2 Nov 2010 | Uncategorized
A few months ago, the Lord Mayor of Cork (my home city) announced that he was banning the use of the word “recession” on 17 June. It was a cute idea, put forward by Danish conceptual artists Superflex as part of the Cork Midsummer Festival. It was not, of course, serious censorship. But it was really rather questionable: the stated aim of the project was to end the recession. By, er, not talking about it.
So far, so insufferably flaky. But not really censorship per se. No one was actually stopped from talking about the unprecedented crisis in which the Irish state finds itself.
Fast forward a few months and a few hundred miles up the country to Offaly, where a photographer has withdrawn a project from exhibition after local officials objected to the text accompanying the pictures.
The Sunday Independent reports that Carolina Gustavsson was asked to make edits to pictures documenting lives and attitudes in the area.
A council arts officer requested that Gustavsson change text describing one portrait sitter’s thoughts:
“Dave was listening to a documentary where an economist explored the roots of the problem and thinks it might be that Ireland is too small and too personal to keep the necessary discipline: ‘…like Paddy is a politician who knows Sean whose cousin Eamonn is a banker who knows Aengus who’s a solicitor… so cosy and corrupt. A change in the political system is badly needed and, to start with, an apology from the people responsible. Instead they continuously claim they did nothing wrong’.”
Sinead O’Reilly emailed Gustavsson, saying:
“It is Catherine, Dave and Irene and Jean and Conor which remain problematic. Can I suggest the following edits, which retain the message, just eliminates comments that can be read as offensive to the organisation which is both funding and hosting this exhibition. Yes, I agree that freedom of speech is important, and that the comments are nothing new, we hear them all the time, in fact they are typical of ranting you hear on the radio every day. I was expecting political content, but more insightful comments than merely suggesting that the organisation (funding your project) is corrupt.”
Now, apart from the fact that the quote seems to imply that the entire system is corrupt (which it is), rather than Offaly council or indeed the grant-awarding arm of the council, is it in any way appropriate for this email to be sent? Is there any point whatsoever in staging an exhibition about ordinary people and their opinions and then asking that the opinions be changed?
More importantly, what does this achieve?
Since the days of Charles Haughey, and before, realistically, Irish society has engaged in an astounding level of self-censorship to the point of self-delusion.
We were shocked by the detail of the Ryan Report into clerical abuse, but we all knew, all along, that it was going on. We know, deep down, that our political system is corrupt, but shouting too loudly about it is discouraged. We knew our economy was based on insane speculation and risk-taking, but we felt it better not to break the spell. No one wanted to admit the emperor was naked.
Grumbling in the pub is one thing, but write about people’s frustrations on a gallery wall, and well, really, that’s a bit much, an attitude confirmed in Sinead O’Reilly’s email.
16 Apr 2010 | Index Index, minipost
The Irish government has been engaged in high level discussions on introducing technology to censor websites, according to documents obtained by campaign group Digital Rights Ireland through a Freedom of Information request, and seen by the Irish Times. The exact nature of the Government discussions cannot be determined as Digital Rights Ireland was refused access to many documents by the Department of Justice. However, the extent of government interest in censorship is indicated by the list of documents that were refused. For example, one refused item details a meeting between the department and Vodafone on the “introduction of internet filtering in Ireland”. The potential scope of such technologies is evidenced by a refused document in which documents relating to the blocking of child pornography websites were forwarded to the official in the Department of Justice in charge of casino gaming regulation.
4 Jan 2010 | Uncategorized
This year has seen Ireland’s new Defamation Act pass into statute. While the act contains many interesting and welcome points for media (offering much greater protection to investigative journalists than England’s libel laws), the focus has been on the introduction of a crime of blasphemy: the Irish constitution had always maintained that blasphemous libel should be a crime, but no one had ever got round to defining what blasphemy was, or how it should be punished. The new bill criminalises words or actions that cause “outrage among a substantial number of the adherents of [a] religion”, with a potential fine of up to E25,000.
Back in October 2009, Mick Nugent of Atheist Ireland pointed out the problems with the Defamation Act:
One: The proposed law does not protect religious belief; it incentivises outrage and it criminalises free speech. Under this proposed law, if a person expresses one belief about gods, and other people think that this insults a different belief about gods, then these people can become outraged, and this outrage can make it illegal for the first person to express his or her beliefs.
The problematic behaviour here is the outrage, not the expression of different beliefs. Instead of incentivising outrage, we should be educating people to respond in a healthier manner when somebody expresses a belief that they find insulting. More worryingly, this law would encourage, reinforce and protect the type of orchestrated outrage that Islamic fundamentalists have directed against cartoonists and novelists.
Two: The proposed law treats religious beliefs as more valuable than secular beliefs and scientific thinking. Personally, I find it abusive and insulting that the Christian Bible suggests that a woman should be stoned to death for not being a virgin on her wedding night, or that it is okay to kill your slave if he dies slowly, or that effeminate people are unrighteous, or that women must not teach and must learn in silence.
If enough atheists are outraged by these passages, should the Christian Bible be banned? I do not believe that the Bible should be banned, and neither should discussion of the Bible in terms that cause Christians to be outraged.
Three: We should be removing 1930s religious references from the Irish constitution, not legislating to enforce them. Today, under the Irish constitution, you cannot become president or be appointed as a judge unless you take a religious oath asking God to direct and sustain you in your work.
This means that up to a quarter of a million Irish people could not take up these offices without swearing a lie. These religious declarations are contrary to Ireland’s obligations under the UN International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
…
There are also other references in the constitution to religion, as opposed to gods. We should be amending our constitution to remove these theistic references, not creating new crimes to enforce provisions written in the 1930s.
While Nugent and others fought valiantly against the new legislation, it has now become law. The next step has been to publish 25 blasphemous statements on the Atheist Ireland website, in order to test the law. You can read the statements here. Gardai have said they will investigate whether a crime has been committed.
23 Jul 2009 | Index Index, minipost
Irish president Mary McAleese has signed the Defamation Bill 2006 and the Criminal Justice (Amendment) Bill 2009 into law. The Defamation Bill updates Ireland’s defamation law, aims to encourage quicker apologies from publishers and renews the offence of blasphemy provided for under 1960s legislation, while the Criminal Justice (Amendment) Bill 2009 allows for the greater use of non-jury trials in suspected gangland criminal cases. Both have proved controversial with the Defamation Bill provoking outcry over its inclusion of a charge of blasphemous libel. Read more here
