To the editor:
On September 30, 2005, Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten published a series of cartoons depicting the Islamic prophet Muhammed – a forbidden act of blasphemy within Islam. Riots erupted, multiple European embassies were attacked, and over 100 individuals died. Threats were made against the lives of the artists and cries arose from Islamic nations demanding draconian resolutions to ban the 'defamation of religions', one of which the UN Human Rights Council passed last year. A second will be voted on in November at the General Assembly.
In defiance of these and other attacks on free expression, UB Freethinkers and our affiliates this week celebrated International Blasphemy Day. To advertize, we created flyers displaying parodies of all three major monotheisms. Included were caricatures of Jesus Christ, the Hebrew god, and one of the most controversial Danish Muhammed cartoons. In the context of our group's principles, our event's subject matter, and its historical inspiration, we felt that all of these images were completely appropriate. Our goal was not to offend for its own sake, but to show that it's acceptable and harmless to do so, even on matters of religion. Religious prohibitions do not apply to everyone, and we stand by our decision.
On Wednesday numerous individuals, at least some from Muslim Student Association, filed complaint directly to Student Association president Hassan Farah. To be clear, our flyers were never designed, approved, or printed by SA. As such, we assumed the crux of the issue was our inclusion of the SA logo on controversial material – albeit a requirement for all group flyers. However that was not the case. With a member of MSA joining us in the office to voice his offense, at our closed-door meeting Farah stated that because the Muhammed cartoon 'went too far' in his opinion, we at UB Freethinkers must censor ourselves in the future, or he, and possibly the university, would be forced to take action. We steadfastly refuse.
Involving of the President's office goes beyond the pale as a cynical and reactionary attempt to force self-censorship – and if that fails, institutional censorship – upon those who peacefully express ideas that happen to offend. In a vibrantly diverse and pluralistic society, under our First Amendment, never must anyone be forced to submit their right of free expression to the eccentric sensitivities of others. Hurt feelings are absolutely no excuse to limit the rights of anyone, at any time, at any place. There is simply no such thing as a right to be free from offense, and to claim that there is would set loose a madness of censorship that would know no end.
The individual right to freely practice religious belief, or unbelief, is a principle held as sacrosanct by UB Freethinkers. It is a human right that we would fervently defend for anyone. We made no calls to violence or intolerance towards our believing friends, nor would we ever. Such abhorrent and despicable acts are the rightful limits to free speech. We simply displayed controversial but harmless images.
We believe that to truly respect each other as fellow human beings, we should expect that all are mature and confident enough to tolerate honest questioning, criticism, and satire of the ideas, beliefs, and symbols they revere. To expect anything less from one another would be condescension at its worst. The ability of individuals to freely satire the sacred is freedom of expression at its most powerful. Religions are simply collections of ideas. These ideas, beliefs, and symbols do not have – or need – rights to protect themselves. Individuals and their liberties do.
We suggest that those offended by our flyers learn from the vast majority of students who seem to have enough confidence in their own beliefs to simply ignore, or individually respond to, that which offends them. These shameful and worn appeals to censorship wantonly endanger the rights of everyone, and a university is no place to exercise such narrow-minded impulses.
Our stance is that the only sacred right is for every individual to be able to speak freely on any subject, express themselves peacefully in any domain, and dissent against even the most strongly held ideas, opinions, and beliefs of others – all without fear of physical intimidation, violence, or censorship. We would hope any dignified individual, or university, would stand for the same.
Ed Beck, Co-Founder
