Between Freedom and Vulgarity

by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem

The offensive Western cartoons of the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, and of Muslims in general, raise the question of freedom and its exercise. The West says that these cartoons fall under freedom of expression, considered a fundamental pillar of democracy, and that it is difficult for Muslims to understand this because of their culture, which is founded on repression and enslavement. Some Arabs and Muslims endorse these claims, on the premise that progress means leaping over religious values and principles.

Here the question of defining freedom arises, and my invitation stands open to whoever wishes to enter into a debate or dialogue on this definition on the pages of Al-Khaleej newspaper, should it permit. Many people, including philosophers, thinkers, poets, and men of letters, believe that freedom means a person carrying out whatever activities he deems fit, and that there is no restriction on these activities except what is imposed by law arrived at democratically. They believe that a climate of repression leads to backwardness, while a climate of freedom opens the doors to progress.

I agree with them that freedom is a vital and essential prerequisite for creativity and progress, and that societies which restrict the freedom of their members remain mired in rigid patterns of thought and behavior, and remain far removed from renewal and from keeping pace with development, discovery, and invention. But what is this freedom we are talking about?

Certainly, philosophers, theorists, and people of logic and learning differ in defining freedom, but they do not differ over the ultimate goal that the provision or availability of freedom is meant to achieve. All those who speak of freedom seek to achieve human wholeness — that a person be himself, master of himself, appreciate his own existence, and see his energies emerge into reality. They, and I with them, see in freedom a gateway toward realizing a human being’s humanity, his own elevation, his active contribution to developing his abilities and expressing his energies, and his sharing with others in the process of human construction and progress on every level. It is the mechanism that enables a human being to strike a balance between his material capacities and his physical, mental, emotional, and psychological energies, so that he becomes at peace with himself, calm and reassured, and desirous of seeing himself emerge as a giving force in a world that is progressing.

The observation here is that all those who speak of freedom do not attach to it negative meanings such as laziness, refusal to cooperate with others, and carnal indulgence beyond the bounds of natural satisfaction, etc. They focus on the merits of freedom and its positive effects, which benefit the self and the community at once.

…-y, such as democracy and socialism: is it freedom for a person to consume alcohol until he loses control of himself, or at least damages his health? Is it freedom to engage in sexual activity that ends in the birth of illegitimate children? Or to abandon one’s spouse, thereby causing the disintegration of the family? Or to present incomplete information to the public or to students, thereby misleading them? Or to use false and inflammatory rhetoric in order to override the balanced thinking of one’s listeners? All these activities covered by these questions end in results harmful to the individual and to society, and are utterly at odds with the results hoped for from providing, or the availability of, freedom to human beings.

If the expected results of human behavior are not positive (do not contribute to the process of construction and progress), then that behavior cannot be considered free. If the aim of freedom is to achieve human wholeness, then all activities that lead to a person’s inner fragmentation do not fall under the heading of freedom. Hypocrisy, for example, is not freedom, because it sets a person against himself: he is convinced of one thing and practices its opposite; smoking is not freedom, because the smoker wants good health for himself at the very same time that he is harming his own body; the adulterer is not free, because the resulting social fragmentation brings calamities down upon everyone; and the bribe-taker is not free, because he exposes the management of society to corruption, thereby harming himself as he harms others. In all these cases, the person is not at peace with himself, but stands against himself and burdens himself with many material and moral crises.

Freedom is a companion to good, not to evil; to construction, not to destruction; to progress, not to backwardness; to love, not to hatred; to beauty, not to ugliness; to harmony, not to discord. But when freedom departs from this companion, it becomes, for the most part, license, or, in the Latin-derived term, “liberalism” in this loosened sense. Here the person acts, or is permitted to act, in a manner not necessarily bound by his human wholeness, or by the goal of self- and social construction. He is permitted to lose himself and to abandon his social commitments, so long as he does not violate the law in force. He is permitted to be a slave to his desires and whims, permitted to marry his like, to abandon his children, or to develop weapons that help him achieve his ambitions, and so on. Here the person turns himself into a slave under the banner of freedom. He may be aware that he stands against himself, and revel in his condition; or he may not be aware, and thereby bring ruin upon himself and upon others.

This leads us to question the freedom found in the Western cartoons about the Greatest Prophet and about Muslims. Were there criticism of Islam and Muslims, we would understand that the critic wants an explanation and has a right to that, since criticism entails a love of knowledge; but these cartoons intend nothing but insult. What purpose could I, the writer of this article, achieve if I were to depict, for example, a president being ridden by a donkey? This is nothing but a form of insult, and does not express any activity that anticipates good or a positive outcome.

If freedom includes the Western interpretation of these vulgar cartoons, then this means that the countdown for their creators and their defenders has already begun.

Source: Translated from the original Arabic, “بين الحرية والابتذال” by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem.