Question: What is it that Christians
had, Jews
have and Muslims
want?
Answer: Special protection under the law.
Recently there's been all kinds of furore over various people insulting Christians, Jews and Muslims in various ways. There's been varying degrees of protest and backlash to the incidents and a lot of ideas have been thrown around. I find myself rather confused by the various arguments, as many of them seem rather contradictory, so I thought I'd write a bit about it and see if anyone else has a view on these things.
Let's start with the Muslims. We've probably all read or heard about the
Muslim cartoon controversy. Long story short, a Danish newspaper (and subsequently newspapers all over the world) printed cartoons depicting the prophet Muhammad; including some more provocative ones with bombs and such like; and soon after, the Muslim world got quite angry about it. Cue protests, including some fairly ironic ones with threats of bombings, murders and so on. Various leaders said that it was utterly unacceptable for such things to be published, as they were against Islamic law and were offensive. Those responsible for publishing the cartoons argued that they were merely exercising their right to free speech.
So who's right? I'm inclined to say that the newspapers and magazines were well within their rights to publish the cartoons. They were
satirical, and some did make valid points about such things as the disparity between peaceful Islam and the wing that blows people up and flies planes into buildings. Yes, they were offensive, but that's not a crime, is it? It's also not an issue of libel, as it's not possible to libel a religion or similar institution. The only point at which it can be seen as an issue of law is that in Islam, it's forbidden to depict the prophet. Yet the Danes and the French and all the rest of them are not bound by Islamic law, so how can they be held culpable under it? Islam can't expect to accuse people of crimes that are not recognised in the state where they took place.
Now, one thing the Islamic leaders complained about which did carry some credence, was that there were double standards at work. After all, Jews are protected by laws prohibiting anti-Semitism and some countries in Europe go as far as to make it illegal to question the severity or occurence of the holocaust during the Second World War. Why should it be OK to publish cartoons criticising or even mocking Islam, when it's forbidden to question war crimes committed against the Jews?
As if to illustrate this,
David Irving was promptly sentenced to 3 years imprisonment in Austria for holocaust denial, in this case during a speech he made about 20 years ago. Is that right? Should a man be jailed for questioning a historical event? History is based around the interpretation of sources pertaining to a given incident. It is inevitable that a historian's interpretations will be biased to some degree by their own personal views, and it is pretty obvious that Irving's views are somewhat coloured (pun intended) by his
racist beliefs. His historical research does not hold up to much scrutiny, and is not well respected by more credible historians. However, while his work may be fairly crummy, it's surely not actually illegal to be a bad historian. Now of course we know it's not illegal, but in the case of the holocaust it is. You could pick any other event in history and produce any crackpot theory you liked about it, and you would simply be denounced as inept and biased, but you wouldn't face jail for it.
Holocaust denial is a crime in various countries in Europe, and also in Israel. The laws have been instated on the basis that it is important that the terrible events be remembered in the hope that this will prevent such things from happening again. After all, if it is an accepted fact that 6 million Jews died because of a fascist regime in Germany, we will all remember to be wary of similarly totalitarean governments in the future, right? Now, this makes sense, but it irks me that we need it put into law. The holocaust is accepted as fact as it is, without any laws about it. We have plenty of evidence for it, not least testimony admitting to it in war crimes trials after WW2 finished. Historians agree that it occurred and that it was a horrendous crime against the Jews and against humanity. Why should we need the government to make it so? If you'll allow me a bit of hyperbole, it's a bit too close to the historical revisionism that takes place in Orwell's 1984, with unwanted pieces of history disappearing down the memory hole, and only the government's version of history being accepted. It is not the government's place to stipulate what is accepted as historical fact - it is the job of historians.
Lastly, we come to the Christians. Recently there was a big fuss over the government's proposed laws regarding
Incitement To Religious Hatred, as part of the Serious Organised Crime and Police bill. Many Christians were against this, on the basis that it would limit free speech and prevent them from criticising other religions. That's all well and good, and the bill was a threat to that, so it's probably a good job that it didn't get through. On the flipside, at about the same time, lots of Christians were making a big fuss about the now infamous
Jerry Springer Opera, claiming it was blasphemous, protesting against the
BBC, and so on. It appears Christians want to be able to criticise other religions, but don't want someone to produce a silly opera about theirs.
Now, obviously the difference between the two situations is that in one situation a religion is being criticised, whereas in the other it is being mocked and blasphemed. The problem is in discerning quite where this line lies. A Christian promoting their faith is, by implication, criticising all other religions and stating that they are untrue. Now, to say that Allah is not God, and that Mohammed is not his prophet, probably qualifies as blasphemy in Islam, right? Likewise, portraying God and Jesus as anything but perfect in the Opera, is also pretty blasphemous from a Christian point of view, yeah? One is OK, the other is not.
The problem, as far as I can tell, is in the
blasphemy law, and the application of it. The law is archaic to say the least, having been part of Canon Law, the law of the church. It has stuck around as common law since the 17th Century, and is still part of our laws today, although it is worth noting that the last time anyone was even arrested for blasphemy was 1925. These days our country is extremely secular, very mixed, thoroughly postmodern and generally not very Christian. However, Christians seem to want to cling on to the blasphemy law, and cling on to times past when the Church was the governing authority. This is no longer the case, and it is somewhat absurd to try to hold Christianity in some sort of privileged position and protect it in this way. Christians can not expect the protection of the law from criticism, mockery or blasphemy. They certainly can't expect such protection and then wish to deny other religions the same thing.
As an aside, I also find it a bit odd that we think it unacceptable that we suffer any form of persecution, even something as comparably minor as a puerile opera with tangential connections to our religion, that was obviously only out to get a knee-jerk reaction. Christianity was born out of persecution. Christ was beaten, whipped, scorned, spat on, and nailed to a cross. Paul and his cohorts were frequently imprisoned, and several were killed. The early church was subject to such horrors as being fed to the lions, and being wrapped in wax and set alight as candles, by
certain deranged emperors. These days Christians in the Middle East and China and other far flung places are victims of violence, imprisonment and death. And here we are worrying about the effects of this opera. It leaves something of a bad taste in my mouth to be honest.
As far as I can tell, blasphemy laws simply can not work in anything but a theocracy, which is not something we find ourselves in. It is absurd to try to protect the Gods of umpteen religions, when most of them explicitly denounce all the others. It's also a very difficult area to legislate on, as one man's criticism is another man's blasphemy and so on. Who decides what is and what isn't offensive? The system is also very much open to abuse, as if all are to be protected, then it can't be too difficult to demand protection for patently ludicrous ideas. Is the
Flying Spaghetti Monster to be protected? Will the Pastafarians sue everyone for saying that their God doesn't exist, and that they were in fact not touched by his noodly appendage?
I should probably come to a conclusion on all of this, as it's taken me weeks to write as it is...
As a Christian, I would actually quite like to live in a Christian theocracy. All our laws would be well established, and we would know exactly where we stood on everything. We could all agree that the laws were good, and we could get on with obeying them and living happily. The trouble is, such a thing is not possible when we are all so mixed and varied. My office alone contains people of 3, or arguably even 4 different religions, and there's only 4 of us in the room. The situation is irreconcilable, short of setting in stone what people are to believe. With that in mind, I think it's fair to say that blasphemy laws, and any other laws seeking to write religion into the system are doomed to failure. Abolish them, and move on. I'm a big proponent of the separation of church and state, and I think this is just one more situation that would be helped by it.
It irks me, that we as Christians are seeking the protection of the legal system where no crime besides the defamation of our religion is taking place. Are we saying that our God is unable to defend his own honour? That our conduct will not speak highly enough of our religion to garner respect? I'm inclined to believe that the reason the opera, and similar things, targeted the Christian faith, is that we are seen as irrelevant, or an easy target. What I don't understand, is how our crying to the law is supposed to change that. All it does is make us appear whiny and irrelevant, while all the time providing further publicity for the stupid opera, or whatever, that started it all. Now I'm not saying that we shouldn't protest against this sort of thing, or at the very least declare it as defamatory and wrong, but we can't hope to seek legal protection for something that most people in the country don't believe. That's not going to make our religion appear any more credible. I doubt the early church expected to make their case based on their standing with the law. The law was out to get them! They earned respect through their lifestyle and their good deeds. I think the church here could do to remember that.
