Countries like Singapore, China, Zimbabwe, Chad, Sudan, Serbia to name a few out of an unending list; will use the potential abuse of free speech to maintain the existing curbs on free speech. This is a terrible consequence of the proliferation of abuses against Islam in particular and it is proof that Islam is of great importance to every quarter interested in the preservation of free speech.

In the popular ‘Weekly Standard’, a Neoconservative and actually an extreme right wing magazine in the U.S. there is an article that debates the reason for and against free speech. Detailing how free speech was established, the magazine debates Islam’s impact on the free speech roll back across the world but fails to dissert on the true impact of democratic retreat on rights and freedoms in the U.S. But was the free speech balanced or was it simply an unlimited freedom of abuse?

It says while the English-speaking people in Canada, the U.S. and in Europe etc are very proud of their tradition of free speech, ‘the state not only had a legitimate right to interfere with free speech under certain conditions, it had a duty to interfere,’

It is obvious that it took the White people generations to achieve the sacrosanct value of ‘free speech’. However, there came a time when free speech had to be limited in order to prevent the installation of anarchy in their societies. World War II gave rise to a set of rules that curbed on the freedom of association and the freedom of expression of Americans and Europeans. Not a single individual or associations could voice any pro-Nazi or pro-Japanese statements or thinking, limiting free speech in the process.

During the cold war period, free speech took a real bashing in the U.S. and some European states. Communism was banned thus influencing and affecting the freedom of association and free speech. The Communist Party of the U.S. and its leaders and supporters in the U.S. and were banished, jailed or forced to exile in one of the most troublesome witch hunt in U.S. history.

Today we are living in such historic times where the same sacrosanct freedom of speech is not as sacred as before since it became the tool with which other systems and beliefs took on the West with greater challenges than it can handle. Democracy rolled back carrying with it fundamental rights and freedoms.

The Weekly Standard insists the English-speaking peoples are justifiably proud of their tradition of free speech adding that Thomas Macaulay observed that the victorious English Whigs had shown how "the authority of law and the security of property" could be reconciled with "a liberty of discussion and of individual action never before known."

The fabrics of free speech in the west is being challenged not only by the 911 events and its consequences but in extension by the ‘attacks’ against free speech by Muslims across the world, suggests the Weekly Standard. Interestingly enough, in Canada Syed Soharwardy, representing the Islamic Supreme Council of Canada, filed a complaint with the Calgary police, alleging that Ezra Levant was inciting hatred against him--a crime in Canada. Levant is the Editor of a now defunct magazine the Western Standard. In the U.S., neocons views Levant as a Canadian publisher, author, and libertarian activist.

Soharwardy’s action in using the existing laws in Canada is seen as an attempt at silencing the libertarian right winger. Levant is still free to attack Islam and its fundamentals and nothing will stop him from doing that but he might end up paying damages to Soharwardy for these attacks against Islam. This is what makes it clear that free speech is now facing more cumbersome limitations in the western world.

Islam is certainly playing a huge part in this current curbs on the once unlimited freedom of speech, which is being abused by anti-Islamic activists who are turning it into the freedom of abuse instead. The American neo-cons seems to have realized that self-censorship is becoming part of free speech and the more virulent their attacks against Islam, the less stronger is their argument for the salvation of one of the greatest fundamentals of western democracy.

Malaysia is trying to implement a lighter version of the democratic system with a larger scope for free speech – at least on the Internet – but it is facing a backlash with the abuse of the new found freedom by anti-Muslim elements in particular. The amount of verbal abuse against Islam, its prophets and the Holy Al-Quraan is profane and it is a clear indication of the type of difficulties the Malaysian authorities will face if such freedoms were allowed in the printed and audio-visual media.

The Malaysian experience is the perfect example of what the U.S. is facing in its drive to push for democracy in the Arab and Muslim world, at times at gun point and illegal invasion. It is thus clear that both the Malaysian authorities and the U.S. government will impose limitations on free speech in the democratic processes in the future. The fear of the opponent’s capacity to use free speech to promote its ideals coupled with the abuse of such freedoms by anarchists will undeniably force the notion of free speech to be accompanied with limitations and self censorship.

Countries like Singapore, China, Zimbabwe, Chad, Sudan, Serbia to name a few out of an unending list; will use the potential abuse of free speech to maintain the existing curbs on free speech. This is a terrible consequence of the proliferation of abuses against Islam in particular and it is proof that Islam is of great importance to every quarter interested in the preservation of free speech.

The 911 events when four aircrafts were let loose in the skies of the United States to commit horrible acts unseen before by mankind, Washington had been given the unique opportunity to launch its crazy war on terrorism, targeting Islam and the Muslims in the process. The issue of what really happened on 911 has not really been debated on and off the internet; the analysts and observers as well as the laymen were simply drowned in how the shocking events took place.

Today, almost six years six months after 911, the U.S. is finally deciding to charge six Muslims for their alleged but disputed roles in the sad events. September 2001 did not only change the U.S. by turning it into a world bully and a violator of international acts and treaties. It also changed the very perspective the West saw it’s democratic and its judicial process.

Unprecedented in history, the British government published a stupid 90 points program on why Osama bin Laden and his followers had to be held responsible for 911. A judge in England called the report a new step in the dislocation of the U.K. justice system, adding that the time had come for a convicted robber to walk free but for people accused of terror without concrete proof were to be jailed indefinitely or killed arbitrarily.

That was only the beginning of the end of free speech as we knew it and it was also the dawning of a new era in the world, an era where pre-emptive military attacks were not only allowed but also supported by western and non-western nations. This meant that the Human Charters and Geneva Convention were both well dead and buried. It also signalled the end of western democracy the way we have seen it before the 911 events.

It took just one day to beat centuries of painful and often arduous struggles to establish freedom of expression and the freedom of association as well as other freedoms in Europe, the Americas and in some southern nations. When the wall of Berlin crumbled, the world thought it was the new age of total freedom of expression and the world was now freed from gulags and perceived threats. Naivety was never so crude and cruel.

The post 911 events led the U.S. to abandon its democratic principles in an attempt to protect itself from the real roots of the problems that led to 911: that is the decay of the capitalist and of the democratic system. Curbing on free speech and leading people to accept the principle of self censorship by blaming Islam and Muslims in the process; will not solve the deeper and wider problems faced by democracy and capitalism.

In the past, when free speech became a dangerous tool in the hands of communists and Japanese or Nazi elements in the Western societies, ‘the state not only had a legitimate right to interfere with free speech under certain conditions, it had a duty to interfere. If liberty of discussion threatened to incite men to violence, or caused them to take the law in their own hands, then the state, representing the general welfare and not merely its own selfish interests, had to curb this so-called liberty. Liberty yes, license, no. When preaching sermons about predestination becomes tantamount to shouting "Fire!" in a crowded theater, then such sermons must cease,’ wrote the Weekly Standard.

The magazine added that ‘Today, because of Islam, the furor theologicus that we in the West thought we had put behind us is re=emerging and can flare up in any part of the world.’ It says that if a cartoon or film documentary found offensive by Muslims could set off a chain of reactions that lead to international crises, it was worthless to maintain that the state (the U.S. in this matter) had no business watching what its citizens say. This will mean indulging ‘in a wistful anachronism.’

The point in case is that not all in the western societies are willing to pay the social, economic costs of the ‘abuse of free speech’ by anarchists and virtual anti-Islam elements. ‘One may of course wish for a society to stand firmly behind those who have the courage to speak their minds; but it is simply naive to expect the general population to support them beyond a certain point,’ wrote the editor of Weekly Standard in a surprisingly washed down antagonism against Islam.

Canadian law has made the mere expression of hatred a crime but under American law it is important to consider whether hateful speech is likely to lead to the actual physical harm of the person who is its object. Perhaps the U.S. will apply the Canadian way of controlling free speech and this will be used by other governments across the world to maintain limitations on free speech. Thus the hope of having greater freedom of expression and in extension greater freedom of association is taking a beating and will probably not see the light in most countries in this shrinking globe.

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