Tag: holocaust

Freedom of Speech, really?

Solid argument in Huffpost from Geoffery R Stone (A distinguished professor of Law at University of Chicago) that even if what you say in public is inflammatory and incite violent reaction, you cannot be blamed for it because of this idea called ‘freedom of expression’ (according to the first amendment of the US Constitution).

I wouldn’t go into much detail describing the hypocrisy reflected by such laws and other statements made by Sec. Clinton and government officials especially when you compare it with the all the fuss same media pundits created over nude photos of a princess of Royal family. But it’s just that when you seriously threaten, prosecute and force to shut down some publisher for pushing what you consider indecent, why so dud and lifeless on what 1.6 Billion people and one of the largest religious communities on globe considers, not only indecent but also severely punishable. What I want to discuss is the hypocritical posture of EU & the West on such issues, sensitive to Muslims; Blasphemy being on the top.

Freedom of Expression you say? Let’s be objective now!

1.   In the Parliament of EU a resolution was adopted in last decade which enforces punishment by Law, against anyone propagating racist and/or prejudiced speech. The target of the Resolution was holocaust denial. As a pretext (and in some countries the aftermath) of this resolution was the adoption of holocaust denial laws. Such Laws are present in Austria, Germany, France, Belgium, Czech Republic, and many more European countries. So today, in majority of eastern European countries and some West European countries too, you can be sentenced to prison for up to 15 years or fined a hefty amount or both on merely your words denying or diminishing the severity of Holocaust in your speech or writings. From 1999 to present, dozens of people have been sentenced prison or fined. Dr. Robert Faurisson PhD. a professor of French Literature at University of Lyons France was dismissed from his post, fined 7500 Euros criticized & discredited worldwide by mainstream media for his articles published in Journal of Historical Review. In these articles he denied (with evidence) the existence of Hitler’s famous “Gas chambers” and some other facts related to holocaust. This was one of the most important cases of Holocaust denial. Apart from this, there were dozens of cases where such ‘blasphemous’ people were thrown in to jail for up to 5 years.

2.  Acknowledging the fact that US and UK do not have Holocaust denial laws because of same Freedom of speech, this entity is still not absolute. The prominent exception where such freedom is exempted is SLANDER. So it’s ridiculous that a community which protects its politicians and celebrities from slandering cannot comprehend the same idea for a personality Muslims hold more beloved than their life by faith. It’s still a big question mark on the standards of the so called developed world the majority of which has laws protecting citizens and inhabitants from hateful speech to stop them from developing inflammatory reaction and keeping peace. Nevertheless, it is the same west, which allows mudslinging on the most-beloved and most-respected personality in the history of the world realizing all these facts and labels the agitated as Intolerant, Retrogressive, Dark Age-ions. I don’t want to impose labels but such an absurd mentality can only be expected from an extremely bigoted state of mind. But again, maybe it is a matter of hidden prejudice especially if history (of dark ages) is accounted for.

I have an impression which is based on reality that probably, world peace is no longer important for the West.

Did you say ‘Secular Extremism’?

The phrase-“Give unto God what was God’s and to Caesar what were Caesar’s”- is such a charming phrase, full of all that is naïve, and based on wishful thinking.

Let me elaborate on secular grounds, using reason alone against the dogmatic principles associated with revelation, that there exists a very obvious contradiction in the statement, which is to say ‘what if God and Caesar disagree? Who to ‘give unto’ then?’

But let’s not concern the logical fallacies, or rather, intellectual dishonesties, secularists entail in their arguments. For now, we’ll bring to discussion the attitude they adopt in their desperate attempts to pin down all-things-religious.

And here comes the dilemma of our ‘pseudo-liberals’. You’ll never find them taking part in any real intellectual argument. They’ll never take your words as a basis of your argument but would rather first declare you “Mullahs”, “Ignorant”, “Religious Extremists” and so on. Then, they will simply take the stereotypes based on these words and try to throw false accusations on you.

It’s the easiest job to put your opponent in any given debate in his weakest position i.e. extremist and put words in the mouth of your opponent, based on awkward stereotypes and flawed assumptions. And by taking such childish measures they are in fact running away from any fruitful dialogue based on sound principles such as reason, empathy, honesty and maturity. Without these principles you are a child who, inattentive of what other people in the room are saying, is too busy talking to his imaginary friend. When told that there are secular extremists too, they simply deny any such thing. They simply say that only religious extremism exists as extremism belongs to the narrow minded which of course seculars can never be.

But I tend to differ.

After all, what would such liberals have to say on the secular fascism taking place on the streets of Karachi? All three political parties accused of violence in Karachi, namely the PPP, MQM, and ANP are secular parties working on purely secular motives. Alternative accounts would say that ethnic rivalries are the motives behind the everyday killings of ordinary citizens that we all have become accustomed to. But aren’t ethnic rivalries essentially secular in nature.  So can we really back away now from admitting that ‘Secular Fascism and Terrorism’ does exist in our very metropolitan?

Secular fascism doesn’t only exist; it’s all over the place. It’s the rule, not the exception. For instance, look at the word fascism itself. Its roots are in a purely secular ideology that has nothing to do with religion. Those who upheld this ideology believed themselves superior to other nations on purely secular grounds. Certainly the killing of six million Jews had no religious motivation whatsoever.

Social Darwinism is another ideology that took refuge in what it considered “positive science”. It preoccupied the mind-set of the European colonizers and gave them moral justification for all their vicious acts. Of course, since they could “scientifically” say that they are a more advanced and evolved race, it was their duty to propagate their own race throughout the globe while colonizing, and in the process, plundering, looting, raping, subjugating and exterminating, whole civilizations. After all it was “a survival of the fittest” as Herbert Spencer would like it to be. But all was justified, secularly, as the “White Man’s Burden”, which made it so easy to forget the genocide of whole civilizations in America and Australia, and enslavement of millions of Africans.

But religion is always brought to the limelight on the accusation that so many bad acts are carried in the “name of religion”. But what about the horrifying acts carried out on the basis on secular things, like ‘democracy’, ‘liberation’, ‘civilisation’ and ‘justice’.

What about the most devastating wars the world has ever seen, the world wars? Were they not fought in the name of secularism? What about the cold war that frightened humanity with the unprecedented accumulation of weapons of mass destruction, scientific espionage, false polarization, and organized violence, even wars, in the third world.

What about the making of the nuclear bomb. Would any religion sanctify of the making of a weapon that could kill millions in an instant and ruin generations to come. And what about the bombarding of Hiroshima and Nagasaki; did they have religious motives, or secular ones?

The world is full of secular people and regimes involved in horrendous crimes against humanity.Unfortunately, in our own country we see an emerging secular “liberal” class that has some very strange tendencies.

For first, it excludes anyone with a different lifestyle and view-point, from being part of that class. If you do not detest and dislike everything associated with religion, if you do not think everything wrong with our country is because of religion; and most importantly if you do not make fun of religion and religious people then no matter how open-minded you are, you sir, cannot be a ‘liberal’.

Second, it’s the greatest supporter of US imperialism. If it’s the Raymond Davis issue, they’ll say ‘Well, he has ‘diplomatic immunity (whatever that is)’; if it’s Aafia Siddiqui, they’ll say ‘she is a terrorist and deserves every piece of brutality thrown at her’. If it is a drone attack on innocent civilians, they’ll say ‘we do not have the technology so we have no other option because, after all, our lifestyle is ‘threatened’.

And third, it side-lines all human right calls when it comes to religious people; the state murder of the female students of Jamia Hafsa was justified, with no room for sympathy whatsoever, because they were used as a ‘human shield’. (So the next time a person uses your daughter as a human shield to save him from the gun in your hand, you should kill both).

Such liberals are not liberals at all. They’re extremists. Full stop!!