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June 19, 2009
Transparency good for Jews
There are unintended consequences of censoring hate speech.
DR. STEFAN BRAUN
In March, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation responded to complaints about anti-Semitism appearing on its website by agreeing to remove the offending reader commentaries. Writing for the Jewish Tribune, Brian Henry, who filed the complaints, praises the broadcaster's "outstanding, and highly professional response." ("The CBC bans Jew-haters," March 5, 2009)
Is he right? How should Jews deal with such messages? Should we work harder to ban them; or harder to expose, confront and challenge them, instead? Henry's experience is instructive. It illustrates how bans generate unintended dynamics and unexpected consequences. Ultimately, they are self-defeating and democratically counter-productive. Here's why.
First, bans yield a reinforcement of the underlying stereotypes. Nothing lends public credibility to conspiracy theories of Jewish power, domination and media control quite like "successful" Jewish demonstrations of "free speech for me but not for thee;" in the minds of the already suspicious and impressionable.
Second, it is conventional wisdom among hate banners that the more transparent the bigotry, the more it need be repressed. However, in a consolidated self-governing democracy like ours, it is not the veiled but the vile anti-Semite who makes the better public case against ignorance, bigotry, and hate.
As Henry recounts, one web reader sadistically asks which would be more entertaining, "a day pass to Disney's theme park or Dachau?" Another compares the recent Israeli Gaza strike to the Holocaust, adding that Israel wanted "pounds of flesh," like Shylock the Jew. Still another enlightens us that while Jesus was a Jew, he "didn't take part in the eating of blood-filled pastries made from the blood of Palestinian children." Vile hate is self-incriminating. Veiled hate is obfuscating. No one, certainly no censor, can expose the true face of hate, nor discredit the bigot hiding behind it, better than the free-speaking, self-incriminating, transparent, hatemonger himself.
Third, determined hate cannot simply be silenced away; only driven underground or morphed above it. If we hear only what we want to hear, what we hear may not be what we need to know. Deep-seated hate artificially concealed from public view cultivates a false sense of public complacency and undermines Jewish calls for public vigilance.
Fourth, hate is a moving target. What hatemongers learn from bans is not the evil of their ways but how better to communicate it. Worse, as Henry's "successful" ban illustrates, hate is moved by censorship itself to mutate into more insidious, less easily challengeable, strains. He writes, "though the CBC would block or remove a comment suggesting Jews are baby-killing Nazis, the reader was welcome to come back with some more subtle Jew-baiting," like calling Israel "racist, terrorist, apartheid."
When you outlaw traditional anti-Semitism, you find more of the refined and worse disguised anti-Zionist anti-Semitism taking its place. The palpable, self-incriminating anti-Semite may be the most offensive. But, in the long run, it is the disguised anti-Semites that are the more dangerous.
Fifth, hate banners talk of speech bans in the singular, of drawing "a" line in the sand. But slippery hatemongers and adaptive vocabulary will always and render the line elusive. Silencing satisfaction can never be a final event, as Henry himself demonstrates. After winning his "outstanding and highly professional response" to his complaints, but then seeing the subtler anti-Zionist hate taking its place, he writes, "and I wasn't satisfied. So I wrote [to the CBC] and complained again." What's next? Banning sinister phrases like "Jewish lobby"? Then what?
The further hate banners push hate speakers into more disguise, the more hate speakers "pull" frustrated hate banners to trespass on legitimate speech to catch the "illegitimate" speech; or admit defeat and look the worse off for it. This is a "lose-lose" dynamic for banners, but a "win-win" proposition for hatemongers.
Determined anti-Semites do not need free speech to find their voice, or their victims. Even Ernst Zundel knew this. Today's "new" anti-Zionist anti-Semites know it that much better. Isn't it time for hate banners to know it, too?
Sixth, banning hate is a doubled-edged political sword. If "we" substitute silencing might for demonstration of right, so can "they." Freedom to speak is not politically divisible, to benefit only the "right" voice. History refuses to stand still for the convenience of hate silencers. "New" victims (Palestinians) can take the public place of old ones (Jews). David can be turned into Goliath.
To be sure, those who hate do not need censorship to trample on freedom of Jewish speech. Double-edged censorship swords are not equal opportunity legitimizers, but a slippery food chain. The stronger devour the weaker, the numerous the few, the belligerent the civil, the popular the disfavored. Jews intent on gorging on coerced quiet need beware of swallowing; lest the silencing revolution devour its young.
Seventh, conventional censorship wisdom holds that the danger increases the wider the public reach of hate. Consider the Internet. Henry warns: "Worse, they [cyber hatemongers] reach a mainstream audience, not just their fellow bigots." Why "worse"? Shouldn't self-governing publics know what anti-Semites are truly thinking and fanatics actually saying? Indifference and ignorance about anti-Semitism in Canada is not a problem of the public knowing too much about the true face of hate, but too little. It is not a problem of Jews banning too few free-speaking, transparent, self-incriminating, hatemongers, but too many.
Camouflage and concealment is public prevention's greatest enemy. Self-governing people need to be honestly challenged not falsely soothed. Free-speaking Internet hatemongers make the case for vigilance, preparedness and public education against anti-Semitism, new and old, easier. Martyred or disguised anti-Semites make it harder.
Guarantees of right public thinking belong in dictatorships, not democracies. Ultimately, there are no assurances against ignorance and intolerance, only the lesser of remedial risks. Freedom of public discourse on divisive public matters is not a panacea. It can offend, disturb and injure. But it can also expose, challenge, refute and educate. Silence masks, postpones and secretly grows hate. The costs of free speech are visible. The costs of feigned quiet are hidden. But they are no less costly.
Banning determined hate is seductive. But it is not wise. Contrived public quiet cannot a democracy enlighten, only a hatemonger camouflage. Fear does not a people prepare, only a victim incapacitate. Jews who doubt their own voice for free exercise of their intolerant enemies secure not real victory, but concede defeat. Ultimately, they jeopardize their own right to freely, fully and fearlessly speak, and arm their duplicitous foes.
Stefan Braun, LLB, LLM, MA, PhD is the author, among other works, of Second Class Citizens: Jews, Freedom Speech and Intolerance on Canadian University Campuses and Democracy off Balance: Freedom of Expression and Hate Propaganda Law in Canada. He was a 2006 Harold Adams Innis Prize finalist for the best peer-reviewed English language book in the social sciences in Canada.
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