I begin this post with sincere prayers for the families of the US Ambassador and other staffers killed in Libya this morning. I pray for peace in our world, especially in Egypt and Libya today. And as we mourn their deaths and the unjust violence, I lament the senseless and irresponsible behavior that led to this incident. Namely – the creation of an anti-muslim movie, the celebrating of it by a certain Florida pastor, and the manipulation of television ads in Egypt creating the impression that this hateful movie was a major American blockbuster in which Americans were going to rejoice. NBC’s middle-east reporter Richard Engel, walked viewers through the events leading up to the violence in both Cairo and Benghazi this morning- an irresponsible and offensive movie attacking Islam and the prophet Muhammad and the manipulation by media and ultra-conservative clerics presenting this fringe movie as if it was a major American film. Now, I want to state as clearly as possible: NOTHING JUSTIFIES THE VIOLENCE, RIOTING AND MURDER OF INNOCENT DIPLOMATS. Ambassador Stevens was murdered. However, I think it is important to reiterate that our cherished civil rights – like freedom of speech involve responsibilities for how we exercise such rights.
In Pacem in Terris,Blessed Pope John XXIII clearly states that we have basic civil rights:
12. Moreover, man has a natural right to be respected. He has a right to his good name. He has a right to freedom in investigating the truth, and—within the limits of the moral order and the common good—to freedom of speech and publication, and to freedom to pursue whatever profession he may choose. He has the right, also, to be accurately informed about public events.
Notice – we have the right to freedom of speech as well as the right to be accurately informed about public events. John XXII goes on to detail the duties associated with said rights:
28. The natural rights of which We have so far been speaking are inextricably bound up with as many duties, all applying to one and the same person. These rights and duties derive their origin, their sustenance, and their indestructibility from the natural law, which in conferring the one imposes the other.
29. Thus, for example, the right to live involves the duty to preserve one’s life; the right to a decent standard of living, the duty to live in a becoming fashion; the right to be free to seek out the truth, the duty to devote oneself to an ever deeper and wider search for it.
What strikes me this morning is that this entire tragic and unjust situation – wherein people are rioting and lives have been lost – could have been averted had people at many points exercised their freedom of speech with due deference to their responsibility and duties to themselves and to their neighbors.
Those participating in the riots, those who killed our fellow citizens unjustly are responsible for their actions. But, everyone, especially those in the media, must pause and take stock of the awesome responsibility that comes with freedom of speech. For Catholic social teaching, we are endowed with these rights as created in the image and likeness of God and we have a solemn duty to exercise these rights becomingly.
As you condemned the “senseless and irresponsible behavior that led to this incident” I wonder if you gave thought to examples of the even more egregious behavior of others, or if, because they elicited no violent reaction, this did not occur to you. If the behavior of the mob that stormed our embassy and murdered our ambassador was inexcusable then how justified are we in chastising someone for having precipitated it? If there is no excuse for their behavior then we shouldn’t look to give them one.
I don’t doubt for a minute that you believe nothing justifies the mob’s behavior but I think it would be more profitable to try to account for its actions other than by looking at an obscure group in Florida as the catalyst. Either a large number of Libyans are virulently anti-American or in their religious view they are free to murder whomever offends them. Or both. I’m pretty sure the former is true not just of Libya but of much of the Middle East, and based on their justification for their actions it appears the latter is true as well.
These are regional pathologies that have nothing to do with the childish behavior of others. Those participating in the riots, those who killed our fellow citizens unjustly are responsible for their actions. But…
There is no but.
I largely agree with the post, but I just have some thoughts that came in response.
I think it is certainly correct that with the right to free speech comes a certain responsibility, but the problem comes with defining exactly what that responsibility is. Pope John does not really specify in the quote cited, but I have to believe that it is the responsibility to speak what one believes to be true. I think so because there is such a tight connection between the freedom of conscience and the freedom of speech; speech is simply a way to make known the truth to others or to discover the truth through dialogue.
But we need to go even further, and moral theology helps here. Traditional Catholic moral theology distinguishes between the subjective state of a person acting and the objective status of the action committed. When it comes to speaking and the responsibility to communicate truth, one person really does not have the ability to adequately judge whether another has sufficiently considered the truthfulness of their thoughts and speech. It is perfectly possible that someone can believe and say dumb things while in good faith believing they are true. But we can objectively evaluate spoken statements by evaluating their truthfulness.
So when we publicly evaluate the responsibility or irresponsibility of speech of some kind, we must be focused on the truth or untruth of the speech (or in certain cases on violations of codes of conduct, like plagiarism, but again the focus is on the conduct, not the subjective motivations). But if our purpose is to expose irresponsible speech, then our response must be further speech, speech that presents the truth and reveals falsehood.
But this is precisely not the kind of response we have seen. The movie has not been condemned because it is a false portrayal of Mohammed’s life, but because it is hurtful to Muslims.
The controversial message from the U.S. embassy in Cairo read: “The Embassy of the United States in Cairo condemns the continuing efforts by misguided individuals to hurt the religious feelings of Muslims – as we condemn efforts to offend believers of all religions. . . . We firmly reject the actions by those who abuse the universal right of free speech to hurt the religious beliefs of others.”
“The United States deplores any intentional effort to denigrate the religious beliefs of others.” – Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
“The serious consequences of unjustified offense and provocations against the sensibilities of Muslim believers are once again evident in these days, as we see the reactions they arouse, sometimes with tragic results, which in their turn nourish tension and hatred, unleashing unacceptable violence.” – Vatican press statement
“Yesterday’s events in Libya and Egypt point to what is at stake. We need to be respectful of other religious traditions at the same time that we unequivocally proclaim that violence in the name of religion is wrong.” – Cardinal Timothy Dolan
This was not widely reported because it was overshadowed by the events in Egypt and Libya, but in the UK a screening of a documentary on Islam was canceled because its director had received death threats in response to the film. Unlike the film that sparked the violence in Egypt and Libya, this film was a scholarly documentary applying the standards of historical criticism, applied to Christianity relatively uncontroversially today, to the origins of Islam. Yet this film, too, was hurtful to the religious sensibilities of Muslims, and perhaps in their minds denigrated and disrespected their religious beliefs, and in turn led to threats of violence. So was this film also an irresponsible act of speech? Tomorrow in my sexual morality class when I introduce my students to the idea that there are multiple sources in Genesis written by different authors, in order to emphasize the different themes in Genesis 1 and Genesis 2-3, am I being irresponsible because it might hurt the religious sensibilities of some of my students? No, of course not, but it is hard to know why using the terms of our public conversation.
You might say it is a matter of intention, that the director of the American film intended to offend Muslims, while the director of the British film does not intend to offend Muslims and I do not intend to offend my students. But this cannot be the case because we certainly have the right to challenge one another’s deepest held beliefs if we believe them to be false. And again, it is presumptuous to claim to know whether someone intended to offend or is honestly speaking what they believe to be true.
The problem is defining our responsibility in terms of “offense” or “disrespect” in the first place. I fear that our church leaders have not fully thought through the implications of what they are saying. Should Christians stop proclaiming the divinity of Christ as taught in the creeds because this might be a provocation to Muslim sensibilities, in fact a blasphemy?
On a more ecclesiastical note, the message about avoiding provocations to religious sensibilities comes from the same Vatican press office that not only condemned the butler who passed along the documents in the VatiLeaks scandal, but also those media outlets that published them or information from them because this was disrespectful to the pope, despite the fact that these documents potentially uncovered actual maleficence in the Vatican. The Vatican does not seem comfortable with truth being the standard for speech’s value.
I believe that the public conversation has been framed in terms of feelings rather than truth because as a society we cannot talk about truth in relation to religion. Religion is a set of private beliefs that might give someone personal comfort, but to question whether they are true or not is a bit rude and irrelevant. If anyone should be trying to connect talk about religion with talk about truth, it should be the leaders of the Catholic Church. They should speak out against the American film because it presents such blatant falsehoods about a religious figure and Muslims’ religious beliefs, but should also point out that sometimes the search for truth leads to speech that is offensive to religious believers but should nevertheless be protected.
Matt – I agree with your points about truth…Honestly, the reason I did not go into that is the simple fact that I have not watched nor do I intend to try and watch this particular movie.
I am glad you pointed to that director in Britain – because yes, I think this is a problem. It should be about truth — and respect. Part of what was bothering me so much was the “well its free speech and that’s that” argument I kept hearing on the news coverage. We need to understand that yes, we have freedom of speech and freedom of conscience but that means we have very distinct and strong RESPONSIBILITIES. I completely agree that the leaders should be speaking out against the falsehoods in the movie…
To Ender’s comments, and Matt – you may or may not agree with me here – yes they are responsible for their actions but the maker of that movie bears responsibility for what happened as well. He set out to inflame and defame Islam/Muslims. From what I have read, this was clearly not a “oops” but a calculated, manipulative setting out to offend Islam. The reports from the actors make that clear.