Tens of thousands of French people have taken to the streets
to demonstrate in favour of free speech. The French Government has responded
robustly to the murder of a French teacher, Samuel Paty, who was killed by a
Chechen extremist for showing cartoons of the Muslim Prophet Muhammad to his
freedom of speech class.
The French Government and people have almost
universally expressed their solidarity with the M. Paty. No one has questioned
his right to show such cartoons. But what would happen to a teacher in a
Scottish school who did the same thing? If parents or pupils complained about
the class, would the Scottish Government be quite so robust in defending
freedom of expression? The answer of course is no.
A Scottish teacher who showed his class cartoons of
Muhammad would I strongly suspect be sacked instantly. He might also be
prosecuted under Humza Yousaf’s hate crime laws. Mr Yousaf has recently made a
few concessions to his bill. He now says that the hate crime legislation would
only cover offences where the stirring up of hatred was intentional.
But M. Paty was apparently aware that his freedom of
speech class was stirring up hatred. He was threatened by extremists and warned
to desist. Nevertheless, he continued with his classes because he believed freedom
of speech was more important than these threats. Well when someone his warned
that his action is causing hatred and continues to do it, it is reasonable to
assume a degree of intent. He didn’t just accidentally show the cartoons while
being ignorant of the possible consequences of doing so.
Humza Yousaf’s bill is intended to protect people with
certain characteristics (race, disability, age, religion, sexual orientation,
transgender) from hate crimes. There is an offence of stirring up hatred
against them.
But what if the terrorist lived in Scotland and instead
of cutting off the head of a Scottish teacher had instead complained to Mr
Yousaf about it. What would Mr Yousaf’s response have been. Would he have sided
with the teacher or instead have sided with the refugee from Chechnya who was
complaining that the Scottish teacher was stirring up hatred?
The issue of intent has nothing to do with the
substance of the issue. I should of course commit no crime against anyone
whether or not they have any of the protected characteristics. It is wrong and
it ought to be illegal to vandalise a mosque, a church or a temple. It is wrong
to assault, murder or steal from someone who is homosexual or old. It is wrong
to shout at someone on the street because they are black or French. But it is
wrong to do any of these things to an ordinary house or an ordinary person who
doesn’t have any of these characteristics.
Freedom of expression does not give me the right to go
into a Church and say horrible things to the people taking part in a service.
Nor does it give me the right to vandalise or desecrate the church. But freedom
of expression ought to give me the right to write about Christianity in any way
I please. It ought to give me the right to depict Jesus and other figures of Christianity
in a way that I know Christians would find hateful.
I am a Christian, but I do not object to people telling
me that Christianity is lies and nonsense. I do not object to people depicting
Jesus in cartoons or in ways that I disagree with. Let them make films or draw
cartoons, say or do what they want. It does not affect what I believe.
Intent has nothing to do with it. Of course, those
people who say Christianity is lies and nonsense intend Christians to be
offended. What would be the point of writing arguments against Christianity if
they did not?
The whole point of freedom of expression is that it can
offend. If I use reasoned argument to say that I don’t think it is possible for
a man to become a woman, this will cause offence to some people. Some of them
will hate what I say. They may correctly argue that I intended to stir up
hatred and indeed succeeded. Well what I wrote wasn’t accidental. So too I
might argue that it is an absurd misunderstanding of the verb “to marry” to
suppose that a man can marry a man. Some people will find that hateful. Do they
have the right to stop me writing it?
A free society is one in which there are differences
of opinion and where people are allowed to hold views which other people think
are hateful. But this is not the direction in which SNP Scotland is going.
The whole idea that people ought to be protected from
hearing or reading views that they find hateful is mistaken and deeply wrong.
The French understand this. They defend the right to offend. Humza Yousaf and
the SNP are becoming ever more authoritarian. It is quite unimaginable that
there would be a free speech class in a Scottish school, because neither Mr
Yousaf nor the SNP believe in free speech.
So, I would like to ask Mr Yousaf if M. Paty was Scottish and showed cartoons of Muhammad in a Scottish school would you say he had the right to do so or would you prosecute him and send him to jail? The answer to this question really determines whether Scotland is still part of the Western world or whether we are moving somewhere else.
