Flemming Rose’s heart is in the right place but he gives away too much (“Free Speech and Radical Islam,” op-ed, Feb. 15). Religious taboos don’t need to be treated with any greater sensibility than other ideas. Unfettered intellectual exchange, even when impolite or in vociferous criticism, is essential for a free society. Bluntly put: There is nothing that Theo van Gogh or Salman Rushdie or Kurt Westergaard created that merits their murder.
I remember Andres Serrano’s viciously anti-Christian work being exhibited at the Brooklyn Museum, and despite the outrage Mr. Serrano is not in hiding. The point is not that Christians are more tolerant than Islamic fundamentalists (although that may be true), but that in our culture even odious free speech trumps ordinary religious sensitivities.
Mr. Rose, free speech is not a “taboo” amenable to barter, it is an essential component of civilized life. It would be a tragic mistake to force writers and artists into “tastefulness” in the hope that crazed individuals won’t put a price on their heads. It took hundreds of years to achieve our freedoms and respect for individual rights, and we’d be fools to surrender them to irrational zealots.
Benson, Ariz.
Mr. Rose gives an eloquent defense of free speech, and his quote of George Orwell (“…the right to tell people what they do not want to hear”) captures the essence of the issue precisely.
Unfortunately, when he looks to the European Union members for leadership on free speech, he may be looking in the wrong place. In particular, in Holland — the homeland of Theo van Gogh and Ayaan Hirsi Ali — the government is on record opposing free speech, arguing the opposite of what Orwell proposed.
In the words of Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands (Christmas speech, 2006), who in these speeches is, by law, the voice of the government rather than merely an individual stating a personal opinion: “A right to offend does not exist. Nor is freedom of religion a license to injure.”
Indeed we need a global movement to protect free speech. And that movement will have work to do not just in the countries Mr. Rose mentions, but also in Europe — or at least in parts of it.
New Boston, N.H.
With at best barely enough resources to monitor and analyze a sea of jihadist electronic communications, American intelligence officials lack the time and personnel to inadvertently or even intentionally violate the privacy of more than a handful of persons not representing a genuine risk. Several years after the World Trade Center attacks, it is difficult to find bona fide evidence of official abuse of inappropriately acquired private information. Yet Congress refuses to provide a permanent legal framework for electronic monitoring, and critics treat these programs as a serious danger to our fundamental liberties.
By contrast, as Mr. Rose points out, hundreds of millions are voluntarily relinquishing their right to free speech, not at the hands of tyrannical government officials but from fear of rioters and street thugs. It is no accident that the first amendment in the Bill of Rights guarantees freedom of speech. Without the right to peaceably assemble and speak out, all other rights would soon be meaningless.
Ben Franklin observed, “They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” Often cited by opponents of democratic governments combating threats, Mr. Franklin would likely be far more distressed by the hundreds of millions of free people so ready to relinquish their hard-won rights to hoodlums’ intimidation.
