The Wardman Wire

This is a story I missed earlier this week, but it is important so I’m commenting now.

The Guardian reported that Wikipedia “is refusing to remove medieval artistic depictions of the Prophet Muhammad, despite being flooded with complaints from Muslims demanding the images be deleted.”

Wikipedia (or Western versions of it at least) has played a straight bat:

More than 180,000 worldwide have joined an online protest claiming the images, shown on European-language pages and taken from Persian and Ottoman miniatures dating from the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries, are offensive to Islam, which prohibits any representation of Muhammad. But the defiant editors of the encyclopaedia insist they will not bow to pressure and say anyone objecting to the controversial images can simply adjust their computers so they do not have to look at them.

Good.

Such has been the adverse reaction, Wikipedia has been forced to set up a separate page on its site explaining why it refuses to bow to pressure and has also had to set up measures to block people from ‘editing’ the pages themselves.

You can find the petition here.

The suggestion is nonsensical. The proposal is hideous. The idea is absurd. The concept of censoring public discourse in this (or any other) way is simply unacceptable. This is one where there is no room for either smudging the line, or for compromise. The notion of whether Islam or anybody else is offended is irrelevant.

We should also note that the desire to censor others’ expression is by no means universal in the Muslim (or any other) community (I do not have the statistics to hand to make a firmer statement).

We went round this loop with the Mohammed Cartoons, and virtually the entire British media - to their shame - caved in, and cowered behind excuses such as “we don’t need to publish since you can see the cartoons on the Internet”.

If we are getting into “stop the publication of x because it offends y”, then the Quran itself contains material which is blasphemous according to mainstream Christian doctrine. For example, concering Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection:

About the crucifixion of Jesus (pbuh), the Qurán clearly stated, “And (for) their saying, ‘Indeed, we have killed the Messiah, Jesus, the Son of Mary, the Messenger of Allah.’ And they did not kill him, nor did they crucify him; but (another) was made to resemble him to them. And indeed, those who differ over it are in doubt about it. They have no knowledge of it except the following of assumption. And they did not kill him, for certain. Rather, Allah raised him to Himself. And ever is Allah Exalted in Might and Wise.” (Al-Qurán, 4:157-158).

Would those 180,000 (or however many it is - now 270,000) complainants propose censoring the Quran for being offensive to around 2,000,000,000 people, I wonder?

The basic principle must be that of freedom of expression in the “public square” by anyone. Rather than removing images that cause alleged offence, we should perhaps have a law which makes it a criminal offence to submit to such threats, as a bulwark defending freedom of speech and debate.

If anything is sacred (in the secular sense), freedom of expression is one of the values that deserves such reverence.

So the depictions of Mohammed should stay in the Wikipedia. Period.

But this doesn’t only apply to Islam. The same reaction is required whether it is conservative Christians censoring material, or anybody else censoring Christian publications, or in any other case: no.

In my opinion, one of the strongest current censorship movements in the UK is that to exclude the religious from public life, as a result of their opinions. One example I would point to was the campaign to prevent Rev Joel Edwards becoming an Equality Commissioner (if that is the right title).

Should there be any “grey areas” at the edge - holocaust denial, promotion of paedophilia? In my view, virtually every time - no; we should stick to the principle almost regardless of cost.

Tags: freedom of expression, freedom of speech, censorship