M. Serajul Islam
President Obama has drawn
the line. He has said that the 1st amendment of the US Constitution that
enshrines the right of free speech is non- negotiable. He chose the UN as the
platform to reiterate the commitment of the American nation for free speech
including even the right to “blasphemy against our most sacred beliefs.” It was
a message to the world leaders gathered at the opening of the 67th
session of the UN General Assembly that although the United States regrets the
anti-Islam video that has enraged Muslims round the world that led to the death
of the US Ambassador Christopher Stevens in Benghazi; the US Government cannot
do anything because the right to make the video is protected by the 1st
amendment!
In an election year, the
stand the President has taken is an expected one. The faith in the United
States in the 1st amendment is bipartisan. It is in fact the American
way of life. Nevertheless, the abiding faith of Americans in the 1st
amendment would have been understandable
if the if the United States was still living in the period when the amendment
was incorporated into the US constitution over 2 hundred years ago and in the
subsequent period when it took roots in the US society. Those were the times
when the United States was insular; not the leader of the world as it is now
where it is trying to spread its influence not just in international politics
but also in areas of culture and more importantly in ways of lives of peoples
everywhere. Such attempts by the US cannot be useful or meaningful unless it is
willing to understand and appreciate the cultures of those upon whom it attempts
to spread its values. That is only rational and logical.
It this era of
globalization whatever takes place in the United States or other parts of the
world travel instantly to the rest of the world. The internet, YouTube,
Facebook and Twitter and their positive and negative powers must be brought
into the equation. Hence the justification that what happens in the US outside
the government fall in the court of its people and hence inalienable and
protected by the 1st amendment cannot be tenable when such actions
affect adversely peoples outside the US if it wants to co-exist with peoples,
and nations peacefully in mutual respect. It is time for the United States to
consider restraining its right of free speech when it provokes the emotions,
beliefs and religious sentiments of peoples elsewhere. In fact, the necessity
for such restraint arises more importantly from the fact that groups and
individuals in the United States are taking advantage of the 1st
amendment to intentionally attack and humiliate in words and actions the
Muslims to provoke them and then blame them for their reactions.
There is another very
strong reason to seek restraint in the US stand on free speech that the
President has articulated. In a world integrated as it is today for better or
for worse, those on whom the US seeks understanding in the name of upholding
free speech have not had the same historical experiences as it has. Nor are
many parts of the world as advanced in education and socio-economic development
that are necessary pre-conditions for the tolerance that is necessary to deal
with the type of onslaught that the actions of 1st amendment can cause. Even education;
socio-economic and political development often does not prepare a nation to
deal with emotions from allowing unrestricted freedom of speech to individuals.
In fact, the US itself is not the type of society that has the tolerance needed
for allowing others the same freedom of speech when it is at the receiving end.
Incensed by 9/11, certain
sections of the people in the United States targeted the American Muslims and
showed them intolerance extending to hate campaigns and paranoia no worse than
what the President condemned in his speech at the UN while speaking on the
attacks on Americans worldwide following the anti-Islamic video. The lack of
tolerance for American Muslims has been shown at all levels in the United
States, in the government and the same public who are such strong adherents of
the 1st amendment. In such intolerance for Muslims, they killed
Sikhs mistaking them to be Muslims. These men had no knowledge that all Sikh
men are bearded while most Muslim men are not! Ignorance about Muslims shown in
the height of anti-Muslim wave by many Americans was unbelievable and was not
confined to the issue of beard alone. Those days, the US simply threw the 1st
amendment to the winds when it came to Muslims in general and American Muslims
in particular.
Muslims of different
nationalities and cultures share many common names. Abu happens to be one such
common first name. In the height of anti-Muslim sentiments in the USA, many
Muslims with this first name went through nightmares in airports and public
places simply because some of those accused of 9/11 also had this first name!
Muslims were under surveillance everywhere in the US, in their houses and even
inside mosques. In fact, many innocent Muslims were routinely interrogated and
harassed for what they said or suspected to have said even in private. It is
only in recent times that American Muslims
are coming out of their nightmares for something that some individuals
have been alleged to have committed; individuals with whom they had no
connections even by the most absurd stretch of imagination. Thus in defending
free speech, the US has clearly shown a double standard; defending it even when
it offends billions of Muslims, the overwhelming majority of whom are as peace
loving and perhaps more than the Americans and trashing freedom of speech when
its own emotions are offended.
A strong argument for the
need to restrain free speech under the 1st amendment has been made when
a society called American Freedom Defense Initiative put up an ad in the New
York sub-way recently that read: “In any war between the
civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man. Support Israel. Defeat
Jihad.” The Society was allowed to put up the ad after a Judge permitted allowed
it under the First Amendment after the NY Subway authorities had refused it.
The Society is seeking a similar ruling from a Judge in the greater Washington
area after the Washington Metro refused to allow the advertisement. The ads are
provocative; hurts the sentiments of millions of American Muslims and are gross
misrepresentation of Islam as practiced by over a billion of Muslims around the
world.
A recent New York Times
article on this subject regretted that although the ads are legal under the First
Amendment, “they are wrong and repugnant.” The writer Rick Jacobs also wrote in
the same article about the sadness of a Muslim woman as she looked up a
billboard in a train station in Scarsdale, NY that read: “19,250 deadly Islamic
attacks since 9/11” and beneath it :“It
is not Islamophobia; it’s Islamorealism” to pre-empt those who might dispute
the claim. Attempts such as these are hate campaigns; deeply provocative and
hurtful that is anathema to peace, the President’s defense of these under the 1st
amendment notwithstanding. Allowing these in the name of freedom of speech is
not even rational. In fact, it is time for the United States to realize that
individuals and groups are using freedom of speech as enshrined in the 1st
amendment that was created and defended over decades and centuries by individuals
whose objective was to create the perfect world, for their ulterior motives.
Unless, leaders of the United States are willing to take up the challenge of
these individuals and groups with crooked interests, it will be the likes of
Ambassador Christopher Stevens and hundreds and thousands of other innocent
people who will continue to be victims of collateral damage for establishing the
perfect world and get away with murder!
The writer is a former
Ambassador to Japan
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