Dec 18, 2007

When freedom equals reviles!!


I received on my blog a comment of an American blogger. The comment was; I am curious. What's the punishment in your religion to name a pig after your greatest Prophet.
It was an invitation for me to check his post My Turn - Pig Muhammad

First of all let us have some words about 'Freedom of expression'. Ways of expression are many; by words, by criticizing, by arguing, by reviling, by directing accusations, by acts, etc. I believe the absolute freedom (of any thing) is a destruction, there must be limits of every freedom. The absolute freedom which I mean here is the freedom to do any thing without considering any thing including rights of others. It's said that; 'Your freedom ends where freedom of others begins'. So what I'm talking about here is that freedom is not assaulting others by acts or words, is not hurting others in their emotions, is not insulting beliefs of others, is not reviling. Freedom is not throwing a stone on the glass of the window, but instead freedom is facing the other side. Freedom of expression is; 'I think you're bad, and here you're my evidences'. Freedom is; 'There is some thing wrong, let's argue about it.'. Freedom of expression is not; 'You're ****. Good bye!!' There is a big difference between both of these ways. The second will lead into hatred and crash. The first will lead into understanding, filling the gaps, and reaching the truth. No doubt that understanding will lead to love and cooperation. And no doubt that there is huge difference between both ways of 'expression'. We never can make them equal.

After clarifying how I see freedom of expression. It may be important to tell in few words the story of the 'teddy bear'.
A British teacher called Julian Jebons works in a Sudanese school, she asked a student to bring a teddy bear, when they voted to the name of the bear the 23 student voted to the name; 'Muhammad' which is the name of the most famous student in the class (and sure is the name of the Prophet Muhammad), and she agreed. She has been accused of insulting Islamic religion by Sudanese authorities.

The question which must be asked here is; What is the fault this teacher did?!!
With a simple analyze of what happened we can reach following points; 1)the kids were the ones who choose the name, 2)the name of Muhammad is the name of the famous student, 3)those kids are Muslims and are supposed to love the prophet of Islam Muhammad, in addition 4)this teacher is a British non-Muslim. Following these points we can reach one fact; Mrs.Jebons did no thing wrong.
As being British and non-Muslim she is supposed not to know that it's not accepted in Islamic culture to name things by names of human. On the other hand; the kids may have choose the name of their friend not the prophet, and even if they choose the name of the prophet this means that they love him not want to insult him, they must be only guided that even if we love some thing we mustn't use names of human specifically when they are prophets to name things. I think that she must be released at once.

A last word about freedom of speech. If we restricted freedom of speech in reviles and insulting then there is some wrong in our way of thinking. If we expressed our freedom of speech by reviles, then we are far away from civilization. Again I say it; freedom of speech leads into understanding and love not to crash and hatred. So I'm inviting the American guy to be free enough and share me a calm discussion, where he will show me the reasons why he hates my prophet Muhammad, and I'll show my reasons why I think he is the best man ever. That's the way of civilized peoples. And I'm sure that we will reach understanding and love together.