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Danish parliament has voted to ban the burning of religious scriptures after a series of Qur’an desecrations in the country and neighbouring Sweden
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- Title
- Danish MPs vote to ban desecration of religious texts after Qur'an burnings
- Authors
- Miranda Bryant
- Published
- Dec 7 2023
- Word count
- 448 words
I may be oversimplifying here, but did he just publicly announce that threats of violence are a valid and effective negotiation strategy as far as he is concerned, and that he will not only negotiate with terrorists, but also fold to their demands?
I consider burning books, any books, silly at best and deranged/dangerous/reprehensible most of the time, but I think singling out religious texts (with an added qualifier even there - it's not just any religious text, it has to be for a "recognized" religion, whatever that is supposed to mean) is regressive and harmful. I don't live in Denmark, but I'm saddened by these news...
I'm going to reiterate why I'm not too worried about this one:
This law is a response not to people burning Qur'ans to light a barbeque in their back yard. It's a response to people (possibly paid for by Russia) inciting unrest by intentionally offending religious sensibilities of a religious group, right in front of that religious group. I've previously compared it to very deliberately eating bacon in front of a muslim while intensely staring at them. That's just not a thing you do. This law is a restriction of free speech, but I don't think anyone on tildes would argue that hate speech is a legitimate form of expression. This law is, IMO, not holding the book sacred, but protecting the religious freedom and feelings of its followers.
Whether this law came about purely as a result of external violent pressure from muslim countries IMO hinges very much on whether one considers the law as written to be a restriction of expression first, or a protection of religious freedom first. The latter needs no outside interference.
It is entirely cromulent for a government to legislate that deliberately offending religious feelings in the way we see here is out of bounds. There's plenty of ways you can express criticism of a religion without stooping to this level.
Also, if anyone can find and translate the law so we can look at the details, I'd very much appreciate that.
You do make a good point - the acts that provoked this law do ineed look deliberate and potentially motivated by external factors (Russia), but I'm still not a fan of criminalization of offending any religion...
As you say, "very deliberately eating bacon in front of a muslim while intensely staring at them is just not a thing you do." I do agree. but should it be a thing you go to jail for? I don't believe it should. I will freely admit I know nothing about the law in Denmark in general, but I disagree with setting religion up as a special category that shalt not be offended - I expect there are laws against harassment or some such that could (should?) be applied here, without adding this one...
I have my own biases, being pretty intensely anti-theist, so this annoys me more than it probably should, but no matter how much I think about it it just doesn't sit well with me - it feels extremely regressive...
This isn't about "shalt not be offended", imo. It's about carving out protections against special forms of harassment (by other names) for specific (minority) groups. Besides, I'm not sure whether offense is the kind of speech we should be protecting, like, at all. Criticism, any kind of discourse that can be constructive shouldn't be curtailed, but I don't see how book burnings can contribute to that in ways that other acts can't. Religion isn't alone here in being protected from offense. Hate speech laws often protect others based on what US law calls "protected classes" - sex, religion, ethnicity, etc.
For what it's worth, I'm also intensely anti-theist; much more so than my post here would have you think. But I can also see that religious identity plays about as much a role as gender identity in some people's lives, and while I have no direct personal understanding of what that's like for a religious person, just as I don't know what a trans identity is like for a trans person, I don't want people to exploit either of these to cause harm to others. What I'm trying to say here is, I don't personally understand how it feels to have a part of your identity be so susceptible to attack - I'm by most metrics either privileged or at least part of the societal majority. But I still think those protections are important. There's a good reason religion is a protected class, simply for the sake of a peaceful society; even if we both disagree with religion.
Of course, there's a balance to be struck with freedom of expression here - the target should be to distinguish 'things that cause harm, but carry no valuable expression that could be otherwise expressed' from 'things that carry valuable expression, but cause no harm' - and in cases that fall outside both definitions, i.e. valuable expression that causes harm, a balance between these competing legal interests should be found. IMO this should generally fall on the side of freedom of expression. That's how we stop this from being a slippery slope. But in the current example - book burnings - I simply fail to see valuable expression.
I don't think we disagree materially. It's just that the actual process that should happen would be a bit to complicated for the already lengthy post I wrote. But there's very reasonable ways this can be done. The legal figment of a objective third party comes to mind: Would a hypothetical objective muslim be offended by the bacon thing? Probably, yeah. So the author of the statement has to assume that it will cause offense. Therefore, it's an offensive statement. That's one part.
The other part is that we can also deliberate which one of the two competing statements is the one that curtails the others' freedom less, or curtails less important freedom. (For the sake of narrative, I'll be trans and you'll be a religious bigot for the rest of the paragraph) Your religious freedom does not extend into dictating my life. So if your religion is offended by my trans-nes, either I surrender a core part of my identity or you walk the demands of your religion back from infringing upon my freedom. That's a pretty clear cut case; though tbf, it's also to a small degree a function of a sort of overton window. If trans or gay identities aren't understood as identities, but as mental disorders, this argument breaks down, which explains pretty well how we treated LGBT people in the past.
The point of the sentence you picked out (which was more of a side point) is that offensive speech shouldn't be protected due to being offensive. The statement I was referring to made it sound like offensive speech is somehow necessary for criticism, or that criticism is always offensive, both of which I disagree with vehemently.
So, just to take this hypothetically further, how much before it becomes a "fighting words" situation? Like, I think there's a level of provocation where it's probably inevitable that the vast majority of people who aren't already committed to pacifism are going to respond in an aggressive or violent fashion.
To use a childhood example: how close to someone's face saying "I'm not touching you" for how long can they get before you're allowed to make physical contact? Or is it ok if the state uses violence at that point, but not the person? Or does a level of violence - to stop the provocation and no further - become acceptable?
I'm not sure I have an answer here, this is more me thinking through the possibilities here.
I don't think it's clear cut and it's why, if I had my way, how we handle cases of "provoked violence" would involve some sort of restorative justice with both parties being involved. But that's sort of a dream world.
I taught Anger Mangement to people on parole from prison, so trust me when I say I've definitely talked people through the "maybe don't let other people control you so easily" and " seems like you're always 'just being provoked'" sorts of conversations.
I'd probably agree that a Qur'an being burned in a vacuum isn't cause for violence (I'm agnostic but respectful of folks beliefs generally), but a rally of people burning Qur'ans, yelling slurs and hate speech, going on for hours in your neighborhood?
While I agree that civil society should expect more than a violent response, shouldn't we also expect more general respect than burning a religious text that can emotionally impact a billion people even if only slightly? That's where I think making it a hard line of free speech vs physical violence becomes, well, complicated. If we actually held up "civil society" we wouldn't have the issue in the first place.
I'd like to make it clear that this isn't about thinking that Muslims are more prone to violence. I can think of many non-oppressed white, Christian men who would get violent at particular treatments of the Bible, the American Flag, etc. I don't want to wander down that road. It gets vaguely racist really quickly. I'd say that well over a billion Muslims don't get violent (and Christians are still behind a lot of violence both the adherents and the religion. It might just be less about religion itself and more about how it's used by people for good or ill.)
I'm just refusing to call the people engaging in those actions "civil" just because they're "non-violent". And if we were truly being civil, there'd not be a provocation to violence in the first place.
I'm just pointing out that this line is not a clear cut one of non-violence to violence. I don't have the answers on where that lies but I don't believe that anyone actually thinks that all violence is prohibited and all non-violent actions are perfectly fine.
If I think you're being racist, I'll say so. I meant what I said, not anything else.
I'm also aware that religion and race are different and yet anti-islamic commentary gets entwined with racism almost inevitably.
Both the US and Australia have some legal concept of Fighting Words. The idea that some speech can be so flagrantly past the line that it is likely to be met with violence. Plenty of countries have other laws that prohibit certain types of speech. Violating those laws leads to the individual being arrested which is state violence. Once again, speech is met with violence.
Self defense in many states in the US does not require violence to have occurred, just to threatened. So violence has not been dealt to you first but you're permitted to stop the threat (at widely varying scales of threat) based on that.
Society fundamentally doesn't agree that we should never mete out violence unless violence has already occurred.
I don't have the answer as I've said multiple times. My point was that this is not a black and white line and that society does not currently operate on "violence only when violence is given" standards. So if we want that, we should be consistent about it. And we should look at what we mean when we say "civil" and whose rights we protect when we demand walking the perfect line, particularly of folks who are persistently harassed. Because if we want to reduce violence, actually stop it, we should probably work on that as a society rather than just being mad other people don't live up to a standard that society itself doesn't hold consistently.
Now me? I am damn near a pacifist personally. But I am well aware my views are out of step with the society I live in. I'm not saying this law is great or bad, the US has different free speech expectations than the rest of the world. But I refuse to call deliberately trying to piss someone off "civil" either.
Of course, the proper response to any infraction of your rights is to let the state sort it out; the only exception are some cases where the state can not help and the infraction is substantial; self-defense being one. Just because one thing is forbidden, does not legimize non-state violence as a response per se. If someone uses other illegal speech against you -slander, or insults, depending on your laws- the proper response is not to punch them in the face until they stop. So by outlawing Qur'an burnings, I wouldn't give muslims offended by a Qur'an burning that happens anyway a right to violently intervene.
Though as the resident Fae says, there's also a degree of offense where the state does not (should not?) hold it against you to react violently. That sounds like it could escalate things quickly and give a lot of power to violent people, but if the bar for how much offense is necessary is sufficiently high, it actually does the opposite. The fighting words are IMO an act of non-physical violence, and by putting a hard limit on how much of that is tolerable, you put bounds on violent people, even where and when the state might not have the capacity to stop the offender. For context, in my country, deliberate provocation of a fight is seen as "consent" to the fight. This means you give up your right to self-defense to a substantial degree, if I understand things right, but does not oblige the other party to actually participate. So if you howl barbaric and blood-boiling obsceneties at me, I can punch you in the face if I want, but you don't get to start it if I don't want it. If your speech is offensive, but substantially milder to where it is no longer objectively understood as a provocation, then I don't get to punch you in the face, and shutting you up is a job for the state.
Well, here I am. I don't like hate speech, and I absolutely support the rights of platform owners to ban hate speech, just as I encourage users and advertisers to boycott platforms that permit hate speech, but I don't think the government should be criminalizing any form of speech, which necessarily includes hate speech.
Based on an article at altinget.dk regarding the interpretation of the law by legal experts[1] we can read at least two relevant pieces of information.
Translated in meaning, the change is to modify §110 e of Straffeloven, the Danish Penal Code, to add a section regarding "inappropriate treatment of an object with significant religious significance for a religious community".
Please note that I am not at any level an expert in Danish law, so it is very possible that the specific Danish words have more legal meaning or context that I am not aware of.
If we look at the text of Straffeloven $110[2], and its subsections a-f it concerns security of the nation and rights of (or in regards to?) foreign nations. $110 e specifically in its current form is
My (structurally loose) translation:
I haven't seen the specific proposed change(s) (I'm sure someone Danish could find that easier), but it seems reasonable given the context so I think it's fair to assume it's in essence correct.
[1] https://www.altinget.dk/artikel/en-genindfoersel-af-omstridt-paragraf-faa-eksperternes-vurdering-af-regeringens-koran-lovforslag
[2] https://danskelove.dk/straffeloven#110
My view is that it would be a worrying shift in norms if it happened in the US, but other countries have different norms on freedom of expression and it's not that big a deal if the law only bans public burnings. Foreign ministers causing a stink about it is a far cry from "terrorism". Ultimately, I'd say it's up to the Danish electorate to decide what they want.
The "recognized" religion part is just a quirk of legal stuff in Denmark. Not sure if it's like this in other countries, but the Ministry for Ecclesiatical Affairs has a committee specifically designed to recognize/acknowledge religious communities, meaning you can't just say you're a member of the Spaghetti church or whatever, and then that's that. You must get your church/religion approved by the ministry.
I don't think it's difficult to get your religion recognized, it's just bureaucracy.
As for the rest of your comment... yes, we do seem to fold to pressure and this law is controversial to say the least.
Yea, we have the same thing here in Finland. You need to have Holy Texts and have written down static ways of worship plus a few other rules.
This is why we haven't recognised a new religion pretty much ever. Even Wiccans couldn't get approved because their ways of worship aren't static and vary too much.
I'm Danish and most people I've talked to about this new law agree that the guy who's been doing the Q'uaran burnings here, Rasmus Paludan, is deranged. Some people think his views have merit, but very few think burning books is helping his case. On the other hand banning any desecration of religious books is taking it a bit too far, I think. One politician (from a party I usually disagree with) commented that this might prove to be a problem for heavy metal bands, who have a long tradition of dececrating the bible. As far as I've understood, there's no clause about artistic expression in this new law. Of course if there was, Paludan and his ilk would just call their "demonstrations" "art happenings" a couple of his followers are already doing dumb "art" in the name of freedom of expression.
Whenever this topic pops up, it gets veiled under the generic "an attack against freedom of speech", rather than the more clear and precise "an attack against the freedom to spread racist propaganda". Of course, you can make the argument that racism against a countries minorities deserves just as much protection as any other expression. But then SAY that; Talk about the thing you're talking about.
This gets even more questionable when coupled with "We do not negotiate with terrorists" so that Freedom of Expression (which is good and just) is standing bravely against the terrorists (which are evil). This framing twist the power levels around, ignoring that the freedom of expression being under attack is the freedom for the majority to attack the minority.
I am by no means a free speech absolutist, but I don't think this is a helpful angle. The law in question is not about racist propaganda (that would be a very different law that outlaws, well, racist propaganda), but rather it's saying (afaict) that mishandling religious artefacts - in and of itself - should be treated as a crime. In the situation we're talking about, that mishandling of artefacts was to attack a minority group, but the same law seems to apply to any religious group.
As a religious person myself, that sort of law makes me uncomfortable. Religions have done a tremendous amount of damage by using the legal system to evade criticism and attack those whom the religion has harmed. The victims of atrocities like the Magdalena laundries, or LGBT persecution need to have the right to express their opinions, and burning previously sacred objects is a time-honoured tradition of rejecting old ways and embracing new ones. I don't have a right to dictate how you handle your own Bibles, crucifixes, etc - and I don't want that right!
That's not to say that holding a Qur'an burning next to a mosque and inviting all your mates to stand there menacingly is okay! But I don't get the impression that those are the sorts of protests that are being discussed here, and even if they were, they need to be criminalised in a way that allows the freedom of apostasy and criticism of religion.
The one grand example I can recall of Danish blasphemy is the never produced (but much debated) movie about Jesus' sex life by Jens Jørgen Thorsen. This shitstorm was back in 1973. Despite Blasfemiparagraffen still being in existence back then, it wasn't evoked.
Blasfemiparagraffen came into existence in 1866. I just do a google translate:
So, pretty much a total ban on any and all mockery. Yet, curiously, in the 151 years this free-for-all law existed, it was only envoked two times.
The first time was in 1938 where a group of Nazis spread flyers saying that the Jewish Talmud contained legitimation for raping non-Jewish girls. They were given 2 to 8 months in prison (hey, wasn't 4 months the max?)
I think it wasn't as much about the blasphemy, but more about an understanding of the dangers posed by the Nazis antisemitism. Same misuse of religious criticism can be seen in the Nazi propaganda film Der Ewige Jude (1940)
The second time the law was evoked were a rather mundane case in 1946 where a couple at a carnival had dressed up as priest and babtized a doll. They were given a fine.
Besides those two cases, there were 6 other times where Blasfemiparagraffen were tried, but it were dismissed in court.
After the Muhammad-carricatures in the right-wing newspaper Jyllandsposten evolved into an international crisis, Blasfemiparagraffen came under scrutiny. The law was finally revoked in 2017. The removal of that law was not as about the law as it was a sort of official statement about how Denmark felt about them drawings, suggesting that they were totally not racist.
Which bit them in the butt when they suddenly needed said paragraph to deal with a case were, once again, religious critisism is used as cover for a racist agenda.
The racist core of Paludan and his political party Stram Kurs is pretty overt. The stated goal of the party is a ban on Islam and the removal of any and all "non-western" citizens from Denmark.
Paludan has also stated that his end goal is a world without a single muslim left.
https://jyllands-posten.dk/politik/ECE11368718/rasmus-paludan-i-video-det-bedste-ville-vaere-at-der-ikke-var-en-eneste-muslim-tilbage-paa-vor-kaere-jord/
At the general election on 5 June 2019, Stram Kurs won 1.8% votes. This was just under threshold of the 2.0% required for a party to win seats in parliament.
So to sums things up, religion have relatively little power in Denmark. Despite having had a far more pervasive law, blasfemiparagraffen, for 151 years, it didn't really do anything. So I don't think this new, rather limited, law will do much harm either. But it may hamper the algoritm-friendly provo videos which is the core of Paludans success.
While not risking anything myself (I'm white) racism scare me to the core, especially since I've seen it growing more and more mainstream here in Denmark. With this perspective, the argument about the right to criticize religion by blasphemic happenings just seem so far from the actual political realities.
It isn't racism, it's anti-islam. Burning a Quran is offensive to Islam, so the question is if protesting Islam should be expression that's protected. I think anyone that values free speech would say yes. Liberal ideals and Islam are incompatible, Islam is inherently misogynistic, should Danish women not be allowed to burn Qurans in protest? Let's call a spade a spade here, and say that your sensibilities about the law are tied to who provoked it, organized anti-islam and xenophobic protests by people who are racist does make this seem more reasonable, but it also removes an avenue for people with legitimate grievances against Islam to express their political protest against it. That's bad, and that's anti-free speech.