American Freedoms for the Muslim World

American Freedoms for the Muslim World

Name

HUM/176

Date

Instructor

American Freedoms for the Muslim World

“As an American we are guaranteed certain rights, one of these rights is the freedom of speech, granted to us by our founding fathers, it is the First Amendment in the Bill of Rights, it has since been used as a founding point for the Right to Freedom of Expression which is recognized as a human right under Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and recognized in International Human Rights Law in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights” (Wikipedia Freedom of Speech, 2012).

Is there a line that must be drawn Are we truly ‘All entitled to our own opinion’ or is it true that ‘We are all entitled to our own opinion; the problem is when you share it with everyone else’?

Social Media always has been a valid tool, giving opportunity to express oneself, from the basics of printing your thoughts on paper for others to read, or to broadcast your voice over the air waves for people to hear, and with the invention of Television you can even share your facial expressions, gestures, and movements. However there has always been a limit to just how much you could express. There have always been ‘rules’ to follow, things that you just don’t put on the television, or the radio, things that you cannot print in the paper. With the birth of the Internet a brand new freedom immerged, suddenly and with great explosion anyone could express themselves in any manner they desired, and there are few ‘rules’ to regulate just how ‘free’ you can be. We see the result of this ‘freedom’ in the recent incident involving a low-budget film: Innocence of Muslims which has caused a great deal of uproar in many countries across the globe. According to The New Yorker, ‘The video is crude, both aesthetically and ideologically. It was, presumably, intended to offend, and it is has that effect (Marantz, 2012). The movie has also been blamed for inspiring the...