Don’t Limit Speech in France

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/17/opinion/dont-limit-speech-in-france.html

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LONDON — On Tuesday, the French police arrested the controversial French comedian Dieudonné M’bala M’bala. He had written on Facebook “I feel like Charlie Coulibaly” — a mashup of Charlie Hebdo and Amedy Coulibaly, the gunman who killed four Jewish hostages in a kosher supermarket in Paris, in an attack linked to the Charlie Hebdo killers. Mr. M’bala M’bala, the police say, is being investigated for “defending terrorism.”

This is not the first time that he has been targeted by the authorities. Last year, the courts banned his stage show, and he has been convicted several times for anti-Semitic hate speech. But for his supporters, many of whom live on the outskirts of French cities in the banlieues that are home to much of France’s North African population, the attempts to silence Mr. M’bala M’bala exemplify the double standards of French society. The right of a satirical magazine to mock Islam is held sacred, they argue, yet Muslims are forbidden to express views that others may consider offensive.

The cases of Charlie Hebdo and Mr. M’bala M’bala are not directly comparable. One published cartoons that many found objectionable because they lampooned their faith; the other seemingly identified with a terrorist who had killed Jews simply because they were Jews. Nevertheless, the arrest of Mr. M’bala M’bala after all the eulogizing of free speech over the past week suggests that the French authorities still do not understand what it means.

France’s attitude to free speech is fraught. On one hand, the republic prides itself as the nation of Voltaire, with a tradition of trenchant social satire — to which Charlie Hebdo clearly saw itself as heir. On the other hand, France has restrictive privacy laws, some of the toughest hate speech laws in the European Union and a ban on Holocaust denial. This combination of Voltairean bravado and restrictive measures has created a deeply contradictory attitude toward free speech.

The Roman Catholic Church was a favorite target for French satirists, but its power and influence have long since declined. French anticlericalism has found instead a new object: Islam. But Islam plays a complex role in French society. France’s North African communities are predominantly secular, but within them, Islam acts as a deeply conservative force. At the same time, politicians and pundits often present Islam as a threat to French values and identity and insist on labeling the whole North African population as Muslim. This creates a perception of North African communities as not really being part of the French nation, and justifies discrimination against them.

At the same time, a consciousness of the sordid history of French anti-Semitism — from the Dreyfus affair to the Vichy regime — means that writers and cartoonists are far less willing to cross the line when it comes to making jokes about Jews or Judaism than they are about Muslims or Islam.

It is not difficult to understand why many, particularly within North African communities, see in this a case of unequal treatment — of certain communities having special protections, while others have to put up with hatred and offense. For some inhabitants of the banlieues, this has only encouraged disengagement from mainstream society, fueled conspiracy theories and entrenched anti-Semitic views.

No one has more deftly fused anti-Semitism and anti-system hatred than Mr. M’bala M’bala. And the attempts to silence him have merely sharpened his supporters’ sense of being discriminated against and despised.

What is the right response to such hypocrisy and double standards? One approach is to insist that the laws against hate speech should be extended, so that Islam, for instance, gets equal protection from insult. This is the argument of many Muslim activists and antiracist campaigners. But this is to confuse the giving of offense with the promotion of hatred. It is also to betray those within Muslim communities who are fighting against reactionary religious ideas and institutions.

Social change cannot happen without causing offense. “You can’t say that!” is all too often the response of those in power to having that power challenged. To accept that certain things cannot be said is to accept that certain forms of power cannot be challenged. Those who most suffer from such censorship are minorities themselves.

The other way to confront double standards is not by extending restrictions, but by extending speech. Mr. M’bala M’bala may be an anti-Semite, but he should have the right to express his bigotry. To talk of freedom of expression for everyone but bigots is to hollow out the principle.

One cannot, in any case, challenge prejudice in practice by banning it; that simply lets the sentiments fester underground. It is only through freedom of expression that we can articulate our disagreements and truly challenge — and, if necessary, mock — the ideas of others, whether they are bigots or not.

To end this damaging and divisive double standard, we need to permit more, not less, speech.

Kenan Malik, a writer, lecturer and broadcaster, is the author, most recently, of “The Quest for a Moral Compass: A Global History of Ethics.”