Guest post: the BBC and free speech

March 3, 2012 • 4:55 am

Reader Sigmund has contributed an essay prompted by some remarks on free speech by the BBC’s director-general:

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Mark Thompson and the limits of free speech about religion

by Sigmund

Mark Thompson, the director general of the largest and oldest broadcasting company in the UK, the BBC, recently gave an interview to an organization called Free Speech Debate. His topic was, unsurprisingly, of the limits of free speech in broadcasting – particularly with regard to religion. In this interview, shown on the YouTube clip below, Thompson discusses the practical reasons why different religions are not treated equally by British broadcasters.

Thompson describes himself as a ‘practicing Catholic’ and someone who is personally offended by critical depictions of his religion and its important figures. He states that he has not, and indeed would not, watch ‘The Last Temptation of Christ’ or ‘Monty Python’s Life of Brian’ for that very reason. In the interview, however, he was careful to state that, his personal feelings notwithstanding, he thought it important that other people should have the choice whether or not to see such material. Thompson famously approved for broadcast the musical play “Jerry Springer, the Opera”, a satire of sensationalist daytime TV, that featured scenes with Jesus, the Ku Klux Klan and Satan and which provoked numerous complaints and even death threats from evangelical Christians.

So is respect for the principles of free speech is a guiding dictum of British broadcasting?

Needless to say, it is not.

“Without question, ‘I complain in the strongest possible terms’, is different from, ‘I complain in the strongest possible terms and I am loading my AK47 as I write’,” said Thompson. “This definitely raises the stakes.”

In other words, while in theory the principle of free speech is applied equally to all beliefs, in practice the very real threat of violent attack means that certain faiths – meaning Islam – cannot be subjected to the same degree of examination.

Thompson continues in the interview by attempting to explain why a religious individual person might feel justified to resort to violence.

“One of the issues is that almost all people who have religious belief are realist about the belief, in other words they believe that their faith refers to things that have an objective reality and so for example they regard blasphemy as causing objective harm. So it’s not just that a blasphemous statement or act would “hurt their feelings” or anger them because it went against their opinions, it would do actually objective harm. Offending or an act of sacrilege against the God-head or a religious figure actually creates harm in the world, as it were, and might be as heinous, or more heinous, than harm to a human being. “

 “The point is that for a Muslim, a depiction, particularly a comic or demeaning depiction, of the Prophet Mohammed might have the emotional force of a piece of grotesque child pornography.”

Thompson then finds fault with secularists for somehow failing to appreciate the harm they are causing.

“One of the mistakes secularists make is not to understand the character of what blasphemy feels like to someone who is a realist in their religious belief.”

I think that secularists DO accept that many Islamists feel this way. We realize, for instance, that Islamists may also feel the same sort of emotional force from the idea of someone changing their religion, the sight of two homosexuals holding hands, a woman who is unveiled, someone drinking alcohol, or even seeing a group of schoolgirls going to their classes. We just don’t think we should walk on eggshells simply to avoid all possibilities of offending people who entertain these sorts of delusions.

The other problem with Thompson’s argument is that by treating ‘Muslims’ as a single monolithic block, he is guilty of the same sort of negative stereotyping that his avoidance-of-controversy approach seeks to mitigate.

Not all Muslims are offended by non-deferential examination of their religion. For example Imam Abdullah Antepli, the Muslim Chaplain of Duke University, recently wrote a robust criticism of violent Islamic responses to the recent destruction of some copies of the Koran at a US army base in Afghanistan.

“I believe there can be no Islamic, religious, ethical or moral justifications for your excessive, lawless and destructive way of expressing disapproval and hurt. Therefore, I condemn and shun all past and recent Muslim reactions with the strongest possible disapproval and dismay. Shame on you!”

While these sorts of reactions to Islamic religious violence are, unfortunately,  far too rare, they do occur, and it is important to note them, if only to point out that those who are all too vocal with claims of offense do not speak for everyone who calls themselves a Muslim. As for those Muslims who do claim offense, the correct response is surely not to avoid all possibilities of provocation, for that is simply impossible in a modern liberal democracy. Indeed, the policy of avoiding critical reporting of Islam has contributed to a situation in which violent protests are seen as the normative response to the rare instances when someone breaks ranks and does publish something critical.

Unfortunately for the Islamists, the media landscape has shifted beneath their feet in the past few decades. The advent of the internet and the degree of anonymity it offers means that it has become impossible to silence critics by the old tactic of issuing threats. While the BBC and print newspapers will continue, for purely pragmatic reasons, to avoid publishing material that may incite death threats, it falls on those of us in the online community to continue to pursue the real principles of free speech.

74 thoughts on “Guest post: the BBC and free speech”

  1. I always prided myself on freespeech but when it comes to hate in freespeech I draw the line. The BBc should be secular. Never seen Life of Brian, he hasnt lived. Has he read the Bible from beginning to end I have and so much hate is there dont let that happen to freespeach .

    1. Sadly, the BBC could not be further from being secular. As a regular listener to BBC Radio 4, I am subjected to Prayer For The Day at 6.30am, Thought For The Day at 7.50 am and Morning Service at about 10.30 am (?), not to mention such weekly programs as Beyond Faith. If I did pay the licence fee, I’d be very angry to be supporting such religious propaganda.

          1. I just went to the web page for Radio 4 Extra. No Dickens yet, but there is Garrison Keillor who is not quite as funny.

  2. My brain hurts.
    He actually says it. The rules are different for moslems. What a dreadful man

  3. “…they regard blasphemy as causing objective harm. So it’s not just that a blasphemous statement or act would “hurt their feelings” or anger them because it went against their opinions, it would do actually objective harm. Offending or an act of sacrilege against the God-head or a religious figure actually creates harm in the world, as it were, and might be as heinous, or more heinous, than harm to a human being. […] One of the mistakes secularists make is not to understand the character of what blasphemy feels like to someone who is a realist in their religious belief.”

    I actually agree with Thompson’s analysis on this point. Many secularists (certainly of the accommodationist flavour) do indeed display a shocking inability to imagine what it WOULD BE LIKE to REALLY BELIEVE what religious extremists actually claim to believe. Hence we get arguments like “I don’t care what people believe” or “Faith is a private matter”. As I wrote in a previous comment, you cannot expect someone to REALLY BELIEVE the creator of the universe wants you to do something, hold it to be a matter of escaping eternal suffering or gaining eternal happiness, and still act AS IF adapting to secular norms was more important.

    Of course this is precisely why it is so vitally important to get people to not think that way, and if that can’t be done (which i suspect is usually the case), prevent them from persuading others to think that way. This is why we need MORE criticism of religion, not less.

    1. This is why I am very concerned about carving out an exception for ‘hate speech’ Not because hateful speech is ok, but because the definition of hateful can be so broadly interpreted by the ‘victims’.

    2. Bjarte Foshaug #3 wrote:

      Of course this is precisely why it is so vitally important to get people to not think that way, and if that can’t be done (which i suspect is usually the case), prevent them from persuading others to think that way. This is why we need MORE criticism of religion, not less.

      Exactly! The happy idea that all people can be comfortable parsing reality into that part of reality which is factually true and can be talked about in public and another side that is factually true, more important and significant than the other side, but it needs to be treated like a personal matter of taste is simply unworkable. The problem isn’t just that religious people are irrational: the problem is that even religious people are rational enough to see that this compartmentalization makes no sense.

      Real is real. Sooner or later someone is going to take their deepest, most sincere, most heart-felt belief seriously. For crying out loud, what else should one expect? Not everyone can walk through their religion like they’re playing a game of let’s-pretend every time someone else looks over at them.

      And the remedy is NOT going to be making sure that everyone ‘respects’ faith. We make our moral choices in light of the facts: special revelation allows you to know MORE facts than the unenlightened do and thus you’ll arrive at different conclusions. And the results are intractable. There’s no common ground to appeal to, to resolve the difference.

      We don’t just need more criticism of religion: we need more criticism of the entire messy faith-process, and its claim that there’s great virtue and humility involved in having your own special knowledge about the truth of everything.

  4. I perceive Muslims perception of actual harm is actual harm to me. Therefore it is.

  5. Mark Thompson does explain very well why the religious mindset can’t help being anti-secular, anti-democratic, anti-liberal.

    However, because of his own beliefs, he has this same illiberal kind of thinking, even though his rational analysis is entirely correct.

    Bruce Hood explains why religious people have opposing thinking rather well in his book Supersense.

    The BBC are now dangerously accommodationist to the point of promoting illiberalism over liberalism. Cowardice is replacing Bravery in journalism, and truth and free speech are the causalities.

    Christianity did not bring about liberalism, this is another fundamental myth that Christians believe in. Liberalism grew from the Enlightenment, which placed reason above tradition or faith.

  6. Clearly then Mr. Thompson won’t be showing a parody on Mohammed along the lines of “The Life of Brian” parody on Christ any time soon.
    The BBC’s attitude of restraint is precisely what was feared and fought against during the passage of the Racial and Religious Hatred Act 2006. This Act makes it an offence in England & Wales to use threatening words or behaviour or display written material which is threatening with the intention of stirring up religious hatred.
    The original Bill which was batted back and forth between the Commons and the Lords contained provisions which would have included within the offence, insulting or abusive words or behaviour. These provisions were removed and additionally there were inserted provisos which clarified the scope of the legislation. In respect of religion and religious belief, the proviso reads as follows:-
    “Nothing in this Part shall be read or given effect in a way which prohibits or restricts discussion, criticism or expressions of antipathy, dislike, ridicule, insult or abuse of particular religions or the beliefs or practices of their adherents or any other belief system or the beliefs or pracices of its adherents or proseltysing or urging adherents of a different religion or belief system to cease practising their religion or belief system”.

    It would appear that Mr. Thompson’s sympathies lie with the clauses in the Bill rather than the provisions of the Act.

    1. This 2006 Act is far worse than any blasphemy law, it criminalizing whatever the establishment finds offensive.

      Britain is truly no longer a liberal state or society. It really is a matter of serious urgency that free speech is a vital and fundamental value to any liberal society or state.

      1. But you do see that things could have been worse. However, what the law says and how it is being applied are becoming two quite different things.

      1. Exactly! The Pythons weren’t mocking god they were mocking the religious.

        ‘Follow the Holy Gourd!!’

  7. Mark Thompson is an Islamophobe, pure and simple.

    Look up the dictionary definition of Islamophobe.

    It says, – See , Thompson, Mark.

  8. “One of the issues is that almost all people who have religious belief are realist about the belief, in other words they believe that their faith refers to things that have an objective reality and so for example they regard blasphemy as causing objective harm.”

    Substitute “paranoid schizophrenic” for “people who have religious belief” and the sentence remains equally valid. So what are the rest of us to do about that? Respect their beliefs?

  11. “Offending or an act of sacrilege against the God-head or a religious figure actually creates harm in the world, as it were, and might be as heinous, or more heinous, than harm to a human being.” ” MIGHT BE?!?!” Who cares what they believe. In court, would have to PROVE harm.

  12. In such (non-)sense, any crime committed by islamofasists and/or christianofasists wackos, BBC should be banned from reporting every time (=very regularly) such crime occurs, if he wants to be ‘consistent’ with his twisted ‘reasoning’ crap. And as such he should ‘argue’ to, e.g., the loved ones of those NATO soldiers who were killed as a reprisal for the “burning of the koran” (not by themselves!); or even to all families of the raped victims of pederast catholic priests or of the burned schoolgirls who lost their lives when they were prevented by force to stay inside their classrooms because they didn’t wore proper outfits to go outside while their school was in flames in Saudi Arabia a few year ago…

  13. It is very disaying to read the comment about the “loading my AK47 as I write…definitely raises the stakes”. In effect he is saying that the terrorists have won and what the BBC broadcasts is dictated by second guessing what they will find acceptable/unacceptable.

  14. This is nothing but accommodating fascism. I’m tired of ignorant, religious foreigners complaining about basic human rights and protections when choosing to live in liberal democracies.

    1. Mary

      It isn’t only “ignorant, religious foreigners” who complain about basic human rights. Canadian and American born Catholic bishops are ignorant as well; they complain all the time about any legislation they don’t like or that threatens their fiefdom. See especially all the articles where Catholic bishops are complaining about the Ontario government telling them to allow GSAs (gay straight alliances) in Ontario Catholic schools.

      Veronica-Ontario, Canada

      1. Veronica,
        Point taken and I’m very much aware of this issue. I live in a small city in Ontario where students of one catholic school fought to establish a LGBT support group to counteract the effects of bullying. LGBT kids are more likely to be bullied and ostracized for religious reasons. They also have the high rates of suicide. Throughout the process of trying to establish a support group, catholic bigotry shone like a righteous light showing no mercy or considerations of Charter Rights.

        With respect to protecting the religious rights of newcomers, Canadian religious groups are using this as a proxy to protect and further their political agendas and it seems to be working.

    2. Well, it is certainly about accommodating murderous fanaticism. I do wish you guys who so fond of calling it “islamofacism” would learn more about “fascism” – it is bad, maybe as bad as fascism, but it just isn’t fascism.

      1. Isn’t it? Why not? I thought fascism was the idea that one group of people was superior to all the rest and should rule over them all without needing to consider their rights. This sounds like a pretty good description of Islam to me.

        1. Because Fascism is a movement which historically arose in relatively economically advanced and industrialised (failed) Western liberal democracies or in those countries where liberal democracy failed to take hold; in terms of content it sought to build a form of corporatist state, attacking Communism, Socialism, Parliamentary Liberalism and the parties of Conservatism.

          To describe, say, Iran or, say, Hussein’s Iraq as fitting those criteria is stretching it too far and rather lazy. It’s easy to condemn someone as being fascist; yes, they may have fascist techniques in common, but the differences between an authoritarian, murderous Islamic regime and Mussolini’s Fascist Italy are too many to satisfy the shared nomenclature of ‘Fascist’.

      3. I don’t agree and will continue to use the term as I see fit. Especially when referring to political organisations such as religious ones.

        1. OK, Mary,

          How about;
          Islamic barbarism
          Islamic exceptionalism
          Islamic criminality
          Islamic medievalism
          Islamic philistinism
          Islamic savagery
          Islamic brutishness

        2. Hmm… it certainly quacks like fascism (with a small “f”): “Fascism tends to include a belief in the supremacy of one national or ethnic group, a contempt for democracy, an insistence on obedience to a powerful leader, and a strong demagogic approach.” [NOAD]

          /@

          1. Yes, Ant, but your criteria could equally apply to Akhenaten, Tamerlane, probably Ozymandias(!), any number of pre-Biblical Mesopotamian rulers and I’d take a punt at Genghis Khan. I think the term has to apply to the modern era, otherwise it’s reductio ad absurdum. That is, any vaguely repulsive, self-aggrandising, authoritarian state at any point in history could be termed ‘Fascist’.

            Surely, with the possiblity that Greece and Italy could conceiveably revert to real Fascism, given the fact that the bankers have taken control of their state machines, we should reserve the pdenigratory term of ‘Fascism’ for those countries which could imaginably be precisely that, in a historically recognisable form; and therefore save a pejorative description of the modern Islamic regimes as relating in some way to their uniquely and peculiarly theocratic origins.

          2. Well, you might want so to reserve that denigratory term, but I think you’ve already lost that battle…

            /@

  15. Although he doesn’t explicitly say so, Mark Thompson seems to be giving utilitarian account (In J S Mill’s not Bentham’s sense) of his actions. The idea is that rights, such as the right to free speech, should be upheld in general because, in the long run, their benefits outweigh their costs. Thus the utilitarian can defend even deliberately offensive free-speech if it is part of a conversation that leads, eventually to the greatest happiness of the greatest number. But in individual cases h/she may consider the costs (e.g. the “offense” caused, or violent reactions) to outweigh this long-term benefit. For a utilitarian the moral decision is deciding at exactly what point this happens. He probably feels that “difficult decisions” such as this are a central part of his responsibilities, and would regard his skills and expertise in such matters as one justification for his high salary. (Note he includes even inappropriate feelings of hurt, such as may occur when criticism of a religion is mistaken for covert racism, into his utilitarian calculus.)

    Many people who think like this seem totally unaware that non-utilitarian exist. Thus he thinks that if only “secularists” knew quite offensive blasphemy was or quite how violent people’s reactions could be they would automatically agree his approach. He can only put opposition to his point of view down to ignorance of such things. He is actually very consistent and, from the point of view of this version of utilitarianism, absolutely reasonable.

    1. This sounds like John Le Carre’s belated apologia for his lack of support for Rushdie following the making of the fatwa. Le Carre was on record in the Guardian as saying that there was no unlimited right to insult religions. However, in correspondence in the late 90’s between Rushdie, Hitchens and himself, he appeared to back away from that generalisation and made the point (or perhaps was forced into the adopting the position) that there may have been a utilitarian angle to his standpoint (I would mention for the sake of accuracy that he did not use the term “utilitarian”.) He said that his concern was rather with the mailroom girl who on opening a parcel of the penguin edition of Rushdie’s book might have her hands blown off by a bomb.

    2. I think most people who advocate free speech are utilitarians – though they may sometimes forget it. After all, free speech isn’t good in and of itself. It’s good because it makes society better. If free speech tended to make it more difficult for citizens to pursue life, liberty, and happiness, then what would be the good of it?

      As it is, free speech contributes to free society. I think the people who believe in free speech even in the face of Muslim threats must believe that backing down to violence will only make things worse in the end. It’s a utilitarian argument through and through. That’s the way I look at it, anyway.

  16. The BBC isn’t frightened of offending all sorts of other groups that are likely to respond with violence. It isn’t scared of AK47s, it’s scared of being accused of offending religious people.

    I have a slight sympathy with the BBC because it’s in a fundamentally different business to its competitors, which poses some difficulties, but that’s not an excuse for pandering. If anything, it’s an excellent reason to *not* pander. Other channels are in the business of selling advertising. The BBC is (mostly) in the business of making TV programmes. This seems like an excellent reason to produce shows that challenge people, rather than placate them.

    1. “The BBC isn’t frightened of offending all sorts of other groups that are likely to respond with violence. It isn’t scared of AK47s, it’s scared of being accused of offending religious people.”

      I tend to think it’s the threat of violence. Evil people with guns, whatever their peculiar motivations, are a serious problem for free societies. In Mexico many newspapers have quit reporting on the activities of the drug cartels because their reporters and editors keep getting killed. Drug gangsters, religious fanatics — what’s the practical difference?

      1. The religious fanatics want us all to join them, the gansters just want to be left alone to get on with providing society with what it wants. In fact without the religious’ conviction that they should tell us all how to live our lives and that pleasure is sinful we would have no drug gangsters, because drugs would not be illegal in the first place. The gangsters do far less harm in the world.

    1. Yes, discrimination and vilification of gays, discrimination of women and opposition to their rights, and many of the other efforts of religions to impose their ideas on society by manipulating politics, justice, and the gullibility of people, these are the “religious realities” and they do cause enormous harm. Blasphemy causes as much harm as telling children that Santa Claus is a tale–some, lacking maturity, will get frustrated.

  20. “One of the issues is that almost all people who have religious belief are realist about the belief, in other words they believe that their faith refers to things that have an objective reality and so for example they regard blasphemy as causing objective harm. – – “

    How can an (apparently) intelligent person frame the issue in this way? The terms ‘reality’ and ‘objective reality’ are misused here.

    Objective – 1. Of or having to do with a material object. 2. Having actual existence or reality.
    3. Uninfluenced by emotions or personal prejudices

    Reality – 1. The quality or state of being actual or true. 2. One, such as a person, an entity, or an event, that is actual. 3. The totality of all things possessing actuality, existence, or essence. 4. That which exists objectively and in fact.

    Claiming that faith or belief has an objective reality is dishonest at best and only allows the argument to proceed as though these things have those qualities. They do not have those qualities and I think that many theists might actually object to such a characterization.

    Faith and belief are metaphysical concepts – they supersede, in the minds of believers, any question having to do with objective reality. It is an objective reality that the human species was never limited to two individuals but faith and belief can nonetheless hold that that is the case. This man is deluded and should never be allowed to pass on what constitutes free speech or rational discussion in a free society.

    1. I think it is misleading to use the term “realist” in this way, but accepting it for the moment, it is even more important not to then confuse the believers’ belief that something such as the harm of blasphemy is objectively real, with the fact of it being so.

  21. I am recommending this book on all the blogs I read, because it deals very fairly well with these issues: ‘The Democratic Contradictions of Multiculturalism’ by the Danes Jens-Martin Eriksen and Frederik Stjernfelt (TELOS Press). It deals with the appalling political situation in ‘multicultural’ Malaysia, the drift towards such a situation in certain European countries, notably the UK, Canada’s ‘multiculturalist’ policies, the origins of ‘multiculturalism’ in the anthropological work of Benedict and Boas, and the defences of it you find in the work of such as Charles Taylor, as well as the Danish cartoon controversy.

    2. There is also, incidentally, an excellent brief discussion in the book of ‘secularism’ as a political principle, a term which ‘originates with the Englishman G.J. Holyoake, who introduced it in the 1840s and later elaborated in his books, “The Principles of Secularism” (1860) and “The Origin and Nature of Secularism” (1896).’ The discussion shows – not explicitly – why it is both wrong and dangerous to do as was done the other day on this blog and to conflate or confuse secularism with atheism, a practice that denies the genuine public space created by the principle, and reduces it to a mere conviction that happens to be held by of just another sect clamouring for attention and clawing for power in a crowded arena.

      1. And, of course, equating secularism with atheism plays right into the hands of the religious, who have every interest in compounding and propagating the confusion – vide the remarks on ‘secularism’ made by the Pope (among many others, including, I have no doubt, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the previous A of C – a nasty piece of work called Carey, and assorted Islamists and imams).

        1. “Plays into hands” how, exactly? Unscrupulous people will quotemine, it’s the first weapon they reach for. It hardly matters what we talk about. Should we be so careful abut what we say in fear that idiots will use it against us that we don’t say anything at all?

          Atheism and secularism are certainly not the same thing, but it’s reasonable to assume that atheists support secularism and fairly likely that religious types do not. That seems like a perfectly reasonable thing to talk about, regardless of how random idiots might misconstrue it.

          1. Yes, of course the unscrupulous will ‘quotemine’. Have I suggested otherwise? I have stated, as do Eriksen and Stjernfelt (and I suggest that you find out who they are),
            that the provenance of the term ‘secularism’ is not as some, including, perhaps, yourself, fondly suppose. Of course most atheists, those who are merely atheists, are going to support secularism as a political principle – as in fact do many sensible (in so far as they can be such) believers – but the fact that many atheists support secularism does not mean that secularism can be equated with atheism, though doubtless the Trotsky-ites who run the students’ union at the London School of Economics would like to believe that it can, since they, like many Catholics and Islamists, like to believe in the necessary oppressiveness of the secular state. Secularism should not, however, be equated with atheism. I realise the narcissistic attraction of being a political naif and of feeling filled with moral rectitude, but such attractions are often better eschewed so that realities may be addressed.

          2. I’m not sure that this makes sense, Tim; ‘Trotskyites’ equate their atheism with secularism and then in their alleged control of the LSE Students’ Union take sides against(oppress) the Humanist Club versus the Islamists in the Jesus and Mo controversy?

            All political or religious idelologies agree that the state (no need to specify the ‘secular state’) has an element of oppression; the question is which class or group is being oppressed. Those states, of which the oppressive apparatuses are run according to the prescriptions of either Santorum, Khamanei or Marx, would differ greatly from each other. I think it too blunt to lump them together.

            All the best.

          3. No, the (contemporary) Trotskyites do not, any more than did their forebears, who sought the eradication of religion, equate their atheism with secularism, nor do they, any more than their forebears, value secularism as a political principle, which, as Holyoake, who invented the term, defined it, is – I quote Eriksen and Sternfelt, ‘exclusively a social-poltical doctrine’ that is designed to ‘organise society so that various believers’ (whereby is meant believers of various persuasions) ‘and non-believers can live peacefully together’. Rather, they have come to espouse, one suspects for tactical reasons (when it is not simply youthful sentimentality) the fashionable cause of ‘multiculturalism’, whereby any criticism of ideas or beliefs espoused by a group who may be thought of as having a just grievance of one kind or another may be dismissed as ‘racist’ or, in the case of the Jesus & Mo cartoons, ‘Islamophobic’. There is in fact a great difference between a genuinely secular state (and all states, I will agree, seek a monopoly of violence) and such theocratic states as you envision, or the state as it came to be under Marxism-Leninism and its offshoots (Maoism), or the state as it would come to be were the ideas of the Trotsky-ites to be realised.

          4. And I should add that there is an unbridgeable difference between a truly secular state and the ‘multicultural’ state as exemplified by Malaysia, in which the citizens live trapped in the little religious or cultural boxes that the state has built for them.

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