Leveraging free speech

Geert Wilders has opened up a shitstorm. And good for him.



This is one of the more serious places where the glorification of pressure and leverage is going to break down. As Muslim and Arab "moderates" try to leverage the most cherished freedoms in liberal democracies, namely, in this case, the freedom of speech. The inside/outside game of so many radicals and collaborating moderates, here and abroad, is a fascinating, dishonest, and ugly spectacle, let me tell you. I'd admire it's cleverness more if so many people didn't get manipulated, hurt, and killed in its name. It is the rationale for radical Islam and its associated terrorism, after all. It's the rationale of every bully with too weak of arguments to persuade others of their better reasoning.

Jordan's Legal Jihad

As Stephen Brown from my favorite far right publication (I think sarcasm just literally dripped from my keyboard), Frontpage Magazine, writes:

"In a brazen attempt to stifle free speech in the West, a Jordanian court recently summoned twelve European citizens to answer criminal charges of blasphemy and inciting hatred.

Among those sought by the court is Geert Wilders, the Dutch liberal politician who made the anti-Islamist film, Fitna. Released last March, the Dutch MP’s production caused an uproar in Islamic countries, since it equated Islam with violence. Now a Middle Eastern court would like to prosecute Wilders for the 'crime.' (Ironically, a Dutch court dropped charges against him for inciting hatred against Muslims with his film the day before the Jordanian court issued its subpoena.)

The Jordanian court’s move is only the most ambitious attempt to silence debate about Islam. Until now, the preferred strategy has been to file civil lawsuits in western courts to intimidate critics. The latest version of what may be called the legal jihad is even more disturbing.

In one subpoena, issued in early June, the Jordanian court ordered ten Danish newspaper editors to travel to Jordan for the 'crime' of having republished the “Mohammad cartoons” last February. The cartoons, first published in 2005, were also greeted with disturbances in Muslim lands. Seventeen Danish newspapers republished the controversial cartoons as a response to the discovery of an Islamist plot to murder Kurt Westergaard. Westergaard, a caricaturist, drew the most famous of those cartoons in the form of Mohammad wearing a bomb-shaped turban, for which he is also included in the summons.

This new campaign of intimidation against the West is being mounted by a Jordanian organization calling itself 'Messenger of Allah Unite Us', which is made up of '...media outlets, professional associations, parliamentarians and thousands of volunteers.' This organization, according to one account, arose as a 'civilized response' to the Mohammad cartoons’ republication in 17 Danish papers last winter, after which it took the matter to a Jordanian court and successfully had charges pressed against the Danes, and later against Wilders...

Citizens of western countries who criticize Islam, and are even willing to face lawsuits in civil courts their own countries for doing so, may now exercise restraint if they risk facing criminal charges in a Muslim country. Especially if the charge is blasphemy and it is being tried by a sharia court, which can impose a death sentence (The Danes and Wilders, a Jordanian lawyer said, are facing a maximum of three years in jail).

As well, critics of Islam who have outstanding warrants against them from courts in Muslim countries will have their freedom of movement restricted, since travel abroad will now be problematic. Wilders expressed this sentiment, saying he will be careful when he travels now. Such targeted individuals, like Wilders, will obviously have reservations travelling to a third country where Jordan could file an extradition application or may already have an extradition treaty in place.

But what is most disturbing is that an Islamic country would dare subpoena citizens of another state for an action not committed within its borders but in a land where no laws were broken. Besides being meant as a weapon of intimidation, this tactic also represents a frightening extension of Islamic law into the heart of western countries.

But perhaps most ominously, this incredibly brazen measure shows that even a small Islamic country like Jordan has no fear of Europe. And, indeed, no retaliatory response met the Jordanian court’s action against European citizens.

Europe’s appeasement is also evident in the second part of Messenger For Allah group’s anti-blasphemy campaign. This part calls for a commercial boycott of all Danish and Dutch products in Jordan and of anything associated with the two countries, such as airlines and shipping companies. The boycott campaign actually began late last February but was suspended due to the losses Jordanian importers were incurring that had large stocks of unsold Danish and Dutch products.

The boycott, however, was resumed June 10. One million posters containing the logos of banned Dutch and Danish products will eventually hang in Jordanian businesses under the title 'Living Without It.' The boycott will also be spread by television and radio ads, t-shirts, and bumper stickers.

Dutch and Danish companies were instructed they could get their products off the boycott list if they, essentially, betrayed their nations’ values and their countrymen. The affected companies, according to The Jordan Times, were told to denounce the Dutch film and the Danish cartoons in the media both in Jordan and in at least one publication in their own country, support the Jordanian legal action taken against Wilders and the Danish newspaper people as well as the creation of an international anti-blasphemy law.

Several companies have already complied. When informed of the stipulation that requires a denunciation be published in a Dutch newspaper, a spokesman for a Dutch food company that exports to Jordan said his company '…would print it if needed.'

But such groveling will only buy these companies a little time, as another Dutch company discovered. It had immediately distanced itself from Wilders and Fitna after the film’s release last March but still had products placed on the boycott posters.

The Dutch government did not fare much better in its appeasement efforts. One Dutch embassy official in Jordan said he was surprised his country was included in the boycott in the first place since his government had already printed statements in the Jordanian press distancing itself from Wilders’ film.

And, naturally, the Jordanian blackmailers’ demands have not stopped. Only last week, Dutch and Danish companies were told to put the boycott posters up in their own countries if they did not want their products blacklisted.

Perhaps to further intimidate Holland’s and Denmark’s populations, the Jordanians are also claiming their boycott campaign is causing these countries huge financial losses of over four billion Euros in four months. A Danish official, however, says that is ridiculous since his country only exported about $50 million worth of goods to Jordan in 2007.

The overall goal of the Messenger of Allah group’s legal and commercial campaign against the two European states, it says, is the enactment of 'a universal law that prohibits the defamation of any prophet or religion', especially of the Prophet Mohammad. Islamic countries are already pushing for such a law at the United Nations.

'The boycott is a means but not an end,' said Zakaria Sheikh, a spokesperson for Messenger of Allah Unite Us. 'We are not aiming at collective punishment, but when the Danish and Dutch people put pressure on their governments to support the creation of an international law, we are achieving our goal.'"

This is what is at stake, for those who romanticize pressure and repression as a governing philosophy.

The beauty is that it undermines itself, long term. Hence the passionate defense of principles like free speech in liberal democratic countries (those who advocate pressure and repression have to wonder, how, exactly, did repression of free speech for thousands of years fall apart if pressure and repression work so well? The answer is that brave people like Voltaire, the Baron de Montequieu, and the like happened, made stronger arguments, and inspired generations to embrace a liberty that had, till that point, been regularly abrogated).

Embracing and defending freedom and liberal values, as the British on-line video website, Liveleak, does in its airing of videos that openly debate this matter, is exactly what best embodies those liberal values.

Those values and the free speech that people like Voltaire and Montesquieu, Washington, Adams, Jefferson and Madison, and all of our liberal forefunners risked their lives and their liberty to guarantee for us, today, mean that films like Fitna, the Geert Wilders' movie that has attracted so much attention and derision, Wilders' critics, and all of those who enter the marketplace of ideas should have the freedom to air their views.



What is at stake is, "Are we going to look more like the radical Islamists, the Zimbabwe government, the North Korea's Communist leadership, and other repressive forces we are rightly opposed to? Or are we going to look more like Americans and embrace the freedoms we say we love."



During this political period, liberal democracies have chosen a direction closer to radical Islam and repression as a governing philosophy. This article makes clear what a dangerous trend that could be.

I hope, for our sake, we choose freedom. Because freedom is why I love America and the Western world, not something to fear.



Fearing freedom should be left to radical Islam.

The rest of us have an honest democracy to tend to.