Speaker’s Corner is a British institution that belongs to the world. Nestled in London’s Hyde Park It is the marketplace of ideas.. It is here that anyone with enough gumption can mount a stepladder and compete for the attention of a garrulous audience that is sure to abuse you. It is the place where freedom of speech reigns supreme and ideas clash noisily. It is a place I always visit when I am in London.
On my last trip to London, I visited Speaker’s Corner on a Sunday, the best day of the week to stop by this peculiar marketplace. Mounting stepladders that morning was the usual collection of various shades of grey but otherwise indistinguishable socialists and an army of theologians.
The two speakers with the largest audiences were theologians. Mr I-have-the-largest-audience was a preacher from Texas. He wore outrageously loud cowboy boots stuffed full of faux jewels. The preacher sermonized on the contributions of the Bible to modern science, which, according to him, far exceed the paltry and errant contributions of the world’s most famous biologists. The Park’s second most popular speaker was the charismatic leader of a cult that believes that Charlie Chaplain is the messiah.
Between the Park’s two popular speakers was an orator struggling for an audience. This speaker was anti-war, anti-government, anti-fish & chips … anti-everything. He began his speech with a vicious attack on Christianity, then mocked the Charlie Chaplain cult, and moved on to insult Alan Watts, then began denigrating Judaism, which was uncalled for because I am a Jew. Mr. Anti-Everything even went so far as to insist that Turkey is a food and not a nation. Then, Mr. Anti-Everything turned his attention to Islam and mocked the Prophet Mohamed.
Most of London seems to be near a Muslim neighborhood. Hyde Park is no different. On this beautiful Sunday morning, some of the Muslim neighbors were at Speaker’s Corner, perhaps waiting for someone among them to draw up enough courage to mount the stepladder. Indifferent when every other religion was abused, the Muslims became enraged when their beliefs were targeted. Violating the sanctity given to speech rights at Speaker’s Corner, the Muslims threaten Mr. Anti-Everything’s life, then rushed him. Without the police and several hefty size weightlifters, Mr. Anti-Everything would have been injured.
Freedom of speech is the cornerstone of a democracy. It is enshrined as a fundamental right in the US Constitution. Yet, at this time, we are not free to speak about certain subjects. Just as Mr. Anti-Everything’s life was threaten, Americans are now threaten with injury and death if the say anything untoward about Islam’s Great Prophet.
Recently, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a former Dutch legislator and Daniel Huff urged Congress to enact legislation that would give legal recourse to someone who was threaten because he or she said something unflattering about the Prophet Mohamed. The law they have proposed allows you to go to court and get and injunction and sue the malefactor for money damages without any proof that you sufferedany actual damages.
I greatly admire Ayaan Hirsi Ali. But, we do not need her law. We already have one that is perfect for the occasion – the Anti-Klan Act, 18 USC 241.
The Anti-Klan Act came in response to Klan terrorism, which was surprisingly similar in many ways to Islamic extremism. The Klan directed violence against African Americans for exercising their fundamental right to vote. Islamic extremists threaten those who exercise their fundamental right to speak unfavorably about the Prophet Mohamed. Both acts are unacceptable. Both violate the sanctity of a fundamental liberty right. Both are civil rights violations.
The Anti-Klan Act makes it a federal crime to:
“… conspire to injure, oppress, threaten, or intimidate any person in any State, Territory, Commonwealth, Possession, or District in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to him by the Constitution or laws of the United States, or because of his having so exercised the same …”
Although the Anti-Klan Act was specifically enacted in response to Klan violence, it has universal application against all orchestrated acts of violence and intimidation in violation of the sanctity of a fundamental democratic civil right.
In 1989, Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa, a religious edict, against the author Salman Rushdie. The Ayatollah was incensed about a passage in Mr. Rushdie’s boo, Satanic Verses, that he deemed sacrilegious. Mr. Rushdie now lives in fear for his life. Two US bookstores carrying his book were blown-up. In 1994, Ayan Hirsi Ali paired up with Dutch artist Theo Van Gogh and made a movie criticizing Islam for mistreating women. At midday in the middle of Amsterdam, a Muslim fanactic who found the movie religiously offensive brutally murdered Mr. Van Gogh.
In 2005, a Danish newspaper published a cartoon image of the Prophet Mohamed wearing a turban with a bomb. Riots following the cartoons publication killed 100 people. The person who drew the cartoon lives in hiding, fearing that he might be killed.
Earlier this year, the irreverent cartoon TV show South Park canceled an episode fearing violence from Muslim extremists. Now, a cartoonist in Seattle lives in hiding in fear of being killed because she suggested a “Everybody Draw Mohamed Day.”
Dr. Cornel West famously observed that 9/11 showed white America what it is like to be an African-American – “unsafe, unprotected, subject to random violence and hatred.”
We do not need two sets of civil rights laws – one for African Americans and the other for the rest of America.
Violence in retaliation for exercising a sanctified fundamental right is a civil rights violation. We already have laws and agencies protecting those rights. We do not need new ones. We simply need to embrace the truth of Dr. West’s observation and the will to vigorously enforce the civil rights laws that are all too often left unenforced.
Comments
Ku Klux Klan act doesnt apply in to case of Islamist threats, its limited to cases of race or other class based discrimination targeting constitutional rights protected from private infringement. (1st amdt. is protection against govt. infringement only). See Bray v. Alexandria Women's Heath Clinic
Dear Anonymous,
Thank you for your comment. Nonetheless, you are mistaken in your legal analysis.
First, Bray is a 1985 case. which is an entirely different statute. Second, Second, even if the Bray rule on 1985 actions drifts on over in the wind and cross pollinates with the Anti-Klan Act, please explain why violence or threats of violence in retaliation for criticizing the Prophet Mohamed would not meet the Brey test.
Your comment illustrates my point. We have many good laws on the books, but they are not vigorously enforced. These laws protect everyone. When we create exceptions and exclusions and refuse to enforce them as they apply to others, we are creating exceptions and exclusions and weakness when your rights are at stake.
oh...I assumed you meant 1985 bc 1983 only applies to public officials (perpetrator must be acting " under color of any statute") so threats from private extremists would not be covered there.
If Bray controls, threats for criticising Mohammed would not be covered bc they are not targeted at the critic BECAUSE OF race or membership in a particular group.
Dear Anonymous,
Last time i checked, religion was still a group. Did the I-only-call-balls-and-strikes Robert court redefined religion?
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