Transatlantic teasing (and worse) has followed the Paris shootings
By B.C.
The Twitter-sphere was sizzling overnight with reactions, some indignant but most joyfully sarcastic, to the assertion by a "terrorism expert" interviewed on Fox News that Britain's second city was now a Muslim-only place. And the guffaws barely died down when the expert, Steven Emerson, offered an unconditional apology for slurring the "beautiful city" of Birmingham: a claim which even its most loyal residents would hesitate to make. In one popular quip, the city was renamed Birming out of deference to its residents' aversion to pork. For the record, Erasmus has often reported from that city, and some parts of it, though certainly not all, are still comfortable places for non-Muslims to live and go about their business. And however awkward the reality, no conurbation, be it the British one or its American namesake—the greatest city in Alabam'—likes to be known mainly as a byword for inter-communal segregation.
Transatlantic name-calling, some of it light-hearted and some of it anything but, has been one of the reactions to last week's horrific events in France. At yesterday's vast demonstration in Paris of world leaders and ordinary folk, there was no top-level representative of the Obama administration, and on both sides of the pond, some people regretted that. (Actually I am not sure that showcasing world leaders was a good idea at all, given that the defence of free speech, and the willingness to endure offence that underpins free speech, ultimately depends more on ordinary people than on their masters.)
One of the first American responses to the Paris shootings was something like: the Europeans brought this on themselves through their weak-minded appeasement of Islam, and their unwillingness to defend free speech in a robust way. Some robust discussion of that subject is certainly needed, but stereotyping the old continent as a zone of halal-food eating surrender monkeys, in contrast with virtuous Uncle Sam, is not a helpful part of that discussion, first and foremost because the presumed contrast between sloppy Europe and clear-sighted America doesn't reflect reality.
As evidence of hypocrisy and softness, it is recalled that only a few years ago, President Jacques Chirac put heavy pressure on Charlie Hebdo not to republish cartoons of Muhammad. But the American administration faced a broadly similar dilemma, and made a broadly similar response, when Pastor Terry Jones was threatening to burn copies of the Koran. Constitutional principles like free speech and church-state separation made it impossible to prevent Mr Jones from doing as he planned; but he came under massive pressure to desist from his plans, from such figures as General David Petraeus (not usually seen as an appeaser) who said the act would endanger American lives.
In one instant, and on balance correct response to the Paris shootings, a respected American observer of religious freedom, Nina Shea, argued that Europe must not respond to the atrocity by succumbing to its already entrenched habit of curbing free expression through "hate-speech" laws. She is certainly right about the general principle. But the people and organisations which are most passionate in denouncing European appeasement also insist, in slightly different contexts, that America has become a nightmarish place to profess religious faith. In her article, Ms Shea cites the case of an unnamed church in Britain which faced an attempt from its Muslim neighbours to prevent it from singing hymns, and had to turn to an American lobby group, the Alliance Defending Freedom, for legal help. Whatever the horrors unfolding in Europe, the said Alliance also proclaims on its website that "the church is being silenced across America."
In fact, all Western liberal democracies have a similar problem. They all cherish the principle of free speech, subject to legal limits which at a minimum, outlaw direct incitement to violence, as in "let's go and kill members of group X or Y...." Some democracies, perhaps rather too broadly, also outlaw negative characterisations of groups of people, defined by ethnicity, race or religion, which might arguably lead to violence against those people. All rely heavily on cultural norms which strongly discourage people from certain kinds of speech because they are deemed offensive to vulnerable groups, whether they are defined by race, gender or sexuality. All democratic governments face a dilemma over assertions of free speech which threaten their strategic or commercial interests. And in all democratic countries there is a range of opinion over where to draw lines. To put it mildly, neither "sloppy" Europe nor "unsophisticated" America has found the perfect answer. And if they spend too much energy slagging each other off, that will be a perfect gift to the enemies of liberal democracy.
