Freedom Of Speech And Western Double Standards

Last week violent protestsand demonstrations erupted throughout the world against the west; not only in just 56 Muslim countries but also in other countries like Australia, India, the Philippines and Japan. Protest marches and demonstrations were staged in front of the U.S. Consulates and Embassies of western countries.Many people died in the protest including U.S. Ambassador to Libya and three other diplomats; some other deaths were also reported from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Lebanon.
The west is witnessing in disbelief and bewilderment the kind of violent protest against a seemingly crude and poorly made video film.  To many westerners, the video is just a spoof against Prophet Muhammad(peace and blessings of Allah be to him), which the Muslims ought to have ignored. Even the Google, which hosted the video, declined to remove it and said in a statement that the video was “clearly within our guidelines and so will stay on YouTube”.
The western media is subsequently trying to mislead people into believing that it is just the single video which has caused this violent protest and that the protest is led by some extremist elements within Muslims. The media and politicians in the west have their own prejudices when the issue concerns the Muslims and Islam.The fact is that there is already an ongoing and deep-rooted anger and simmering hostility in the Muslim world towards America and its allies which had fuelled this protestwhich is due to the unabated killing of innocent Muslim civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan. More than two million innocent people have died so far in the war against so-called terrorism. All these deaths of innocent people have gone unpunished and the murderers and torturers of those innocent people are methodically set free (the Haditha massacre, for example).
The west adopts a well-defined double standard and there is a blatant discrimination against Islam and Muslims in the west.  What would have been the reaction of the moderates and the politicians and the media in the west if the video had been anti-Semitic rather than anti-Islamic? Would these people have defended the right of the author of such a film to be offensive and provocative? What would have been the attitude of these people if the provocateur has been Muslim and the provocation against the west?
In 2006, that is just six years ago, a British historian David Irving was found guilty in Vienna ofdenying the holocaust of European Jews and he was sentenced to three years in prison.  He pleaded guilty to the charge which was based on a speech and interview he had given in Austria in 1989. He admitted that in 1989 he had denied that Nazi Germany had killed millions of Jews. In the past, he had claimed that Adolf Hitler knew little, if anything, about the holocaust, and that the gas chambers were a hoax.
The judge in his 2000 libel trial declared him “an active holocaust denier, anti-Semitic and racist”.  Before the trial, Mr. Irving told reporters that he was not a holocaust denier and he has changed his views. He said it was “ridiculous” that he was being tried for expressing an opinion and that it was a question of freedom of speech. Even the Supreme Court of Austria rejected his appeal against the conviction despite him apologising for what he had said way back in 1989, that is some 12 years before the actual filing of complaint and 18 years before his conviction.  So in Austria, a mere denying of a certain event amounted to crime and the person was imprisoned for three years.
The second example is of a newly converted Muslim who faced the ire of the court when he wrote a book about the politics relating to Israel.  Five cases were filed against the then 74-year-old French philosopher Roger Garaudy in 1997 for enjoying his “Freedom of Speech” and writing a book Founding Myths of Israeli Politics.  It is to note that he had not denigrated the Jews in his book but had only challenged some assumptions in historical perspective.   Among other allegations, he was also alleged of provoking racial hatred and that he had to publish a letter of apology in the Journal Officiel de la République Française, the official gazette of the French Republic and was fined two lakhs forty thousand Francs.Had William Shakespeare and Charles Dickens been alive today, they would have also been brought to court in iron cuffs for writing anti-Semitic stuffs.
Back in 2009, a young American named Tarek Mehenna watched a YouTube clip about Al-Qaida and translated it into English. He was singled out by the FBI and was given an option to either become their informant or face prosecution.  He refused to become an informant. The FBI then tried to trap him in a sting operation by prodding him to commit an act of terrorism. He refused to be stupid. He was arrested, charged with helping the enemy and conspiring to kill American soldiers. He has been kept in solitary for the last four years. Last April, a federal court sentenced him to 17 years imprisonment.
Earlier also, there had been violent protests when a Danish newspaper published cartoons on Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah be to him) in 2005 and after a Qur’ān burning incident by a Florida pastor in 2011 and this year also when U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan reportedly burned Muslim Holy Books. All those provocateurs went unpunished, were not even condemned but rather defended in the name of Freedom of Speech. The moderates in the west remained silent throughout. Their attitude is that of complete apathy towards the sensibilities of Muslims. They have not come out in open denouncing the video and condemning the provocateurs.
Comparatively, the moderates in the Muslim world have spoken against the violent protest at all time. Even Egyptian President Mr. Morsi, the seemingly fundamentalist figure in the west, denounced the violence and deaths of the U.S. Ambassador and other diplomats in Libya. In fact, after every such incident, the Muslims have condemned their extremists more forcefully and more often than Americans and Europeans have condemned their fellow extremists.
Ironically, the media in the west fails to mention such condemnations of violence by the Muslims.  The media in the west also miserably failed to educate their audience that words have consequences. People can die for venoms unleashed in the Internet and they should have known this fact from previous incidences.
This is the American concept of Freedom of Speech or Expression.  But this concept of “Freedom of Speech” is lost when it concerns to Muslims against the west.  According to a Washington Post report, American government and its Congressmen sent over 6,900 requests to Google to block those clips on YouTube which were uploaded by the Muslim extremist groups? Why werethese Muslim extremist groups not allowed to uphold the American values like the Freedom of Expression for their over 6,900 clips?  If Muslim extremist videos are banned in the west, and their distributors prosecuted, the same should be true of this film and for the same reasons.  If any other group but Muslims were the target of video, the video would have been removed at once. This film is purely and simply an incitement to religious hatred. It stokes hatred in both of its intended audiences – Christians and Jews in the US, and Muslims in the wider world.
Most of the western countries have laws with regard to anti-Semitism and there it is a criminal offence. Also they have laws against spreading hatred against a particular community and group of people.  So is it something unnatural or unusual if one billion and a half Muslims ask the west that just like there is restriction on Freedom of Speech when it is concerning the Jews and Holocaust and anti-Semitism, there should be similar restrictions on Freedom of Speech when it concerns to Muslims and the Prophets of Islam and Christianity or when similar sensitive issues of Religion is raised?  When laws denying Holocaust does not cause any dent in their Freedom of Speech, laws prohibiting people from denigrating Islam and Muslims will not, in any way, dilute their “Freedom of Speech”.
The west is showing no intention to make such laws and it is this double standard which erodes the credibility of the west in the Muslim world and is the cause of mistrust.  Ms. Hillary Clinton said, “This video is disgusting and reprehensible. It appears to have a deeply cynical purpose, to denigrate a great religion and provoke rage”but in the same breath, she also said that she is not ready to stop the recurrent daily appearance of such so-called ‘disgusting and reprehensible’ new videos, as for her to uphold the American values, i.e. Freedom of Speech is more important. In the next breath, she emphasised the importance of upholding the American values by saying that “our country does have a long tradition of free expression, which is enshrined in our Constitution and our law. And we do not stop individual citizens from expressing their views, no matter how distasteful they may be.”
The Republican Presidential candidate, Mitt Romney, attacked President Obama and said that by condemning the anti-Islam film, the Obama administration has apologised for American values instead of upholding them. The Obama administration was quick to retract the earlier statement made by the American embassy condemning the video saying that it was not cleared by Washington. This shows the blatant apathy of the politicians of the west towards Islam and Muslims and that they even do not care to denounce the acts of such provocation.
Thus, it becomes clear that both Democrats and the Republicans are in the fray to look as hawkish as possible before the election. It is high time that the Moderates in the west raised their voice against such double standards and blatant discrimination against Islam and Muslims and against the Islamophobia propagated by the mainstream media. They should make their voices heard. There should be a clear signal from them that the west condemns such actions of their extremists and hate-mongers and that they are ready to deal harshly with such racist provocateurs. They should do everything and anything at their disposal to cease the circulation of such a video and make laws to stop any such incidents to happen in the future. They cannot remain silent spectators to the western hate-mongers inciting the Muslims in the east.
The moderates in the west should also educate their people that the Muslim world is not against “Freedom of Speech” but against the policies of the west towards Muslim countries. The west will be naïve in thinking that the violent protest is a result of an isolated video.  The real reason behind the deep-rooted anger in the Muslim world against the west is because of the policies of the west in favour of Israel and against Muslims; the continued Islamophobia in the west propagated by the war-mongers and disseminated by the media; the continued presence of the American army and its allies in Arabian peninsula, in Afghanistan and Iraq; and support of the west to the autocratic and tyrannical regimes that Muslims believe oppress Muslims.
The Muslim world by and large does not trust the west and its politicians and media.  It is imperative for the moderates in the west to remove that mistrust from the heart of the Muslims by taking corrective steps.
Having said this, the violent protest is not doing any good to the cause of Muslims and Islam but rather harming it.  In no way the killing of embassy staff can be condoned but peaceful protest is the right of everyone and that peaceful protest must be made against any and all such incidents. What the Muslims should really do is to propagate the true teachings of Qur’ān and Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah be to him).  Even half of the people who had come out in protest can educate their fellow brothers about the teachings of the Qur’ān and life of Prophet Muhammad then it will substantially alleviate the problem of Islamophobia in the west.
[SAQUIB AHMAD is an Advocate practising in Gujarat High Court; [email protected]]