Being free from hatred and suspicion
“NO regrets over Prophet Muhammad cartoons”.
That’s the arrogant and presumptuous statement made by Charlie Hebdo’s director, Laurent Sourisseau, at the Tribunal de Paris courthouse in Paris on Sept 9. What he regretted, was “to see how little people fight to defend freedom”.
“If we don’t fight for our freedom, we live like a slave and we promote a deadly ideology,” he lamented. Unfortunately in today’s so-called civilised world, Sourisseau is not the only one who holds this belief.
There is no absolute freedom in any part of the world. Even in a country like Norway which practises the most freedom, a person was sentenced to prison for hate speech by the Supreme Court on April 12, 2018 for crossing the line of freedom of expression.
Limitations to expression include defamation, hate speech and deliberate contempt of religion.
Our country has just celebrated its 63rd anniversary of independence from the British and yesterday was Malaysia Day.
During the colonial period, our forefathers suffered a lot because there was no freedom at all. The few old folks who have survived until this day are able to narrate the ordeal during that period.
We are a sovereign country now, and have made tremendous progress living together in this multi-racial and multi-religious country.
Regrettably, there are always certain quarters who do not appreciate the peace and harmony that we enjoy. They tend to cross the boundary of freedom of expression by playing up sensitive issues that could cause anger and provoke others.
The bloody tragedy of May 13, 1969 should always be in our mind when it comes to discussing sensitive issues.
The youngsters today have no idea of what actually transpired in 1969, for they were not born yet. Some do not even bother to read up on the history of their own country and take lessons from it, not knowing that history repeats itself. People turn to social media to express their opinion and criticisms.
Their opinion can be accessed worldwide. Some have gone overboard by insulting or defaming others, making hate speeches and derogatory remarks against other races, religions or languages.
Sometimes, they channel hateful remarks not only to the leaders of our country but also to the king or queen who are above politics and by right should be given full respect and honour just like one respects one’s own parents.
According to Malaysia Crime Prevention Foundation senior vice chairman, Tan Sri Lee Lam Thye, there is no specific law to regulate hate speech in this country, though there are general provisions that address certain elements of hate speech.
He proposed that “Malaysia should emulate other countries which have introduced specific laws to tackle such issues.
The United Kingdom has the Racial and Religious Hatred Act 2006, which makes it an offence to incite hatred against a person on the grounds of religion”.
We need to strike a balance as we also need to comply with Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Article 10 of the Federal Constitution of Malaysia on freedom of opinion and expression.
So far, the government invokes Section 233 of the Communications and Multimedia Act and laws such as the Sedition Act 1948, the Peaceful Assembly Act 2012 and sections 504 and 505 of the Penal Code and Security Offences (Special Measures) Act 2012 to charge those who make hate speeches, apart from Section 298A of the Penal Code that states it is a crime to incite disharmony, disunity and enmity on the grounds of religion.
However, whether or not we have a Racial and Religious Hatred Act, by now we should be able to understand each other better, loving each other like brothers and sisters of humanity — even though we are of different faiths — like Imam al-Nawawi RA says in his work, 40 Hadiths (Arba’in al-Nawawiyah), commenting on a prophetic tradition “to love your brother what you love for yourself”.
A self-censorship and self-restraining attitude that prevents us from making any hateful statements or defaming and insulting others, which would eventually incite disharmony, disunity and enmity among various racial and religious adherents, is perhaps one of the ways to manifest our love for our brothers and sisters of humanity.
True freedom is freedom from hatred, enmity and suspicion.