William Rees-Mogg opines in The Times today on John Locke and the Mohammed cartoon controversy. It’s an interesting piece even if Rees-Mogg comes to a strange conclusion; that Locke would not have approved the publication of “those” cartoons. That Locke believed freedom is not an absolute is fair enough – I don’t believe that freedom is an absolute. Without boundaries, there is anarchy and, subsequently, a loss of freedom. Rees-Mogg takes this concept to the logical conclusion that Locke would not have agreed with the publication of the cartoons. Yet he, along with the rest of the British media, seems to be climbing onto a bandwagon of assumptions about the reasons for publication; that they were intended to be offensive.
The reality is rather different. The original publication was prompted because KÃ¥re Bluitgen, an author of a childrens’ book on Islam was unable to secure the services of an illustrator, as no one was prepared to risk the likely death threats such a commission would entail. Jyllands-Posten’s commissioning and subsequent publication of the cartoons was a protest against the encroaching self-censorship in the media regarding Muslim sensibilities. A self-censorship that was one sided. After all, Islamic publications have no difficulty with the idea of ridicule and satire directed at religious belief or ethnic groups – well, as long as it isn’t Islam. Also, the idea that depicting the prophet is in some way blasphemous contradicts the images of him in Islamic art. So while people ask the question; should Jyllands-Posten have published these cartoons? The answer is unequivocally; yes, why not? What makes Islam so special that we are to abide by a set of rules specifically for this faith that we do not apply to others?
I recall as a small child, my father explaining to me why freedom of speech is so important – and, yes, this is an issue of free speech no matter how the spineless media try to spin it. He explained that abhorrent ideologies will expose themselves and be condemned for what they are where free speech exists. Where it does not, those ideologies will thrive and suppress all dissent. During the last week – some four months after the story originally broke – we had an object lesson of free speech in action. Those radicals who were prepared to suppress the western principle of freedom, used that very freedom as a vehicle for their hate and bile and – as my father predicted forty years ago – we could see them for what they are.
Going back to Rees-Mogg and John Locke, I cannot be convinced that Locke would have come to the same conclusion as Rees-Mogg ascribes to him. He was a man of his time. To presume one course of action or another from his writings makes a leap of faith necessary; that a man of the eighteenth century with all the beliefs of that time, would reach a particular conclusion in today’s climate with radically different beliefs, sensibilities and political climate.
Would he? I don’t know, I wouldn’t like to guess; he’s been dead for the past 300 years, so I can’t ask him. As Rees-Mogg points out, he had this to say regarding atheism:
“…those are not to be tolerated who deny the being of a God. Promises, covenants and oaths, which are the bonds of human society, can have no hold upon an atheist. The taking away of God, though but even in thought, dissolves all.â€Â
Well, that puts me in my place… It’s also bollocks…
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