Muslim Hate of Free Speech
Concerns rise in Europe that freedom of expression is being eroded
The Associated Press
November 8, 2006
ROME: A Mozart opera canceled in Germany, surrealist art removed from a London exhibition, villages in Spain changing centuries-old festivities.
In recent months, several artistic or cultural events have been scaled down or scrapped in Europe apparently to avoid offending Muslims, raising concerns about freedom of expression.
Many believe the violent reaction by Europe's Muslim minorities to perceived insults to their religion has created a climate of fear in which self-censorship is becoming more common. And concerns that passions might even spill into Islamic terrorism — rarely far from European minds — have contributed to the urgency.
Europe has long grappled with the question of whether Islam is compatible with the West's democratic values.
The 1989 fatwa issued against Salman Rushdie over his novel "The Satanic Verses" was one of the first signs of a fault line that turned deadly in 2004 with the slaying of filmmaker Theo Van Gogh by a Muslim fanatic who was angered by the documentarist's depiction of Islam.
Van Gogh's collaborator Ayaan Hirsi Ali was forced to go into hiding. About a year later, violent protests erupted over caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad published in Denmark. And in September, Muslims reacted with outrage over comments on Islam by Pope Benedict XVI.
It has all raised thorny questions for Europeans.
Is it worth risking lives over free speech? Should there be laws protecting religious sensibilities? Or, as the publishers of the Danish cartoons have argued, can provocation be an effective political tool, a way of asserting one's loyalty to free society?
Many observers say Europeans are becoming overly cautious about offending Muslims, a tendency they see as imperiling the foundations of their society.
"We pretend not to see that it's the principles of liberalism that we are trampling on," said Angelo Panebianco, a leading Italian political analyst.
The Whitechapel Art Gallery in London said this month that it was removing some photographs by Hans Bellmer from an exhibition to avoid upsetting Muslims in the neighborhood. Part of the surrealist artist's work featured dolls of naked female children.
In September, a Berlin opera house canceled a production of Mozart's "Idomeneo" that depicted the beheading of Muhammad, leading German Chancellor Angela Merkel to warn against "self-censorship out of fear." The company has since announced it will stage the opera in December.
This fall, traditional Spanish festivals commemorating the country's expulsion of the Moors have also been scaled down, including one which did away with the custom of blowing up the head of a Prophet Muhammad dummy with firecrackers.
Meanwhile, many governments are debating whether to limit Muslims' ability to express their religious affiliations as a means of encouraging them to integrate.
Former British foreign secretary Jack Straw created a stir recently by saying wants Muslim women to abandon the veil — a view supported by Prime Minister Tony Blair and much of the British public. It was a striking shift in a nation that takes pride in multiculturalism.
Questions of self-censorship on religious grounds are not limited to the debate over Islam.
Earlier this year, theaters in Britain dropped plans to produce "Jerry Springer — The Opera" after it was targeted by a small but vocal group Christian group that picketed the London theater staging the show featuring a diaper-wearing Jesus Christ who says he is a "bit gay."
A controversy over a play that offended Britain's Sikh community highlighted a religious-secular split in 2004. The play's author, a Sikh woman, went into hiding after receiving death threats.
And Christian groups in Europe reacted with outrage at Martin Scorsese's 1988 "Last Temptation of Christ," which depicted Jesus dreaming about marrying and having children. A Paris cinema showing the movie was firebombed.
However, Europe's debate on free speech has focused on Islam because of the frequency of confrontations, the way they often involved thousands of angry Muslims, and their level of violence.
One leading European thinker believes it is dangerous and disingenuous to underestimate the power words have to wound people at the very core of their being.
"Words are not innocent," French philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy told the Corriere della Sera. "Language is not a neutral means ... it is charged with meaning, with violence."
Indian Muslim Extremists Attack Human Rights Activist Author At Book
Launch
August 9, 2007
Linda Young - AHN News Writer
Hyderabad, India (AHN) - Exiled Bangladesh feminist author Taslima Nasreen was attacked by Muslim extremists on Thursday in Hyderabad, India at a launch of a Teluga language version of one of her novels. Muslims have accused the humanist rights activist of ridiculing their faith and religion in general.
Nasreen, who was attacked by a group of lawmakers and members of a political party, retreated into a corner where supporters protected her. The group of 100 assailants had broken into a meeting where the author was presenting a translated version of one of her novels.
The attack on Nasreen was only the most recent incident against her. In March, an Indian Muslim group called for her execution and put a bounty on her head. Nasreen is a former Muslim who says she has become an atheist.
Nasreen is a physician, author, feminist human rights activist and secular humanist who won the 1994 Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought. Calls for her execution because of her writing caused her to flee Bangladesh for Sweden in 1994. She has lived in Calcutta for the past two years and has applied for citizenship.
Nasreen vowed not to be cowed by her persecutors.
BBC news quoted Ahmad Pasha Quadri, one of the lawmakers, as saying, "Our protest is against Taslima Nasreen because of her writings ridiculing Islam. We want the Indian government to send her back to Bangladesh."
Although Muslim extremists have accused her of ridiculing the Koran and calling for it to be changed, she has denied those charges.
On her website Nasreen wrote, "Nature says women are human beings, men have made religions to deny it. Nature says women are human beings, men cry out NO!"
She continues: "If any religion allows the persecution of the people of different faiths, if any religion keeps women in slavery, if any religion keeps people in ignorance, then I can't accept that religion."
But she doesn't categorize the attacks on her or the increasing conflicts that are contributing to conflict around the world as religious struggles.
On her website, she said she characterizes such conflicts as a "conflict between the future and the past, between innovation and tradition, between those who value freedom and those who do not."