{"id":7735,"date":"2017-09-28T05:00:53","date_gmt":"2017-09-28T09:00:53","guid":{"rendered":"\/\/www.justrightmedia.org\/blog\/?p=7735"},"modified":"2025-03-28T16:00:34","modified_gmt":"2025-03-28T19:00:34","slug":"524-guest-salim-mansur-freedom-of-speech-in-systemic-silence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/justrightmedia.org\/blog\/archives\/7735","title":{"rendered":"524 – Freedom of speech in systemic silence"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Man

“Hello darkness, my old friend…”<\/strong><\/p>\n

Though not yet law, Canada\u2019s Motion 103<\/strong> (M-103) (against \u201cIslamophobia<\/strong>\u201d and \u201csystemic racism<\/strong>\u201d) has an intent, warns Salim Mansur<\/strong>, Western University\u2019s associate professor of political science.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would go as far as to say that in Canada we do not have free speech,\u201d he laments. \u201cWhat we have is regulated speech.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cIn fact, in all of the Western nations except the United States, there is no free speech. There is regulated speech. It\u2019s only in the United States that we come closest to the ideal of free speech because of the First Amendment<\/strong>.\u201d<\/p>\n

That amendment reads as follows:<\/p>\n

Amendment 1 (1791): “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”<\/p>\n

In contrast, Canada\u2019s \u201cGuarantee of Rights and Freedoms\u201d reads as follows:<\/p>\n

1. The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees the rights and freedoms set out in it subject only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society.<\/strong><\/p>\n

2. Everyone has the following fundamental freedoms:
\n (a) freedom of conscience and religion;
\n (b) freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication;
\n (c) freedom of peaceful assembly; and
\n (d) freedom of association.<\/p>\n

Section (1) not only negates the Section (2) \u201cguarantees\u201d of fundamental freedoms, but all rights subsequently enumerated in the Charter.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat is not discussed,\u201d further laments Salim, \u201cis the fundamental principle \u2013 the foundation \u2013 of freedom of speech.\u201d<\/p>\n

And with that, our discussion returns to the fundamentals of how and why freedom of speech is the \u201cmother of truth\u201d<\/strong> \u2013 and is by many rightly considered to be \u201csacred<\/strong>.\u201d<\/p>\n

The alarming erosion of freedom of speech in the West \u201cis a post-World War II phenomenon,\u201d notes Salim. That phenomenon began with a consensus in the West that certain issues must be \u201cfenced off\u201d via \u201cprotected\u201d speech. Questioning official views on those issues would henceforth be classified as \u201chate speech<\/strong>.\u201d<\/p>\n

“Holocaust denial<\/strong>\u201d was among the first issues deemed to be \u201chate speech\u201d and that was the beginning of the slippery slope towards further censorship of discussions about race and culture. Canada is well on its way further down the slope.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s the ultimate goal of M-103? Concludes Salim: \u201cFirst, silence the non-Muslims. Then, silence the Muslims.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

Freedom of speech, to exist at all, permits no exceptions.<\/strong> Otherwise, warns Salim, eventually all will be silenced.<\/p>\n

Worse, the debate that Muslims must have among themselves, so that Islam (like Christianity) can undergo its own reformation, will never be allowed to take place.<\/p>\n

That’s just one reason why calling freedom of speech a “sacred principle” sounds Just Right to us.<\/p>\n

<\/a> <\/a> <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Your browser does not support the audio element. “Hello darkness, my old friend…” Though not yet law, Canada\u2019s Motion 103 (M-103) (against \u201cIslamophobia\u201d and \u201csystemic racism\u201d) has an intent, warns Salim Mansur, Western University\u2019s associate professor of political science. \u201cI would go as far as to say that in Canada we do not have free [Continue Reading]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":7737,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,59,28,205,6,598],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7735","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-audio","category-free-speech","category-latest","category-law","category-politics","category-society","issues-freedom-of-speech","issues-islamophobia","issues-m-103","personalities-ernst-zundel","personalities-salman-rushdie","guests-salim-mansur","category-12-id","category-59-id","category-28-id","category-205-id","category-6-id","category-598-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/justrightmedia.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7735","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/justrightmedia.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/justrightmedia.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/justrightmedia.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/justrightmedia.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7735"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/justrightmedia.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7735\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15244,"href":"https:\/\/justrightmedia.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7735\/revisions\/15244"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/justrightmedia.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7737"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/justrightmedia.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7735"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/justrightmedia.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7735"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/justrightmedia.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7735"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}