Some thoughts on the cartoon Controversy

Obviously what we are seeing playing out, cataclysmically spurred by a single newspaper's publication of 12 cartoons, is an extraordinarily complex phenomenon. Is it the 'straw that broke the camel's back' in a global "clash of civilizations" between the Western and Islamic worlds? Or is it purely an issue of free speech and censorship? A couple of thoughts on free speech...   1. Free speech has historically been an endogenous struggle. The media or other 'free speakers' exist on a societal hierarchy of power and influence. Speech that threatens the established order or the authority of a hegemon is repressed. Speech that validates the existing order is encouraged to the fore. It is an endogenous struggle in that it generally exists in a local hierarchy. Heretics were tried by their own church, communists were jailed by their own government. Today's manifestations see news stories that threaten the interests of capital and the polis quashed. Journalists and libertarians have rightly waged war against the repression of free speech, and one of the triumphs of modernity was the emergence of a relatively free press. Certainly, repression and influence persists in new, clandestine forms, and the press is only free relative to prior epochs, but victories of free speech have been hard won against a declining church and repressive states. We have seen the media play instrumental roles in the collapse of corporations and governments. Ours is rightly called an Information Age.   This case of the 12 cartoons printed in a Danish newspaper is different in that that parties of offense are, in majority, exogenous, and in the case of Danish Muslims, at a lower rung in Denmark's social hierarchy (only 2% of Denmark's population is Muslim). The object of parody is not venerated by Denmark's dominant social group. Rather, it is a sacred symbol of over a billion people. Only, not many of those people hold much power in Denmark. That is why this is not a textbook issue of free speech. The speech is not being endogenously repressed froma  higher authority. The Danish authorities, in fact, have said they 'don't have much to do with the press' and therefore couldn't apologize or legislate against it.   I think that the act of reprinting the cartoons across Europe and elsewhere is a more significant act than the original creation of the cartoons. After all, lewd illustrations of Mohammed surely exist all over the place (an assumption on my part, but not an unreasonable one). When the cartoons were reprinted, it was ideologically defended as in defense of free speech. However as I have shown, this is not a traditional case of endogenously repressed media. Rather the censorship occurring that the cartoons were supposedly in response to was a politically-correct type of self-censorship (the cartoons were originally commissioned in response to an author being unable to find a publisher for a childrens book on the life of Mohammed). While I think that politically-correct self-censorship is indeed a phenomenon of modern culture, it is of a breed entirely different from the traditionally hierarchical repression that our concept of the 'fight for free speech' derives from. And I believe this fight persists and is hugely important in ending corruption and promoting transparency. Now to my second point...   2. The contents, and consequence, of speech, is seperate from the right to express it. If we are to be wildly libertarian and say that 'anybody should be allowed to say anything', as truly free speech could be construed, we must still accept that the speaker ought take responsibility for what is being said. The right to speak freely does not equate to a right to be free from the responsibility of your actions.   In my assessment, the original Danish newspaper that printed the cartoons, provoking a fiery response from Muslims worldwide, is generally forgiveable.  There are indeed hard questions that are raised by the masstive and disproportionate response to a simple, lewd publication. This is an issue in itself However the response across Europe to reprint the cartoons to show support for 'free speech', should be analyzed in a different light. It must have been clear, given the response to the Danish publication alone, that the effect of republishing the cartoons would be to fan the flames of Muslim anger. But the action is defended on principled grounds: it is a defense of free speech.   Any act is essentionally symbolic, and often in multiple realms. The act, say, of a French newspaper to reprint the cartoons, would have multiple symbolic effects. The actor is responsible (within reasonable bounds) for the multiple effects of an act. Firstly, yes, reprinting the cartoons is a symbolic act in the realm of the fight for free speech: it is an act of punching through censorship. However the truly concerning censorship remains endogenous repression, and the focus of the fight for free speech should not be taken off this form of repression. The second symbolic effect of the act is to befowl a holy symbol of millions of believers. The enormous destructiveness, and disrespect, of the latter can not simply be justified by whatever constructive effect of the former. The defense of free speech does not negate responsibility for insulting a holy symbol. Freedom still comes with responsibility. In the future aftermath of this controversy I reject the right of European publishers to hide behind a defense of free speech, 'damn the consequences'. In this case, the press shall not be counted among the victims. Tragically, victims have already appeared, with 4 protestors shot dead in Pakistan by their own government forces.   Another victim is the very real repression of journalism that continues to occur in the Western world. The energy of a belligerent press can be much more constructively utilized to combat the pervasive interests of governments and corporation, and other entrenched power structures. The true repression of speech continues, and the true role of a free press is to combat it. I'm afraid, in this case, the imperatives of this role have been grotesquely failed.