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Jewish World Review April 4, 2008 / 28 Adar II 5768 Fear of democracy By Caroline B. Glick
Last Friday the UN's Human Rights Council took a direct swipe at freedom of
expression. In a unanimous 32-0 decision, 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.
The measure was proposed by paragons of freedom Egypt and Pakistan. It was
supported by all Arab, Muslim and African countries - founts of liberty one
and all. European states abstained from the vote.
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."
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."
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 works to undermine 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. 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 utilize his
freedom of expression. The EU's presidency released a statement condemning
the film for "inflaming hatred." Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter
Balkenendeissued statements claiming that the film "serves
no other purpose than to cause offense." Then too, UN Secretary General Ban
Ki Moon blasted the film as "offensively anti-Islamic."
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 like 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 and protect the threatened
thinkers or justify the intellectual blackmailers by sympathizing with their
anger.
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 over
the marketplace of ideas.
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. There are two reasons that this is the case.
In the first instance, 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.
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 an
invitation to Europe and to the Islamic world to have 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.
Like all anti-democratic movements, today's political Left seeks to silence
debate and so undermine democracy first by demonizing anyone who doesn't
agree with it and then, by passing laws that criminalize speech or override
the people's right to decide how they wish to live. In the EU, the Lisbon
Treaty effectively regurgitated by bureaucratic fiat the constitution that
was rejected by voters in France and Holland and was set to be defeated by
the British. In Britain, Parliament has labored for years to pass a law
which would criminalize the act of insulting Islam. Then too, one of the
first acts the Browne government took after entering office last summer was
to prohibit its members from talking about "Islamic terrorism."
As in Europe so too, in Israel, the Left goes to extraordinary lengths to
undermine democracy in the name of democracy. In just one recent example,
this week, leftist law professor Mordechai Kremnitzer warned the Knesset not
to pass a law enabling a referendum on the partition of Jerusalem and the
surrender of the Golan Heights. As Kremnitzer sees it, "If the verdict of a
referendum is determined by a small majority, that includes Arab voters then
a certain sector whose view was not accepted is liable to attempt to reject
the legitimacy of the referendum and may fight against it violently."
That "certain sector" Kremnitzer was referring to, of course are the Jews
who oppose the partition of Jerusalem and the surrender of the Golan Heights
by a large majority.
Kremnitzer's argument is both ridiculous and self-serving. It is ridiculous
because he knows that in 2004, Likud members held a referendum of the
government's planned withdrawal from Gaza and northern Samaria. Then prime
minister Ariel Sharon pledged to abide by the results of his party's vote.
But then, when 65 percent of Likud voters rejected his plan, he ignored
them. And public's the reaction, while strong, was completely non-violent.
The only force that used sustained force and intimidation in the run-up to
the withdrawal from Gaza and northern Samaria was the government. It
deployed tens of thousands of policemen to break up protests, bar protesters
from travelling to lawful demonstrations, and jailed protesters without
trial for months. In its overtly anti-democratic and legally dubious
actions, the government was ably defended by Kremnitzer and his colleagues
who either stood by as the civil liberties of the protesters were trampled
or enthusiastically defended the government's abandonment of democratic
values by calling the protesters "anti-democratic." Indeed, in his testimony
Wednesday, Kremnitzer parroted that argument by claiming that referendums
"are a recipe for harming democracy."
Aside from being factually and theoretically wrong, Kremnitzer's argument --
like the arguments of the EU bureaucracy which sidelined Europe's citizenry
by passing the Lisbon Treaty -- is transparently self-serving. Like his EU
counterparts, he knows full well that his support for an Israeli surrender
of Jerusalem and the Golan Heights is a minority view. So his actual concern
is not the health of Israeli democracy, but the power of the political Left
to determine policy against the interests and wishes of the public.
The second reason that the Left acquiesces to the silencing of speech is
because its members are just as concerned about the threat of Islamic
supremacy as their political opponents. But unlike their opponents, they are
too cowardly to do anything about it. This point was made clear too, in the
wake of the release of Wilders' film.
This week a delegation of Christian and Muslim Dutch religious leaders
travelled to Cairo to speak to religious Islamic leaders. Speaking to Radio
Netherlands, Bas Plaisier, who heads the Dutch Protestant Church said that
the delegation's mission was to "limit the possible consequences" of
Wilders' film. The consequences he was referring to, of course, are the
prospects of violent Muslim rioting and attacks against the Dutch and
against Christians worldwide.
Radio Netherlands reported that Plaisier "has been receiving disturbing
reports from Dutch nationals all over the world, including ones about fear
of repercussions among Christians in Sudan, the Middle East and Indonesia."
So the real reason the Dutch Protestant Church decries the film not because
it thinks Wilders is wrong, but because its leaders believe that Wilders is
absolutely right. It's just that unlike Wilders, who has placed his life in
danger to express his views, they are too cowardly to defend themselves, and
so, they travel to Cairo to genuflect to religious leaders who daily oversee
the preaching of hate and Islamic supremacy in Egyptian mosques. They go on
bended knee to coo before those who coerced the institutionalization of
Egypt's religious persecution of its Christian Coptic minority and its
silencing of liberal critics of the Mubarak regime and the Muslim
Brotherhood.
And that is the rub. By squelching debate - out of loathing for their
non-leftist political opponents and out of fear of jihadists and the regimes
that promote them -- the West as a whole undermines not only its own values
and foundational creeds. It also undermines the non-jihadists of the Islamic
world, who, if ever empowered, would work to promote a form of Islam that
does not respond to challenge with violence but rather with the discourse of
reason and mutual respect for differences of opinion.
JWR contributor Caroline B. Glick is the senior Middle East Fellow at the Center for Security Policy in Washington, DC and the deputy managing editor of The Jerusalem Post. Comment by clicking here.
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