Freedom of Speech Is of No Use Unless We Exercise It

3 minute read
Ideas
Jytte Klausen is a scholar of politics who teaches at Brandeis University in Massachusetts. She is the author of The Cartoons that Shook the World (Yale University Press, 2009).

Editors and producers across the Western world will now be asking themselves: “Can I print this?” They are asking the wrong question. It is a fallacy to think “that could be us.” The readers of the world rely on them to say collectively: “Yes, we can.”

In 2009, Yale University Press censored a book I had written about the worldwide protests against the Danish Mohammed cartoons. The book contains a discussion of traditions for depicting Mohammed in Islamic and Western art. Citing fear of unknown terrorists, the press redacted all illustrations from the book featuring Mohammed: Ottoman prints, the Danish cartoons, and a 19th-century engraving made by Gustave Dore, a French artist, who mass produced such art for middle-class homes in the United Kingdom. The danger was imagined. There were no known threats against the press or against myself, at the time, and there never have been any.

See Covers Published by Charlie Hebdo

Charlie Hebdo cover
In this cover, the newspaper called itself an irresponsible newspaper, and likening itself to a Neanderthal, claiming that the invention of humor is the process of adding fuel to the fire.Charlie Hebdo
Charlie Hebdo cover
"The socialist party has chosen its maid." (François Hollande vacuums up Nicolas Sarkozy)Charlie Hebdo
Charlie Hebdo cover
"Gay marriage is so last year!" "Let's go for gay divorce now!"Charlie Hebdo
Charlie Hebdo cover
Mitt Romney seen yelling, "For the White House, an actual white!" during the 2012 election in which he ran against President Barack Obama. To the right, French leaders Francois Fillon and Jean-Francois Copé hold a sign that says "no immigrants can vote."Charlie Hebdo
Charlie Hebdo cover
"We don't have prostitutes any more. Thank god, we still have Miss France."Charlie Hebdo
Charlie Hebdo cover
Osama bin Laden in a late Elvis costume. "Bin Laden is alive!"Charlie Hebdo
Charlie Hebdo cover
"Where are our taxes going?" Missile: "On Syrians' faces."Charlie Hebdo
Charlie Hebdo cover
"Zero growth." Hollande sits in lifeguard chair and says, "We don't move," while everyone in the water drowns.Charlie Hebdo
Charlie Hebdo cover
"The postal service is being privatized?" Rope (presumably for hanging): "I am your new human resources department"Charlie Hebdo
Charlie Hebdo cover
Charlie Hebdo criticized Europe being ruled by banks. Here Hitler shown saying, "I'm an idiot! I should have worked at the BNP!" (One of the largest banks in France.)Charlie Hebdo
Charlie Hebdo cover
Sunday, May 6, 2012, one minute before the election results - France prepares to flick away Sarkozy.Charlie Hebdo
Charlie Hebdo cover
First official photo of newly elected Hollande, pushing Sarkozy into a meat grinder.Charlie Hebdo
Charlie Hebdo cover
Depicted: Marine Le Pen, leader of the far right Front National party. "The new model for John Galliano." Galliano, portrayed in background, made anti-Semitic remarks just before Paris Fashion Week in 2011.Charlie Hebdo
Charlie Hebdo cover
After Gerard Depardieu decided to leave France for Belgium to avoid taxes, Charlie Hebdo published a cover asking if Belgium had the capacity to welcome the entire world's cholesterol.Charlie Hebdo
Charlie Hebdo cover
After an armed man entered French newspaper LibŽration's offices in Paris in 2013, injuring one staff member, Charlie Hebdo published this cover which reads: The press is doing fine. It excites jerks."Charlie Hebdo

Stifling debate in order to evade unknown or perceived threats—at home or abroad—may seem a reasonable tradeoff at the moment, but it has corrosive effects on debate and the dissemination of knowledge in the long-term. The standard for what is permissible expression becomes essentially unknowable. Nor is risk-aversion without cost.

Imagine for a minute that the Western press had continued to publish irascible cartoons ridiculing jihadist pieties after the Danish cartoon episode? What if we did not have to go to the hidden corners of the Internet to find reproductions of Ottoman painting of Mohammed? The editors and cartoonists at Charlie Hebdo were targeted because, over the past five years, they have been left alone standing in defense of press freedom against the jihadist Kulturkampf.

Hebdo was attacked to send a message to all of us who write, read, consume, and produce intellectual content. The jihadists are the new thought police. Clearly, there are reasons to take precaution, but we should not exaggerate the threat. Trained teams of angry Muslim assassins are not lurking in every metropolis, ready to attack the editorial offices of newspapers big and small.

The right reaction is to rally our wagons and protect controversial speech—and the speaker—and suppress the threat. We have to trust our governments to protect us and allow them to do the job. Salman Rushdie has lived for 23 years with an active and credible death threat. Two American bookstores and a community newspaper were bombed in response to the Rushdie fatwa, and yet, bookstores kept stocking the book. Rushdie’s Italian and Japanese translators were killed. The Norwegian publisher was shot and wounded. Yet Penguin kept the book in print. This should be the model for how to deal with threats and intimidation.

Freedom of speech is of no use unless we exercise it. The right thing to do right now is to rely on our governments to tamp down the scourge of terrorism. After the July 7 suicide attacks on the London Underground, Londoners conquered their fears and went back on the trains. Let us, the editors and the producers, the corporate managers and owners of our big newspapers and media companies, get back on the train, publish and carry on.

Paris Police Respond to Charlie Hebdo Attack

Armed gunmen face police officers near the offices of the French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo in Paris on Jan. 7, 2015.
Armed gunmen face police officers near the offices of the French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo in Paris on Jan. 7, 2015.Anne Gelbard—AFP/Getty Images
An injured person is evacuated outside the French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo's office, in Paris, Jan. 7, 2015. Police official says 11 dead in shooting at the French satirical newspaper.
An injured person is evacuated outside the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo's office, in Paris, Jan. 7, 2015. Thibault Camus—AP
APTOPIX France Newspaper Attack
A bullet impact is seen in a window of a building next to the French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo's office, in Paris, Jan. 7, 2015. Thibault Camus—AP
President Francois Hollande arrives after a shooting at the Paris offices of Charlie Hebdo, a satirical newspaper, Jan. 7, 2015.
President Francois Hollande arrives after a shooting at the Paris offices of Charlie Hebdo, a satirical newspaper, Jan. 7, 2015. Christian Hartmann—Reuters
French police officers and forensic experts examine the car used by armed gunmen who stormed the Paris offices of satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo on Jan. 7, 2015 in Paris.
French police officers and forensic experts examine the car used by armed gunmen who stormed the Paris offices of satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo on Jan. 7, 2015 in Paris. Domique Faget—AFP/Getty Images
Ambulances gather in the street outside the French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo's office, in Paris, Jan. 7, 2015.
Ambulances gather in the street outside the French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo's office, in Paris, Jan. 7, 2015. Francois Mori—AP
People stand outside the French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo's office after a shooting, in Paris, Jan. 7, 2015.
People stand outside the French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo's office after a shooting, in Paris on Jan. 7, 2015 Thibault Camus—AP

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