FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION

By Dr Mahathir Mohamad Addendum to “Freedom of Expression”, updated Sept 19, 2012 1. Hillary Clinton says the film insulting to Muslims cannot be stopped because of freedom of expression. 2. The French and Italian papers published photos of a naked Duchess of Cambridge. Now a French court has ordered the publishers to surrender all the pictures to the royal couple and to stop publishing them. The Italians are also going to do the same. 3. So freedom of expression is selective, not to be used against a countess but okay for the prophet of the Muslims. 4. I know there are many hypocrites in the West but this is the mother of all Western hypocrisy. ORIGINAL POSTING FOLLOWS; 1. Hilary Clinton defends the film which insults the Prophet of the Muslims because of freedom of expression, a part of human rights. I think Western values have gone crazy. In the name of human rights and free speech one can insult anybody. What kind of human society will we have if everyone can curse and denigrate everyone else? There will be no peace either between countries or religions or races or members of the public anywhere. 2. How would one feel if someone comes up to you and calls you “a bastard, the offspring of sex between your mother and some man who is not your legally wedded father.” 3. Well how would one feel? The Americans would feel nothing because in their society this is normal. Their mothers sleep around with just about anybody. That is the norm, they would say. So do their fathers. It is an expression of the equality of the sexes. 4. Asians, and Muslims would feel insulted. They would probably kill the persons who say such things of their mothers. Free speech, yes. But insulting speech, no! Certainly no Asian would like to be called a bastard even as a joke. 5. It would seem that the liberal West believes that free speech is licence to curse and insult other people without limit. 6. They can enjoy this licence among themselves. That’s okay. But they cannot insist that everyone accept their coarseness and lack of manners. If freedom is a part of human rights, not the rights of the West alone, Asians must have their rights to their own norms and code of morality. Otherwise Western freedom would be about denying others their freedom. 7. If that is what Western freedom is about then how others react to Western freedom must be accepted by the West as the expression of freedom of these others. 8. Western values are not universal, no matter what the Westerners claim or believe about their values. Other people and Asians have their own values. If the West believes that freedom must be enjoyed by all, must be universal, then that freedom must be extended to the values subscribed by others. 9. If you don’t believe others should have freedom to enjoy their own values then you do not really believe in freedom as a part of human rights. Of course certain events we are seeing today seem to indicate that the West has arrogated freedom to themselves only. The freedom to kill people, including innocent people, is obviously a part of Western freedom. 10. That would mean the West is more authoritarian and undemocratic than the very people they accuse of being authoritarian and undemocratic. 11. It is about time that the West rethink their beliefs in freedom. If you really believe that freedom should be enjoyed by all, then respect other peoples’ rights to their faiths, their values and their freedoms. 12. I deplore the extremely violent reactions to the film and killing of the American consul but I fully understand that some people’s feelings are stronger than some other people. In a free world the strength of these people’s feelings is their right. If there is such a thing as human rights then there should also be respect for the sensitivities of other people. 13. Otherwise stop talking about human rights and certainly stop violently promoting these so-called rights. You have no right to take the moral high ground. source : http://chedet.cc