“Right to Freedom of Religion is balanced by the Right to Blaspheme”
Year Delivered or Published: 2007
Author: Mirza Yawar Baig
Author's Faith: Islam
Date Submitted to Inspiration and Issues: September 8, 2007
Topic: Interfaith Issues
Every time I think I’ve heard it all, someone comes up with another comment that blows my mind yet again. The title of this article is the comment of the editorial of the Swedish newspaper which published a so-called cartoon of the Prophet Mohammad (Peace be on him).
If we go by this logic then the right to safety and security must be balanced by the right to terrorize a population. The right to education must be balanced by the right to remain ignorant. The right to health must be balanced by the right to sickness. The right to marriage must be balanced by the right to rape and so on. Crazy, isn’t it? Just as crazy as the call that the right to freedom of religion must be balanced by the right to blaspheme any religion. These people want to impose the rule on us that if the followers of any religion want to practice their religion then they must be prepared to accept the fact that all that they hold holy and sacred will be blasphemed, insulted, degraded and desecrated by other people who don’t care about their feelings and they must accept this treatment without complaint.
Doesn’t that sound like a gross violation of human rights? It does, to me. Violence to human rights is not only physical violence. It is also violence that is psychological and mental. Ask any divorce lawyer who is suing on the basis of mental torture. This is an accepted principal in law. Freedom is defined as something that you are permitted to do as long as it does not violate someone else’s freedom; does not hurt someone else; does not harm anyone else. That is why the famous saying, “Your freedom ends where my nose begins.” If we define freedom as the unbridled right of someone to do whatever he or she wants irrespective of what harm this action or speech may do to someone else’s dignity, reputation, relationships or position, then we would have complete chaos and anarchy.
Defined in the way the Swedish newspaper’s editorial demands, freedom of speech must be rechristened ‘freedom to abuse’, ‘freedom to hurt’, ‘freedom to damage’, freedom to destroy’. This is a completely senseless argument and totally out of sync with the image that Europe likes to project of being the seat of Western civilization. This behavior is not civilized at all. It is barbarism and oppression at its worst. So what is so different when it is done by the Press with the target being not one man or woman but an entire population? If anything it must make the crime humungous in magnitude. Like murder, which when it is perpetrated against an entire population becomes a holocaust and genocide. Ask the Jews who were the victims of this at the hands of Hitler.
Of course that was before the West invented the term ‘collateral damage’. Otherwise they too, like the Iraqis and Palestinians, would have been mere statistics rather than innocent people who suffered one of the worst man-made disasters in the history of mankind. Unfortunately it seems to be by no means the last.
Yet we are asked to accept this ridiculous argument that if we are practicing Christians then we must accept films that show Jesus as a fornicating rock star or his pictures holding a beer can in one hand and a cigarette in another. If we are practicing Hindus then we must accept the pictures of the gods we worship and hold holy, on toilet seats. And if we are practicing Muslims then we must accept the most obviously hatred filled images masquerading as cartoons of the one person who we hold the most holy, Mohammad, the Messenger of Allah (Peace be on him). And all of us, Muslims, Christians, Hindus and others who have not been targeted yet are told that we have to accept someone’s ‘right’ to indulge his perversion at our expense. And if we dare to protest, then we will be labeled uncivilized, terrorists and anti-human.
In this version of civilization, it is civilized behavior to insult a religion. It is uncivilized behavior to protest against that. Does this make sense to you? It doesn’t to me. But it seems to make sense to a small minority (my assumption) of Europeans who are seeking to impose their warped sense of values on the rest of the world. The question is what should be our reaction? Ideally I would love to ignore this thing entirely. But I’m afraid that it may only make such people bolder and eventually we will get to a point where we can’t ignore it anymore and then the reactions are more destructive.
In my view it is important for people of all religions to come together and stand together to ensure that freedom of worship is ensured for everyone. There can be no freedom of worship when some people insult and abuse what someone else worships. Insulting someone personally is not accepted as a freedom in any civilized society. If someone did that they would become liable for legal action and punishment. So how can it be accepted to insult someone or something that an individual worships?
Will someone explain this insanity to me please??
