Saturday 23 January 2010

Free speech under threat

A number of freedom-of-speech issues recently. Geert Wilders, the Dutch politician, was hauled before a court for the preliminary session of the "hate crime" case being brought against him.  He's asking for the right to bring experts before the court, to testify to the truth of what he says about Islam, but there seems to be doubt that he'll be able to do so: truth not being a defence, the charge being that he upset Muslims, that they are offended is enough to charge him, the truth be damned.  In Canada...
Ezra Levant has again been sued by a Muslim fellow, head of a Canadian Muslim affairs body, in a case that Levant says is SLAPP , a Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation.   In other words, something done in order to make it too expensive to people to speak out.
In the US, the dreadful Dalia Mogahed is whining again that people are being beastly to Muslims and that if they only understood them more they would be much nicer to them -- the message being, to those that haven't got it yet -- that you mustn't say nasty things about Muslims in the public sphere.  And there are plenty, especially but not exclusively, on the left, who would go along with her, for they have common cause in being either anti-Christian or anti-American, or in support of "the underdog", or for other "multicultural" reasons.
Meantime, there's the ongoing gentle background buzz of the OIC, the Organisation of the Islamic Conference -- representing the 57 Muslims countries in the world -- working to proscribe the criticism of Islam via the United Nations, a campaign that appears to be gaining ground.
Does all matter?  Does it matter if we can't say nasty things about Islam?  Well, yes.  In the case of Nidal, the Muslim army guy who killed 13 of his fellow soldiers, the "independent" investigation into the "tragedy" as it's now called, has recently been published.  And guess what?  There's not one mention, not one, in the whole report of "Islam".  Yet Nidal made very clear what his motivation was: Powerpoint presentation he made in which he stressed the supremacy of Islam, handing out copies of the Koran to his colleagues, exchanging emails with Sheik Awlak i an extremist pro-terrorist-murder, Nidal shouting "Allahu Akbar" as he did his killing, while wearing of Afghani clothing, thus signalling a bent to Jihadism -- one indication after another, all ignored before he went on his killing spree.  And all ignored after, in the report.
How can one hope to address the problem if there is not a single mention of the single most important motivation in Nidal's murderous rampage?
And why this?  Because the chilling of free speech -- now known as "political correctness". But even the most obvious, the most un-ignorable, is nonetheless most un-seen, the most ignored.  And as it is so ignored, so not-seen, the march to Sharia is made just that little bit easier.
That's the importance of free speech.  Dalia Mogahed and the writers of the Fort Hood report are limiting it.  The likes of Wilders and Levant are fighting for it.  And thus fighting to stop the encroachment of Sharia law in the west.
If we can't speak out about it, how can it be stopped?