Páfi, trúarbrögð og málfrelsi

Mikið hefur verið fjallað um ummæli páfa um trúarbrögð múslima og hefur eins og oft áður sitt sýnst hverjum.  Sjálfum er mér svo sem nokk sama hvort að trúaleiðtogar deila sín á milli, enda telst það ekki nýtt.  Ég er þó eindregið þeirrar skoðunar að menn, trúarleiðtogar eða ekki, eigi að hafa tjáningarfrelsi.  Að sjálfsögðu fylgir ábyrgð frelsinu og æskilegt er að menn reyni að lifa í sátt við meðbræður sína.

En ofsafengin viðbrögð margra múslima hafa verið megin fréttaefnið, en þau eru ekkert nýtt.  Þeirra viðbrögð teljast því miður varla til tíðinda, einstaklingar sem margir virðast telja sig tala í nafni Islam, þykjast gjarna telja sig umkomna að dæma einstaklinga til dauða, eða hóta eða beita ofbeldi.

Ég vil vekja hér smá athygli á ágætri grein á vef Spiegel, sem fjallar einmitt um þetta málefni.

Þar má m.a. lesa eftirfarandi:

"Twenty years ago in the German city of Bremen, Dutch comedian Rudi Carrell's life depended on police protection. His offense? In a satirical program on German television, he let fly with a lewd joke about the then leader of the Iranian revolution Ayatollah Khomeini. Mass demonstrations in Iran -- orchestrated, no doubt, by the government -- were the result. The threats of violence led to an apology by Carrell, and he never again made a joke about any Muslim -- at least not on television.

In February 1989, the Ayatollah then released a fatwa calling for the murder of Salman Rushdie for his novel "The Satanic Verses." The book, he and other Muslim leaders claimed, was a grave misrepresentation of Islam. Rushdie's Japanese translator lost his life as a result of the fatwa and Rushdie himself went into hiding, though the Iranian leadership distanced itself from the fatwa in 1998. There remain, however, a number of fanatical Muslims who yearn to see Rushdie dead.

Feminist and Islam critic Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the former Dutch parliamentarian who recently left Holland, also lives under threat of murder. In addition to a number of interesting books about the oppression faced by women in the Muslim world, she also wrote the screenplay for the short film "Submission." In one scene, a verse from the Koran -- demanding that women bend to the will of their husbands -- is projected onto a woman's naked body. The film was provocative, and the filmmaker Theo van Gogh paid for it with his life. He was killed on the streets of Amsterdam by a Muslim fanatic."

"One thing should be kept in mind, however: The often violent protests that erupted in the Muslim world in the wake of the cartoon controversy have often been manipulated and fuelled by Islamists. The bile currently being flung at the pope is no different."

"Bending to this demand would be a mistake -- indeed it would be tantamount to turning one's back on freedom of expression and opinion. What will come next? Perhaps a complaint that Allah feels insulted by the numerous European women who don bikinis during a summer trip to the beach. It could be anything really -- militant Islamists will always find something. But the response needs to be firm. Freedom of speech, after all, is a vital value and needs to be defended. Any attempt to make political speech hostage to some imagined will of God must be resisted."

"And there's no reason to respond to every presumed insult. Consider an example from Denmark. Recently, a paper there published a number of rather tasteless Holocaust cartoons which had been shown in Tehran. The reaction of Copenhagen's rabbi was instructive when considered against the bloody response to the Muhammad cartoons -- outrage which ended up costing lives. When asked if he would call for protests, the rabbi merely said: "You know, I've seen worse.""

Greinina í heild má finna hér .