Daily Archives: November 6, 2020

DENNIS E. CURRY Guest Opinion

I first wrote on Justin Trudeau nearly five years ago in relation to the federal governments proposed legislation on medical assistance in dying.

I wrote then and believe now that the Trudeau Liberals ultimately failed in writing a law in keeping with the spirit of the Supreme Courts unanimous decision. To add insult to injury, it was Trudeaus justice minister who gave flashy assurances against a Charter challenge despite many legal experts invalidating this analysis.

The MAiD situation is important in its own right but also serves as a useful case study for this Liberal government and for Trudeau and his affinity to take the path of appeasement over principle; in essence, to be a government and a leader seemingly only focused on re-election odds and perceptions.

At around the time of the MAiD ruling in 2015, the world was fixated on ISISs hijacking of Islam, and its rise in the Middle East and abroad. Several gruesome attacks on free societies in the West completed in the name of radical Islamist ideology overtook news cycles and the public conscience.

Among the hardest-hit of Western democracies in this wave of terrorism was France. Multiple attacks on roadways and theatres led to the deaths of hundreds of innocent French citizens. The massacre of cartoonists at Charlie Hebdos head offices in Paris, following their publication of unflattering caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad, reignited an international debate on the extent to which freedom of expression would need to be saddled with certain limitations.

It is worth noting that Charlie Hedbo has historically taken a harsh and iconoclastic approach to its political drawings, aiming with relatively equal weight at various religions, ideologies and sacred cows.

Both Charlie Hebdo and France are back in the news following recent attacks. Last month, a schoolteacher in the Paris area was stalked and decapitated on the street after choosing to show Hebdo cartoons to students in his class on free speech.

Following this attack, French President Emmanuel Macron has been forceful in his defiance of the bullying tactics used by Islamist ideologues. The public discourse is reminiscent of past cartooning controversies in France and Denmark.

The same script with many of the same questions. Should satire in the press be championed by Western leaders? Should free societies and governments cave to the pressure of radical fundamentalists who threaten physical retribution and violence when their own sacred cows are caricatured? If so, what does this say about how free our societies are if it is simply unlawful violence that can crumble the foundations of these so-called freedoms?

Resolved in his defence of French values, Macron insisted that the schoolteacher who chose to show cartoons caricaturing Islam was in the right and the assailant in the wrong.

Speaking after the attack, Macron said: One of our compatriots was assassinated today because he taught. He taught his students about freedom of expression, freedom to believe or not believe. It was a cowardly attack. He was the victim of a terrorist Islamist attack.

He went on: This evening, I want to say to teachers all over France: we are with them, the whole nation is with them today and tomorrow. We must protect them, defend them, allow them to do their job and educate the citizens of tomorrow.

There you have it. The French, Macron told the world, would not submit to thugs and bullies who have hijacked a religion, nor would it submit to their misguided apologists, however hell-bent the formers ideology and however tough the general war over these freedoms may become. This kind of resolve and fortitude, in the era of reactionary and damaging woke politics is a pure spectacle. Regardless of how one views the controversial cartoons, the noises Macron is making on this issue must be respected as principled.

Many miles from France, and in response to the cartoon crisis, our own prime minister has failed a key litmus test in principle. Speaking to reporters, Trudeau condemned the attack and pledged to stand with France predictable and necessary political pickings, but low-hanging and insincere fruit, to be sure.

Trudeau failed most miserably where he often does:on the substance of the question on the very nature of freedom of speech and expression.

When pressed on whether expressive freedoms extended to making fun of religious leaders, Trudeau initially claimed that we would always defend freedom of speech in Canada. He would, however, add: Freedom of expression is not unlimited. For example, it is not allowed to yell fire in a packed theatre

He expanded further: In a pluralist, diverse and respectful society like ours, we owe it to ourselves to be aware of the impact of our words, of our actions on others, particularly these communities and populations who still experience a great deal of discrimination.

His arguments for this case have the toxic combination of being superficial, deceptive and incoherent. In any other context, those words would be agreeable. Of course we should be mindful of our words. Our course we should try to stamp out discrimination where it exists. But as it relates to the freedom to say what we want, to engage in satire or humour regardless of whether some may find it distasteful, where was the full-throated endorsement of the principles enshrined in our Charter of Rights and Freedoms? He is, after all, the prime minister of the country bound by this Charter.

Trudeaus failed leadership in this case was further pronounced when Macron thanked Quebec Premier Franois Legault earlier this week for his defence of free speech in the wake of the attack.

In the context of the free speech debate, Trudeaus response amounted to textbook passivism. It flipped the script of assailant and victim, and for these reasons was one of his weakest and most embarrassing moments. Circling back to the all-too-often uttered but failed argument of Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., Trudeau relied upon the shouting fire in a theatre ploy, holding this up as the shining example of why limits on non-violent expression are comprehensible and necessary.

As essayist Christopher Hitchens pointed out in his case for the freedom of speech in Toronto in 2006 he opened his lecture by repeatedly saying the word fire shouting fire in a crowded theatre is about as weak an argument as can be made for the need for limits on free expression.

More disturbing than Trudeaus use of this lazy rhetoric, however, was that he seemed to suggest his own pacifist take on the question was more in keeping with what he called pluralistic society than was Macrons response. Surely if a society is to be called pluralistic and respectful, its political leaders ought to condemn sidewalk decapitation as punishment for showing a cartoon in a class on free speech. In choosing not to side with the cartoonists and the teacher, Trudeau disgraced the very essence of pluralism. Trudeaus ability to get such an important question so perfectly backwards was breathtaking.

Much has changed for Trudeau since his majority mandate in 2015, but his gravitation towards the most spineless of positions on the big questions are as consistent, fixed, and robust as any of his bizarre political and philosophical features.

The apple, as it happens, has fallen very far from the tree. Indeed, Pierre Trudeau, by all accounts, would roll over in his grave on review of these remarks.

In his address on the topic of freedom speech in Toronto, Hitchens summed up centuries of thinking and progress on the issue in a simple and elegant way: freedom of speech covers not just the freedom to speak, but the freedom to listen and to hear (and see). To appease in the way Trudeau does would be tantamount to giving radicalized terrorists control over our rights to listen and hear and see.An appreciation for this larger principle, not a focus on any specific exampleper se, is what ultimately shelters us from the dark of ignorance.

Whether in relation to public dissent or the work of peaceful cartoonists armed only with pens and pencils, we would do well to view the issue through the lens that Hitchens and now Macron have championed.

We are unfortunately at war, and Trudeaus reluctance to support and to give cover to a trusted and principled ally in a dire time of need is an embarrassment and a shame but it is completely unsurprising.

Vive la France.

Dennis E. Curry is a senior medical student studying at Dalhousie University in Canada.

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DENNIS E. CURRY: Trudeau cravenly wobbles on free speech in Frances time of need - TheChronicleHerald.ca

Written by Rajshree Chandra | Updated: November 4, 2020 9:00:52 amFreedom of speech and expression may have been an Enlightenment, colonisers project and may actually continue to be so, sanctioning Islamophobia, racism and ideas of cultural superiority.

The horrific beheading of the French teacher, Samuel Paty, has once again laid bare the fault lines of free speech. Tabish Khairs piece (Lost in Paris, IE, October 30) represents one such crack. Khairs piece is a crying appeal against those who kill in the name of their gods and ideas, to not kill. Do not kill or afflict injury to bodies that bear contrarian ideas, he seems to be saying. And he is right how can he not be?

I also agree with Khair that there is a need to respect peoples religion and not be provocative in the aftermath of the gruesome killing as the French government as been in asking school teachers to show cartoons in class, or by projecting the cartoons on buildings. I hear him when he says that a competitive exercise of offensive speech may cost lives.

But Khair also seems to be saying something else, albeit in a veiled and guarded manner. He gives the example of the dedicated French teacher who showed the cartoons to his students in good faith in the exercise of his free speech. He also gives the example of the some custodians of [Islamic] religious symbols in France who get outraged and post intemperate things on social media, also in exercise of their free speech. Between the freedom of expression of the French teacher, and the freedom of outraged protestors against it, stands the figure of, as Khair euphemistically calls, an angry confused man who is provoked into beheading the teacher. To Khair, it does not matter whether ideas are good or bad. What matters is that in the conflict between the two ideas of free speech and sanctity of religio-cultural symbols lives were either lost or made to suffer.

It is here that Khairs perspective becomes conservative in its implications. First, the fact that a barbaric, crazy man can either get offended or inspired by either of the conflicting ideas cannot be a free-speechers burden. There are many volatile ideas out there. Should any protest or campaign be mindful of a potential violent twist that may be given to their ideas? Should a causal link between the expression of offensive ideas and sufferance of bodies allow violent zealots to hold the right to ransom?

Second, unlike what Khair suggests, ideas have no real, independent existence outside of the bodies in which they inhere. Ideas survive only because the bodies in which house themselves do so. Had ideas lived autonomously, independent of the bodies and minds that carry them, ideas would not die. Theyd be immortal and live on endlessly outside of their historical times, sociological habitats and changing minds. We would continue to believe that the earth is flat or in the practice of slavery or the absence of voting rights for women. But we dont. And the reason is that some ideas die or weaken over time. They become anomalous and discredited either because they are disputed scientifically or because they are contested vigorously and passionately till an anachronistic idea is defeated.

Third, in the conflicting terrain of ideas, lies the kernel of social change. If ideas are not good or bad as Khair seems to be saying, how else do we discredit the Brahminical divine origin theory that professes that the Shudra is born from the Divine Beings feet and, therefore, is the lowliest creature on earth? How else, except through a conflict of ideas, do women contest patriarchy and push back on received gendered ideas of womanhood? How else has the idea of environmentalism or indigenous communities rights become such a dominant concern of our times?

Agency to speech may often be a matter of one mans good versus another mans good, or one mans relative truth over anothers. It may be a matter of one cultural value-system (the French and their free-speech principle) versus another religio-cultural sensibility (the sacredness of the Prophet). Till this point, both speech-acts (or ideas) have equivalence and each person must have the right to speak freely. But once you kill or inflict bodily harm in the name of an idea, the onus and responsibility of it is not on the people professing or countering an idea. So that we dont offend a loony guy who picks up a gun and shoots, or so that we dont inspire a crazy man to behead someone in the name of ideas, must we dispense with expressing the idea itself? It is borderline dangerous to make such a suggestion, no matter how obliquely.

Freedom of speech and expression may have been an Enlightenment, colonisers project and may actually continue to be so, sanctioning Islamophobia, racism and ideas of cultural superiority. But to belabour the point outside of its context is to miss two points. First, as Lebanese-Australian academic Ghassan Hage summed up in his Facebook post: Truth also needs to have its ethics. You may be truthful, but unethical. The beheading of Paty requires us to dwell on not just any killing but the bone-chilling barbarism behind it. To dwell instead on the genealogies and causes of violent behaviour is bad ethics, for it ends up being nothing more than an apologia for violence.

Second, its bad politics. The right to free speech empowers and enables many marginalised lives. It is a mistake to see it as an elite indulgence. It is a basic right that preconditions the realisation of other rights. So basic that it enables the weak and the oppressed to rise against their oppressors. It enables culturally disparate communities, including Muslims, to embody and carry with pride their cultural differences. In any case, free speech is restrained by the state through its many criteria of reasonableness. To further circumscribe it by burdening it with plausible violent appropriations, or with historical conditionalities, is to feed the logic of violence against freedom of expression.

This article first appeared in the print edition on November 4, 2020 under the title Nothing elitist about free speech. The writer teaches political science at Janki Devi Memorial College, Delhi University

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Free speech is a basic right that empowers marginalised lives - The Indian Express

Senator Roger Wicker, R-Miss, provides insight on the CEOs of Facebook, Twitter and Google testifying before the Senate.

When Tim Berners-Lee first brought the World Wide Web to life in 1991, he intended it as a free and open public square spanning the globe, decentralized, a permissionless space in which no authority would dictate what opinions may be expressed, what information may be shared, or who may associate with whom.

This was why he and others insisted that the underlying technology be based on open-source code. Had the technology been proprietary, and in my total control, it would probably not have taken off, he said. You cant propose that something be a universal space and at the same time keep control of it.

This ideal was carried into Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996, which offered substantial protection from legal liability for any company facilitating the sharing, by individuals, of content on the Internet.

Fast-forward 24years, when Congress has found it necessary to haul before it, time and again, CEOs of tech companies which have become the Internets gatekeepers.

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How did this happen? Were being told its because of that very section 230 which was intended to preserve freedom on the Internet. As a result, many are now calling for it to be modified or repealed.

Computer algorithms using an individuals personal information in order to increase his or her engagement, have vastly increased the market share of the companies that deploy them.

At the same time, these algorithms have made certain undesirable side effects of online interactionsuch as hate speech or misinformationworse. The companies are then tempted to exercise their prerogative, under Section 230, to remove an ever-increasing scope of content they in good faith deem objectionable, just to clean up their mess.

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Ironically and sadly, information sharing today is perhaps more subject to centralized control than it was before the Web was created. So much of our communication, information sharing, and business, is now being done online.

This is particularly true during a pandemic when the coffee chats that Berners-Lee used to say were often the most efficient way to share information, pre-Internet, are prohibited.

Instead of a bipartisan compromise which will spawn Big Brother, we should instead be revisiting Section 230, as its currently written, and interpret itin a way more consistent with its original intent.

The dominant online platforms have amassed a vast amount of personal dataan informational panopticonand they are using this data, along with the latitude afforded by the current interpretation of Section 230, to throttle the flow of information on the Internet and steer the narrative in support of their chosen beliefs.

When called out on this behavior, their approach has been merely to double-down, while hiding behind oversight boards and experts.

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The situation has come to a head now, with these practices being escalated in orderto calm election-related conflict.YouTube,Twitter, andFacebookhave all joined in, implementing countless iterations of their content curation policies in the weeks leading up to the election.

These practices, especially of late, seem to work to the benefit offormer Vice PresidentJoe Biden. And, if Biden wins, this may facilitate some politicians goal to finally make social media into a public utility, and Orwells1984into an instruction manual.

But dont be fooled into thinking a win for PresidentTrump would mean a victory for free speech on the Internet.

Statist politicians of both parties would love to seize control of these companiesas well as any company that dares to compete with them.

Most of our competitors collect more data and restrict more speech more than any government could, consistent with our Constitution.

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Each side would love to seize control in a way that would uniquely benefit their own party, while also being plausibly described as an attempt to enhance freedom.

But unfortunately, what becomes more likely with each Congressional hearing, is a broad compromise between the two parties, one that will combine the worst that both parties have to offer: surveillance cronyism with a side of censorship-by-proxy.

We must be vigilant to ensure that doesnt happen, no matter who wins this week.

Just as both sides will gladly spend endless amounts of our money, both are ready to sacrifice our privacy, and our right to free speech, if it means winning the next election.

Instead of a bipartisan compromise which will spawn Big Brother, we should instead be revisiting Section 230, as its currently written, and interpret itin a way more consistent with its original intent.

Otherwise, keep government out and let the free market, in the way that only it can, revive its kindred spirits of free thought and free speech.

Jeffrey Wernick, is Strategic Investor and Chief Operating Officer for Parler.

Amy Peikoff isChief Policy Officer for Parler.

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Free speech hangs in the balance regardless of 2020 election outcome: Parler execs Wernick, Peikoff - Fox Business

I stand with French President Emmanuel Macron in declaring that free speech includes the right to offend. Those offended are welcome to protest peacefully, but not to gag or kill the offenders.

In France, a Christian teacher was assassinated by a Muslim fanatic for showing his class controversial cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed earlier published by the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo. When Macron condemned the murder and defended free speech, another Muslim fanatic killed three Christians in a church in Nice.

Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad claimed Muslims had a right to be angry and kill millions of French people for the massacres of the past. Really? Does he also give Christians, Jews, and Hindus the right to kill millions of Muslims for Muslim massacres in many countries in past centuries? Or for more recent murders of non-Muslims by ISIS in Syria and Iraq?

Turkish President Erdogan was outraged not by the murder but by Macrons defence of free speech. He called for a boycott of French goods. This was echoed by Muslims in several countries. Later, Malaysia and Turkey formally decried the murders. Yet the rhetoric of their presidents will fan Islamic violence.

In France, Charlie Hebdo was prosecuted in 2007 by a Muslim organisation saying cartoons of the prophet implied racism and hate speech. The magazine responded that it specialised in satirical humour, not racism, and had lampooned white racism as well as Catholics and Jews. One of its covers had a cartoon showing the prophet saying, 100 lashes if you dont die of laughter. Thats humour, not racism. The magazine was acquitted.But its office was firebombed in 2011 and attacked again in 2015 by two Muslim fanatics who killed 12 journalists. Charlie Hebdo courageously refused to change course. Hats off to it.

Many Indians argue that free speech does not extend to offensive speech. Phoeey! Every religion has strong beliefs in its own superiority, and this necessarily offends other religions. Freedom to practise any religion necessarily implies freedom to offend others, and tolerance by those offended.

All freedoms are subject to reasonable curbs. If you deliberately incite violence that can certainly be stopped. But not cartoons.Christianity views those who reject Christ as heathen who cannot go to heaven and will go to hell. This can offend non-Christians. But does that justify burning the Bible or killing Christians? The Quran and Hadith led Muslim conquerors to convert by the sword and kill millions. That can offend others, but does not justify banning the Quran and Hadith. Hindu scriptures hold that bad people (including those of other religions) will be reborn as animals, including dogs and pigs. This can offend non-Hindus, but does not justify killing Hindus or banning the scriptures.

People of different religions can co-exist only through tolerance, not revenge or punishment. I have often lambasted Hindu fundamentalists for intolerance and violence. I condemn Muslim fundamentalists no less.

Some Indian Muslims abuse Macron. But at a webinar of the Indian Muslims for Secular Democracy, convenor Javed Anand said, We are here to condemn in unequivocal terms, no ifs and buts, not only the man responsible for this barbaric act but all those who had any role in the instigation of the crime as also all those who seek to justify it. He also demanded the abolishing of apostasy and banishing of blasphemy anywhere and everywhere across the world. Activist Feroze Mithiborwala said, Its high time religious people realised one basic truth: every religious text and tradition is offensive, blasphemous and heretical to the followers of other sects and religions.

Well said. This Muslim promotion of secular values has similarities with the anti-CAA protests at Shaheen Bagh. Muslim protests are often led by mullahs, but the Shaheen Bagh protesters invoked not the Sharia but freedoms of the Constitution. The BJP paints them as anti-nationals, but they wore headbands saying, I love India, sang the national anthem, and festooned their dais with pictures of Hindu leaders of the independence movement who shaped the Constitution. The BJP should welcome Muslims who swear by the Constitution. Muslims in turn should condemn Islamist violence, whether in France or India.

Atheism is a religious belief no less than Islam or Hinduism. As an atheist, I demand respect for my beliefs. Yet this is widely missing. Few condemn the killing of several atheists in Bangladesh by Muslim fanatics. In India, three prominent atheists Govind Pansare, M M Kalburgi and Narendra Dabholkar have been killed, allegedly by Hindu fanatics. Like Charlie Hebdo, despite the risk of provoking fundamentalists, I stand by my right to offend. It is an inalienable part of my right to religious freedom and free speech.

DISCLAIMER : Views expressed above are the author's own.

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Right to offend is an inalienable part of right to religious freedom, free speech - The Times of India Blog

French President Emmanuel Macron shakes hands with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau during a press conference at the Elysee Palace in Paris, France, June 7, 2019. (Philippe Wojazer/Pool/REUTERS)

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and French President Emmanuel Macron reaffirmed on Thursday their commitment to defending freedom of expression and human rights, as well as fighting terrorism and violent extremism, according to a readout of their telephone conversation released by the Prime Ministers Office.

Trudeau also expressed Canadas solidarity with the people of France following recent terrorist attacks and violence, the readout said.

The call between the two leaders came as Trudeau was forced to clarify his comments last week about the limits of free speech after a teacher in France was beheaded by a terrorist for showing cartoon caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad during a class discussion.

Trudeaus comments at the time drew the ire of the opposition who criticized him for not showing more resolve in defending freedom of expression following the Oct. 16 killing of 47-year-old teacher Samuel Paty in a Paris suburb.

Quebec Premier Francois Legault also took a swipe at Trudeau for not being more forceful in defending free speech and for giving in to blackmail of certain radical religious groups.

Macrons defence of the right to publish the cartoons has stoked anger and boycotts of French goods in several Muslim-majority countries.

A Palestinian Hamas supporter holds an anti-French President Emmanuel Macron picture and a banner reading sorry messenger of Allah during a protest against the publications of a cartoon of Prophet Mohammad in France and Macrons comments, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip Oct. 30, 2020. (Ibraheem Abu Mustafa/REUTERS)

Last Friday, when pressed by reporters to declare his support for free speech in the wake of the attacks in France, Trudeau argued that freedom of expression is not unlimited.

For example, its not allowed to cry fire in a packed cinema, Trudeau said in French during his press conference in Ottawa. In a respectful society such as ours, everyone must be aware of the impact of our words and actions on others.

There are communities experiencing huge discrimination in Canada today. So yes, we will always defend freedom of expression, but everyone must act respectfully toward others and not try to needlessly or arbitrarily hurt someone we share this planet and society with.

Legault said Macron called him Tuesday morning to thank him for taking a strong stand on the importance of free speech, and for disagreeing with Trudeaus Friday comments.

On Tuesday, faced with more questions about his commitment to free speech, Trudeau changed his position.

I think it is important to continue defending freedom of expression, freedom of speech, Trudeau said in comments in French. Artists help us reflect and challenge our views and they contribute to our society and we will always continue to defend freedom of expression.

Police officers walk in front of the Notre Dame church before a mass to pay tribute to the victims of a deadly knife attack in Nice, France, Nov. 1, 2020. (Eric Gaillard/REUTERS)

Trudeau also told reporters that he expects to speak with Macron shortly to personally convey his support and condolences following the Oct. 29 attack in Nice, that killed three parishioners at the citys Notre-Dame basilica.

During their subsequent call on Thursday, Trudeau and Macron also spoke about their countries responses to the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, the readout said.

The Prime Minister and the President exchanged views on global issues, such as the tensions in the Eastern Mediterranean and the importance of dialogue and diplomacy in seeking a peaceful resolution to the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh, the readout said.

France is a co-chair along with the U.S. and Russia of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Minsk group on resolving the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

Macron has spoken out about Turkeys support for Azerbaijan in the ongoing conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the Armenian-populated enclave and has publicly clashed with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan over the issue of the cartoons of the Prophet Muhammed.

Canada too has called on Turkey to stay out of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and has offered to mediate between Turkey and Greece in their dispute over exploration rights in the Eastern Mediterranean.

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Trudeau reaffirms importance of freedom of expression in call with Macron - Radio Canada International - English Section

Police are seen at the scene of an incident near the former offices of French magazine Charlie Hebdo, in Paris, France, Sept. 25, 2020. Photo: Reuters / Gonzalo Fuentes.

As I write, on November 2, 2020, it is 16 years to the day since Dutch-Moroccan jihadist Mohammed Bouyeri, dressed in a djellaba and carrying a knife, a machete, and a gun, shot and stabbed filmmaker-writer Theo van Gogh to death on the sun-filled streets of Amsterdam.

Less than a year later, Flemming Rose, an editor at the Danish Jyllands-Posten, received death threats from Muslim radicals in his own country for publishing cartoons depicting the prophet Muhammad, while Muslims worldwide called for a boycott of Danish products, burned the Danish embassy in Damascus, and rioted across the globe.

And then in 2015, after satirical French magazine Charlie Hebdo republished a selection of those same cartoons, a group of Muslim terrorists raided its Paris office, killing 12 illustrators and editors, and wounding 11 more.

The reason: Van Gogh, the Jyllands Posten, and Charlie Hebdo had all allegedly insulted Islam, and had mocked dishonored, even the prophet Mohammed. They deserved to die.

November 6, 2020 8:14 am

Now here we are again.

It began in late September, when an 18-year-old Pakistani man wielding a knife stabbed two people outside the former offices of Charlie Hebdo. The attack occurred as the trial for the 2015 Charlie Hebdo accomplices was beginning, and soon after Charlie Hebdos new editors republished the cartoons a timing officials believe was no coincidence.

The incident raised again the long-unresolved debate in France and elsewhere in the West over free speech, blasphemy, and censorship, and whether blasphemous speech should be permissible, even where free speech is enshrined into the law, as it is in the United States. France, like other European countries, does ban some forms of speech it deems hate speech, like Holocaust denial, where America does not.

For at least one teacher in a Paris suburb, the incident made for an important lesson. Challenging his students to debate the question of free expression, Samuel Paty shared one of the Mohammed cartoons with his students, creating an uproar within the school and among the parents of many Muslim students. The fury spread.

Just days later, 18-year-old Abdoullakh Anzorov, a Chechen immigrant who didnt even attend the school, slit Patys throat and decapitated him, as he walked along a shaded street.

French officials immediately spoke out to honor the teacher and to denounce what President Emmanuel Macron called an attempt to strike down the republic.

But the Muslim world took a different approach.

Turkey and Qatar, for instance, demanded that Macron apologize for his defense of the cartoons, and instituted a boycott on French goods. French and other European Muslims staged protests, denouncing not only France and its secularism, but Macron himself a popular target among European Muslims for his introduction of laws meant to combat radicalization in the Muslim community, and his defiant insistence on protecting the country from Islamism, the political and radical strain of Islam.

And still it didnt stop. On October 29, a man crying out Allahu Akbar (God is great) beheaded a woman at prayer in a church in Nice before stabbing several others and killing two. Since then, six people have been taken into custody in connection with the attack suggesting that this was not a lone wolf incident, but possibly the work of an Islamist terror cell.

Yet Muslim leaders have continued to blame France, attacking the country for its provocation, the way a domestic abuser might tell his bruised and battered wife, look at what you made me do!

And it hasnt only been the Muslim world. In a shocking reversal of its stance after the Charlie Hebdo massacre and the killing of Theo van Gogh, some in the West are questioning France. Editorials and cagily-penned articles in publications from The New York Times and Washington Post to the Associated Press, for instance, suggest and at times even state outright that Macron may have taken too harsh a stance, and that Frances constitutional secularism is too extreme, unsuited to a France where, while non-Muslims remain largely secular, a growing Muslim population is deeply wedded to the practice of its religion.

Moreover, these articles argue, it may be time for all the West to rethink its commitments to free speech and secularism in a new, multicultural era. The hardening of Frances defense of the images has also set it apart even from the United States and other Western democracies that, faced with increasingly diverse societies, have become more cautious about speech that could be considered offensive, especially to racial, ethnic, religious or other minorities, New York Times correspondent Norimitsu Onishi wrote on October 30. The article, which expressed concern that defense of the cartoons was alienating Muslims in France, further quoted far-left politician Clmentine Autain: Some politicians are using lacit as a way to ostracize all Muslims. My concern is that, by doing this, a number of Muslims are being sent back into the arms of radicals.

Others, like Washington Post correspondent James McAuley, maintain that the radicalization of French Muslims is the fault of French Islamophobia, and the alleged alienation felt by many inner-city Muslims. The truth, writes McAuley, is that the counter-society has as much to do with France as with Islam.

This is patent nonsense. It is also a slap in the face of Enlightenment values, of democracy, of the principles the media itself: the freedom of expression, and the integral role of free expression in the very foundations of a civilized society.

And freedom of speech is what this is really about. For all the talk about Frances unique commitment to secularism (a commitment that, its worth noting, was passionately echoed by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of the Turkish republic), secularism isnt the issue here. What Muslim extremists are reacting to is not a matter of a right to practice their religion, or the removal of religious symbols from the public arena. Their fury is based on a deeply felt sense of dishonor, the belief legitimate or not that their prophet is being humiliated. And humiliation, for honor cultures such as those of fundamentalist Islam, demands violent retaliation. As I noted in my latest book, Rage: Narcissism, Patriarchy, and the Culture of Terrorism: in Arabic, the word for shame, fadiha, [implies] not just dishonor and disgrace, but outrage.' And outrage is the match that strikes the fires of violence and murder.

But dishonor cannot be allowed to legitimize violence. If it were, the disgruntled employee who has just been fired should have every right to shoot his former boss, the jilted fianc the right to burn his beloveds face with acid. And yet, while Muslim extremists slice the throats of men and women at prayer, the Times and others busy themselves with accusations that the French have failed to integrate their Muslim population which is to say, it is not the fault of the attackers. It is the fault of the French people. Worse, France not only had it coming, but their treatment of Muslims is on par, somehow, with Muslim extremists treatment of them.

We know these stories. If only the boy had been silent while his father was reading, he would have been spared the whipping with a belt. If only the young woman had agreed to marry her suitor, he never would have disfigured her. If Theo van Gogh had kept from speaking out against the abuse of Muslim women, he would still be alive today.

It is an argument verging on the obscene. As Brendan ONeill so astutely noted in Spiked, This is as morally degenerate as it would be to say that the Muslims massacred in Christchurch by the racist terrorist Brenton Tarrant brought it upon themselves by attending mosque dont they know thats offensive to white-nationalist extremists? Equally, this argument would say it was the fault of the 69 children of liberal Norwegians whose parents werent racist that on July 22, 2011, white supremacist Anders Breivik bloodied the island of Utoya with their bodies.

To accept any of these events as just, as true, is to adopt the values and the behaviors of extremism. And it has no place in civilized society, or in a post-Enlightenment Western world a fact that even some Muslim rulers have confirmed. Anwar Gargash, the UAEs minister of foreign affairs, recently sided with Macron in the French presidents clash with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan over the Mohammed cartoons.

With his attacks on France, Erdogan manipulates a religious issue for political purposes, a courageous Gargash told German newspaper Die Welt. You should listen to what Macron really said in his speech: he doesnt want the ghettoisation of Muslims in the west, and he is absolutely right.

And Abu Dhabi crown prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan categorically rejected using hate speech as a justification for violence or terrorism, according to Gulf News.

That these men understand what some Western leaders seem not to recognize is at once heartening and disturbing heartening to see leaders in the Arab world condemn the terrorists, and not the victims, but disturbing that more Westerners fail to understand why this response matters. In a tribute to Van Gogh written after his murder, then-Dutch politician Ayaan Hirsi Ali recalled his words even as he faced the threats against him: As soon as such considerations dissuade you from expressing your opinion, isnt that the end of free speech?

Yes. Yes, it is.

Abigail R. Esman is a freelance writer based in New York and the Netherlands. She is the author of Radical State: How Jihad Is Winning Over Democracy in the West(Praeger, 2010). Her next book, Rage: Narcissism, Patriarchy, and the Culture of Terrorism, will be published by Potomac Books in October, 2020. Follow her at @radicalstates.

A version of this article was originally published by The Investigative Project on Terrorism.

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Blaming the Victim: Theo van Gogh, Charlie Hebdo, the Media and End of Free Speech - Algemeiner