Freedom of Speech
In theory, I've already got it. I live in Europe, so it's my Human Right to get up on my hind legs and say or write what I like. Publish and be damned. Except it doesn't quite work like that; if I were to express my deep and heartfelt conviction that, say, Rupert Murdoch is the Anti-Christ (I don't actually believe this - the Anti-Christ would have more charisma) or that Coca-Cola tastes like fizzy horse-piss with added sugar, I'd be sued off the face of the planet. The fact that I'm no-one and my opinion is hardly likely to sway millions of consumers is unimportant; I wouldn't be suffered to live any more than a witch under Torquemada. The same goes for religion; for instance, I've got nothing against the Pope personally, he seems like a nice enough old chap (though we've never met, of course) and is probably quite sincere in what he does. However, his stance on contraception, especially condoms, is condemning hundreds of thousands of Africans to a slow death from Aids; if we're going to have such a thing as a Pope at all (and that's up to the Catholics), then I think we'd be better off with one who understood the 21st century and was willing to admit his predecessors may have got things a bit wrong. I don't understand how come the Catholic Church is so firmly anti-contraception anyway; surely Jesus didn't have any opinion on the matter, condoms didn't exist in Roman Palestine in the 1st century A.D., as far as I'm aware.
Things get even trickier if you want to talk about Islam. I'd like to state quickly (before someone fatwas me) that my ex-husband, the father of my daughter, is a Moslem. The only religious differences we ever had were over Ramadan. Not the theory or practice of, that's entirely up to the individual in my book. Our problems began because my ex is deaf and dumb, so I was the one who had to wake him up at 4.00 a.m. to eat and pray. I wouldn't even have minded that, except that I had be at work by 8.00 and deaf people inevitably make a lot of noise in the kitchen. Or mine did, at any rate; to this day, I don't know if he was doing it on purpose. The worst for me was when Ramadan fell over the Xmas period. I don't "do" Xmas in a religious sense, but if you've got a child you get sucked in anyway. So there we were, my family and I, quaffing fit to bust while Momo sat there like the Egyptian Death's Head, unable to drink so much as a glass of water. Not a situation calculated to promote marital harmony, and indeed that was the last Ramadan I experienced, as we split up later that year.
I wouldn't have minded so much if he'd been a Moslem the rest of the year, but apart from not eating pork you wouldn't have noticed the difference. He'd happily swill beer, smoke and chase skirt the other 11 months; I don't know Allah's opinion on people like him, but it seems to me that any God worth his salt would rather not have someone like that on board. But where would I be able to say or write that without someone or other getting offended? There's been a lot of debate about whether to include Islam in the Blasphemy laws, which of course are Christian in this Christian-by-default society. Personally I'd go for scrapping Blasphemy as a "crime" altogether; Incitement to Racial Hatred, yes, we need that now more than ever, but in a secular society I can't see the need for even the concept of blasphemy.
And censorship pops up in the most unexpected of places. I write online on several sites, one of which is the BBC "Get Writing" site. I don't think I'm a particularly foul-mouthed person; sure, I let slip the occasion "fuck this for a game of soldiers!", but who can really honestly say they've never let their temper get the better of their tongue? In fact, if I lose my rag with my daughter, I usually let off a volley of gutter-German; one day she'll study German at school and realise what I've been saying all these years, but I'll cross that bridge when I come to it. However, when I'm writing dialogue, it's often appropriate to use what my Grandma used to call "language". I submitted a short story to the BBC site which was mainly a dialogue between two police officers and a taped interview with a "loony"; there wasn't a gratuitous "fuck" in the whole story, just an attempt at realism. Criminal psychopaths probably don't say "Oh my gosh!". To my surprise, I got a Stern Reply telling me my work had been edited because the language used was "unsuitable". Someone had laboriously gone through it and asterisked everything even slightly contentious, regardless of context. It wasn't the story I'd written any more, precisely because I'm so sparing with expletives and when I do use them they're for an immediate and calculated effect.
Things get even trickier if you want to talk about Islam. I'd like to state quickly (before someone fatwas me) that my ex-husband, the father of my daughter, is a Moslem. The only religious differences we ever had were over Ramadan. Not the theory or practice of, that's entirely up to the individual in my book. Our problems began because my ex is deaf and dumb, so I was the one who had to wake him up at 4.00 a.m. to eat and pray. I wouldn't even have minded that, except that I had be at work by 8.00 and deaf people inevitably make a lot of noise in the kitchen. Or mine did, at any rate; to this day, I don't know if he was doing it on purpose. The worst for me was when Ramadan fell over the Xmas period. I don't "do" Xmas in a religious sense, but if you've got a child you get sucked in anyway. So there we were, my family and I, quaffing fit to bust while Momo sat there like the Egyptian Death's Head, unable to drink so much as a glass of water. Not a situation calculated to promote marital harmony, and indeed that was the last Ramadan I experienced, as we split up later that year.
I wouldn't have minded so much if he'd been a Moslem the rest of the year, but apart from not eating pork you wouldn't have noticed the difference. He'd happily swill beer, smoke and chase skirt the other 11 months; I don't know Allah's opinion on people like him, but it seems to me that any God worth his salt would rather not have someone like that on board. But where would I be able to say or write that without someone or other getting offended? There's been a lot of debate about whether to include Islam in the Blasphemy laws, which of course are Christian in this Christian-by-default society. Personally I'd go for scrapping Blasphemy as a "crime" altogether; Incitement to Racial Hatred, yes, we need that now more than ever, but in a secular society I can't see the need for even the concept of blasphemy.
And censorship pops up in the most unexpected of places. I write online on several sites, one of which is the BBC "Get Writing" site. I don't think I'm a particularly foul-mouthed person; sure, I let slip the occasion "fuck this for a game of soldiers!", but who can really honestly say they've never let their temper get the better of their tongue? In fact, if I lose my rag with my daughter, I usually let off a volley of gutter-German; one day she'll study German at school and realise what I've been saying all these years, but I'll cross that bridge when I come to it. However, when I'm writing dialogue, it's often appropriate to use what my Grandma used to call "language". I submitted a short story to the BBC site which was mainly a dialogue between two police officers and a taped interview with a "loony"; there wasn't a gratuitous "fuck" in the whole story, just an attempt at realism. Criminal psychopaths probably don't say "Oh my gosh!". To my surprise, I got a Stern Reply telling me my work had been edited because the language used was "unsuitable". Someone had laboriously gone through it and asterisked everything even slightly contentious, regardless of context. It wasn't the story I'd written any more, precisely because I'm so sparing with expletives and when I do use them they're for an immediate and calculated effect.
So really our freedom of speech is limited by a lot of factors, because we have to tiptoe through life not uspetting anyone at all. The trouble with this is, as soon as you have an opinion about anything at all, you've upset someone or other. And if you aren't part of something, a Church or a political movement, you've got no natural allies; worse, if you do put forward an opinion, you risk getting jumbled up with one side or other of an argument, even if the rest of your beliefs are totally opposed to what you've been lumped in with. I've never in my life found any religion, philosphy or political grouping which I could whole-heartedly believe in, so I don't appreciate being called any kind of "ist" at all, and I don't have an "ism" to fall back on when my opinions are questioned. I don't have a Holy Book to quote from, I'm not one of the Chosen (it's my opinion that they choose themselves anyway), and even to myself I tend to define myself by what I don't believe in; there's a lot more of that in my life than genuine convictions, and I think that's a pretty average Western European philosophical position.
Here in the blogosphere, for now at least, there is freedom of speech. Until they work out some way to censor us, which probably will happen some day, we can all say whatever we like, and not bother ourselves if we offend some people. Here's an example; I personally believe all religions are bullshit. I'm of the opinion that they exist for lazy people who can't be bothered to have a personal philosophy, and of course for the enrichment of "spiritual leaders" everywhere. They promote war and hatred, however much their founders might have preached peace, and they give a leg-up to hypocrites the world over. I'd be very happy indeed if all the committed Christians, Moslems, Jews, Hindus and all other denominations just decided to call it quits. By all means carry on loving thy neighbour, embrace the positive, humanistic side of any faith, but stop trying to "Evangelise", worry about your own conscience, not mine. If people could bring themselves to act like civilised beings for the sake of it, and not because a God told them to, then I believe we'd be making a big social and evolutionary step forwards. It seems ludicrous in the 21st century to be fighting, actually killing human beings, for the sake of something someone may or may not have said a couple of thousand years ago. Let go of the tit!
So there you go. In that one paragraph, I've insulted about two-thirds of the world, because my own sincerely-held belief is that their sincerely-held beliefs are ludicrous. Don't get me wrong, I'm in favour of anything which makes human beings behave better, but in my opinion religion doesn't accomplish that. Once you declare for one side, whether Christian, Moslem, Scientologist or Moonie, however sincere or well-intentioned you may be, every person of a different religious persuasion becomes the "enemy", the "infidel", the "heretic". Even wierder in my opinion are the divisions which exist within religions; Sunni and Shia, Catholic and Protestant, Orthodox and non-Orthodox - what's all that about then? I know the technical reasons why some religions have diverged over the centuries, but does it really matter any more? Apparently it does, enough to be still fighting and killing over it in a depressingly large number of countries. Last year in Northern Ireland the news was full of Catholic children having to walk though a Protestant area to get to school; children, children, running a gauntlet of abuse and even physical violence in the name of their parents' religion. And this is Europe, not some poor benighted third-world country we can discreetly ignore.
It seems to me that freedom of speech is, or should be, more important than "blasphemy", religious or political. When I was at University in the UK, the British National Party (a bunch of vile racist thugs) applied to speak at our Student Union. As I was on the Entertainment Committee, I had to vote on this. I have a lot of anathemas (I collect them) but racism and nationalism are probably top of my hate-list. However, just because I personally find these people repugnant, I don't feel this gives me the right to censor them. So I voted "Yes", then stood outside the Union Hall with a banner and a box of throwing-eggs to protest about it. Censorship implies that we, the people, are too stupid or easily led to make our own decisions. Blasphemy laws imply that the religion they're institued to protect can't stand a bit of criticism. Somebody, I can't remember who, said "I disagree with everything you say, but I'd fight to the death to defend your right to say it", and that's more or less my position. Yes, I think it still needs to be illegal to incite hatred on grounds of race or religion, because people seem to be too stupid to see for themselves that it's wrong, but I hope the day will come when these laws will become as obsolete as the Blasphemy laws are today.
Here in the blogosphere, for now at least, there is freedom of speech. Until they work out some way to censor us, which probably will happen some day, we can all say whatever we like, and not bother ourselves if we offend some people. Here's an example; I personally believe all religions are bullshit. I'm of the opinion that they exist for lazy people who can't be bothered to have a personal philosophy, and of course for the enrichment of "spiritual leaders" everywhere. They promote war and hatred, however much their founders might have preached peace, and they give a leg-up to hypocrites the world over. I'd be very happy indeed if all the committed Christians, Moslems, Jews, Hindus and all other denominations just decided to call it quits. By all means carry on loving thy neighbour, embrace the positive, humanistic side of any faith, but stop trying to "Evangelise", worry about your own conscience, not mine. If people could bring themselves to act like civilised beings for the sake of it, and not because a God told them to, then I believe we'd be making a big social and evolutionary step forwards. It seems ludicrous in the 21st century to be fighting, actually killing human beings, for the sake of something someone may or may not have said a couple of thousand years ago. Let go of the tit!
So there you go. In that one paragraph, I've insulted about two-thirds of the world, because my own sincerely-held belief is that their sincerely-held beliefs are ludicrous. Don't get me wrong, I'm in favour of anything which makes human beings behave better, but in my opinion religion doesn't accomplish that. Once you declare for one side, whether Christian, Moslem, Scientologist or Moonie, however sincere or well-intentioned you may be, every person of a different religious persuasion becomes the "enemy", the "infidel", the "heretic". Even wierder in my opinion are the divisions which exist within religions; Sunni and Shia, Catholic and Protestant, Orthodox and non-Orthodox - what's all that about then? I know the technical reasons why some religions have diverged over the centuries, but does it really matter any more? Apparently it does, enough to be still fighting and killing over it in a depressingly large number of countries. Last year in Northern Ireland the news was full of Catholic children having to walk though a Protestant area to get to school; children, children, running a gauntlet of abuse and even physical violence in the name of their parents' religion. And this is Europe, not some poor benighted third-world country we can discreetly ignore.
It seems to me that freedom of speech is, or should be, more important than "blasphemy", religious or political. When I was at University in the UK, the British National Party (a bunch of vile racist thugs) applied to speak at our Student Union. As I was on the Entertainment Committee, I had to vote on this. I have a lot of anathemas (I collect them) but racism and nationalism are probably top of my hate-list. However, just because I personally find these people repugnant, I don't feel this gives me the right to censor them. So I voted "Yes", then stood outside the Union Hall with a banner and a box of throwing-eggs to protest about it. Censorship implies that we, the people, are too stupid or easily led to make our own decisions. Blasphemy laws imply that the religion they're institued to protect can't stand a bit of criticism. Somebody, I can't remember who, said "I disagree with everything you say, but I'd fight to the death to defend your right to say it", and that's more or less my position. Yes, I think it still needs to be illegal to incite hatred on grounds of race or religion, because people seem to be too stupid to see for themselves that it's wrong, but I hope the day will come when these laws will become as obsolete as the Blasphemy laws are today.
posted by holojojo at 2:29 AM
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