"Freedom of expression is important, but more important is what is holy for me"

(Originally posted November 18, 2005)

Now there is truly a statement that can feed your thoughts ...These were the words used by the Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and they were caused by cartoonists' impressions of the profet Muhammed in a Danish newspaper.

Denmark - represented by it's prime minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen - one of the countries achieving the highest scores in the world on press freedom is currently under verbal and diplomatic attack from most major muslim nations in the world, those amongst the lowest scorers in this category, exactly on the issue of press freedom. The problem? There is simply too much of it in Denmark.

According to muslims it is a sacrilege to depict the profet and the Turkish Prime Minister is very upset that the "Danish government did not express solidarity. If someone had said, that this was not the official position [what exactly "this" refers to is unclear - N.M.] then we would have felt that the newspaper was isolated. When you don't say anything it is either because you are ashamed [sic] or because you agree. [again, exactly with what one agrees is unclear N.M.] If you had been opposed to the cartoons, you would have said it."

The problem is, of course, that there is nothing to oppose. You may like the cartoons or not or maybe just be indifferent, just as with any other cartoon, but what is there to oppose? If the Danish Prime Minister were to officially oppose the fact that they appeared in a newspaper it would constitute an attempt to gag the press or require it to impose self censorship.

It seems as if the part of the muslim community, which has spoken out against Mr. Rasmussen has not understood this, or simply refuses to acknowledge this as a problem. The latter reason would be less surprising than the former.

Freedom of Expression is perhaps the crux of the culture clash which is becoming increasingly more evident between democracies (not the ones that just pay lipservice to the term) and the world, currently the muslim part, in which faith matters more than free thinking people.

Lack of this basic freedom is arguably the main cause for individual suffering imposed by governments on their citizens in the Middle East and Africa but also in Russia and even more so in China.

On a much smaller scale look at the suffering of Valerie Plame and her husband. It is based on the fact that Mr. Wilson used his freedom of speach against his own government. To that government their version of the story of Iraq is holy... I want to mention that case, but let us be careful not to let anybody use it as a cover excuse for much worse suffering in other places around the world.

I would really like to ask Mr. Erdogan what should happen to freedom of expression when confronted with a ruler to whom power is holy, or to whom his fortunes aquired through criminal activities are holy, or to whom the one-party state is holy. I could go on.

The thing is Mr. Erdogan, I would explain politely, there is no conjugation for the term "freedom of expression".

"Freedom of expression is important, but more important is freedom of expression" I would say.

But hey, that's just me talking.