Freedom of speech also comes with accountability

Portlandians love their birds. In fact, if you show a guy with a v-neck on a fixed bicycle your bird, he’ll probably smile and show you his. Though, if you flip someone off in pretty much any other large city in America – LA, Detroit – you better make sure you’ve touched up on your Krav-Maga, or your personal martial art of choice.

You have to admit, living in Portland is pretty luxurious compared to most places in the United States and perhaps the whole world. We have more freedom to say what we want, wear what we want and, do what we want, regardless of how weird or offensive it may be. This isn’t said to set Portland on a pedestal. Rather, our abundant culture of free speech can shape how we view conflicts over free speech throughout the world.

By now, you should have heard about the terror attacks in France that killed 12 satirical journalists and staff at the Charlie Hebdo magazine, a policewoman, and four Jews at a Kosher market. The attack in Paris is said to have been incited by Charlie Hebdo, a weekly satirical magazine struggling to make ends meet. Charlie Hebdo published several satirical illustrations that mock religious leaders, namely Muhammed, the prophet and founder of the Islamic faith. (A merchant, Muhammed was greatly disturbed by the materialism in Mecca, his home turf. He spent a lot of time in solitude, where divine insights were revealed to him. His revelations are recorded in Islam’s holy book, the Qur’ an.)

As BBC reports, many Muslims, of course, condemn the brutal terror attacks in France. However, a certain group of radical Islamists felt compelled to avenge the satirists’ treatment of Mohammed.

It’s easy to stand in support of Charlie – “Je Suis Charlie.”  It’s easy for us to say: “How dare radical Islamists tread on our Western right to say whatever we want to say!” Trust us, as journalists at MHCC, we live and breath free speech. Imagine, if you will, Associated Student Government members barging through the door of The Advocate office, opening fire on everyone, killing every journalist in the room. All this for an article that stated: “The OohLaLa app is the dumbest thing ever to be created in the history of student government.”

Of course, none of that scenario would ever happen to The Advocate or ASG (at least we hope not). But it did happen, on a severely drastic scale, in France. Charlie Hebdo wasn’t just exercising free speech in a creative way, it was exposing what it found wrong with radicalism. Depicting fundamental religious and other radical groups through vulgar, offensive illustration is a standard for Charlie Hebdo. It’s actually surprising that we haven’t seen media coverage of anyone else questioning Charlie Hebdo. For safety’s sake, should we draw some sort of line on freedom of speech? It’s something we should consider.

One person on our editorial board put it like this: “My freedom of speech ends where yours begins,” as a response to civil liberties in general. It’s safe to say that while freedom of speech is the baby of the western world, many other countries are unfamiliar with this value. Perhaps what causes conflicts between ours and other cultures is a failure to communicate. We in the West are so quick to defend and display our attitudes. Perhaps our free speech and reckless humor is running too wild, making other cultures feel that their points of view are being stifled and are in danger of extermination. Our satire could be interpreted as propaganda. While one could argue Muslim extremists are desperate to convert the world to Islam, one could just as easily argue that radical Muslims are actually desperate to get our attention because they are pleading us to leave their way of life alone, free from harassment.

Freedom of speech is the guard against radicalism, propaganda and often hate. Sometimes, however, freedom of speech oversteps its boundaries and overwhelms the minority, with the potential of becoming propaganda itself.

This last Saturday, we Portlandians exercised our own style of intolerance against a very small minority group. For the most part, counter-protesters were lighthearted in their resistance to Westboro Baptist Church’s usual anti-gay protest at the Moda Center, before a Blazers game on Jan. 10. Though we did not incite violence and danger, we did overpower and dilute the WBC message by holding banners that read things such as “nothing to see here.” Could it be possible that we view our values  as freedom, but look upon WBCs’ views as unworthy of communicating? Are we basically saying they have less of a right towards free speech? Are we just as intolerant? Or, were we in a way embracing their rights to free speech by standing side by side with them with our sarcastic signs?

We have a duty to counter hate, but with all these voices and signs, such as in Portland and even Charlie Hebdo, intentions become muddled. We are not really hearing anything. We are monkeying around, making a joke out of a very powerful tool. On one hand it’s beautiful, on the other, we’re only using it to further divide ourselves.

Free speech becomes a controversy when it has the potential to endanger or single out minorities. We are not immune to backlash, counter-protests, and even acts of terrorism. We are accountable for our words and depictions of other groups. While the terrorism in France is never justified for the lack of couth on Charlie Hebdo’s part, we openly acknowledge that there is a risk when taking free speech too far and we must be ready for whatever comes.

It’s our choice to speak and to listen, and we should be wise in how we choose to do either.

Advocate Staff