On the Soapbox

(This is a follow-up to an earlier post.)

I want to start off by commenting about the choice of words used by the news media. Cruise through Google News or the BBC, and you will notice something striking: the widespread use of the word "row" to describe this situation. Ambassadors are withdrawn, embassies are torched, a few people have been killed, radicals are calling for a holocaust to be brought upon Europe, and they call this a row? To call this "a noisy dispute or quarrel; commotion" is a gross understatement (though, admittedly, an amusing one).

This is a row?! (Image © Associated Press.)

Drifting towards neo-conservativism

In my over-simplified view of the GOP, it is a marriage of three ideologies: there are the libertarian-ish conservatives who favor free markets, there are the religious fundamentalists conservatives, and there are the foreign policy hawks, also known as the "neo-conservatives."

My liberal stance towards foreign policy has been rooted in the idea that American woes in the Middle East are really our own doing. Historically, our foreign policy there has been an unflattering one of exploitation (or at least bearing the impression thereof), and the people of the Middle East are more or less justified in being angry at us. Although that does not justify acting violently on that anger, it does suggest that in order to resolve the problem (and not just the symptoms of the problem), we must eliminate that anger, thus rendering a hawkish foreign policy incompatible and counter-productive. I still believe in this liberal foreign policy stance, but I am starting to have my doubts.

If the incident involved the burning of American flags and embassies, the world would not care, and most Americans probably would not care because this sort of thing has become commonplace and because our foreign policy tends to spark such things. But for once, the outrage of the Middle East is not centered around the United States, but around Denmark. This is a country that has made large humanitarian contributions to the Middle East. This is a country that is fairly neutral and that does not arrogantly prance around the world. This country is almost a bit like Switzerland (incidentally, even a Swiss flag was burned in this "row", probably by some jihadists who did not know the difference between the Swiss and Danish flags). In a way, this serves as a sort of looking glass into a what-if scenario. What if the United States was not hawkish and arrogant? What if the United States took a liberal foreign policy and spent significantly more money on foreign aid than on military hardware? Denmark did just that, and look at where it is now. Perhaps the neo-cons might just have a point.

There are two key problems with the neo-conservatives that prevents me from adopting their politics, however. Economists stress the importance of valuing something not in absolute terms, but in terms relative to all possible alternatives. All that this incident has shown is the liberal foreign policy stance is not as good as one might have hoped for it to be, but it does not show that a hawkish foreign policy stance is any better; it may very well be that a hawkish stance is even more flawed than the liberal stance; it is hard to say for sure. Second, the alliance between the neo-conservatives and the religious right in the United States is unsettling. While religious fundamentalists in the United States, unlike their counterparts in the Middle East, are not known to go on jihads, a small minority of them have on occasion resorted to violent acts (e.g., bombing abortion clinics and killing homosexuals) to deal with those who share different perspectives.

Additional thoughts...

• There is an interesting piece titled Live Free or Die by The Brussels Journal. I am not sure I agree with parts of this editorial (especially the latter half), but it does bring up a few good points in the first half.
• Muslims have every right to be offended, but why must they be violent? The practice of writing angry letters to the editor exists for a reason...
• Iranian paper to run Holocaust cartoons (The Guardian)... it is not exactly the most mature response, but perhaps when they see the lack of Western protests to their cartoons, they will learn something (or not).
• I still find it ironic that the rule prohibiting depictions stems from the prohibition of idolatry. Ignoring the fact that one does not worship satirical images, doesn't this extremely strong defense of one of their prophets strike people as bordering on worship... idolatry?
• Why do Muslims care so much about what gets printed in Denmark for a Danish audience? The last time I checked, the Jyllands-Posten is not distributed in Muslim countries. Why on Earth should the cultural norms of Muslim countries trump the cultural norms of free speech of Denmark for something printed in Denmark? I suppose the unsolicited meddling of the affairs of other countries is not an activity limited to the United States.
• Furthermore, most Muslims have never even seen these cartoons, as their publication is prohibited in the Muslim world (in fact, two newspaper editors were arrested for it). Never mind the fact that a cartoon does not deliver physical, financial or material harm, but can a cartoon even deal emotional harm if someone has never even seen it?
• Why does the Danish government have to apologize for the acts of an independent media company that it does not even have a single iota of control over? Furthermore, why does the action of one news outlet in Denmark condemn every person in that country?
• Regarding Muslim immigration in Europe: There are a number of things that Europe has done wrong in this department. Failing to do something about the dismal unemployment rates is a start (historically, discontent breeds radicalism). More importantly, there is insufficient pressure for people to assimilate. Total Westernization of immigrants is by no means necessary, but at the very least, people who join a society must explicitly agree to accept that society's social contract and be indoctrinated with that society's most basic values (i.e., democracy and mind-your-own-business).
• I find it a bit disappointing that most media outlets in the United States are refusing to reprint the cartoons as a show of support for the principles of free speech. For a country that has generally been not as concerned about these sensitivities (from support of Israel to military involvements) to do this is a bit ironic (granted, the United States is not monolithic and the decision to print these things is made by individual private companies).
• It is very distressing to see how many people do not really understand what free speech is. Many Muslims are saying that they support free speech, but that they think that speech must also show respect. That is even the stance of the State Department. Granting someone the "freedom" to do good while prohibiting them from making mistakes is not "freedom", but only an illusion thereof. True freedom is the ability to both do good and make mistakes (and hopefully voluntarily electing to do the former). Free speech constrained by respect (i.e., political correctness) is not free speech. If everything in the world is censored so as to not offend anyone (Muslims, Hindus, vegetarians, feminists, Southern WASPs, Marxists, free market advocates, conservatives, liberals, etc., etc.), there would be nothing left to say. Political correctness and free speech are incompatible, and too many people mistake the former for the latter.
• Finally, the paper has apologized, and Europe governments are scrambling to offer amends, yet the violence continues. What more do they want?

Updates: First, in fairness (I do feel guilty about having so far presented only one side of the issue), here is a well-written piece by a Westerner condemning the cartoons. Very good and valid points are brought up. For those who believe that speech has limits (beyond those of "shouting fire in a crowded theater" where speech directly translates into physical harm), this is a convincing piece. There are few who believe in the absolute unlimited nature of free speech (once again, exempting the "shouting fire" case), and in recent years, even the ACLU has started to back down from this sort of stance in favor of political correctness. As one of those people who still cling onto the absoluteness of the freedom of speech, I remained unchanged in my stance after reading this, but I nevertheless think that it was worth a read. For me on a personal level, this is also what makes this whole thing so fascinating: it is in many ways a test of the limits of free speech and how far it should go. Would neo-Nazis peacefully marching through a Jewish neighborhood constitute legitimate free speech? A Jewish law professor at Harvard, Alan Dershowitz, thinks that it would be legitimate, and so do I, but, quite understandably, many do not, and this is the sort of debate that is at the core here.

Second, I forgot to mention earlier that these cartoons were first published many months ago, and that they are only now stirring trouble because a Muslim group in Denmark circulated these cartoons. According to some sources, additional images that were much more offensive and that were not produced by the cartoonists were fabricated and included, presumably with the intent of rousing anger. By no means does this justify the sort of reaction that the world is seeing, but it does make me wonder if things would have been different had these images not been included.

Another Update: Here's an excerpt from an interesting post on an Iraqi blog:

You know that those cartoons were published for the 1st time months ago and we here in the Middle East have tonnes of jokes about Allah, the prophets and the angels that are way more offensive, funny and obscene than those poorly-made cartoons, yet no one ever got shot for telling one of those jokes or at least we had never seen rallies and protests against those infidel joke-tellers.