On Valentine’s Day, 1989, Salman Rushdie received a phone call from a BBC journalist asking what it felt like to have a death warrant issued against him.
He responded, predictably, that it didn’t feel amazing. Earlier that day, Iran’s religious leader, the Ayatollah Khomeini, had declared Rushdie’s novel, "The Satanic Verses," to be blasphemous.
A leader in the late 20th century accused a novelist of a 14th century crime.
The novel, according to the Ayatollah, was blasphemous against the prophet (even though it was a reimagining of a story well known to scholars of Islam), and therefore the novelist should be killed. Though attempts on the novelist’s life were unsuccessful, numerous translators, editors and sellers were attacked or killed.
In a free society, there are two inherent rights that deserve to be protected: life and liberty. If voices are allowed to be silenced through attacks such as the ones against "The Satanic Verses" or Charlie Hebdo, then both life and liberty are threatened.
The chief liberty afforded to citizens in a free society is the right to free speech, which is inclusive of the right to offend. Without the right to limitlessly offend, there would be no change in the cultural status quo.
For a long time, it was considered offensive for anyone to presume that the sun does not revolve around the Earth. This, too, was once considered blasphemy.
As Mr. Rushdie wrote earlier this month in defense of Charlie Hebdo, “'respect for religion’ has become a code phrase meaning ‘fear of religion.’ Religions, like all other ideas, deserve criticism, satire, and, yes, our fearless disrespect.”
This right to offend is also inclusive of things that we do not want to hear. Hate groups like the KKK must be allowed to speak. Those who protested against Rushdie’s book must be allowed to speak. It is OK to disagree with a thought, but to attempt to silence it is a violent crime against humanity.
Unlike the right to offend, there is no right to not be offended. Regardless of the institution or people the material might be offending, the material has the right to exist, and the author has the right to live without fear of being silenced.
This does not mean that everyone must accept whatever anyone says. Free speech does not mean freedom from the consequence of speech. People are, of course, able to not subscribe to Charlie Hebdo or stage protests against the magazine. Those actions are valid, and even helpful, methods of engaging in public discourse about an idea.
What the cowards who attacked the magazine do not understand is that by silencing any voice which dares speak against an institution which seems infallible, they have only proven that fundamentalism of any stripe is the enemy of free people everywhere.
The problem in the response to the attacks against Charlie Hebdo is that while most people understand that free speech of all kinds must be protected, whether or not you agree with it, there is a collection of people who, like the cowards who murdered writers guilty of no crime, do not understand how free speech works.
These people have fetishized minority communities to the point that anything offensive to that community must be removed immediately. This is a very fine-looking high horse, but it stands on no legs. The basic tenets of society offer a protection to offend, but not a freedom from being offended. Arguments are not then made stronger because the debater is more offended by something than their opponent. The logic by which these people understand the world leads to a culturally relativistic view that is the undoing of free society.
There are certain ubiquitous imperatives for society if it wishes to protect its citizens. One of those is the right to speak one’s mind.
No matter what dissenters are saying and no matter if we agree with it or not, we must protect their right to say it, and the thinker can live free from the fear of death for having thought it. There is no right that people have to agree with what you say — or even like it — but there is a right that your thought can exist freely in the world.
In the end, it can only be said that those voices seeking to silence expression will only face defeat. Rushdie continues to write acclaimed novels, while the Ayatollah lies in the ground, defeated in his last stand by those who would rather have an uncomfortable thought and its author exist in the world than a cleric who would have them silenced.
In the same vein, satirists and social critics around the world must continue their work, constantly challenging those fallible institutions as they try to gain ever more power.
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