charged with defaming Islam...

This is a sobering tale which is still unfolding. I catches my eye because, as some of you know, I am prepared and have been somewhat critical of Islam though not without acknowledging certain caveats too. SO I'm wondering, with a UK bill on the way in respect of inctiement to religious hatred, just what constitutes things like defamation of Islam and could be construed incitement to religious hatred. I actually felt that reading these words in the article helped me to answer those questions.

"In 'La Forza della Ragione,' Fallaci wrote that terrorists had killed 6,000 people over the past 20 years in the name of the Koran and said the Islamic faith 'sows hatred in the place of love and slavery in the place of freedom.' State prosecutors originally dismissed accusations of defamation from an Italian Muslim organization, and said Fallaci should not stand trial because she was merely exercising her right to freedom of speech. But a preliminary judge in the northern Italian city of Bergamo, Armando Grasso, rejected the prosecutors advice at a hearing on Tuesday and said Fallaci should be indicted. Grasso's ruling homed in on 18 sentences in the book, saying some of Fallaci's words were 'without doubt offensive to Islam and to those who practice that religious faith.'"

If the words quoted from the book are atthe nub of the issue then I think I can see the problem. I think that I would not want to write what Fallaci apparently wrote [without the original context I am wondering how weel the quote in the article context represents the author's thought]. To say that Islam as a whole does those things is risky. Clearly there are people who understand themselves as Muslims who do not recognise their faith in that description and feel affronted and defamed by it. I think I could only go as far as I did in my last blog posting onthe subject, where I think I conveyed the idea that I could understand where the jahdists got their theological justification from and that the resources they draw on from the Muslim traditions and scriptures do seem to need careful handling becasue they are close to the centre of the way that many Muslims have been encouraged to thinkabout their faith. But you see by saying that I am putting distance between a reading and particular handling of those foundational faith documents and principles and the use made of them by various groups. I do recognise that they do not represent all Muslims [far from it] even if it seems to me that there is a difficult hermeneutical task being faced by the moderates, the fact is that there are moderates for that task to be difficult for.

I may further want to say that it seems to me that it is easier in Islam to find stuff to justify a Jihadist approach than to do something similar in Christianity. This represents my understanding that the most central documents to the Christian faith -Christ the Word and the witness of the Gospels to that Word made flesh- are at first and cursory glance hostile to lethal violence and aggressive conduct whereas the Qur'an is, at first sight with untutored eye more supportive of aggression in some circumstances and to lethal exercise of justice in others.

It's at this point that it becomes a difficult tussle between freedom of opinion and defamation. To avoid defamation I think one has to demonstrate the accuracy of the statements [I suspect like libel and slander in UK law] and I'm not sure that Ms Fallaci can do that; she has overgeneralised. Perhaps she should have written it in a novel, after all I'm pretty sure Dan Brown would be able to present the fictional nature of his work as a defence if a Catholic organisation in Italy decided to have a go at him for the Da Vinci code! As to inciting religious hatred. That is more difficult because, if I understand it rightly, it is akin to the anti-harrassment codes that are used in UK workplaces and educational establishments where the basis for a charge is that the alleged victim feels harrassed. It is then up to the adjudicating body to decide whether this was reasonable in the circumstances. The reason for doing that, presumably is to make suire that potential victims of harrassment and bullying don't have to equivocate about doing something about bullying or harrassment, they can go and try to get something done with a presumption that if they feel harrassed then there is something that needs to be done -though what should be the proper response is what needs exploring in the ensuing process.

However it does put us in the tricky situation of oversensitive people who really cannot easily endure other people having different ideas to them about matters they hold sacred being able to take a pop at others who conscientiously hold a different view. Which amounts to stifling freedom of speech. It looks like it could play out in this kind of way: A Christian says that they believe Jesus to be the Son of God [a straightforward blasphemy in Islam as usually understood] and that consequently they believe that Mohammed could not be a true prophet. The latter is one logical outcome of an understanding of the respective positions of Christianity and Islam. A group of Muslims hears this and feels harrassed because their prophet has been defamed. They believe that this statement incites religious hatred because of the disrespect it nurtures towards their prophet. Prima facie, I suspect they have a case. It will be up to the courts to work through that kind of issue and I feel almost confident that it will work out reasonably.

However I also extrapolate from the reactions I have witnessed amongst some Muslims to suppose that such a case is likely sooner or later to be attempted as a means to stifle what I regard as legitimate criticism of of Islam. The cultural difficulty seems to be that many Muslims have backgrounds in societies and commuities where criticism of Islam, of the kind normally expected by Christians of their faith, is not allowed and thesanctions against it can be relatively severe either officially or informally. It is a small step from not being able to express a difference of opinion about a religious matter to the loss of freedom of conscience. This is what set off the whole secular state approach to things as enshrined in the USA's constitution [supposedly] the need to recognise that stifling debate and imposing religion was no way to run a country for all its citizens. As the Qur'an puts it: 'there is no coercion in religion' -but that was a Meccan sura and trumped by Medinan polity, more's the pity.

Anyway it will mean that we need to be a little more careful how we might voice or write any criticisms of other faiths and be sure that we are really making accurate and defensible statements, but to be honest we should be doing that anyhow.
Fallaci charged in Italy with defaming Islam: