The line of free speech

Editor

The editor of the Miracle, a Muslim newspaper that published an alarming anti-Semitic article last month, has apologized to the Jewish community. A front-page apology ran in the latest issue of the Delta-based weekly for a reprinted screed by Edgar Steele, an Idaho white supremacist.

But in letters to the Bulletin and the Vancouver Sun, published about the same time as the apology, Miracle editor Nusrat Hussain offered a free-speech defence for the article and criticized Canadian Jewish Congress, Pacific Region – whose complaint resulted in a police investigation by the British Columbia Hate Crime Team – for going the legal route instead of discussing the issues intellectually.

Hussain argued that past controversial opinions in his paper "helped in introducing some fresh air, when responded to intellectually by our readers and the editors." In an apparent reference to laws that restrict completely unfettered free speech, he added: "The rule for the war-game of words restricts the players on the battlefield of media to exposing the liar, which could be Steele in this case. It is unfair to use other tactics to suffocate the truth-teller. It is here that I rest my case for freedom of speech."

This is an attitude with which we usually concur. Talking is better than litigating, in most cases. Bad ideas deserve to be debunked, not banned. Legislation that restricts free expression always seems like a shockingly blunt instrument, especially in a society like Canada's, where compromise and soft voices are national traits.

Hussain correctly acknowledges that the rights of free expression are not absolute in Canada and we might join him in future discussions over where such limitations could justly to be drawn. But legal limitations on speech do exist. We may disagree with them, as we occasionally disagree with various laws promulgated on us by our governments, but that doesn't mean these laws do not apply to us.

Just as doctors, restaurants and car dealers are subject to laws governing the way they manage their affairs, newspapers like ours are forced to operate within legal boundaries with which we may not always agree.

Canadian Jewish Congress, Pacific Region, opted to complain to legal authorities over the content of the Miracle article, as is their right – a right Hussain acknowledged in the Bulletin last week.

As journalists, our natural instinct is to accept Hussain's invitation to debate, rather than to support Congress's legal approach. But how does one begin to intellectually approach the vast list of outlandish

Jew-bashing myths spewed out in an article like Steele's "It wasn't Arabs"?
Do we begin by meticulously disputing his assertion that it was Jews who destroyed the World Trade Centre? Do we lay out a logical, well-documented argument about why Jews could not possibly have been the instigators of the first and second world wars? Do we investigate the veracity of Steele's allegation that "jews" threatened to kill his wife and fill his e-mail box with spam? Do we return to the Warren report to argue that it was not, in fact, "the jews" who killed John F. Kennedy? Do we analyze immigration and drug trafficking statistics to refute Steele's allegation that Jews are responsible for "importing " large populations of "Somalians and Bantus" to America along with "tons of drugs"? Do we dignify the accusation that the Holocaust was exaggerated and used by Jews to garner sympathy, that Anne Frank's diary is a forgery and that photos of crematoria were doctored to appear to be belching smoke?

In each case, arguing these accusations "intellectually" is a preposterous demand. The litany of accusations against Jewish people in Steele's article is so outrageous that one may be tempted to laugh, or to cry, but engaging in a rational discussion is impossible.

Ever since democratic values and the concept of individual rights gained credence in the French and American revolutions, scholars and philosophers have considered whether there should be limitations on a person's freedoms. As a society, we have determined that there should be some restrictions, but their extent is still the topic of debate. In determining the limits, we acknowledge that the intent of the speaker (or writer) needs to be considered. Some verifiable, if debatable, facts are probably needed as well.

So when a plethora of old and new racist falsehoods written by an anti-Semite are offered up, is it any surprise that someone would not see discussion as constructive and would turn instead to legal remedies? Thoughtful people are prepared to discuss almost any issue but there needs to be a foundation of truth. This is something Steele's article lacks. This is why the invitiation to "intellectully" debate it is so ridiculous.

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