Free Speech…an illusion?

I know this is a bit late, but I do have some thoughts about the reading for this month. And, just to forewarn any staunchly academic readers, this post is verging more on unfiltered thoughts than on something structured and manicured. With regards to the readings this month, there is a common myth in the Euro-American context that Christianity is somehow fundamentally democratic. Talal Asad’s “Free Speech, Blasphemy, and Secular Criticism” seizes this idea and challenge’s its validity. One could even argue that western Christianity, especially of the United States brand, challenges free speech as much as Islam is purported to do. Politicians have been synonymously interchanging “Christian” and “Democracy” for many years in the social and political arena. Now it’s difficult to parcel out any difference in national rhetoric, hence the echo of “God bless America” after every major presidential speech.

Much of this ferment, I believe, has been created to cull and persuade the masses in similar ways as the extremist Muslim doctrine. It’s quite ironic that the “West and Islam” are so antagonistic toward each other and yet each need each other to justify economic, military, political, and social policy in different nation states. Edward Said underpins this point in his doctrine of Orientalism: it’s not so much just the problem of framing the Other, it’s that this policy has justified imperial rule for hundreds of years and continues today.

In the instance of the Danish cartoons scandal, there was a clear binary: democracy and secularism vs. tyranny and religion (21). These disparate positions are rhetorical constructs and can be interchangeable depending on how each county or region views each other. In fact, there is no binary in the U.S. context; democracy and tyranny comingle in a sort of yin and yang relationship. They feed off of each other and create contradictory ideas. For example, it’s acceptable that the conservatives castigate Obama and mark him as a Nazi, and, more specifically, Hitler himself. But, they also reject any rhetoric that might seem unpatriotic. This latter category has been loosely defined under the Homeland Security Act, which basically justifies the undermining of free speech in a democratic society for security purposes. Because of this contradiction, western society struggles with the same issues of fanaticism and extremism. Unless one is ultimately supporting Christian values, democracy, and U.S. policy, then free speech only an ideological construct and therefore an illusion.