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Abu Ghraib the sequel: A few rotten apples quickly grow into an orchard
Unsurprisingly, despite all the heat and noise generated about the appalling events at Abu Ghraib, recently published documents reveal widespread abuses have continued at US bases all across Iraq, from Mahmoudiya and
Karbala to Diwaniya. As in Abu Ghraib, the details include US soldiers carrying out mock executions on Iraqis and photos of tortured prisoners being electrocuted and set on fire.The documents were made public due to a lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union under US freedom of information legislation, forcing the Pentagon to release the information. According to the documents, US naval investigators have been swamped by allegations and are struggling to keep pace with an "exploding" number of "high-visibility" cases. In all, about three dozen prisoners are believed to have died in US custody in Iraq and Afghanistan; one prisoner suffered seconddegree
burns to the back of his hand after a Marine guard had sprayed him with alcohol-based cleaning fluid and then set him alight with a match.A few rotten apples in the US military are quickly growing into an orchard.
The New York Times provided new details and confirmed earlier accounts of conditions at Guantanamo Bay, in interviews with intelligenceofficers and interrogators formerly based there.They spoke of inmates being shackled for hours and left to soil themselves while exposed to blaring music or the insistent meowing of a cat-food commercial. In addition, some may have been forcibly given enemas as a punishment. One former interrogator estimated that, while all detainees were threatened with harsh tactics if they did not cooperate, about one in six were eventually subjected to these procedures.When new interrogators arrived they were told they had great flexibility in extracting information from detainees because the Geneva Conventions did not apply at the base.
Supporters of the coalition's policy persist in claiming that the abusers constitute a small minority and, unlike life under Saddam or the Taliban, they have been subject to the rule of law. They also contend that there is no
moral equivalence between a small number of rogue soldiers who have been investigated, tried and convicted and the hundreds of 'terrorist insurgents' who have killed innocent Iraqis and beheaded civilian hostages.Though this
argument is often cited, it ignores two important issues about the Iraqi and Afghan occupations. Firstly, the benchmark for civilised behaviour should not be the vicious torture chambers of Saddam, but a set of higher standards that should elevate rather than degenerate human life. Secondly, American excesses have been justified on the basis that despite the errors and blunders that have occurred, their rule is a significant improvement on the cruelty of Saddam or the Taliban. But this modest claim is undermined by the West's continued support of oppressive regimes in Tashkent, Algiers and elsewhere. In one respect the apologists are correct however, there is no moral equivalence between those who instigate an illegal, imperialist invasion and those who lawfully resist.We can certainly sign up to the validity of the principle of resisting occupation without having to agree with every act done in its name.
Offending the many or free speech for the few?
Another incident to goad the free speech brigade into battle was the cancellation of Behzti (dishonour), a play that contained scenes of murder and sexual abuse in a Sikh temple. The Sikh community had demanded the play be rewritten on the basis that the incidents took place in a holy place, while the theatre and their female Sikh playwright refused, citing the importance of the subject and the dangers of censorship. After some protestors vandalised areas of the theatre, the management decided to cancel the play based on health and safety grounds; the police denied that they had put pressure on the management to make that decision. Following its cancellation, the play has been discussed in the context of the murder of Theo Van Gogh in the Netherlands and the Satanic Verses controversy back in the Eighties. As Hanif Kureishi put it, to liberals the closure and defiling of a theatre is akin to the closure and defiling of a temple for the religious. As far as he is concerned, "a theatre is a temple," thus for the secular masses, free expression in print, on stage or on screen is in fact sacrosanct. Muriel Gray elaborates on the importance of this in the Sunday Herald writing,"This is sacred because, like freedom to worship, free speech has been fought for with the sacrifice of lives and the passion of nations. To have it desecrated, by the victory of thugs who threatened theatregoers with death for daring to see one woman's valid expression about abuse, is a blasphemy on a parallel to anything the fundamentalist zealots in this country can conjure up as "offensive".
Kureishi's and Gray's point goes to the heart of the debate. Liberalism is the new religion of the post-enlightenment world and, like other believers, its millions of reverent followers have been willing to make the ultimate sacrifice to defend it against threats, be they ideological or military. Indeed, according to George Bush and Tony Blair, the defence of liberty is the philosophical underpinning of the War on Terror, and they have frequently invoked the memory of the two world wars to underline what price has been paid for that cause in the past. However, just because something is considered precious and worth dying for does not make it necessarily correct, as people are prepared to die for all sorts of things. What makes a philosophy or a religion correct is its ability to stand up to ruthless rational and intellectual examination, this is how communism was discredited and where liberalism is beginning to be found wanting.
This is because liberalism contains an uneasy contradiction between the right of an individual to act and the right of others not to be harmed. As John Stuart Mill states in On Liberty, "The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilised community, against his will is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant." But when applied practically to real-life dilemmas, this succinct expression of the liberal creed is found wanting. Under the 'prevention of harm' principle, only physical harm or destruction of property is given consideration, so there should be no bar on speech that causes psychological distress, offence, disgust or inconvenience. If this yardstick were applied it would lead to a lot of unpalatable consequences, at least in the view of the majority of people outside the liberal elite. Laws against downloading or viewing child pornography, taking drugs or even not wearing a seatbelt, prohibit actions that involve no direct harm to others. In the main however these laws enjoy broad popular support, and it is inconceivable that the legal position on these matters could change in the near future, despite the fact that they contradict the basic tenets of liberalism.
Conversely, there are actions that do cause harm to others but are not illegal. Under government proposals, in future it will be illegal to smoke in bars and restaurants, but lighting up at home in front of the kids will still be fine. Parents can smack children as long as they use 'reasonable force', yet if teachers do the same this would constitute assault. When the government considers encroaching on these 'liberties', people talk of a nanny state, but it could be argued that such legislation would pass the 'prevention of harm' test.
It is odd that the strongest support for the principle of free speech comes from people who support the tax system being used to redistribute wealth. Yet progressive taxation to redistribute wealth clearly requires financial 'harm' for the wealthy in order to benefit deprived groups. However the liberals who support the welfare state argue that it is worth it since society benefits as a whole. If this rationale is accepted for taxation, then why not apply it to free expression, where the harm of censoring the free speech of the few is outweighed by the benefit of preventing a larger group from being offended. In order to prevent their viewers or readers from being traumatised, the mainstream media decided not to show pictures of the dead in Iraq therby curtailing the freedom of expression of journalists and the freedom to be informed about the horrors of war. Despite this attack on free expression and the absence of physical harm, very little criticism has been made against the BBC, ITN, SKY or the print media for their acts of censorship. Secular liberals it seems still prefer the red meat of battles over free expression with their traditional enemy of religion. Yet a greater introspection of their own instances of censorship and the reasons behind it may provoke more enlightened thinking on this complex subject.
This is not to say that there are straightforward answers to any of these issues. However the myth that liberalism and the enlightenment thinkers have all the answers and those who oppose them are medieval barbarians or philistines as Gray asserts needs to be put to rest.
The balance between security and other values
On December 16th, a landmark legal judgement in the House of Lords concluded that the British Government's indefinite internment of foreign prisoners at HMP Belmarsh was incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), irrational, disproportionate and discriminatory. The Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001 passed shortly after 9-11 allowed the authorities to imprison foreign terror suspects without charge or trial. In a 8-1 verdict the Law Lords decision was damning, with Lord Scott of Foscote saying the following, "Indefinite imprisonment in consequence of a denunciation on grounds that are not disclosed and made by a person whose identity cannot be disclosed is the stuff of nightmares, associated whether accurately or inaccurately with France before and during the Revolution, with Soviet Russia in the Stalinist era and now associated, as a result of section 23 of the 2001 Act,with the United Kingdom". Home Office minister Hazel Blears indicated that the government would wait
for parliament to decide what to do, adding, "Our over-riding concern is the protection of this nation." Jack Straw was blunter, stating that the Lords had got it wrong and that the state's primary responsibility was to protect life, as this constituted the 'most important liberty.' Yet it is difficult to square this stance with the fact that one detainee was allowed to leave voluntarily to reside in France, strange treatment for 'an international terror suspect' so dangerous that special legal measures were required to hold him. As the evidence is secret, internment also requires us to trust the very same intelligence and security establishment that was so completely wrong with respect to Iraqi WMDs.
In passing the legislation, the British Parliament opted out of Article 5 of the ECHR, which covers the right to liberty, yet despite the constitutional and political significance of this step, the act was swiftly passed by both houses of parliament in a mere two months. Compare this to the more contentious, yet less constitutionally significant hunting legislation, which had to be railroaded into royal assent through the use of the 1949 Parliament act. The lack of proper parliamentary scrutiny on such an important issue shows us the capricious temper of western legislative bodies in times of peril. Suspending habeus corpus to protect the nation is a difficult issue and certainly a more informed debate should take place to determine where the right balance sits between security and other rights. Politicians, especially ones of international stature such as Jack Straw, should bear this complexity in mind before they simplistically beat the human rights, liberty and democracy drum abroad.
Is freedom of speech the primary societal objective
In the same week that Hazel Blears and Jack Straw (see above) argued that national security should be the over-riding concern, even trumping individual freedom, Charles Moore was arguing for the primacy of freedom, in the context of speech and expression.
In a provocative article in the Daily Telegraph, Moore claimed that calling the Prophet Muhammad a paedophile (something he himself does not believe) would contravene proposed legislation outlawing incitement to religious hatred.Moore raises a serious point, individuals convicted under the new legislation could receive up to seven years in prison, a sentence significantly more than the growing number of paedophiles in Britain usually get.
Yet Moore, and the countless others from Polly Toynbee on the left to David Davis on the right, fail to appreciate that there is no sacred reason why freedom of speech should trump every other consideration in a society. It certainly doesn’t in Britain, where libel laws, incitement to racial hatred, national security and states of emergencies are used frequently to curtail the print and electronic media. The French parliament recently adopted legislation that could lead to custodial sentences of up to one year for anyone found guilty of insulting homosexuals or women. Holocaust denial for instance is an offence that can lead to imprisonment in several European countries, including Germany, Austria and Lithuania.A number of individuals have been sentenced and served jail terms, especially in Germany, for indulging in this proscribed form of free expression.
There are many important legislative aims that a society may want to seek, such as the protection of life, reputation, property, the protection of a nation’s core beliefs and values and the mind.These are the objectives that the Islamic legislation seeks to protect, at the same time that it guarantees the right to discuss ideas, engage in debates, criticise the ruler and challenge corruption. The idea that if you oppose freedom of speech being the primary societal objective, you somehow believe in no speech and a closed authoritarian society is not correct.A healthy society will have an atmosphere where ideas can be challenged and new ones put forward, a necessary precursor to intellectual and material progress, but at the same time it must be also mindful that there are other key objectives it may need to promote.
Turkey the Islamic trojan horse?
The conclusion of the EU summit in Brussels on December 17th could be the beginning of a new era in Turkey’s relationship with Europe, as the country was formally given the go-ahead to begin the process that should eventually, lead it to full EU membership. The process commences in October 2005 when Turkey begins the official steps necessary to bring into force 80,000 pages of regulations in order to bring its institutions and legislation into conformity with EU standards. Judging by the example of the most recent entrants, this process will consume around 3-4% of Turkey’s GDP annually. Despite the massive changes and the expense necessary to meet the requisite standards, there are no guarantees that the final result will be a lowering of the drawbridge granting Turkish access to Fortress EU. Since the 25 existing members all hold the right of veto against expansion, the odds are still stacked against Turkey.
There are three main objections that Turkey must overcome in order to be successful. Firstly there is the fear that, with its low GDP per-capita and high unemployment, Turkish membership will flood the EU with low-wage economic migrants. The EU summit agreed that there should be ‘permanent safeguards’ against this, but the form that these might take is a potential deal-breaker. Also, the issue of relations with the Greek half of Cyprus, now a full EU member, will present particularly thorny problems. The demand that Turkey sign a customs union with all 25 members of the EU as a precondition for the accession process, which could mean tacit, but official, recognition of Greek Cyprus by the Turkish government, nearly derailed the entire summit. This deal has been delayed by a few months, but it has the potential to lead to any number of demands from the Greek Cypriot administration, most important that Turkey no longer recognise the Turkish Cyprus state.
In addition, there are the concerns that as a predominantly Muslim country, Turkey represents an Islamic Trojan horse imperilling Europe’s security and way of life. Austria’s Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel, as the staunchest opponent of Turkish accession, announced that his country would hold a referendum on the issue, aware of the overwhelming opposition among his electorate. Even one of Turkey’s main supporters, President Jacques Chirac, has attempted to assuage French concerns by arguing that the beginning of talks does not automatically lead to membership. All in all, though there has been enthusiasm from the British, French and German governments, the number of reservations and concerns seems insurmountable. As Jean-Claude Juncker, Luxembourg's prime minister commented, according to Deutche Welle, “no one is very enthusiastic, but no one has the heart to say it.”
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