Last week I spent two days at a meeting of Christians and Muslims in Leicester. We discussed the big questions that are concerning religious people and many non-religious people in the public square. The theme that underlay all our questions was freedom and the balance of freedoms: freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom to offend.
As we were meeting, a new play was running in the national theatre called Can we talk about this? It’s been described as an exploration of the tense relationship between free speech and radical Islam, and is garnering rave reviews for its sell out run.
I haven’t yet managed to beg , borrow or steal a ticket, but have closely following the reactions to it as a weather vane of perceptions of religion in the public square. The person who had seen the play described his deep discomfort at the audience’s gleeful reactions to the pointed critiques of Islam, and by association, Muslims. His comment was that it felt like a liberal taboo (the criticism of minorities) was being breached, and the relieved exuberance was telling. Interestingly, three members of our round table were profiled as characters in the play, because their work had often put them on this apparent fault line between free speech and Islam.
Also this week Kenan Malik has published a helpful essay in the 40th anniversary issue of Index on Censorship, spelling out what he sees as a troubling retreat from the principle of free speech, primarily due to hypocrisy on both sides of the debate. He traces a similar chronology to the play, sketching the history of this very contemporary conflict, running from the Rushdie Fatwa to Danish cartoons and beyond.
Though at times painful, these are important conversations. In our deeply diverse societies, the principles of free speech and tolerance are constantly in flux. Malik argues, I think correctly, that tolerance has shifted from meaning that we, as hearers, will tolerate the things that offend us to being more associated with those speaking. 'Tolerance' now obligates speakers not to offfend.
Theos has long argued that we must not, from our aversion to conflict, seek to disguise or restrict difference in our public conversations. Peace at the expense of fairness is no peace at all. Yes, allowing people of diverse religious and non-religious convictions to be full partners will probably lead to a noisy and boisterous public square, where people are free to be offensive and express offence. Additionally, I have for many years thought of myself as, if not a “free speech fundamentalist”, at least fairly immovably wedded to the principle. I would still consider it anathema to legislate against freedom of expression in all but the most extreme forms (where, as the law recognises, it is likely to lead to greater harms like religious or racially motivated violence).
However, the goods which freedom of speech or expression brings only live up to their promise when it’s used well. As Archbishop Vincent Nichol pointed out around the time of the Behtzi protests in Birmingham, freedom of speech has, or should have a corresponding obligation to the common good. The cause of free speech is undermined when it’s misused.
What we’re often missing in these debates is the subtler discussion of motivation and civility - not simply anondyne 'niceness', but a commitment to a public space hospitable to all. There is a major difference between speech which is motivated by, say, the desire to expose crime or injustice and is only contingently offensive, and speech which is offensive as its sole purpose. This is I think, the distinction that can be drawn between the Rushdie affair and the Danish cartoons. In a diverse society, seeking to offend as a form of attack, rather than as a by-product of a more constructive purpose, should be derided. Bonhoeffer made this distinction, between truth calculated to help or harm, the latter being no kind of truth at all.
Social pressure, not legislation, is needed to encourage us to engage constructively. Civility, which is surely something we would all like to characterise our national life, should mean that when, as we can and should, we critique another’s position, it is done respectfully and carefully- even with those we’re diametrically opposed to.
I hope to see ‘Can we talk about this?’, not least to see how my friends and colleagues are portrayed. I hope it’s a thoughtful, just critique of the elements of Islam which many Muslims also oppose, done civilly, motivated by a desire for a healthy society, not a fearful one.
Elizabeth Hunter
