repeating the verses and with a three-year-old girl saying that she learned that Jews are monkeys and pigs from her Koran classes. Fitna concludes with a challenge to Muslims to expunge these hateful, murderous religious tenets from their belief system.
While arguably, but not necessarily, inflammatory, Wilders' film serves as an invitation to Europe and to the Islamic world to hold an open debate. His film challenges viewers - both Muslim and non-Muslim - to think and to discuss whether Islam accords with the notions of human freedom and what can be done to stop jihadists from exploiting the Koran to justify their acts of murder, tyranny and hate.
As Broder notes, by calling Wilders a "right-wing populist," the Left seeks to silence both him and his call for an open discourse. The underlying message of such labeling is that Wilders is somehow beyond the pale of polite company and therefore his message should be ignored by all right thinking people. If you don't want to be intellectually isolated and socially ostracized like Wilders, then you mustn't watch his film or take it seriously. Doing so would be an act of "right-wing populism" - and everyone knows what that means. |