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It is hard for power to enjoy or incorporate humour and satire in its system of control.
-Dario Fo
Satire is a form of social control, it's what you do. It's not personal. It's a job.
-Garry Trudeau
Fools are my theme, let satire be my song.
-Lord Byron
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Everyone knows what happened in France last week, so I won't reiterate it here. Basic facts: Someone published a drawing of Mohammed, and someone else shot up the magazine offices while shouting about how great God is.
Also, I'm sure most of you have seen the endless debate about it, to which I'm about to contribute. So if you're as sick of it as I am, feel free to skip down to the Editor's Picks; this editorial isn't going to be very funny anyway.
We're used to broad leeway in freedom of speech here in the US, and in many other countries as well. In a rare case of actually learning from history, we discovered that if you suppress political and religious dissent, it goes underground and festers before becoming a giant zit on the face of whoever's in charge. Instead, we keep it out in the open, where a dialogue, sometimes cordial, often not, can occur, and let the forces of social shame accomplish what mere legislation cannot.
In other words, freedom of speech is awesome for knowing whom you don't want to associate with, like your wingnut Fox-News-believing uncle on Facebook, or your wingnut vaccine-denying cousin and her kids with measles.
We forget, then, here in the US, that historically, certain kinds of self-expression could get you imprisoned or executed.
And still can, in many countries. Saudi Arabia, for instance, recently executed someone for apostasy or blasphemy or some crime like that which amounted to expressing an opinion contrary to that allowed by law.
Writing can be dangerous. If the government doesn't get you, someone else with a vested interest in an opposing point of view will.
Now, I'm not saying that all opinions, or all expressions of free speech, are equal. I support the right of the nutters who claim that the moon landings were faked to claim that the moon landings were faked, but I have the right to call them nutters. I don't have the right to do what I really want to do, which is punch them in the face like Buzz Aldrin did once. Buzz Aldrin could get away with it because he's Buzz Aldrin; I'd get arrested.
All freedom of speech means, though, is that the government can't prosecute you for stating an opinion. And if the best thing you can say in defense of your speech is "I have freedom of speech," well, that's a pretty damn low bar to hop, because you're saying "I can't be arrested for saying that." You can, however, be called a rude, raging moron and asked to leave the party.
Blasphemy, idolatry, heresy, iconoclasm, and apostasy are, thus, not crimes here in enlightened places; that's why they're enlightened places (Ireland, I'm looking at you with your idiotic blasphemy laws. Stop it.) They can get you kicked out of church, but that's about it - legally.
Let me look at it another way. Imagine you live in a country run by... let's make something up, here... the Zeddites, a religious order that forbids the eating of oysters. Not all shellfish, mind you, just oysters, maybe because their god, High Zed of Frick (peace be upon him), once got food poisoning from one. Okay, so you move to Zeddium on business, and there are several other non-Zeddites in the country, too, and one of them, let's call him Fred, opens a restaurant that serves oysters.
So, of course, the government swoops in and seizes Fred's establishment, arrests him and puts him in a dungeon with Justin Bieber music playing 24/7, even though he never knowingly served an oyster to an actual Zeddite.
Now, it could be argued that Fred knew he was breaking the law, but all Fred did was serve oysters to other non-Zeddites, but the way the Zeddites see things is that there are two kinds of people: Zeddites, and wrong. And those that are wrong, like Fred, must be shown the error of their ways, and held up as an example to others.
And if you think that fictional situation is farfetched, you haven't been paying attention to the international news.
Point is, a ban on oysters - for everyone, that is - would be silly, right? Unless there were a shortage of oysters, or too much ketone in the oyster rivers, or whatever scientific, real-world reason.
But it's their religion.
But it's silly.
Why should religious silliness, like oyster-banning or head-shaving or beard-growing or flat-earth-believing or Ugg-wearing, be treated any different from other forms of silliness, in terms of free speech?
Spoiler: It should not.
Yes, decent people avoid offending others, which is why I used a fictional example instead of, you know, Muslims and pork or something. But we don't have the right to remain unoffended, and your rules about how to treat your gods and prophets do not apply to me. For example, If I were to write:
Q: What was the prophet Mohammed's favorite food?
A: Qu'ran on the Qob.
I need to be secure in my person and possessions, because those are words. It's the same if someone makes drawings like they did at Charlie Hebdo. And while some people are saying that it was a "fringe group" that made these attacks, I'd like to point out, again, that there are countries in which making bad jokes about Mohammed will get you beheaded, so it sure sounds like Official Policy to me.
Those are words, but words have power. We know this. The pen is indeed mightier than the sword, whether that pen scrawls words or sketches Prophets. Is your god so powerless that he can't take a joke? Are you so insecure in your beliefs that you can't even let other points of view reach your eyes or ears?
We use writing (and art) to convince, to persuade, to educate, to make people think. Only when they think will they be free; only free people can live in peace with those who think differently. The pen scrawls perhaps truth, perhaps lies, but how do we tell the difference if we're not free? We have to constantly question the status quo, whether that be government, or religion, or social mores, or corporate greed. They don't want us to, of course, and they too have the right to speak their mind, but eventually, the truth will come forward to claim its rightful place.
Blasphemy, in other words, is our sacred duty. |
After all that, y'all need some laughs:
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Comedy: January 14, 2015 Issue [#6770]
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Perky Pinky the Polar Bear. 
I can picture it (and hear it in my head) to this day. *shudders*