Short answer: yes. It’s forbidden in France to engage in “hate speech,” which includes anti-Semitic remarks. Denial of the Holocaust is a crime across much of Europe, including France and Germany. This week the odious French comedian Dieudonné was arrested for saying that he felt not like Charlie Hebdo, but like “Charlie Coulibaly,” a reference to jihadist gunman Amédy Coulibaly who killed four people in a kosher grocery store. Dieudonné is a notorious anti-Semite, who performs a kind of Nazi salute during his performances and whose shows have been banned by the French government.
Should he have been arrested or censored? Nope. It’s hypocritical to prohibit making fun of some religionists but allowing some (as did Charlie Hebdo) to make fun of others. Yes, anti-Semitism, which is a criticism not of Judaism but of Jews, differs from simple criticism of Islam (the goal of Charlie Hebdo’s cartoons), but too bad. It’s too hard to make that distinction when it comes to “hate speech,” for criticism of religion is often taken as criticism of believers. And, as Christopher Hitchens once said, denial of the Holocaust forces us to re-examine precisely what the hard evidence for the Holocaust is, and so even if it’s seen as anti-Semitic it should not be banned. I respect the hurt feelings of Jews no more than I respect the hurt feelings of Muslims.
I am a hard-liner when it comes to free speech: I think that no speech should be banned or criminalized save speech meant to incite imminent violence. And I think Europe needs to truly embrace its democratic aspirations by decriminalizing “hate speech.” Yes, I’m aware that those laws come from a traumatic past and a sensitivity to newly-arriving cultural minorities. But it’s time to deep-six the hypocrisy that pervades the speech laws of Europe.
I am saying this because, though I thought my views were obvious, I’ve received several snarky emails this week from people who tell me that I’m a hypocrite because, as a secular Jew, I must surely agree with the French laws against anti-Semitic speech and yet defend the right to criticize Islam. One person, for example, sent me this cartoon:
And I also got this email, requesting that I “comment” but actually implicitly calling me out for hypocrisy:
Hi Prof Coyne
Thank you for reading this email. Can you comment on
this article, in light of the recent discussions on free speech?
Thank you.
[name redacted]
I don’t know where these people are coming from, but they surely aren’t regulars at this site, and they’re making unwarranted assumptions that all Jews will defend “hate speech laws” protecting Jews. I’m not one of those. Let the neo-Nazis have their marches and anger the Jews; let the anti-Semites call me—as they did in junior high school—a “dirty Jew.” Let the media mock Jews and Judaism all they want. I will respond, when necessary, with words—a weapon far more effective than the muzzle.
