Censorship, Islam & “Fitna”
Posted on March 29, 2008 - Filed Under Europe, Freedom, Internets, Media, Philosophy, Political Philosophy, Politics, Religion |
“Fitna” is the name of a rather nasty, polemical film by right-wing Dutch politician Geert Wilders that equates all Islam with violence and, portrays all Muslims as extremists. Or at least that’s what I gather based on the testimonies of those who have seen it. I can’t watch it myself because LiveLeak, the main channel of its distribution to web users, has had to remove the 17 minute video from its site due to security concerns.
There’s a few things to be said about this. Firstly, the tone of “Fitna” is reportedly so over the top and hysterical that no sensible person would be swayed by whatever arguments it tries to make. Therefore, having it out in the public domain isn’t doing anyone any harm. You shouldn’t ban things just because some people, or even most people, don’t like them. As John Stuart Mill explained in On Liberty, it’s better to have incorrect views aired publicly, where they can be evaluated and rejected by society at large, rather than try to stifle their expression, and in the process create a kind of cult following around them.
Of course the problem here is not that “Fitna” was banned by a government, which would be an outrage, but that it was pulled by a website because of security concerns. Thus, yet again, intimidation has carried the day, as it did back 2005/2006 when newspaper editors across Europe caved into fear and refused to publish offensive-yet-newsworthy cartoons depicting the prophet Muhammad. It is of course understandable that LiveLeak would remove the video after its staff receiving death threats and so on, but their decision is still disappointing.
However, the real villains of this piece are obviously not the LiveLeak management but the people behind the campaign of intimidation itself. Although their thuggery is remarkable, the most outstanding feature of these clowns is their stupidity. Through their crazed threats of violence they’ve managed to spin the news cycle 180º and have turned a minor news item about a scaremongering Dutch film into another major free speech issue in which the entire media establishment will be arrayed against them and not Geert Wilders. In fact, Wilders and his juvenile film are now likely morph from a minor and derided curiosity into a cause célèbre for the media, in which almost all of the political right and a good deal of the left will end up backing Wilders by default.
By strangling the release of “Fitna”, these enemies of free expression are only going to encourage more people to believe that maybe Geert Wilders has a point when he claims that Islam and Liberalism are incompatible. They’re making Wilders’ argument better than he could ever have, had he been allowed to speak.
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For the record, and just in case someone important to me gets annoyed by this, I think that Geert Wilders is a fool and I don’t agree with his views in the slightest, obviously.
:M <== Muhammad emoticon. Ohhh controversial.
Some people have no sense of irony…
The Cartoons were not “offensive-yet-newsworthy”. They were just westerners trying to voice a legitimate opinion in an inflammatory way. Why didnt he write about that, instead of trying to step on toes and poke the muslim belief witha proverbial stick? Explain how a cartoon can ever be newsworthy!
That cartoon was just plain offensive. It wasn’t newsworthy..what the hell does that mean anyway?
also :
“profit” Muhammad.
Has three years of advanced spelling and reading thought you nothing!!
try “Prophet”
oh no!! thought instead of taught! hoist by my own retard.
pwnd
They became newsworthy after their initial publication, when they became the centre of a raging controversy and protests. At that point, most people reading about the cartoons would probably have appreciated their re-publication in whatever newspaper they read, in order to better understand what all the fuss was about. In that sense they were newsworthy.
I’m going to correct that “profit” blunder now too.