"You can only protect your liberties in this world by protecting the other man's freedom."
This is a quote from Clarence Darrow, an American lawyer from the late-18/early-1900s. In light of the whole hulabaloo over the cartoons in Danish newspapers, his assertion is even more applicable than it was before.
Typically, westerners would look at this quote and conclude that if Muslims wanted us to respect their religion, they should start by respecting our culture. If they weren't attacking institutions indicative of western values and ideals, we wouldn't be bothering them about their religion. Therefore, they should stop burning flags and sending suicide bombers into marketplaces if they want respect from us.
I say that's all fine and dandy, unless you consider yourself a Christian.
Christians, if we truly wish to be like Christ, are called to think of others ahead of ourselves. If we really do that, we'll inevitably also think of others' rights ahead of our own. In that case, it's our responsibility to respect the freedom of religion of Muslims before expecting them to respect our freedom of expression.
In general, that is one of the problems I see in society today. Rights, and our mentality that we have to protect our rights at all costs. But, for those who want to protect their rights and freedoms, I refer you back to the beginning of this entry. The only way to ensure your rights is to first make sure you protect the rights of others.
Therefore, when another person infringes on your rights, don't respond by retaliating and violating one of theirs. Rather, continue to protect their rights, thereby convincing them to respect yours.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
I think your examination of the cartoon fiasco is flawed. Defending the cartoons on the basis that Islam is worthy of ridicule is most definitely incorrect, however attacking their creation and publication on the basis that they infringe on Muslims' freedom of religion is equally erroneous.
The right to freedom of religion protects the manifestation of one's religion or beliefs "in teaching, practice, worship and observance", it does NOT make one's religion immune from critique, satire, or depiction. The Danish cartoons did not prevent any Muslim from teaching, practicing, worshipping, or otherwise observing their beliefs. Not so on the other side of the coin.
In some Islamic traditions ANY depiction of the prophet, negative OR positive, is forbidden. By calling for the censorship of the cartoons, and the murder of the cartoonists, it was Muslims who infringed upon the rights of non-Muslims. The right to freedom of religion provides protection for ALL religions and even protects those who don't believe. Under this right, an athiest, Lutheran, Buddhist, or Roman-Catholic cannot be forced to obey the traditions of Sharia law or Islamic tradition, or any other religion. Yet Muslims sought to impose their tradition of non-publication on non-Muslim people and nations.
Not satisfied with only violating the right to freedom of religion however, Muslims went further and violated the right to freedom of expression by calling for the censorship of the cartoons, property rights by destroying embassies, and security of person rights by offering rewards for the murder of the cartoonists.
By contrast, nothing about the cartoons was illegal under Danish or international law, nor did their creation and publication violate any charter of human rights. Rather, as has occurred for centuries in many tightly controlled Islamic societies, Muslims sought not freedom to practice their religion, but a mandate, backed by force and intimidation, to impose their religion on others. There is no protection for that in any human rights charter that I have ever read.
Finally, I'll leave you with a few quotes from another famous American, Thomas Jefferson:
I am really mortified to be told that, in the United States of America, a fact like this can become a subject of inquiry, and of criminal inquiry too, as an offence against religion; that a question about the sale of a book can be carried before the civil magistrate. Is this then our freedom of religion? And are we to have a censor whose imprimatur shall say what books may be sold, and what we may buy? And who is thus to dogmatize religious opinions for our citizens? Whose foot is to be the measure to which ours are all to be cut or stretched? Is a priest to be our inquisitor, or shall a layman, simple as ourselves, set up his reason as the rule for what we are to read, and what we must believe? It is an insult to our citizens to question whether they are rational beings or not, and blasphemy against religion to suppose it cannot stand the test of truth and reason."
[Letter to N. G. Dufief, Philadelphia bookseller (1814) who had been prosecuted for selling the book Sur la Création du Monde, un Systême d'Organisation Primitive by M. de Becourt, which Jefferson himself had purchased.]
"Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost."
Post a Comment