PARIS
– Violent attacks on US diplomatic outposts across North Africa and the Middle
East have once again raised the question of how to respond when Americans and
other Westerners engage in provocative expression that others consider
blasphemous. Though the attack on the US diplomatic mission in Benghazi, in which Ambassador J.
Christopher Stevens and three members of his staff were murdered, may well have
been planned, as the State Department has maintained, the killers clearly
exploited the opportunity created by outrage at an anti-Muslim film produced in
the US.
There
have been several episodes in recent years in which perceptions of blasphemy
have led to threats of violence or actual killings, starting with the
publication of Salman Rushdie’s novel The Satanic Verses more than two decades
ago, and including the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten’s cartoons of the
Prophet Muhammad. In the Netherlands, Theo Van Gogh was
murdered on an Amsterdam sidewalk in retaliation
for his film Submission, which criticized Islam’s treatment of women.
Even
some who defended freedom of expression in those cases may be disinclined to do
so now. This time, the film that triggered riots in Cairo, Benghazi, Sana, and elsewhere is so crude
and inflammatory as to seem clearly intended to elicit the outrage that it
produced.
Yet
judgments about literary or artistic merit should not be the basis for
decisions about freedom of expression. The proclivity of some elsewhere to
react violently to what they consider blasphemous cannot be the criterion for
imposing limits on free expression in the US, the United Kingdom, Denmark, or the Netherlands (or anywhere else).
It
is important to differentiate blasphemy from hate speech. What is objectionable
about hate speech, and makes it punishable by law in countries around the
world, is that it is intended to incite discrimination or violence against
members of a particular national, racial, ethnic, or religious group.
Even
in the US, where freedom of
expression is zealously protected, such incitement may be prosecuted and
punished in circumstances in which violence or other unlawful behavior is
imminent. By contrast, in cases of blasphemy, it is not the speaker (or the
filmmaker) who is directly inciting discrimination or violence. Rather, it is
those who are enraged by the expressed views who may threaten or actually
engage in violence, either against the speaker, or against those, like US
government officials, whom they believe have facilitated (or failed to
suppress) the blasphemer’s activities.
It
is, of course, impossible to be certain what will arouse such anger. At times,
as seems to be the case with the video that triggered the current protests in
cities across North Africa and the Middle East, a long period may elapse
between the offensive material’s dissemination and an outpouring of popular
rage. The rage, it seems, is not spontaneous; rather, it is an artifact of
local or regional politics. This does not diminish the irresponsibility of
those who gratuitously engage in such offensive behavior, but it does make
clear that outrage against their actions should not be a basis for abandoning
our commitment to freedom of expression.
What,
then, is to be done? The only appropriate response is the one chosen by the US
Embassy in Cairo, which denounced the film
and said that the American government condemns those who offend others’
religious beliefs. And Secretary of State Hillary Clinton reinforced the
condemnation when she called the film “disgusting and reprehensible.”
Plainly,
that was not enough to deter those who sought an occasion to attack the US
Consulate in Benghazi. If they had not grasped
this opportunity, they would have sought another. Simply condemning a film will
not mean much to those who believe that, as may be true in their own countries,
a powerful government like that of the US can simply decide whether a film
should be made or broadcast.
Though
the statement from the US Embassy in Cairo has become the target of
political criticism, it warrants praise for exemplifying American values.
Contrary to the criticism, condemnation of the film is not censorship. While
rejecting censorship, the US government should not
renounce its authority to speak sensibly and condemn an appalling and
apparently intentional provocation that produced such tragic consequences.
Aryeh Neier,
the president of the Open Society Institute and a founder of Human Rights
Watch, is the author, most recently, of Taking Liberties: Four Decades in the
Struggle for Rights.