Gilad Atzmon - Freedom of Speech: the right to equate Gaza with Auschwitz
(A talk given on the First of March 2008 at Invitation to Learn's weekend retreat)A very interesting philosophical essay by Gilad Atzmon, better to be called Right to Offend, or even, Bite It, Bastards! It comes in auspicious day: Spain removed the Holocaust Law from its books. And one may hope that other Europeans will follow the Spanish example! Now one can deny it freely from Madrid to Barcelona - or so one would think. Not really - these guys have many tricks up their sleeves. My Spanish publisher Don Pedro Varela was sentenced to five years for this crime a few years ago and kept appealing. Now as the law was changed, he had been acquitted of this non-offense, but he was anyway sentenced to seven months of prison for "justifying genocide". At the same time, the Israeli liberal newspaper Haaretz carried the call by an important Israeli spiritual leader to consider Palestinians "Amalek", which means "justifying their genocide". Do not worry, he will never be sentenced. And now to Gilad with his sharp analysis.
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At the left, "Innocent" by Ben Heine |
"They (the Palestinians) will bring upon themselves a
bigger holocaust because we will use all our might to defend
ourselves"
(Matan Vilnai, Israeli Deputy Defence Minister, 29 February
2008)
It is
clear beyond any doubt that the Israeli Deputy Defence Minister was far from
being reluctant to equate Israel with Nazi Germany when revealing the genocidal
future awaiting the Palestinian people, yet, for some reason, this is precisely
what Western media outlets refrain from doing. In spite of the facts that are
right in front of our eyes, in spite of the starvation in Gaza, in spite of an
Israeli official admitting genocidal inclinations against the Palestinians, in
spite of the mounting carnage and death, we are still afraid to admit that Gaza
is a concentration camp and it is on the verge of becoming a deadly one. For
some peculiar reason, many of us have yet to accept that as far as evil is
concerned, Israel is the world champion in mercilessness and
vengeance.
Liberty and Authority
In his
invaluable text On Liberty, John Stuart Mill argued that struggle always takes
place between the competing demands of liberty and authority. In other words,
freedom and hegemony are set to battle each other. However, Western egalitarian
liberal ideology is there to introduce a political alternative. It is there to
nourish the myth that "authority" and "freedom" could be seen as two sides of
the same coin.
Today,
I will try to elaborate on the structural dynamic of liberal discourse and the
different elements that are involved in maintaining the false image of
"freedom", "freedom of speech" and "freedom of thought". I will try to argue
that it is our alleged "freedom" that actually stops us from thinking freely and
ethically. As you may notice I said "false image of freedom" because I am
totally convinced that, as far as Liberal discourse is concerned, freedom is
nothing more than a mere image. In practice, there is no such a thing. The image
of "freedom" is there to fuel and maintain our righteous self-loving discourse
so we can keep sending our soldiers to kill millions in the name of
"democracy".
Freedom of Speech and Freedom of Thought
I
would like to introduce this with an elaboration of the distinction between
"freedom of speech" and "freedom of thought".
Freedom of speech can be realised as one's liberty to
expresses one's own thoughts.
Bearing in mind that humans are expressive creatures, there
is no easy policing method to guarantee the silencing of the dissident voice.
Since speaking is inherent to human nature, any exercise of litigation to do
with the curtailing of such an elementary right is rather complicated: You ban
one's books? One would then spread leaflets in the streets. You confiscate one's
flyers? One would then agitate over the net. You cut one's power, confiscate
one's computer? One may start to shout one's head off. You chop off one's
tongue? One would then nod in approval when others are repeating one's
manifesto. You are then left with no other option but chopping one's head off,
but even then, all you do is make one into a martyr.
Two
available methods are used by liberals to silence the dissident:
a.
prohibition (financial penalty and imprisonment) ;
b.
social exclusion.
However, it is crucial to mention that within the so-called
liberal discourse, any attempt to ban an idea or a dissident voice is
counter-effective, if anything it reflects badly on the liberal authority and
the system. This is why liberals try to facilitate some rather sophisticated
methods of censorship and thought policing that would involve very little
authoritarian intervention. As we will see soon, in liberal society, censorship
and thought policing is mostly self-imposed.
As
much as it is difficult to curtail freedom of speech, suppressing freedom of
thought is almost impossible.
Freedom of thought could be realised as the liberty to
think, to feel, to dream, to remember, to forget, to forgive, to love and to
hate.
As
difficult as it may be to impose thought on others, it is almost unfeasible to
stop people from seeing the truth for themselves. Yet, there are some methods to
suppress and restrain intuitive thinking and ethical insight. I am obviously
referring here to guilt.
Guilt,
inflicted mostly via a set of axioms conveyed as "political correctness", is the
most effective method to keep society or any given discourse in a state of
"self-policing". It turns the so-called autonomous liberal subject into a
subservient, self-moderated, obedient citizen. Yet, the authority is spared from
making any intervention. It is the liberal subject who curtails oneself from
accepting a set of fixed ideas that support the egalitarian image of freedom and
ecumenical society.
However, at this point I see the necessity to suggest that
in spite of the liberal claim for peace seeking, liberal societies in general
and the Anglo-American ones in particular are currently involved in crimes
against humanity on a genocidal scale. Consequently, the more horrid the West is
becoming, the greater is the gap between "freedom of thought" and "freedom of
speech".
This
gap can easily evolve into a cognitive dissonance that in many cases mature into
some severe form of apathy. It is said that "all it takes for evil to flourish
is for good people to do nothing". This summarizes perfectly well the apathetic
negligence of the Western masses. Not many care much about the genocide in Iraq
that is committed in our name or the mass murder in Palestine that is committed
with the support of our governments. Why are we apathetic? Because when we want
to stand up and say what we feel, when we want to celebrate our alleged freedom
and to equate Gaza with Auschwitz, or Baghdad with Dresden, something inside us
stops us from doing so. It is not the Government, legislation or any other form
of authority, it is rather a small and highly effective self-inflicted "guilt
microchip" acting as policing regulator in the name of "political
correctness".
I will
now try to follow the historical and philosophical evolution that leads us from
the liberal-egalitarian -utopia to the current ethical and intellectual
self-castration disaster.
The
Harm Principle
John
Stuart Mill, the founder of modern liberal thinking, tells us that any doctrine
should be allowed the light of day no matter how immoral it may seem to everyone
else. This is obviously the ultimate expression of liberal thinking. It ascribes
absolute freedom of opinion and sentiment on all subjects, practical or
speculative, scientific, ethical, political, religious or
theological.
Though
Mill endorsed the fullest form of liberty of expression, he suggested a
limitation attached to freedom set by the prevention of "harm to others". It is
obviously very difficult to defend freedom of speech once it leads to the
invasion of the rights of others. The question to ask is therefore, "what types
of speech may cause harm"? Mill distinguishes between legitimate and
illegitimate harm. According to Mill, only when speech causes a direct and clear
violation of rights, can it be limited. But then, what kind of speech may cause
such violation?
Feminists, for instance, have been maintaining that
pornography degrades, endangers, and harms the lives of women. Another difficult
case is hate speech. Most European liberal democracies have limitations on hate
speech. Yet, it is debatable whether a ban of pornography or hate speech can be
supported by the harm principle as articulated by Mill. One would obviously have
to prove that such speech or imagery violates rights, directly and in the first
instance.
Consequently, Mill's harm principle is criticised for being
too narrow as well as too broad. It is too narrow for failing to defend the
right of the marginal. It is too broad because when interpreted extensively, it
may lead to a potential abolishment of almost every political, religious or
socially orientated speech.
The
Offence Principle and Free Speech
Bearing in mind the shortcomings of the "harm principle", it
didn't take long before an "offence principle" had been called into play. The
offence principle can be articulated as follows:
"one's freedom of expression should not be interfered
with unless it causes an offence to others."
The
basic reasoning behind the "offence principle" is trivial. It is there to defend
the rights of the marginal and the weak. It is there to amend the hole created
by the far-too-broad harm principle.
The
offence principle is obviously pretty effective in curtailing pornography and
hate speech. As in the case of violent pornography, strictly speaking, the
offence that is caused by a Nazi march through a Jewish neighbourhood cannot be
avoided and must be addressed. However, the offence principle can be criticized
for setting the bar far too low. Theoretically speaking, everyone can be
"offended" by anything.
The
Jewish Lobbies and the Liberal Discourse
There
is no doubt that the vast utilization of the offence principle ascribes a lot of
political power to some marginal lobbies in general and Jewish lobbies in
particular. Counting on the premise of the "offence principle", Jewish
nationalist ethnic activists claim to be offended by any form of criticism of
the Jewish state and Zionism. But in fact it goes further, in practice it isn't
just criticism of Zionism and Israel which we are asked to avoid. Jewish
leftists insist that we must avoid any discussion having to do with the Jewish
national project, Jewish identity and even Jewish history. In short, with the
vast support of the offence principle, Jewish ethnic leaders both on the left
and right have succeeded in demolishing the possibility of any criticism of
Jewish identity and politics. Employing the offence principle, Jewish lobbies
right, left and centre, have managed to practically silence any possible
criticism of Israel and its crimes against the Palestinians. More worryingly,
Jewish leftist political activists and intellectuals outrageously demand to
avoid any criticism of the Jewish Lobby in the USA and in Britain.
As we
can see, the "offence Principle" regulates and even serves some notorious
Zionist as well as Jewish leftist political lobbies at the heart of the
so-called liberal democratic West. In practice we are terrorized into submission
by a group of gatekeepers who limit our freedom via an elastic dynamic operator
that is there to suppress our thoughts before they mature into an ethical
insight. Manipulation set by political correctness is the nourishing ground of
our shattering cognitive dissonance. This is exactly where freedom of expression
doesn't agree with freedom of the thought.
Auschwitz Versus Gaza in the light of Political
Correctness
We
tend to agree that marginal discourses should be protected by the offence
principle, so the marginal subject maintains his unique voice. We obviously
agree also that such an approach must be applicable to the manifold of Jewish
marginal discourses (religious, nationalist, Trotskyite, etc.). Seemingly,
Jewish political lobbies want far more than just that, they insist upon
delegitmising any intellectual reference to current Jewish political lobbying
and global Zionism. As if this is not enough, any reference to modern Jewish
history is prohibited unless kosherly approved by a "Zionist" authority. As bizarre as it may be,
the Jewish Holocaust has now been intellectually set as a meta-historical event.
It is an event in the past that won't allow any historical, ideological,
theological or sociological scrutiny.
Bearing in mind the offence principle, Jews are entitled to
argue that any form of speculation regarding their past suffering is "offensive
and hurtful". Yet, one may demand some explanations. How is it that historical
research that may lead to some different visions of past events that occurred
six and a half decades ago offends those who live amongst us today? Clearly, it
is not an easy task to suggest a rational answer to such a query.
Plainly, historical research shouldn't cause harm or an
offence to the contemporary Jew or any other human subject around. Unless of
course, the Holocaust itself is utilized against the Palestinians or those who
are accused as being the "enemies of Israel". As we learn from Matan Vilnai
recently, the Jewish State wouldn't refrain from bringing a Shoah on the Palestinian people. The
Israelis and their supporters do not stop themselves from putting the holocaust
into rhetorical usage. Yet, the Jewish lobbies around the world would do their
very best to stop the rest of us from grasping what Shoah may mean. They would use their
ultimate powers to stop us from utilizing the holocaust as a critical tool of
Israeli barbarism.
As one
may predict by now, in order to censor historical research into Jewish history
and a further understanding of current Israeli evil, political correctness is
called into play. Political correctness is there to stop us from seeing and
expressing the obvious. Political correctness is there to stop us realising that
truth and historical truth in particular is an elastic notion. Yet, you may
wonder what exactly political correctness is.
Political correctness, for those who failed to understand
it, is basically a political stand that doesn't allow political criticism.
Political correctness is a stand that cannot be fully justified in rational,
philosophical or political terms. It is implanted as a set of axioms at the
heart of the liberal discourse. It operates as a self -imposed silencing
regulator powered by self-inflicted guilt.
Political correctness is in fact the crudest assault on
freedom of speech, freedom of thought and human liberty, yet, manipulatively, it
conveys itself as the ultimate embodiment of freedom.
Hence,
I would argue as forcefully as I can that political correctness is the bitterest
enemy of human liberty and those who regulate those social axioms and plant them
in our discourse are the gravest enemies of humanity.
I
would argue as forcefully as I can that since the Palestinians are facing
Nazi-like State terrorism, the holocaust narrative and its meaning belongs to
them at least as much as it belongs to the Jews or anyone else.
I
would argue as forcefully as I can that if the Palestinians are indeed the last
victims of Hitler, then the holocaust and its meaning do belong to them more
than anyone else.
Bearing all that in mind, equating Gaza with Auschwitz is
the right and only way forwards. Questioning the holocaust and its meaning is
what liberation of humanity means today and in the near future.
