Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Salman Rushdie, Taslima Nasreen, Irshad Manji, Ibn Warraq and many others live under death threats for expressing certain ideas as they offended a group of people. Thus, the question arises, should freedom of ex-pression include a right to offend? I come across people, in print and conversations, say “I support freedom of ex-pression. But we should not hurt others’ sentiments”, as if it is self-evident. This assertion is vague on a couple of levels. What constitutes offence and what must be the punishment for it? While the first is considered in a few discussions, the second is ignored as people start picking on the supposed flaws in those offensive arguments ignoring the death threats.

A little thought reveals that there is no objective way to define “offensive views”. There are places in contemporary world where it hurts sentiments even if others’ houses of worship contain idols. They destroy idols; remember Buddha in Afghanistan, temples in Kashmir, arrest of 3 in Saudi for the clandestine temple. They are, of course, following a prophet who destroyed an existing place of worship, as if it is impossible to build a new one, for his faith’s holiest. Other faiths, no less dangerous in history, at places even now, join these guys to evade criticism; “don’t hurt the sentiments of others”, and while we try to protect our petty feelings/faiths, people (kids/women among them) are dying out there.

Further, just because somebody states an opinion that is contrary to mainstream opinion, does that justify killing him/her? Doesn’t this mean if/when a majority for this contrarian opinion forms in a different time/space the mainstream people should be killed? The pre-requisite for rational discussion is an environment where ex-pression of any idea is not threatened with violence/death. If violence/death threats are the answers to contrarian opinions, then stop pretending that one is ready to discuss. These pseudo discussions offer no real choice; they only say, “Accept my point voluntarily, or else I will kill you”

Freedom of ex-pression without a right to offend is an oxymoron. When death/violence are alternatives to speaking out what one thinks, the virus spreads in the society, resulting in pretension on many levels. Individuals suffer because of that. Zakir Naik, for example, talks of women being raped in US, citing its’ own data. The data from US, and the west, in general is very reliable. How reliable is the data from "conservative” societies on these issues? Does anybody need convincing that semi-rapes in conservative societies turn into consensual sex as victims do not want to lose “honor”? What percent of rapes are actually reported in such societies? I know around ten instances of pre/extra-marital affairs/flings. How many of these will find their way into official statistics if a survey is conducted? 

Taslima Nasreen and others may be bad writers and their arguments may lack logic. However, they have the right to say what they want to say. If one has better arguments, let’s hear them, not threats. Obviously, it is the individual’s choice to support killing such “offensive” people. However, this will result in a thought-censored world, where more and more ideas, and actions, will be categorized as “offensive” and more (surely we or our offspring among them) will be killed/punished. God, of course, is great. He grants us everything we ask for. When our hand, leg, or neck is at the receiving end of a sword and we pray “God, please save me”. S/he would only say, “But you asked for it, Mate”.

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These issues, among others, are well argued by Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a beautiful woman on many levels. The reader can get to know her better through various videos posted on youtube and google. She is one of the most important persons of our age, in my opinion.