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THE TOLERANCE OF OBEDIENCE

March 14, 2012 by Kenan Malik

Yorkshire teenager Azhar Ahmed was having a rant last week on Facebook as many people often do. He had got apoplectically angry about media coverage of the deaths of six British soldiers in Afghanistan, contrasting it with what he saw as the silence that has shrouded the deaths of thousands of Afghani civilians: People gassing about the death of Soldiers. What about the innocent familys who have been brutally killed.. The women who have been raped.. The children who have […]

Categories: Free Speech • Tags: danish cartoons, flemming rose, free speech, islamism, liberalism, liberties, tariq modood, tolerance

FREE SPEECH AND DOUBLE STANDARDS

February 22, 2012 by Kenan Malik

I have written an essay for the upcoming 40th anniversary issue of Index on Censorship that explores the changing character of the free speech debate in recent decades. It includes an interview with Flemming Rose, the cultural editor of Jyllands-Posten, whose challenge to cartoonists to depict the Prophet Muhammad helped launch the Danish cartoon controversy. I will publish the essay in full when the new issue of Index comes out in March. But here is a short extract that probes the question […]

Categories: Free Speech • Tags: ayaan hirsi ali, danish cartoons, flemming rose, free speech, geert wilders, islam, islamism, liberal hypocrisy, liberties, locke, martin amis, milton, muslims

ON THE RIGHT TO SATIRISE, PROVOKE, AND BE DOWNRIGHT OFFENSIVE

November 2, 2011 by Kenan Malik

The offices of the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo were this morning firebombed, just as it was about to publish its latest edition, a spoof issue ‘guest edited by Muhammed’, in response to the Islamist Ennahda party’s victory in the Tunisian elections. Caustic and vulgar (think of a cross between Private Eye and Viz), Charlie Hebdo prides itself on being an equal opportunities offender, as happy to draw the ire of Christians and Jews (and, indeed communists) as of Muslims. The […]

Categories: Free Speech • Tags: charlie hebdo, danish cartoons, free speech, iqbal sacranie, islamism, liberties, tariq modood

WORDS AND DEEDS. AND THE SPACE BETWEEN

February 25, 2011 by Kenan Malik

I have had a lot of responses to the extracts from my interview on hate speech and the law, many of which argue that speech that does not directly incite violence but creates a climate in which such violence becomes more probable should be banned. As one respondent put it in a comment thread: If I say that all Moslems, Catholics, homosexuals, vegans, and so on, are terrorists and a danger to the nation, I’m not inciting DIRECTLY to violence, […]

Categories: Free Speech • Tags: danish cartoons, free speech, From Fatwa to Jihad, hate speech, incitement laws, kenan malik's books, law, rushdie affair