Give me 'thoughtless' freedom of speech any day
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Re: "Call the garbage man and take that 'Hebdo' trash out", Letters, January 18.
There must be many readers who, like me, were appalled by Guy Baker (peace be upon him) after his accusation that “Thoughtless non-Muslims are today’s biggest terrorist threat”. Evidently Mr Baker has already taken it upon himself to decide who is “thoughtless”, and appears to have issued a fatwa.
Allow me to inject a factual account into this “debate”.
A few years ago I was involved in “mentoring” some junior staff in the UK. One of them was a young woman – the daughter of a Saudi father and a Pakistani mother. I learned that she observed no religion – a matter entirely of her own choosing.
My “thoughtless” colleagues welcomed her openly – and would have done so whether she professed any faith or none – or indeed if she had said “excuse me, but it’s none of your business”.
Both the countries of her ancestry would have condemned her to death in the name of apostasy for being open, honest and for making her own decision.
In contrast my “thoughtless” homeland offered her (free) education, a career opportunity – and the freedom to conduct her private life as she sees fit.
That’s not to say the UK and the West is immune to “thoughtlessness” – within walking distance of the office there still stand 16th-century houses from where people were taken – in the name of apostasy – and burned alive.
Thanks goodness we have moved on.
As for the Charlie Hebdo victims – may they rest in peace.
Nobody proposed, let alone carried out, the posting of a cartoon on a religious building or a private home.
The freedom to “publish and be damned” is long established.
In 2026 we will see the 300th anniversary of Jonathan Swift’s “Gulliver’s Travels”, in which he lampooned religious conflict as “big endian and little endian” factions squabbling over how to eat a boiled egg.
In another satire (Guy, don’t do this!), he also suggested that the impoverished Irish might ease their economic troubles by eating their babies.
Read it, ignore it, screw it up and throw it away – you are entirely free to respond as you wish.
Of course, instead of welcoming an intelligent, thoughtful young woman we might have insisted she returned to Pakistan – where 49.5 million adults are illiterate, two-thirds of whom are women, the third largest globally – although that would have been “thoughtless”.
But that wouldn’t have mattered – she would be illiterate and, as an “apostate”, dead.
Je suis Charlie, toujours.
Jack Ernest
