Without blasphemy the West would have no free speech

The attempt by an apparent supporter of the Islamic regime of Iran to murder British author Salman Rushdie for the crime of ‘blasphemy’ might seem to reveal an East-West divide. But in truth battles over blasphemy have always been a central part of the struggle for free speech within the West itself.

Without those heretical heroes of history who were prepared to question prevailing orthodoxies and face down accusations of blaspheming, there would be no freedom of speech in Western societies.

Today we still have to defend the liberty to blaspheme – in modern parlance, we might call it the right to be offensive – not only against Islam and all religions, but also against the new secular restrictions on freedom of thought and speech.

‘Blasphemy’ has its origins in the Ancient Greek words for ‘injure’ and ‘speech’. The Greek ‘blasphemia’ described any impious speech or slander. Though, historically, blasphemy laws have been used in the West to punish attacks on or insults to the official Christian religion, blasphemy laws have also often been wielded in the West against critics of the established political and social order, since church and state were always closely linked.

In this, allegations of blasphemy have long been closely aligned with charges of heresy – the expression of ideas that go against the prevailing fundamental beliefs of a society, religious or otherwise.

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