Europe is not America

February 13, 2006

If there is anything to be learned from the Cartoon Riots, it is the following: <ol> <li>American commentators are largely clueless about events outside the United States. <li>Liberals will not actually defend to the death your free-speech rights, their bold prediliction for Voltaire quotes notwithstanding. As a matter of fact, they won't even defend their own free-speech rights if you scare them enough. <li>Muslims have learned from Western feminists how to successfully use victimhood to silence their opponents and advance their agenda. <li>The Bush administration is unlikely to win its hearts-and-minds battle. The ease with which the jihad was able to stir up Muslims around the world on such a slender rationale does not bode well for the administration's strategery. </ol> But we shall, for today, content ourselves with addressing the first point. It is surpassingly ironic that the talking heads and scratching pens of the opinion pages, many of whom seldom set foot outside the city limits of New York, Los Angeles and the District of Columbia, consider themselves to be sophisticates explaining the realities of a complex world to the heartland. In truth, the vast majority are as parochial as the proverbial country bumpkin, a fact which immediately reveals itself every time they decide to ignorantly bloviate upon events in Europe, Asia, Africa or the Middle East. As anyone who has met more than two or three journalists can testify, the grand illusion of journalism is the belief that having heard about something is equivalent to knowing it well. Thus, the columnist who has done the Venice-Florence-Rome circuit once - and loved Firenze - and has learned that Barolos have more cachet than mere Chiantis, will consider himself an expert on all things Italian evermore. Hence the "Torino" Olympics now taking place in the city home to the Shroud of Turin. The contretemps inspired by the now-notorious Danish cartoons have been the subject of much media discussion of late. Some of it has been intelligent and appropos, especially the criticism directed towards institutions such as the New York Times and the ABCNNBCBS cabal, organizations which have never been slow to print or broadcast material offensive to American Christians which nevertheless see fit to avoid reproducing the cartoons even while covering it as a news story. However, most of the discussions regarding the European aspects have been, as is almost always the case, illuminating only with regards to the ignorance of the opinion-writers. Only Patrick Buchanan has seen fit to notice that Europe is not America, that American constitutional rights do not apply in European countries and that <a href="http://www.radioblogger.com/#001369">all discussions which assume they do</a> render themselves irrelevant on that score. "Of course they should have been published," is the opinion of those who are complacently innocent of European law. "The Sacred Freedom of the Press demands it!" argue those who are clearly unaware of the jailing of revisionist historian David Irving, of the fact that in Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Poland, Romania and Slovakia it is against the law to question the historical accuracy of the claim that 6 million Jews were killed by Germany's National Socialists, and of the Bundesrepublik's announcement last week that World Cup fans - especially the English- who by word or by gesture should remind Germans of their most recent defeat at their national sport would be arrested and face a punishment of up to three years in jail. Consider, for example, Switzerland, the most democratic country in the world, a wealthy European nation which ranks No. 1 in the Reporters Without Borders' annual <a href="http://www.rsf.org/rubrique.php3?id_rubrique=554">Worldwide Press Freedom Index</a>, 43 spots higher than the United States. No doubt an American writer wishing to pontificate on press freedom and the Islamic cartoon riots would think himself safe in assuming that the Swiss have the same liberty to publish religiously offensive material enjoyed by First Amendment-protected Americans. And that American writer would be completely wrong, due to Section 311, Article 261 of the Helvetic Confederation's federal code: <blockquote> STÿýRUNG DER GLAUBENS- UND KULTUSFREIHEIT Wer ÿýffentlich und in gemeiner Weise die ÿýberzeugung anderer in Glaubenssachen, insbesondere den Glauben an Gott, beschimpft oder verspottet oder Gegenstÿýnde religiÿýser Verehrung verunehrt, wer eine verfassungsmÿýssig gewÿýhrleistete Kultushandlung bÿýswillig verhindert, stÿýrt oder ÿýffentlich verspottet, wer einen Ort oder einen Gegenstand, die fÿýr einen verfassungsmÿýssig gewÿýhrleisteten Kultus oder fÿýr eine solche Kultushandlung bestimmt sind, bÿýswillig verunehrt, wird mit Gefÿýngnis bis zu sechs Monaten oder mit Busse bestraft. <hr noshade="noshade" size=1 width=16%> DISTURBANCE OF THE FREEDOM OF BELIEF AND OF THE RELIGIOUS COMMUNITIES Who publicly and in a vile manner insults the conviction of others in matters of faith, (particularly the faith in God), or denigrates a subject of religious admiration, who disturbs or maliciously prevents a constitutionally-protected religious ceremony, who violates a place or an article which are intended for use in such religious ceremonies for a constitutionally-protected religious community, will be punished with prison for up to six months or be charged with a fine. </blockquote> Interestingly enough, and unlike the United States, it seems Christians are not considered to be second-class citizens by the Swiss media, as an editor at Blick discovered in 1971 after being convicted for publishing a painting of a pig being crucified in the place of Jesus Christ. The truth is that Muslims who have argued for the prosecution of the various European newspapers that ran the cartoons may very well have a case in many countries - not necessarily a clear-cut one, but a legitimate and reasonable claim worthy of due consideration in many European courts of law. It might be worthwhile to keep this embarrasing little incident in mind the next time you read an opinion-page writer expressing his two cents with regards to Japanese electoral politics, the French legal system or women's rights in the Middle East.