Is Haroon Siddiqui the dumbest man in Canada??
A Somali Canadian mosque in Toronto is being condemned, rightly so, for carrying anti-Semitic and anti-Western messages on its website. This, though, does invite a question: Where are the free-speech advocates defending the right of this group to say whatever the heck it wants? the star
Let’s see…has the CJC filed a human rights complaint against the anti-Semitic Somalis? Why no. Nor has anyone else.
So they are being given their right to free, if vile, speech. Now, the day that the CHRC is engaged I will be right there to defend these ignorant Islamic bigots from the state. However, if the state is not involved, so far as I can see, there is no free speech issue.
Surely Haroon is smart enough to figure that out…
(His commentors sure are call it 10:1 pro Free Speech and they really hand Haroon his head on his endless carping about poor, oppressed Muslims.Any bets how long the five pages of comments stay up.)
November 16th, 2008 at 6:51 pm
This is my favourite Haroon column ever.
November 16th, 2008 at 7:07 pm
High praise kitty! There is such a wealth to choose from.
November 17th, 2008 at 1:01 am
There are three positions on what consitutes “censorship” a.k.a “violation of freedom of speech”.
Position A, the narrowest, is that you are not being censored unless the state itself, acting “under colo[i]r of law” as our American cousins put it, officially intervenes, by criminal punishments (or by civil remedies that go beyond compensation for proven individual loss).
Position C, the widest, is that you are being censored whenever someone organises a boycott of your latest album (eg, Dixie Chicks), or persuades your radio station to cancel your program, or whenever the state (or even a private insititution) declines to fund your latest piece of “Muhammad in Drag” transgressive artwork.
Position B, the medium, is that your free speech is violated if – but only if – someone uses coercion: whether veiled, polite coercion (govts acting through laws) or violent, extra-legal force or threats (especially if the police can’t or won’t guarantee your safety).
I myself hold Position B – not merely on the “Goldilocks Principle” (not too hot, not too cold) but because it seems to me the most intuitively sensible. For example, I have no problem saying Salman Rushdie’s freedom of speech was violated by the Ayatollah’s fatwa, but I don’t think the Dixie Chicks were “censored”. Losing a $500,000 book or record deal does not violate your freedom of speech. But a $50 fine for “causing offence” does. (Cue Wilkes on Hampden and the shipmoney).
November 17th, 2008 at 7:15 am
Jay, this is exactly what I have been trying to suggest. You immediatley go after CJC for not speaking out and of course today there is a follow-up article in the Toronto Star http://www.thestar.com/News/GTA/article/538106 where the Jewish Congress spoke out pretty clearly. This story originally broke only on Thursday. Maybe the reporter never bothered to contact Bnai Birth or the CJC but you had to jump on this right away. Jay honestly you lose so much credibility when you are made to look foolish. Take a breath relax and try to be more focused.
November 17th, 2008 at 9:47 am
Gus, work with me here. My point was that Haroon has not got a clue what freedom of speech actually means, not that the CJC was slow off the mark in trying to stifle speech it disagrees with. Now my bet is that Haroom heard about Len Rudner’s call to the mosque on Friday to ask that the mosque “remove material we deem offensive”. And he may well have heard that a Canadian Muslim organization wants to have the mosque’s tax exempt status taken from it because it is not moderate enough.
Here’s the thing, the CJC is welcome to call up anyone it wants and ask them to remove anything it wants. That is not a free speech issue. My rhetorical question about the CJC was to indicate where I believe the free speech question is engaged. (And, I suspect it is engaged the instant a group calls for the removal of a tax exemption otherwise available based solely on a differing interpretation of Islam.)
So I am not complaining that the CJC was slow off the mark, I am saying that Haroom was far too quick off the mark. Trust that clears it up Gus.
November 18th, 2008 at 10:17 am
Haroom is off the mark in many ways as he does not even understand the EU. Probably has never lived there but feels free to extrapolate something he imagines to be fact?
The EU and especially the UK have quietly and politely accepted limits on free speech much to their detriment = look at the pc environment of the UK today.
The question really is – Do WE want Canada to follow examples of failed national states and the bad practices of a risk aversive EU?
June 2nd, 2009 at 6:06 am
Haroon Siddiqui is great! Someone who doesn’t fear jewish and fanatical Christians bitching about Anti-Semitism their whole lives!