Voltaire’s heirs 伏爾泰的繼承者
France is right to defend free speech
法國捍衛言論自由是正確的
No one has a right not to be offended
無人有權不受冒犯
Nov 5th 2020
Samuel paty told his pupils to look away if they might be offended. He knew that caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad are deemed blasphemous by Muslims. But since the images in question were published by Charlie Hebdo, a French satirical magazine whose staff were massacred by jihadists in 2015, they were also relevant to a class about free speech. The teacher thought his pupils old enough to decide for themselves. For this, he was beheaded.
帕蒂告訴他的學生把目光移開，如果他們可能遭冒犯。他知道先知穆罕默德的諷刺漫畫被穆斯林視為褻瀆，但是由於這些有疑慮的圖像是由法國諷刺雜誌《查理周刊》出版，他們也與言論自由課有關。《查理周刊》的員工在2015年遭聖戰者的屠殺。老師認為他的學生成熟到可以為自己決定。為此，他被斬首。
In the age of social media, outrage can swiftly go global. The parent who denounced Mr Paty was not in the classroom, and lied when he said his daughter had been. The jihadist who killed the teacher did so after watching a Facebook video posted by that parent. And when Emmanuel Macron, France’s president, decried the murder and defended free speech, the leaders of several Muslim countries accused him of Islamophobia. Among them were Turkey’s president, who locks up thousands of Muslims for belonging to the wrong religious group, and Pakistan’s prime minister, who seems more upset by events in a classroom in France than in next-door China’s million-Muslim gulag.
在社交媒體時代，憤怒可以迅速傳向全球。譴責帕蒂的父母並不在教室，且謊稱自己的女兒在現場。殺害老師的聖戰者是在觀看該父母張貼在Facebook的短片後犯案。法國總統馬克宏譴責謀殺並捍衛言論自由時，許多穆斯林國家的領導人指責他有伊斯蘭恐懼症，其中包括土耳其總統，他以加入錯誤宗教團體為由羈押數千名穆斯林；以及巴基斯坦總理，他對法國教室裡發生的事，似乎比對隔壁中國送百萬名穆斯林進勞改營更生氣。
Unscrupulous politicians have always stirred up racial or sectarian outrage to unite their supporters and distract attention from their own flaws. But some critics seem sincerely to believe that France is the cause, rather than victim, of jihadist attacks on its soil. They often point to its tradition of laïcité, or secularism. This was entrenched by law in 1905, after a long struggle with the Catholic church. It protects the right to believe, or not to believe, and separates religion from public life.
無道德原則的政客總是煽動種族或教派的憤怒，藉此團結支持者且分散對自身缺陷的注意力。但一些批評者似乎真心相信，聖戰者在法國國土上發動攻擊，法國是咎由自取。他們常指出法國政教分離（世俗主義）的傳統。法國在與天主教會進行了長期鬥爭之後，在1905年藉由法律明確保障信仰與否的權利，並將宗教與公共生活分開。
No French president could be sworn in on a holy book. No French state school could stage a nativity play. Some feel that such rules discriminate against Muslims. A ban on “conspicuous” religious symbols in state schools includes the crucifix, but some Muslims still resent the fact that they (or their daughters) must remove their headscarves at the school gate. When Mr Macron recently announced a crackdown on signs of “Islamist separatism”, such as home schooling, which he sees as a pretext for radicalised teaching, he was accused of “weaponising” secularism against Muslims.
沒有法國總統可向聖經宣誓就任，沒有法國公立學校能上演耶穌誕生劇，有些人認為這樣的規則歧視穆斯林。公立學校禁用「明顯的」宗教符號，包括耶穌受難像，但一些穆斯林仍然討厭他們（或他們的女兒）必須在校門摘掉頭巾的事實。馬克宏最近宣布一項打擊「伊斯蘭分裂主義」跡象，像是家庭學校等，並視此為激進主義教學的藉口，他被指責針對穆斯林將世俗主義「武器化」。
Most controversial of all for some Muslims, French law protects the right to blaspheme and to insult any religion—although not to discriminate against an individual on the basis of religious belief. Some see this, wrongly, as a French campaign to insult Islam. Boycotts of French goods and anti-Macron protests have taken place from Istanbul to Islamabad.
對某些穆斯林而言最具爭議的是，法國法律保護褻瀆和侮辱任何宗教的權利，儘管不可基於宗教信仰歧視個人。有些人誤以為這是法國侮辱伊斯蘭的運動。從伊斯坦堡到伊斯蘭瑪巴德，各地湧現抵制法國貨和反馬克宏抗議活動。
Discrimination against Muslims is a real problem in France, as Mr Macron implicitly concedes. Employers are more likely to bin their job applications. Mr Macron has vowed to fight racism, and improve opportunities for people in deprived neighbourhoods, “of whatever skin colour, origin, religion”. He will have his work cut out, even without his own ministers undermining him by griping absurdly about the existence of separate shelves for halal food in supermarkets.
歧視穆斯林在法國的確是個問題，馬克宏也默認。雇主更有可能將穆斯林的求職信扔進垃圾箱。馬克宏誓言要對抗種族主義，並為貧困的鄰國人民提供更多機會，不論膚色，血統，宗教信仰。即使他麾下的部長沒有幫倒忙，荒唐地抱怨超市的清真食品專櫃，他也將面對艱鉅的任務。
Yet it is important not to lose sight of two points of context. First, more than 250 people have been killed in Islamist terrorist attacks in France since 2015. Last year more suspects of jihadist terrorism were arrested in France than in any other eu country. French intelligence services warn that radicals are waging a war for the minds of the young, especially online, to win recruits to violence. France is right to be more concerned than most, and to seek to respond firmly.
然而，不要忽略兩個重要背景。首先，自2015年以來，在法國的伊斯蘭恐攻有250多人被殺害。去年，在法國被捕的聖戰恐怖主義嫌疑人比其他歐盟國家還多。法國情報機構警告，激進分子正在為洗腦年輕人發動戰爭，尤其是網絡上，進而徵募新兵從事暴力活動。法國更擔心和尋求堅定回應並沒有錯。
Second, France is also right to defend free speech. A religion is a set of ideas, and therefore open to debate and even mockery. Considerate speakers will try not to give gratuitous offence. But governments should not compel them to be inoffensive. If they did, everyone would have to censor themselves, for fear of offending the most easily offended person in the audience. And as Mr Paty discovered, an audience can include anyone on Earth with a phone.
第二，法國捍衛言論自由也是正確的。宗教是一套概念，因此可供辯論甚至嘲笑。體貼的人發言會試著不無端冒犯人，但是政府不應該強制他們不得冒犯人。如果他們這樣做了，每個人都將必須審查自己，以免得罪觀眾中最容易被冒犯的人。正如帕蒂發現的那樣，觀眾可以包括地球上持有手機的任何人。
The French state should never give the impression that it endorses blasphemy, but it is right to protect blasphemers, just as it is right to protect those who complain about them, so long as they do not advocate violence. As many thoughtful Muslims in France and elsewhere have pointed out, no matter how offended you feel, the answer to speech is not knives: it is more speech. ■
法國政府應該永遠不要給人贊同褻瀆宗教的印象，但是保護褻瀆者是對的，一如保護抱怨褻瀆宗教的人也是對的，只要他們不提倡暴力。誠如許多法國及各地思慮周到的穆斯林指出，無論你覺得多麼受冒犯，對言論的回應不該用刀刃，而是更多的言論。 ■
沒有留言:
張貼留言