Freedom Of Speech Divided: Nakoula
Basseley Nakoula - Egyptian Coptic And Convicted
Fraudster
17 September 2012
By Mustaqim Sahib Bleher
They say a week is a long time in politics, and it
seems this week has been one of those. Two very
different strands of the freedom of speech versus
censorship paradigm emerged. On the one hand there is
the video produced by Egyptian Coptic and convicted
fraudster Nakoula Basseley Nakoula and directed by
Hollywood porn film maker Alan Roberts at a cost of a
quarter million dollar as yet another attempt to
insult Muslims through denigrating the prophet
Muhammad. Leaving aside the fact that the Muslim
response has hardly been any more mature than when I
published David Pidcock's Satanic Voices Ancient and
Modern - A Surfeit of Blashphemy Including the Rushdie
Report in 1992 as well as the likelihood that much of
the violence has been engineered for ulterior motives
which have nothing at all to do with Islam as
elaborated in the more recent book Surrendering Islam
- The Subversion of Muslim Politics Throughout History
Until the Present Day I co-authored with Muslim
historian David Livingstone, the general response in
the media has been that whilst the film is despicable,
Muslims should moderate their response in the interest
of freedom of speech. Google, for example, refused to
take the trailer for the video off YouTube, describing
it as merely an expression of a different opinion.
On the other hand there is the publication of
semi-nude photos of Kate Middleton following the
earlier publication of nude photos of prince Harry,
both in countries who do not regard the British Royal
Family as anything more than celebrities. Here the
media response took a totally different tune calling
for censorship and self-censorship. Of course, the
British media also milked the interest in those
celebrities being denigrated as much as possible,
endlessly discussing the story whilst not, however,
publishing the pictures themselves. The Belfast
Telegraph, for example, published the front page of
Closer, the French magazine originally running the
photos, with the offensive pictures blacked out; most
other papers did something similar. With the exception
of the Sun, which published the incriminating photos
of Harry, the other British tabloid papers also
published the photos with key areas blurred or covered
up. Had the pictures been of some lesser celebrity or
a foreign, non-American, non-European dignitary, they
would not have shown the same level of constraint even
if the photos were taken under similar circumstances.
When contrasting the two, the uneasiness of the demand
for freedom of speech as a universal human right
becomes apparent. Just like democracy, which is deemed
essential as long as the people make the right
choices, but overthrown when they want to assert their
rights against Anglo-American interests, freedom of
speech is a two-edged sword: Western demagogues demand
the right to insult, yet want to prevent being
insulted. Now why, one ought to ask, should the yet
uncrowned children of the monarch of a small island in
the North Atlantic Ocean still living off its long
gone history be afforded more respect than the prophet
revered by a billion contemporaries on our planet? Why
can you ridicule and smear Muslims unashamedly yet not
voice even the mildest form of criticism of Israeli
Jews? Why is the questioning of historic facts
relating to the Holocaust narrative outlawed in many
European countries, whilst the 20 million victims of
Stalin are hardly ever mentioned and the genocide of
indigenous Muslim populations continues barely noticed
in one part of the world after another, Burma being
the latest scene of unspeakable massacres?
The issue goes deeper than mere hypocrisy, however: it
demonstrates the bankruptcy of the so-called universal
declaration of human rights, which has become just
another politically loaded term in the arsenal of
cultural domination pursued by former imperial Western
powers. Firstly note, that those rights are not
universal, but the declaration is, everybody is meant
to sign up to the declaration, but not everybody may
be entitled to claim those rights. Those human rights
postulate to protect the "life, liberty and security
of person" of everyone (article 3) as well as against
"attacks upon his honour and reputation" (article 12;
the "his" in this article would nowadays be considered
as sexist by the very same people waving the
declaration in everybody's face), but in practice,
some rights are "more equal than others". Man-made
laws are subject to the realities of power
constellations where "might is right".
In Islamic jurisprudence, there has always been the
concept of the "rights of God", long before Magna
Charta, bestowing upon all humans, whom God has
honoured or dignified (Qur'an 17:70), an inviolable
right to life, property and dignity. When Muslims
demonstrate, therefore, against their prophet and
religion being vilified, they are essentially
defending and exercising their God-given human rights.
They would also defend the right to privacy for a
married couple like William and Kate, whereas in the
case of Harry they would use the photos as evidence in
a prosecution for fornication rather than publish them
for the base gratification of tabloid readers. But
since in Western media phraseology all Muslims have
become subhuman and latent terrorists, we mustn't
really let them speak. Let's ridicule their religion
and be outraged at their response and let their
protests be another proof of their inability to govern
themselves, which is why we must continue to interfere
and take their land and resources off them. Sure, we
don't really want to profit from invading other
people's countries, but somebody has to foot the bill
for "keeping the peace".
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