Sweden’s Quran burnings underline importance of First Amendment
Tom Rogan
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It’s a crisis that is complicating Sweden’s efforts to win Turkey’s support for its accession to NATO. It is undermining Sweden’s relations with other nations. But it’s not a crisis born of any government action or foreign policy choice. Instead, this crisis flows from the inability of foreign governments to understand that free speech means allowing idiots to be idiots.
In this case, the main idiot is Salwan Momika.
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In Stockholm in late June, and again on Monday, Momika ripped a Quran apart and then set pages of the Islamic holy book on fire. He said that he was “warning the Swedish people about the dangers of this book.” Momika has subsequently ripped another Quran apart. Others have followed in his footsteps, seeking permission to do the same. Another man last week sought approval to burn the Jewish holy book, the Torah (though he later said he had only done so to highlight the need for civility).
In response to these incidents, Iraq has expelled the Swedish ambassador and recalled its own ambassador. Numerous other Islamic nations have reacted with outrage, calling for Sweden to ban further Quran burnings. Iran has even called for those involved to be put to death. Sweden’s prime minister has said he is “extremely concerned,” with his security service warning that the situation is increasing the terrorism threat level against Sweden.
The outrage of Islamic peoples and governments to these incidents is entirely predictable.
The deliberate destruction of the Quran is regarded as a grievous offense in the Islamic world. And Islamic governments have long insisted that blasphemy should not be covered as a protected class of political speech. But even the vibrant liberal democracy of Israel has demanded action against these protesters. On Friday, Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen stated that he had “talked with my friend the Swedish foreign minister and made it clear to him that we expect the Swedish government to prevent events like this, which are liable to harm relations between our countries.”
Cohen should know better.
Yes, burning religious books is deeply offensive to those who subscribe to the faith in question. Burning religious books might even be regarded as unpatriotic with regard to how it harms a nation’s foreign-policy standing. Still, the most basic principle of free speech is that individuals must be allowed to speak freely on matters of controversy and public import.
That matters here because religion obviously bears political ramifications, especially in the Islamic world. More broadly, religion is a matter of civic interest and relevance, and, for some, deep concern. The destruction of religious books thus deserves the highest protection, not the least protection. This is what sets democracies apart from nations, most notably China, which view freedom as something to be subdued beneath an autocratic heel.
While Sweden is now considering legislation to prevent further religious text burnings, Americans should be grateful that we have the First Amendment to prevent any similar action here.
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As Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts underlined in the 2011 case of Snyder v. Phelps, “Speech is powerful. It can stir people to action, move them to tears of both joy and sorrow, and — as it did here — inflict great pain. On the facts before us, we cannot react to that pain by punishing the speaker. As a nation we have chosen a different course — to protect even hurtful speech on public issues to ensure that we do not stifle public debate.”
That’s a legal lesson, unequivocal in its hard moral necessity, that other nations would do well to replicate.