Hate speech shouldn’t be classed as free speech

“She most reminds me of the Aryan Nation, KKK, racists. I see them on television now and I feel like taking a shower ... She is making us all look like the intolerant jerks they are saying we are in the Middle East and elsewhere,” said Geraldo Rivera on Fox News.

The ‘she’ in question is the American commentator and Islamophobe Pamela Geller, who recently organised a contest for cartoons of Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) in Garland, Texas, targeted by Elton Simpson and his roommate Nadir Soofi — gunmen with alleged links to Daesh (the self-proclaimed Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant). Geller presents herself as a champion of free speech and has no regrets even though a security guard was wounded. She is also nonchalant when asked about threats to her own life, saying she will never stop condemning Islam.

She was well aware that the event, featuring a keynote speech by the extreme right, controversial Dutch politician Geert Wilders whose claim to fame rests on his hatred of Muslims and immigrants, would be a flame to draw armed radicals. That is why event organisers paid $10,000 (Dh36,780) for extra security. Wilders, who has called for a ban on Muslim immigrants and for the Netherlands to be free of copies of Qurans, is the Islamophobe’s poster boy. Like Geller, he is unrepentant. He is now urging the Dutch parliament to host an exhibition of cartoons depicting the Prophet (PBUH).

Geller and Wilders together constitute a match made in hell, but the wonder is that the US that preaches its values permits such provocative gatherings. Where does the right to free speech end and bigotry begin?

There is a fine line between the two, which clearly the set-in-stone US Constitution and both federal and state laws do not recognise. Rivera accepts that that constitution gives Geller free rein while adding, If Geller hit on Jews, or Irish or African Americans, rather than Muslims, “she would not be given the tolerance to spew her hateful rhetoric”, he said.

Constitutional constraints or not, the US has circumvented those constraints when it suits. A 1919 Supreme Court ruling indicates that the First Amendment does not protect speech that may be harmful to others, such as falsely “yelling fire in a crowded theatre”. For instance, child pornography, defamation of character and incitement to violence are punishable offences.

Islam (and other faiths), however, is seen as fair game even by the president. In 2012, US President Barack Obama told the UN General Assembly why America does not punish offensive speech. “Here in the United States, countless publications provoke offence,” he said. “Like me, the majority of Americans are Christians and yet we do not ban blasphemy against our most sacred beliefs.”

But that trumpeted stance did not deter Obama and his former defence secretary Robert Gates from urging Terry Jones, a Texas pastor, who authored a book titled Islam is of the Devil, to cancel his planned burning of Qurans event the previous year on the grounds that “it could increase the recruitment of individuals who would be willing to blow themselves up in American cities or European cities”.

Obama may imagine that Christians would not object to blasphemous actions designed to cause them maximum hurt, but, clearly the Vatican does not agree. Its newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano characterised Geller’s stunt to “pouring gasoline on the fire” of religious sensitivities. And in response to the Charlie Hebdo terrorist attacks in Paris, Pope Francis condemned the killings while stressing that the faith of others must not be made fun of or insulted.

Geller attempted to defend herself on CNN saying, “Increasingly, we’re abridging our freedoms so as not to offend savages ... The very idea that if something offends me, or I’m insulted by something I’ll kill you and somehow this is okay with members of the elite media, and academia, is outrageous”. She told Fox News, “There were 330 freedom lovers in that audience ... and the winner of the drawing contest was a former Muslim.”

However, even those who have never displayed any admiration for Islam have slammed her. Donald Trump accused Geller of deliberately antagonising radical Muslims. “It’s disgusting that it’s happening,” he said, asking, “Isn’t there something else they can draw?”

Bill O’Reilly termed her free speech pretext as “bogus”, arguing that the “Christian point of view” is that “you don’t demean other people unnecessarily”.

The editorial board of the New York Times condemned the drawing contest as being nothing to do with free speech — “It was an exercise in bigotry and hatred posing as a blow for freedom.” It would be interesting to note the reaction of Geller and her twisted tribe if Muslims held a drawing contest to poke fun at Holocaust victims, for instance, or a ‘Stomp and slash an American Flag Day’ in Times Square.

Sadly, racism and bigotry in the US are being permitted to flourish. Shame on the Manhattan judge, who ruled that New York’s Transport Authority was obliged by law to place anti-Islamic posters reading “Killing Jews is worship that draws us close to Allah” on the sides of buses on behalf of Geller’s American Freedom Defence Initiative. If the First Amendment allows such blatant incitement to violence to be disseminated on state-owned property, it is about time it was kicked to the kerb along with the bigots and racists who cloak themselves in its protection.

Linda S. Heard is a specialist writer on Middle East affairs. She can be contacted at lheard@gulfnews.com