‘You are free to offend others but not to offend me’
Published:
January 15, 2015 at 9:28am
The subject of my column in today’s The Malta Independent is how many of those brandishing JE SUIS CHARLIE HEBDO notices don’t know that it’s about the unqualified freedom to cause offence, including offence to causes and values dear to their heart.
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http://www.independent.com.mt/articles/2015-01-15/blogs-opinions/You-are-free-to-offend-others-but-not-to-offend-me-6736128755
So nail on the head.
Or, as Saviour Balzan would have it, “Charlie Hebdo .. .. was free speech and a temple for no censorship. But unlike the blogs of the bile queen, no one was sacred. And no political party or politician was sacred.”
As if freedom of speech is only OK as long as you ‘attack’ everyone in equal measure.
Excellent article – just makes you wonder how people (including myself) are subject to several cognitive biases.
In my opinion, this Je Suis Charlie slogan has become a social media fad, particularly on Twitter and Facebook, similarly to the infamous ice-bucket challenge.
My thoughts exactly. I didn’t go for similar reasons. I knew I would have run into one of those brazen hypocrites and I wouldn’t have held back from giving them a piece of my mind.
I would have probably been hauled away by one of Toni Abela’s pulizija Laburisti.
Excellent article.
On a semi-related note, I’ve never been a great fan of Hollande, but the way he’s handled it so far has been outstanding: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-30829733
VIVA DAPHNE.
There goes Charlie!
May I suggest that anyone with a weak heart, a love of grammar and factual arguments, abstain from reading the speech of the President of Malta on the occasion of the new year exchange of greetings with the diplomatic corps.
Those who manage to read through it, please be prepared for major cringe moments.
http://3c3dbeaf6f6c49f4b9f4-a655c0f6dcd98e765a68760c407565ae.r86.cf3.rackcdn.com/d21c42f92b41f20a315d2813c2348d8a1b5d1aa4.pdf
This is the legacy of the Facebook era – most of us are so keen to look hip and cool that we quickly jump on any fashionable bandwagon without a second though given to what it stands for.
The central issue is not with causing offence but taking offence.
If I stand by my choices then I do not care what other people think about them.
I have made those choices for my benefit, and I could not care less if someone thinks otherwise, and for that reason I do not take offence.
On the other hand, when people make choices because they are fashionable or because they have been given no other choice, as is often the case with religious beliefs, then they are sensitive to the opinions of others on those choices.
”The last person hanged for blasphemy in Great Britain was Thomas Aikenhead, aged 20, in Scotland in 1697. He was prosecuted for denying the veracity of the Old Testament and the legitimacy of Christ’s miracles.”
I have met quite a lot of people in Malta who would feel personally insulted if this young man were to repeat his claims today, although it is 2015.
Quite a few people do not even want to discuss what it must mean to Tibetans that the Pope has refused an audience with the Dalai Lama so as not to irritate the Chinese.
Perhaps we are not in the habit of shooting people but we are certainly in the habit of ignoring uncomfortable issues and pushing aside those who would like to explore them.
It’s easy for the Pope to pontificate.
See what I’ve done there.
You spoke too soon. The Pope has clearly spoken that the right to free speech does not mean the abuse of this right by offending others.
This is also what the laws in many countries including our Constitution state. Or do you think all such laws as libel and defamation laws should be repealed?
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20150115/world/pope-free-speech-has-limits.551994
[Daphne – David, what have we all just been quarrelling about? Islam, shariah law, secularism. The Pope does not make the law in the same way that the Koran or imams do not make the law. Also, causing offence and libelling/slandering somebody are NOT the same thing.]
R. C. Blitt, a University of Tennessee associate professor of law, who was an international law specialist for the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, makes a fair point.
”Making blasphemy a crime incites intolerance”
http://www.thecalifornian.com/story/opinion/2015/01/13/making-blasphemy-crime-incites-intolerance/21696431/
Putting this in perspective one notes that, if Wiki is to be relied upon, vilification of the Roman Catholic Apostolic Religion, in Malta, makes the vilifier liable to imprisonment.
Blessed be the cheesemakers
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=asUyK6JWt9U
There you go:
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20150115/world/pope-free-speech-has-limits.551994
And three days ago you posted about how Francis the Pope agreed with you on something:
http://daphnecaruanagalizia.com/2015/01/i-see-the-pope-agrees-with-me-as-franco-debono-might-say/
You see it is about religion after all, at least in part.
[Daphne – No, sorry: two different subjects entirely. One is about limits to freedom of expression where causing offence to religion is concerned (with which I absolutely do not agree), and the other is about terrorists not being driven or created by religion (with which I most certainly do agree).]
Two different subjects you say? Not at all. Both are manifestations of the same thing at varying degrees, two ends of a spectrum of intolerance, if you wish.
Religion breeds intolerance by poisoning the mind and killing rational thought. I see it happening all the time. Don’t you?
The reason that 21st century popes do not order blasphemers to be like struck like vermin, as did most of their predecessors, is that the rest of western society has evolved somewhat and will not allow it.
It’s really not about religion. http://time.com/3662152/kareem-abdul-jabbar-paris-charlie-hebdo-terrorist-attacks-are-not-about-religion/?pcd=hp-magmod
Je ne suis pas Chris.
I am just wondering what part of ‘freedom of expression’ many, including the Pope, are having difficulty understanding.
The important thing was that many declared that: ‘We are all French today’.
Was that meant for that particular, awful Wednesday, just until last Sunday or what? I didn’t know that believing in real freedom of expression had a use-by date.