Human Writes Violation?

Today, several media outlets reported that four Osgoode Hall Law School students have filed complaints with the federal, British Columbia, and Ontario human rights commissions over an October 2006 Maclean’s article by Mark Steyn. The article is an excerpt from his book ‘America Alone’, which is essentially a lengthy rant that depicts criticism of America as ‘anti-Americanism’, the “great poison of the twenty-first century” (according to the publisher). The excerpt, according to CBC, discusses the high birth rate among Muslims and speculates that Islamic people could become the majority population in Europe. It also says some Muslims are violent radicals.

I’ll admit that I haven’t read the book. And that you can’t judge a book by its cover. But I would suggest that you can learn a bit about a book and its place in the cultural sphere by taking a look at the contents of the “customers who bought this item also bought” box on the Chapters online store. Looks like a good bit of xenophobic, neoconservative-populist fear-mongering that would be welcome on any discerning reader’s book shelf, right between the insightful musings of Ann Coulter and Bill O’Reilley. I can’t blame someone for being insulted by this sort of work – the ‘us-vs.-them’ framework seems designed to galvanize the jingoistic and insult the rest.

But I get nervous and cautious every time the issue of media censorship arises, save in the most clear-cut cases of hate speech or incitement to violence. And even in those cases, I consider legal intervention and regulation to be at best a necessary evil. I should clarify – we need to be highly critical of the media – of its biases, of its increasingly corporate structure, of its amnesiac short-sightedness and its repeated failures to act as the check on government power that is so necessary to a democratic society. But we need to be mindful of the right to say something / content of what is said distinction. Critique of the latter is essential. Critique of the former can produce dangerous chilling effects.

The post-September 11 chill springs readily to mind. It seems rather distant now (to some), but we need to remember that, immediately post-September 11, the disincentives on critical thought and commentary related to the attacks were so significant that the American press essentially became an arm of the executive. Academics who spoke the unspeakable were subjected to witch hunts. A patriotic and vengeful media ushered the country to war, parroting the talking points of ‘administration contacts’ and forgetting to ask all of the important questions. A great deal of necessary debate did not take place because the climate did not allow for it.

Now, despite claims by Andrew Coyne in today’s Maclean’s, I would argue that it is far too early in the current case to say that the complaints that have been filed will produce a chilling effect. It’s something that we’ll have to watch for. I’ll certainly keep writing about this story as it unfolds.

At this early stage, however, I would suggest that the sort of disingenuous and confrontational arguments that emerge from worldviews like that expressed by Mark Steyn in the book in question are often strengthened by efforts to silence them.