"Oh, you sap, you halfwit. How can you not see that what is happening now is of a different order entirely? The number of anti-Semitic attacks rising exponentially. Drongo jihadis opening fire on synagogues and Jewish shops — not on Israeli embassies, not on Netanyahu, but on ordinary Jews. Can you imagine the response from the politicians if these sorts of attacks had been committed by white Christians against Muslims? Or indeed by Christians against Jews? And yet when it happens to be Muslims murdering Jews there is no great furore about this fact; instead it is swept to one side: simply a case of 'extremists' versus 'ordinary people'. No, that is not what it is. But given their investment in multiculturalism, the politicians will not accept this obvious point. If our Jewish community gets the hell out to Sderot or Jaffa, it will be this wilful and cowardly blindness which has propelled them there."Read on...
"Blasphemy provides oppressive elites and arbitrary courts with a vague law you can offend against even without knowing."Finkelstein refers to an "invaluable book", Silenced, by Marshall and Shea, which explains how blasphemy law has become the primary tool of control by oppressive regimes across the Muslim world.
I refer to Peter Forsythe's letter ("We should not give in to the 'but brigade'", February 10), which claimed that emphasising moral equivalence will deteriorate freedom of speech and give in to the violence.I do not believe that there is a deterioration of freedom of speech if religions are respected.First and foremost, freedom of speech should not be abused. It should not be used as an excuse to blindly criticise, ridicule or attack religions, or anything else.Its value is to uphold the right of criticism which is supported by justified evidence.For instance, we have the right to strongly criticise Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying, condemn atrocities committed by terrorists, or vent our anger towards ever-worsening social problems, because such comments are reasonable.However, I cannot see any justification for ridiculing a religion just because you wish to make fun of it. This is similar to someone acting like a bully.That kind of cruel satire can disrupt harmony and cause polarisation in a society.Freedom of speech should be used to build a fairer society in which everyone can express their opinions in a rational way and all citizens can respect each other.Jonathan Kung Chi-yip, Tuen Mun
Offensive free speech can cause miseryI refer to the letter by Peter Forsythe ("We should not give in to the 'but brigade'", February 10).His claim that "Those who claim they denounce terrorism and support free speech 'but...' must acknowledge that... they implicitly support the murders" [of staff at Charlie Hebdo] is ludicrous and insulting.He goes on to say that "there would be nothing to discuss if they had not gone on their rampage." Nonsense, of course there would.Free speech and its limits are ongoing issues quite separate from terrorism.Unchecked, free speech can cause misery and/or incite others to violence; does Mr Forsythe defend such offensive free speech? I continue to denounce it.There are on this planet those who are determined to offend; there are more who are determined to be offended; and, probably worst of all, there are those who go out of their way to persuade others that they should feel offended.I would like to see the first category ease up, the second grow up and the third shut up; but I accept that for some in the second category it is not that easy.These have been my views for a very long time and will remain so. If this puts me in Mr Forsythe's "but... brigade" then, so be it.Peter Robertson, Sai Kung
"To indulge the idea of religious censorship by the threat of violence is to insult and undermine precisely those in the Muslim world who are its intellectual cream, and who want to testify for their own liberty—and for ours. It is also to make the patronizing assumption that the leaders of mobs and the inciters of goons are the authentic representatives of Muslim opinion. What could be more "offensive" than that?"Me: I'm not too sure why this old article by the late, great, Christopher Hitchens was in my Google Islam alert today, but for sure it's worth rereading for both its elegance and for its relevance to today's ructions over free speech and those who would kill it, literally.
[Professor] Swain told the Vanderbilt Police Department on Feb. 5 she believes she is being harassed because of a column she wrote for The Tennessean. In that column, she wrote, "It becomes clearer every day that Islam is not just another religion to be accorded the respect given to Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, Baha'i and other world religions."
"We got to the site of the shelling in less than an hour after the explosion. The first thing we saw was a dead woman's body lying on the ground, she had been like that for at least half an hour. By shooting this picture I wanted to convey the banality of the horror happening here."Contrast the banality of our own petty concerns.
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| Well done Pope Francis. Now you've got these ratbags agreeing with you... |
I’m glad that two of your correspondents have expressed their free speech rights to take me to task for my views (“In any free society ‘but’ has its uses” by Chaudhry Hafiz Mohammad and “Let freedom and decency go together”, by Ali Khan, both February 4)
It gives me the chance to clarify a few points.
First, Mohammad says that I’m a member of the “except league”, in that, he claims, I except anti-Semitism or what I “hold sacred” from the scrutiny of free speech. But I do not, and did not say so. Laws against anti-Semitic speech in Europe are, in my view, out of date and we should allow even odious anti-Semitic speech. The best counter to these views is even more free speech.
As to “sacred”, the dictionary.com definition is “entitled to veneration or religious respect by association with divinity…” I thought I had made clear in my letter that I hold no religion and no divinity in veneration. Politicians are subject to scrutiny, criticism and ridicule; religion should be subject to the same. The fact that religions are based on no evidence should not exempt them.
Second, Mohammad makes a bogus moral equivalence argument: in football, the referee gives a yellow card to say “play, but within the rules”, and a police officer says “drive, but not while drunk”. Surely the difference is clear. In these cases what comes after “but”, is not allowed according to clear rules or laws. What come comes after the “but” in the free speech argument is “I believe in free speech, but …show respect… or but don’t offend me…”. It is something subjective, not a rule or law. To give in to the “but brigade” is to give in to the subjective febrile sensitivities of the ever-aggrieved.
Mr Khan’s moral equivalence is even worse. He claims that we free speech absolutists are the equivalent of Al-Qaeda. Get a grip, Mr Khan. I may be a free speech diehard, but you’ll never find me or my atheist cohorts rounding on critics with a sword.
As to your final question to me: “what is the answer to the ‘savagery of satire’”, my answer is simple: More Satire.
Despite biotech industry promises, none of the GMO traits currently on the market offer increased yield, drought tolerance, enhanced nutrition, or any other consumer benefit. Most developed nations do not consider GMOs to be safe.
In more than 60 countries around the world, including Australia, Japan, and all of the countries in the European Union, there are significant restrictions or outright bans on the production and sale of GMOs. In the U.S., the government has approved GMOs based on studies conducted by the same corporations that created them and profit from their sale. Increasingly, Americans are taking matters into their own hands and choosing to opt out of the GMO experiment.
In the vast majority of cases national organic average yields are moderately to substantially below those of the overall, national average.
Examples for row crops include Winter Wheat 60% of overall average, Corn 71%, Soybeans 66%, Spring Wheat 47% and Rice 59%. [link]
The research team [of the Australian Centre for Plant Nutrition Genomics] found that nicotianamine, iron, and zinc concentration levels increased in all three populations of rice relative to the controls."In more than 60 countries....there are significant restrictions or outright bans....". Not true. Australia, for example, has licensing requirements for GMOs -- as it has for all foods -- but has no "significant restrictions", let alone "outright bans".
Returning to China from abroad during school vacations increasingly feels like stepping into an alternate universe. Internet tools that my peers across the world use to stay connected are replaced by their heavily monitored Chinese versions, where benign criticisms of the Communist Party can lead to police interrogation or jail time. [link]I have the same feeling every time I cross back into our "motherland" from our Hong Kong eyre. I usually forget the strength of China's Great Firewall, only recalling it when I try to log into a favourite blog, or check out Twitter. Non ce niente...