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| Jerome Boateng is a mainstay of Germany's defence, with 57 caps. |
According to the BBC News's "German row over right-winger's 'racist' Boateng remark" (2016), formed three years ago to oppose migration to Germany, the Alternative fuer Deutschland (AfD) political party has denied the charge of being racist following the controversy caused by a comment made by Alexander Gauland, the right-wing party's deputy chief. Gauland said in an interview that Germans "don't want to have [footballer Jerome] Boateng as a neighbour."
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My Yes/No question is:
Should racist comments be banned by law?
My answer is:
No, racist comments should not be illegal. In fact, ugly racist comments should be protected by rule of law.
First, the comments as quoted does not sound racist to me. It is reporting the attitudes of the German people. It might or might not be true, but the way to check that is to conduct a poll of public opinion. It such a poll were conducted in Australia, my guess is that many Australians would say they don't want black people as neighbours, especially not Australian Aboriginals. I don't think I'm racist for saying this: it is an honest report of what I think it true. And in fact, as my earlier posts have suggested, I strongly disagree with those Australians, including my own mother and other older relatives, who hold these ugly and deeply offensive opinions. I don't know whether the right-wing German party member agrees with what he says is the popular German opinion, but the evidence presented does not seem to me to show him to be racist. As he is a member of a right-wing party formed to protest new immigrants to Germany, I would not be surprised if he were in fact deeply racist, but I don't think the evidence supports that presumption.
The more interesting question, I thought, and hence my Yes/No question for this post, is whether the law of a nation should ban or protect vile hate speech that is truly racist, or otherwise offensive. For example, should it be legal to say that you hate transgender people, or that "God hates fags" (fag or faggot is an extremely offensive term for gay men)? I used the fag example because I'm gay. I don't normally mention this personal detail, but I think it is relevant here. And some of my oldest friends in Australia are transgender people, dating back to the 1970s and 80s in Australian culture, when they were hated by most people and in very real danger of physical assault as well as a lot of filthy hate speech inspired by the Christian religion and other morally bad influences in traditional Australian culture.
As you can see from my short answer, I think that the law must not only allow, but actually protect the speech that expresses such disgusting, deeply offensive opinions. But this time I'll leave my supporting reasons out until I see whether you agree or not.
If you would like another example of speech that I think good morals require that just law protect, it is the mockery of political leaders and heads of state, as we regularly see in democracies such as my own and England's, where everyone is up for some healthy laughter.
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Reference
The caption, which I copied and pasted, says that he has 57 caps. Does cap mean captaining the team? Or have I misunderstood and failed to guess from the context. I know almost nothing about football, and it didn't seem essential to understand the article, so I haven't opened a dictionary.
ReplyDeleteCap means amounts appearance of soccer players for their international competitions. Regarding Boateng, he appears 57 caps. This means that he has played soccer for his country (German) for 57 matches. Unfortunately, I'm not sure that this word is used only in soccer or can be used in other sports as well.
DeleteIf I don't misunderstand, this word came from England where claim themselves as an origin of football and they gave the caps to the players who were called to play in the national team.
DeleteThis knowledge is also new to me. I, too,was initially wondering about this word.
DeleteThank you Ming and Chan for clarifying my misunderstanding. As keen football (soccer) fans, do you also know how the word cap came to have this meaning? I'm sure I could not have guessed it from the context.
DeleteI think that whether the racist comments should be banned by law should be decided based on the values and attitudes of the people in each country. For the countries that truly have freedom of speech, i.e., the right where you can give your opinion or mock the royals or parody the parliament without any fear, the racist comments shouldn't be banned. On the other hand, In such country as Thailand, I still think that they should be banned by law.
ReplyDeleteI like Kam's clear statement of what sounds like a relativist approach to these sorts of questions.
DeleteDo you agree with Kam or with Stephen Law, with whose arguments we should have time to work on tomorrow morning?
No. I think that is the very tricky between the freedom of expression and the hate speech. Sometime I think the human rights concept against itself.
ReplyDeleteI think I know this law in US which has this criminal law of hate crime. It is the easiest solution for the citizen from different culture and race. Actually, the people still don't respect each other as the law expect. And you can see from the continuous victory of Donald Trump. The law cannot change the people idea in reality.
Your topic make me think about the latest "drama" among Thai netizen. The famous singer show anger against his fan girl who make the picture comparing him with the "net idol"(famous internet figure). He got the name from mimicking the K-pop style in "rural" way and a lot of people make fun of him. The singer idea is he was bullied. Some criticizes the singer as a racist because the net idol is Isan ethnicity.
DeleteI don't think it is the right assumption but they can speak whatever they want without violating the law. Even though, I quite empathy him for the reason he gave for the complex of bullying since childhood. I think it's the price the singer and public figure need to pay to become famous and earn his living from the popularity.
In his opening sentences, Union makes a point that seems to me very similar to one made by Law in his argument against relativism in moral beliefs.
DeleteWhat do you think?
And then there is the very different factual (?) claim that Union makes. That also seems to me to be worth some discussion.
Personally, all people in the world should be admitted to share their ideas because we can perceive news perspectives from other people, so that listening to other comments enables you to understand thoughts in many aspects. Hence, racists should be able to comment their own opinions to permit other people know why racists think that or why they have to assault dark skin people.
ReplyDeleteNevertheless, racists must share their ideas or speeches by not using rude words because this act may cause lots of bad incidents.
Your blog post lets me think about conflict in politics in Thailand. Should the "Red Shirt" group and "Yellow Shirt" group's comments be banned by law?