At this moment a disussion is going on in the Netherlands about freedom of speech. Geert Wilders is being prosecuted (not convicted yet) because of “sowing hatred” between people, among others by his statement that the Quran is comparable to the autobiography of Hitler, a forbidden book in the Netherlands. At the same time, the leader of the liberal party Mark Rutten states that offending religious feelings and denying the holocaust must be possible without legal punishment. People from religious circles find that freedom of speech is of course an important value, codified in the constitution, but not at all prices.
It’s remarkable that Christian advocates of limitation of free speech always accuse the libertarians of being selective: freedom of speech for everybody who wants to offend religious feelings, but no freedom of speech for those who criticize Western values, such as imams and those who preach “war against the enemies of Islam”. I can’t understand this, because the libertarians are against those who want to limit freedom of speech, so it’s logical that they also try to limit the power and influence of those who want to limit it. Is there a fundamental difference between the two parties in their mindset of the world?
Anyway, saying something in public or writing or drawing things that go against deeply felt values of people is always unpleasant for those who adhere to the attacked values. In our country we have always accepted this more or less. In our country we know that we are a people with different values. Take the view on homosexuality. Those who are “against” homosexual manifestations and claim that homosexuals are not “normal” people but sinners trespassing natural and God’s laws, are continuously offended by what they see around them. They live in a “bad and sinful world”.
There’s a general law that everybody thinking a bit rational must agree with and that is the rule “don’t do to others what you don’t want others do to you”. In the present discussion, this rule is jeopardized. The rule seems reasonable and fair, but just apply it to the parties in this discussion: Mark Rutten doesn’t want to be muzzled by religious opinion leaders, but he wants to muzzle them. Why? Because he sees and hears how these others want to muzzle everybody who will criticize or offend their religious values. Most Muslim countries don’t have our separation between church and state, Islam is a “state religion”, and we can be sure that if Muslims get the power in the Netherlands, they will abandon this separation. It’s a matter of principle. We see also how a famous cabaret performer on TV offends Jesus on the cross and mocks with him just like the Roman soldiers. It was the first time in my life I felt feelings of disgust. I’m sure that if he would have been prosecuted, just like Geert Wilders, for “sowing hatred”, masses of fans would protest against this crying that there’s freedom of speech. But the cabaret performer is not prosecuted, because he doesn’t sow hatred, Christians are not allowed to hate.
So I don’t think we should legally prosecute people like Geert Wilders. Why should we do so only when the Islam is the offended religion? We should treat Islam just the same way as we treat other religions. When we are going to use the Muslim muzzling methods, then we are doing just the things Geert Wilders and Mark Rutten are warning for.
Another option is to also prosecute the cabaret performer mocking the holy cross, and get more strict in pursuing the goal of our constitution. This constition also says “there is freedom of speech within the limits of everybody’s responsibility towards the law”. There are many articles in the law that prohibit slander and defamation. Let’s just apply these rules more consistently. Our hesitation to apply these rules has been hindered by the jurisprudence of the last 50 years in which room was created for a more ample application of the concept of freedom of speech. But offending remains an intolerable act.
