Appeasement: Been There, Done That
Editors’ Note: This article is the first of Political Cartel’s guest author submissions. The author of the article is Stephanie Eddleman. Ms Eddleman is a faculty member of Harding’s English Department. She is currently on leave from her teaching position to get her PhD in English from the University of Mississippi. We thank Ms. Eddleman for her thought-provoking contribution. We invite any readers or passers-by with any inkling of intellectual curiosity to submit an article expressing their thoughts or concerns. Enjoy!
Dort, wo man Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt man am Ende auch Menschen. (“Where they have burned books, they will end in burning human beings.”)
-Heinrich Heine, from his play Almansor (1821)
Have you heard about the book that Random House Publishing Group pulled because credible and unrelated sources” warned that the historical novel “could incite acts of violence by a small radical segment” of the Islamic community? The Jewel of Medina, Sherry Jones’ first novel, is about the Prophet Muhammad and his six-year-old child bride Aisha, a relationship that was consummated when she reached the age of nine.
Now, I’m not an expert on Islam and don’t pretend to be, but it’s obvious that there’s a problem here. Salman Rushdie, whose 1989 work The Satanic Verses led to a death threat from the Ayatollah Khomeini, complained that the publisher had bowed to intimidation: “I am very disappointed to hear that my publishers, Random House, have canceled another author’s novel, apparently because of their concerns about possible Islamic reprisals. . . . This is censorship by fear, and it sets a very bad precedent indeed.”
He’s right. Now, it’s nothing new that people write and publish books that offend certain groups. Some Christians didn’t like Margaret Atwood’s A Handmaid’s Tale; other Christians have wanted to ban Harry Potter. Readers of both The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and To Kill a Mockingbird have been offended by their “racist slurs.” Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice has been classified by some as anti-Semitic. I won’t argue for or against any of these works here (although some of them rate pretty high on my all-time-favorites list), but the point is that they were published. Whether you read them or not is up to you.
In his article “Lights Out on Liberty,” author Mark Steyn informs us that author Oriana Fallaci of Italy was, at her death, in the process of being sued all over Europe by groups who claimed that her writings on “the contradiction between Islam and the Western tradition of liberty” were “not merely offensive, but criminal.” Michel Houellebecq of France “was sued by Muslim and other ‘anti-racist groups’ who believed the opinions of a fictional character in one of his novels was likewise criminal” (my emphasis). Steyn himself is being sued by the Canadian Islamic Congress because of his “flagrant Islamaphobia.” This charge stems from the simple act of citing plot twists in his review of a novel by Robert Ferrigno. “These days,” he laments, these people “apparently . . . believe that describing the plot of a novel should be illegal.” Steyn takes these literary challenges very seriously: “I would argue,” he says, “that these incremental concessions to Islam are ultimately a bigger threat than terrorism.”
Ayaan Hirsi Ali, in her memoir Infidel, argues that blind multiculturalism does not work. People, and governments, try “to be tolerant for the sake of consensus, but the consensus [is] empty,” she explains. In fact, she concludes that, in the name of “tolerance,” certain groups are allowed to oppress others and deprive them of basic human rights. She, too, received death threats for expressing her observations.
There’s an often repeated saying that those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Appeasement didn’t work with Hitler; why do we think it will work today? And what do we risk by trying it?
“[I]t’s not just the books under fire now that worry me. It is the books that will never be written. The books that will never be read. And all due to the fear of censorship. As always, young readers will be the real losers.”
-Judy Blume
I am slightly more sympathetic to the publishing companies who pull these kinds of books. I think they probably do that as a business decision, wanting to avoid bad press, boycotts, or possibly liability. I am not sure it qualifies as proper censorship in those cases.
I have no sympathy for the European and Canadian systems that are protecting the right to not be offended a the expense of the right to freedom of expression. In my mind, there is almost no contest between these two. Liberal democracies should protect freedom of expression at almost any cost, and there is no such thing as a right not to be offended.
And I’ll echo the Editors’ note – great article! Thank you very much for sharing it.
The lawsuits one sees in Europe and Canada reflect a low view of human nature and abilities. There’s very little faith in the wisdom of the “marketplace of ideas.” In other words, words can be as dangerous as bombs. It’s not entirely off-base, considering the history of the last century or so.
Ok, so people are suing authors and a few are threatening authors. Not news. I presume you’re telling us this because you have some opinion on what is to be done?
There is sort of two different concepts at work here.
One is the liberty-security dilemma. How much liberty should be given at the possible expense of secuirty? How much security should there be at the expense of liberty? Organized groups “do things.” A complete freedom to speak out or incite action is not always a good thing.
The other is the freedom of expression-traditional values dichotomy. This is the traditional battle between propriety and vanguard styles; this is far less (if not at all) threatening to the well-being of society.
The former has very valid arguments for both sides. The latter is heavily tilted (in my mind) towards freedom of expression.
The former may have valid argument for both sides, but I don’t think it is relevant to censorship of literature.
If Euro/Can courts used the Brandenburg v Ohio standard of “likely to incite imminent lawless action,” every suit against an author would be dismissed. Just because some radicals somewhere might blow some stuff up because of what you say does not mean the speech should be censored. The blowing stuff up is the problem.
I don’t think you can make an argument that any of the situations mentioned in this article involve an author “inciting” anything.
I was referring to the comments between you and JH, not so much the article (although related somewhat). I was basically making the same distinction that you are (somewhat).
With that said, what are some examples of “words being as dangerous as bombs” in the last century?
The “imminent lawless action” is not that coming from Islamic radicals, but from racists and Islamophobes that consume this sort of stuff, get riled up, and go out and fuck with the local Muslims. That’s another reason this stuff gets taken more seriously in Canada and Europe. There are more Muslims there, and they suffer because of this stuff.
With that said, what are some examples of “words being as dangerous as bombs” in the last century?
Mein Kampf?
Mein Kampf was dangerous? I thought Hitler and his Nazi crazies were dangerous?
I’m inclined to agree with David about censorship. However, I don’t stick to it as ardently as I’ve know him to. I have reservations about the effectiveness of the marketplace of ideas, as well.
Words most definitely affect the consciousness of individuals, which inevitably affects their actions. A preacher who spews racists or antisemitic remarks to his followers is likely to see a response in some form or another. If he were to gain enough support, things could potentially get ugly. I suppose the same would go if he were to write a Manifesto about it.
Then the next question arises. Who says what’s kosher or not? Big Brother?
Well, yeah, the words themselves are never dangerous, obviously, it’s the chain of actions they set in motion as you spell out in your final paragraph.
Let me make clear that I’m entirely ambivalent about issues of censorship. My gut tells me it’s always wrong, but I’ve lived abroad long enough to know that my gut is a nexus of the prejudices inherited from where I grew up.
Who says what’s kosher or not? Big Brother?
Why leap to the most sinister possibility? Society decides what’s kosher, like it always has.
It was sort of tongue-in-cheek.
There is a big difference between a preacher riling up a congregation with hateful rhetoric against an ethnic group (although even that would not be censor-able under the Brandenburg standard) and a historical novel about Muhammad.
I think society must afford even greater protections from censorship to artistic expressions like novels, poems, songs, statues and paintings.
It is a legitimate question to ask who decides what is kosher (to keep consistent lingo).
It seems that the two choices are big brother or society. If society is allowed to decide, then there is no censorship, and the marketplace of ideas sorts it out. The only other alternative is big brother (aka the government).
Despite the potential shortcomings of the marketplace and of society as a whole, I much prefer it to a centralized decision maker who decides what material is appropriate. If the people deem a novel to be inappropriate, they will not buy it.
There is a big difference between a preacher riling up a congregation with hateful rhetoric against an ethnic group … and a historical novel about Muhammad.
Potentially there isn’t a difference at all, except for modality. It depends on the content of the novel.
It seems that the two choices are big brother or society.
Huh? I’m not sure where you guys got such a pejorative view of government. You don’t strike me as Reaganites. Government can be an oppressive force, but it can be (and often is) the mechanism by which a society codifies and enforces its beliefs. Do you want to go back to hunter-gatherer days or something?
If a society has ethnic minorities, and also has ethnic majorities which it believes are susceptible to rabble-rousing, you can make a good-faith argument for restricting some types of speech. It’s not something I would necessarily agree with, but it’s not crazy, or even repressive.
I think the article speaks to a wider practice of engineering culture in such as a way as not to offend certain groups and by doing so, limiting the freedom of expression. The Da Vinci Code or the Last Temptation of Christ offend some Christians as much as the Jewel of Medina would offend Muslims. What is the difference? More than “inciting violence,” a greater danger with censorship is the perpetuation of creative paralysis and selective memory. For instance, if visual artists limited their work to that which appealed to political correctness all art would look like Socialist Realism or some saccharine-sweet Rockwellian nightmare. There would be no Goya’s 5th of May, Picasso’s Guernica or Manet’s Olympia (to name a few). This is a good article about the “memory police” in Europe – http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/oct/16/humanrights
Correction: Goya’s Third of May