Free Speech and the Right to Hate

The likes of Islam realist Robert Spencer are no longer voices in the wilderness. At last someone in the media mainstream has got it. I am talking about Andrew Bolt who last Monday evening (January 8) played a number of (actual not bogus) hate speeches directed at Jews by Sydney Muslim clerics. Bolt correctly pointed out that the assorted clerics were all quoting from the Koran or other Islamic scripture. Maybe Islam is the problem, he mooted; a little sheepishly maybe, but he put it out there with rare and admirable courage. Still, even if Islam is the problem, what about putting a stop to the hate speech itself? Are there no laws? Yes there are.

On federal level we have the infamous Section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act 1975. This section of the Act encompasses “offensive behaviour because of race, colour or national or racial origin.”

It is unlawful for a person to do an act, otherwise than in private, if:

(a) the act is reasonably likely, in all the circumstances, to offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate another person a group of people; and (b) the act is done because of the race, colour or national or ethnic origin of the other person or of some or all of the people in the group.

Jews are a group of people. An ethnoreligious grouping I suppose is a close enough description. Saying publicly that a specific grouping of people, in this case Jews, are monstrous, bloodthirsty and vengeful; are descended from apes and pigs; and who, in the lasts days, will be betrayed by trees and stones into revealing their whereabouts so that that can be killed, would seem to fall foul of the Act.

Call me oversensitive, but I think being called the progeny of apes and pigs adequately jumps the hurdle of being all three of insulting, offensive and humiliating. And to talk about people being bloodthirsty etc., juxtaposed with commentary about them being killed in the last days, might be construed as idle talk if the audience didn’t count among them those brought up to hate Jews. As it is, if I were Jewish I would most certainly be intimidated. It is without a doubt intimidating and therefore also falls foul of the Act.

This isn’t a close-run thing. We have unadulterated, completely un-Australian, unlawful hate being spewed in our very midst. We have an Act of the Commonwealth Parliament which prohibits such behaviour and no yet enforcement. What the heck is going on? I’d like to suggest that what’s going on is Islamophobia-phobia. That is, giving a free pass to, or otherwise pussyfooting around, Muslim hate speakers for fear of being accused of Islamophobia. When you think about, it’s quite a propaganda feat to preach hate while badging those who object as being hateful. But that’s where we are. The multicultural melancholia of immiscible values.

Now, let me take a big step back. The law isn’t being enforced; that is, to be clear, when it applies to Muslims. However, should there be such a law in the first place? I think not. Section 18C is a bad law which can be easily misused to inhibit free speech. As George Brandis so rightly said, “people have a right to be bigots.” These Muslim clerics are simply making fools of themselves. Ridicule is the best counter. Otherwise, deporting any of them who are not Australian citizens is a great idea if the woke courts would ever allow it. And there is of course another problem in enforcing the law, which I referred to at the start.

The Muslim hate speakers are talking from their sacred books – the Koran (the very words of Allah) and the Hadith (the sayings and doings of Mohammed). They’re not making stuff up. It’s Islam. Islam is not a proscribed organisation or theology. So what do we expect? Can you prevent Muslim clerics from quoting from their scripture which is not banned like, say, Lady Chatterley’s Lover in the 1950s. I don’t think so.

Here is some of it, alluding to Jews:

(5:60) Then say to them: ‘Shall I tell you about those whose retribution with Allah is even worse? They are the ones whom Allah has cursed, and who incurred His wrath and some of whom were changed into apes and swine, and who served the false deities. (Ala-Maududi version)

(2:65) And you know the case of those of you who broke the Sabbath,^[82] how We said to them: “Become apes, despised and hated.”

(7:166) And when they persisted in pursuing that which had been forbidden We said: ‘Become despised apes.

The Day of Judgement will not come about until Muslims fight the Jews, when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Muslims, O Abdullah, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. — Hadith reported by al-Bukhari

You only have to look at these passages and others equally objectionable and prescriptive (e.g., look up 8:12) to understand Churchill’s observation[i] of Islam that “no stronger retrograde force exists in the world.” At the same time, we can’t make it illegal for people to quote their scripture; even Israel Folau or to quote Winston Churchill, for that matter. What does that mean? It means 18C should be dumped.

You might say ‘but what about the safety of Australia’s Jewish community?’ Enforcing 18C is not going to help. The hate is there and will simply go underground. What might possibly help is far heavier penalties for those physically assaulting others, or directly threatening to do so, when the motivation for the assault, actual or threatened, is the race, ethnicity or religion of the victim; apropos the United States. I don’t know what else can be done in a free society.

[i] Sir Winston Churchill; The River War, first edition, Volume II, 1899, pages 248-250.