Dissent, here and there

Editorial

Two dramatic and dramatically different events on Monday contrast the approach to dissent on two sides of the planet. In Vancouver, a B.C. Human Rights Tribunal began hearing a complaint initiated by the Canadian Islamic Congress, which contends that commentator Mark Steyn contravened discriminatory publication provisions of the B.C. Human Rights Code. Across the world, in Pakistan, six people were killed when a car bomb exploded adjacent to the Danish embassy.

The Steyn case is based on response to an excerpt of the book America Alone, which was published in Maclean's magazine under the title "Why the future belongs to Islam." The Pakistan bombing, presumably, is the latest flare-up related to the publishing, originally in a Danish newspaper, of cartoons depicting the Muslim prophet. Worldwide protests against the cartoons have resulted in more than 100 deaths since 2006 and seen Danish embassies go up in smoke in Syria, Lebanon, Iran and, most recently, in Pakistan.

The two cases, so unexpectedly juxtaposed this week, illustrate the different – and differently flawed – ways societies attempt to respond to offensive expression. The act of the Pakistani bombers, of course, is the work of terrorists; the human rights commission is a government-sanctioned quasi-judicial process. They are incomparable, yet even in their distinctiveness there are lessons.

The content of the allegedly offensive materials aside, the issue of how to respond to troubling comment is at the heart of what makes a free society. Are there limits to the acceptability of expression in a democracy? Yes. These limitations range from the practical (yelling "fire" in a crowded room) to the symbolic (in the United States, there is a simmering debate over a constitutional ban on flag-burning). In Canada, an infrastructure of human rights legislation has created a category of comments and behaviors that are deemed unacceptable because of the impact they could have on identifiable groups or on the cohesion of society as a whole.

As people who value freedom of expression, inquisitions in the name of human rights are laden with difficulties. We attempt to balance the rights of expression with the rights of individuals and groups to live safely in a pluralistic society. Human rights hearings, like the one Steyn is undergoing, are of dubious legitimacy in the eyes of many and present potentially grave threats to free speech. But, they are, for all their problems, an attempt to grapple peacefully with difficult disagreements. Remember, in the course of human history, the very idea of resolving conflicts without physical force is a relatively new idea.

Democracy and pluralism, the principles upon which negotiated or judicial settlement are founded, struggle with how to set such boundaries and reprove transgressors. There are those who believe, at least theoretically, in completely free expression. For these, no human rights tribunal or court can legitimately intervene in open debate. In Canada, where we have a complex but still new infrastructure for these sorts of conflicts, we are feeling our way through a complicated terrain. This quasi-judicial system is flawed, some say to the point of complete illegitimacy, but, such processes, however imperfect, consist of adversaries facing one another in dialogue. We do not blow up those with whom we disagree.

In a perverse manner, an Iranian newspaper made a legitimate point when defending a contemptible contest eliciting cartoons on the subject of the Holocaust. In response to the controversy over the Danish cartoons that offended so many Muslims, the Iranian newspaper Hamshahri sponsored a contest to point out that the West, too, has its limits when it comes to free expression.

Good point, but it misses the main issue. In Canada, for example, we struggle with where the line is between acceptable and objectionable comment – but we do so in a peaceful manner. We do not respond to offensive, or even incendiary, material by blowing up innocents or attacking embassies. We register our abhorrence verbally, demonstrating to the perpetrators and to our own society, especially the young, that there are limits to decency. Transgressing these norms results in social censure ranging from verbal condemnation to financial penalties or redress, such as publishing contrary responses or apologizing to the aggrieved parties.

Our system of responding to offensive material is, like all human action, in need of perfecting. But at least it is an attempt to address concerns and seek conciliation through discourse. When our quasi-justice system fails, when it unjustly levies penalties in the form of a fine or a public censure, such failures can be undone, for the most part, albeit sometimes with reputations damaged. Lives lost in such incidents as the Danish embassy bombing can never be regained.

The difference between democratic pluralist societies like ours and the vigilante-style reaction to offence we witness in non-democratic places is not about whether we limit offensive expression, but about the manner in which we respond to it.

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