SV: SV: reviews and comments (Freud, Vishnu, Kali, Indus Samskrut)

[Lars Martin Fosse]

rohan.oberoi at CORNELL.EDU [SMTP:rohan.oberoi at CORNELL.EDU] skrev 20. mars
2001 17:39:
> Many European countries have laws in force to the present day,
> criminalising precisely the sort of "right not to be offended" on the
> basis of which Dr. Fosse assigns the entire Muslim population of the
> world (approximately 1.2 billion people) to "disrepute".
>
> I could mention the following articles of the Norwegian Penal Code:
> 95, which punishes insulting the flag of a foreign state with one
> year's imprisonment; 101, which punishes defaming the King or Regent
> with five years; 130, which punishes defaming public authorities with
> one year; 142, which prohibits blasphemy.

Your knowledge of Norwegian law is very commendable. However, these
paragraphs exist for historic reasons. They are never used. When the
Satanic Verses appeared, Norwegian Muslims tried to stop the Norwegian
edition by resorting to paragraph 142. The court decided that the right of
free speech was more important. This was nothing new. The same paragraph
was wilfully brought to the test by the Norwegian writer Arnulf Oeverland
in the 1930's. Oeverland used explicitly blasphemic language and
practically asked for a court case. He got it, and the court decided to
give free speech precedence over blasphemy.

As for flags, I believe the American flag is being burned here quite
regularly. And people on occasion see fit to insult the royal house without
repercussions.

With special reference to
> this question of blasphemy, since the West is claimed to be a society
> "that values free speech higher than religion", the UK has
> successfully prosecuted under the blasphemy laws as recently as 1979,
> and European Court of Human Rights upheld their use by the British
> Board of Film Classification as recently as 1996.

Could you give some more details about the cases in question? In Norway,
the "Life of Brian" was prohibited by the film censor's office when it came
in the seventies because it was regarded as blasphemous, but it was later
shown on TV in the nineties without any paragraphs having been changed.
Instead, perceptions of morality have changed. The same goes for
erotic/pornographic material. The film censor's office primarily existed in
order to protect the Norwegian population agaist excessive violence and
pornography, and "Life of Brian" is the only time it was used against
blasphemy, I believe because of strong protests from Christian milieus.
According to the latest signals, the institution of film censor is now
about to disappear. Mind you: the film censor's office is/was not a court
but a public body that worked according to its own discretion based on
certain general guidelines.

However, Norway does have a paragraph against racism ("the racism
paragraph") which has actually been used. It was a rather extreme case of
racist ideology in an extremist party, and the party leader was convicted
after two court cases, one in a lower court (where he won) and one in
Norway's high court, where he lost by one vote, I believe. The lower court
wanted to uphold the right of free speech, the minority in the high court
wanted the same. If, however, this view had carried the day, the racism
paragraph would have become utterly meaningless.

There have been attempts in parliament to remove the blasphemy paragraph
altogether, but so far this has not happened. There may be people in
parliament who want to keep it in reserve as a legal instrument for future
use, I can only speculate.  If anything, I believe that the other
Scandinavian states are as liberal as Norway, if not more so. So your
argument is null and void as far as Scandinavia is concerned. You also have
to show that the blasphemy paragraph not only exists, but is used in
practice to establish your case when other Western states are concerned.
Apparently, you can do so for Britain. If you have more cards up you
sleeve, please show them.

And that's without
> even mentioning how Western societies punish free speech when it
> conflicts with commercial interest (more of a "sacred cow" than
> religion) as in the case of Jon Johansen.

I am not familiar with this case.

> Free speech is an issue that all societies deal with.  Caricatured
> stereotypes about "the Western person's" approach contrasted with the
> "disreputable" Muslim's serve only to distort the issue.

I still claim that the Rushdie affair had a very unfortunate effect on
Muslim reputation (just as the recent blowing up of the Buddha statues in
Bamiyan). In Norway, the effect was immediate. Groups that had either
actively supported or passively tolerated Muslims until then, suddenly
became very critical of them. Since then, Norwegian authorities and press
have constantly been exerting pressure on the local Muslims for various
reasons such as arranged marriages (usually referred to as "forced
marriages"), female circumcision etc. Before the Rushdie affair, informed
people preferred to look the other way and leave it to Asian and African
immigrants to "modernize" in peace. When you are in a Muslim country, you
should preferably not spend your days chasing pigs into mosques. In the
West, the fatwa against Rushdie was such a pig, and the reaction was
accordingly.

Please remember that most Westerners do not see Muslims as members of
diversified groups of very different persuasions. Westerners tend to lump
them all together, and this means that when a group of Muslims commit an
obnoxious act, all tend to get blamed. This is obviously unfair, but it is
the way things are. Even in India, where Hindu nationalist don't seem
awfully preoccupied with giving nuanced accounts of Muslim attitudes and
behaviour. Would you claim that Muslims have gained respect in Western
societies during the last years? My impression is that this is not the
case, but that is admittedly based on casual observation. If you have hard
facts to the contrary, please show them.

I have a feeling that you read me the way a certain man reads the Bible. I
am not going to make a song and dance about it, I regard it more as your
problem than mine, but it would be nice for the debate if you your
interpretations of my attitudes and words were less "twisted" in a certain
direction.

All the best,

Lars Martin Fosse


Dr. art. Lars Martin Fosse
Haugerudvn. 76, Leil. 114,
0674 Oslo
Norway
Phone: +47 22 32 12 19
Mobile phone: +47 90 91 91 45
Fax 1:  +47 22 32 12 19
Fax 2:  +47 85 02 12 50 (InFax)
Email: lmfosse at online.no