Hicham Maged's blog Inquisitive curiosity paves knowledge path

Hunting Freedom of Speech

I have been following the controversial regarding the case of “freedom of speech” since some time ago and found it interesting yet something vital is missing in the controversy. The concept can be summarized into the following statement: “No one should be morally persecuted for (and she) opinion regarding whatever as he (and she) is free to criticize the others even if this offend them.” Hence, In this blog entry I am looking for what is missing so let me start with some definitions of my own.

Hunting Freedom of Speech's bird

Freedom of Speech Bird: A Perspective

What about defining freedom at first? I have previously modeled this in my published article over I-MAG Magazine as follows: “freedom is as a bird that has two wings and flies within a certain medium while heading towards a final destination.” Allow me elaborate more on the terminology mentioned up:

• The two wings are sense and responsibly.
• The medium is the freewill of the people, and;
• The destination is the welfare of a certain community on the minor scale, and mankind on the major one.

Hence, freedom itself is not the ultimate goal as many people think everywhere while discussing this case; rather it is the right and righteous path for reaching the desired destination. Nevertheless, the critical point which I found absent and fogged during the freedom of speech controversial is that criticizing people acts is totally different from offending them in terms of what they believe in regardless the race and religion, and this leads to hunting the bird of freedom and speech not defending!

Exposing Stereotypes and Misconceptions Cliché

On the other hand, I do believe as a Muslim that neither inspecting the beliefs nor judging people’s intentions is my ultimate business; it is none. We should rather be concerned only about two the acts which are the practiced actions that either can be right or wrong; yet only the awareness of the civil society is capable of filtering the right acts from the wrong ones and this should be broadened and not suppressed.

This shed lights on why I criticized Slaman Rushdi’s Satanic Verses, Jyllands-Posten’s Muhammad Cartoons, Greet Wilders’ Fitna Movie and any stereotyping-misconceptions products that not merely flux wrong acts committed by some Muslims with the ideology of Islam, but mainly portray “this is Islam plus this is Muhammad prefabricated cliché” This attitude of hunting freedom of speech’s bird – in the light of my perspective – makes me wonders about why people are only highlighting on this side and do not shed lights over the other one?

The other side tell us about the revelation from Almighty Allah (swt) to Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) as Mercy upon Mankind for reaching the noble goal of urbanizing Earth. This requires the integration of people who are different either on faith or race and hence welcoming the differences of our culture while looking forward for achieving respect that lead to exist together and not the contrary as we see nowadays.

In the light of this, my criticism for terrorism is harder regardless whoever committed under any race or faith. Any human being shall be anti-terrorism in case he (and she) went through using their minds in a rational way through our human intellect. Hereby, this critique is not merely because terrorism is illegal act against other humans but mainly because it reflects barrenness of terrorists to produce effective opinions and hence they used a short-cut: “kill them all” cliché.

Well Mr. Smart, I wonder what you can tell me when you know – but twist – the fact about how Islam denies terrorism since Islam encourages urbanizing Earth. Hence, this shall lead us to understand that it is neither Islam’s nor Muhammad’s fault but rather it is ignorance on both sides of Islamophobia plus ugly terrorism that acts in the scary movie and where you find extremism is committed by them as I elaborated before.

In a nutshell, I feel sorrow for those who are committing not only the generalizing sin but also the mix sin between ideologies and how some people apply their own version of them, which is much bitter indeed. We have minds to think rationally and hence our human intellect shall help us to understand better and learn how to live together!

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Tags: anti terrorism, human intellect, islamophobia, multiculturalism
Categories: Critiques
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