Call a Terrorist a 'Savage'? How Uncivilized
An anti-jihad message is 'hate speech' by today's
topsy-turvy standards.
By
WILLIAM MCGURN
"In any war between the civilized man and the savage,
support the civilized man. Support Israel. Defeat Jihad."
So reads an advertisement that went up a week ago in New
York City subway stations. Sponsored by Pamela Geller's American Freedom
Defense Initiative, the ads were meant to provoke, and they did. Denunciations
poured in, activists plastered "racist" and "hate speech"
stickers over the ads, and an Egyptian-American activist even got herself
arrested after spray-painting one poster pink.
Establishment opinion quickly rallied to a consensus. As the
Washington Post put it, while the words could be read as "hateful,"
"an offensive ad" nonetheless has the "right to offend." A
rabbi summed up the media orthodoxy in the headline over her column for CNN:
"A right to hate speech, a duty to condemn."
Certainly that's one way to read this ad. Then again, most
Americans probably read it the way it is written: Israel is a civilized nation
under attack from people who do savage things in the name of jihad. Whatever
the agenda of those behind this ad might be, the question remains: What part of
that statement is not true?
Ah, but the use of the word "jihad" inherently
indicts all Muslims, say the critics. There are millions of peaceful Muslims
for whom jihad means only a spiritual quest. So why do so many people associate
jihad with murder and brutality?
Might it be because violence is so often the jihadist's
calling card? Might it be that some of these killers even incorporate the word
jihad into the name of their terror organizations, e.g., Palestinian Islamic
Jihad? [Ed. Note - the group that murdered Alisa Flatow] That may not be the exclusive meaning of jihad, but surely it is one
meaning—and the one that New York subway riders are most likely to bring to the
word.
The same goes for "savage." Exhibit A is Oxford's
online dictionary, which defines a savage as "a brutal or vicious
person." There are innumerable Exhibit Bs, but let me invoke one of the most
powerful.
This is a Reuters photo that ran on the New York Times front
page for Sept. 1, 2004. It shows an Israeli bus after it had been blown up by a
suicide bomber. Neither bloody nor gory, the photo is nonetheless deeply
disturbing, because it shows the lifeless body of a young woman hanging out a
window.
The Times news story added this detail about the reaction to
that attack. "In Gaza," ran the report, "thousands of supporters
of Hamas celebrated in the streets, and the Associated Press reported that one
of the bombers' widows hailed the attack as 'heroic' and said her husband's
soul was 'happy in heaven.' " What part of any of this is not savage?
Two years ago, Time magazine ran a cover photo of an
18-year-old Afghan woman whose nose and ears had been cut off by the Taliban.
This weekend, an al Qaeda-affiliated jihadist group in Kenya threw grenades
into an Anglican church, killing a 9-year-old boy attending Sunday school. In
light of these atrocities, "savage" seems profoundly inadequate.
The point is that what makes someone a savage is not the
religion he professes. It's the actions he takes. Notwithstanding the many Jews
and Christians who have been attacked, those bearing the brunt of this savagery
are innocent Muslims who find themselves targeted—at their mosques, in their
markets, at a wedding reception—simply because they belong to the wrong
political party or religious tradition.
The people of Libya appear to understand this better than
the president of the United States. The Libyans know that a civilized society
is one where the strong protect the weak. In July they voted for such a future
when they rejected Islamic radicals in their first free elections since
toppling the dictator Moammar Gadhafi. The Libyans' problem is that the
extremists are better armed and better organized than their elected government,
which leaves the strong free to prey upon the weak.
Back home in America, amid all the gooey indignation about
how the subway ads are hate speech but must be defended, the idea seems to have
taken hold that the beauty of the First Amendment is that we get to insult each
other's religions. Certainly that's sometimes the price of the First Amendment.
Its glory, however, is as the cornerstone for a self-governing, free society
whose citizens know that someone saying something disgusting about your faith
is no excuse for murder.
What a curiosity our new political correctness has made of
our public spaces. Let your sex tape loose on the Internet and be rewarded with
your own TV show; photograph a crucifix in a jar of urine and our museums will
vie to exhibit it; occupy someone else's property and you will be hailed by the
president for your keen social conscience.
But call people who blow up, behead and mutilate
"savage"—and polite society will find you offensive.
##
I couldn't agree more. Thanks Mr. McGurn.
Stephen M. Flatow
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