Danish cartoons of Muhammad

The ugliness of the controversy about the Danish cartoons of Muhammad is not the most disturbing thing about it. The most disturbing thing, writes John Waters,  is the willingness of Western society to capitulate in the face of threats, and in doing so to sell out one of its own most sacred values: the right of citizens to express freely their opinions.

Freedom of speech is not some whimsical indulgence that is tolerated to keep people busy with conversation, but a fundamental bulwark of our democracies, a right that belongs to noone and everyone, the complex means by which ideas and belief systems are subjected to essential tests and restraints.

There are plausible arguments as to why the cartoons should never have been published in the first place. These are primarily editorial arguments, embracing issues of taste and quality control. I have seen some of the cartoons and – were it not for the fuss they have created – would be of the view that they should never have seen the light of day. They are badly drawn, unfunny and undoubtedly gratuitously provocative – in the sense that they depict Islam as a religion of violence. Had I been the editor involved, I almost certainly wouldn't have published them. But all that is now beside the point, and I might look seriously silly in the wake of the past week's events if I had taken my editorial stance on the basis that the cartoons distorted the role of violence in Islamic life and culture.

The point is that, because publication of the cartoons has been met with demands for censorship accompanied by threats of violence, there is only one thing the Western media can do: publish and be damned.

There is an analogous principle traditionally applied in provincial newspapers in relation to the publication of court reports. In the normal run of events, people arraigned before the courts on, for example, minor motoring or disorderly offences, had a marginal chance of escaping the added punishment of a report in the local paper. If left alone, a shortage of space or mere reporter incompetency might allow the miscreant off the hook. The one iron rule was that. if any representation were made, never mind one involving threats of any kind, with a view to getting the report pulled, then the report had to go in.

The same principle applies here: once the right of newspapers to publish the cartoons was questioned, every newspaper in Europe should have published them. This principle stands regardless of the particularities involved. I do not believe that Islam should be scapegoated by virtue of its particular pieties or beliefs, but neither do I believe it should be treated as a special case when it comes to the robustness of democratic debate. If Muslims wish to be part of European society, they must learn to understand that freedom of expression does not exist merely to allow them walk the streets carrying placards attacking their hosts and benefactors. The right to speak and joke freely is as precious a right as the right to religious freedom, which is why I would argue as vehemently in favour of the Danish cartoons as I did for the right of Muslim girls to wear the hijab to school.

I hardly need to go on about what freedom of expression signifies. It is not an absolute value, but it is a value that should be qualified only in circumstances where the freedom in question is exercised against a group or individual incapable of answering back. The idea that a form of expression can be prohibited because some people might find it offensive is a recipe for the elimination of every contentious idea from the public square.

In case anyone thinks I am saying this only because the object of the cartoon attack was Islam, let me recall that I articulated the same principle last year concerning the publication of an advertisement hoarding involving a satire of ‘The Last Supper' by the bookmaker Paddy Power. I wrote at the time that humour is one of the cornerstones of democratic debate, a precious safeguard against pomposity and fanaticism, but also a way for the public conversation to reflect our more secret reactions to public events. One of the greatest protections we have against the tendency of human endeavours towards excess and corruption is our ability to laugh. When you deny people that right, you extend immunity to certain of the more powerful from a certain kind of human scrutiny. Jokes are at least as important in a democracy as tolerance or religious freedom. Even when a joke goes too far, it is always less dangerous than the idea that it might be suppressed. In fact, the more “dangerous” a joke appears, the more vital it becomes.

The idea that certain things should be beyond humour is plausible but dangerous. I once wrote a fatuous article to the effect that Dermot Morgan was wrong to target his humour at Mary Robinson in the immediate aftermath of her election as President of the Republic.

My argument, such as it was, had two elements: one, that humour is such a powerful political tool that it requires to be used discriminately and for an elevated moral/political purpose; two, that Mary Robinson represented such a “good thing” for Irish society that she should be given a period of grace before being undermined in this way. I was wrong on both counts: humour cannot and must not be tailored according to a notional agenda of social progress, and Mary Robinson was not a “good thing”. One of my great regrets as a journalist was that Dermot Morgan died before I could apologise to him for this piece of cretinous casuistry.