The Alan Roberts film, The
Innocence of Muslims, is blamed for numerous violent outbreaks throughout
the world. Many in the media have said
that he pushed the boundaries of freedom of speech and should have been
censored (by whom is unclear). While we can
debate the merits of the film, the fact that people are seriously discussing
censorship only shows that the terrorists have won. Recently, Channel 4 in Britain aired a
historical documentary on the origins of Islam, Islam: The Untold Story – the same sort of documentary that has
been done of pretty much every other major religion. The response of some in the Muslim community
was to threaten the life of the producer, Tom Holland. Channel 4 decided against re-airing the
documentary as previously planned. http://www.channel4.com/programmes/islam-the-untold-story/articles/tom-holland-responds-to-the-programmes-critics
The documentary is available on Youtube, but not in the US: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dm8xKh8eQqU However, it is available at LiveLeak: http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=578_1347455615&comments=1.
As a historian, I quite enjoyed how the documentary shows
the process of historical research, especially the emphasis on primary sources
(written documents, but also including coins).
It is a typical British documentary with a hodgepodge of images and a
slightly pretentious narrative. The
documentary raises issues about the origins of Islam in a secular, historical
manner rather than religious. There are
a few places where I, a historian, but not an expert, have some questions about
Holland’s conclusions but not about his methodologies. Reasonable individuals discuss and even
debate these questions of interpretation.
We do not threaten to kill each.
Western society, in some misguided attempt to be polite, is
letting the unreasonable ruin our lives.
As I’ve noted before (http://aspatula.blogspot.com/2008/02/europe-is-dead.html),
Europe is appeasing itself out of existence, and I have to believe that the US
is only slightly behind. I am appalled
when I read that some persons, even those in the media (the persons most likely
to value freedom of expression) and government, want to censor what we say
(and, for that matter, believe) out of fear of offending a few psychopaths. We’re giving up one of our most cherished
freedoms in order not to offend a fringe group of nuts. Who are the real idiots?
