Writing Worth Reading
Writing Worth Reading
Superb short essay in favour of boat-rocking. "Originality is dangerous. It challenges, questions, overturns assumptions, unsettles moral codes." This is where great art comes from. If we believe in liberty, we must celebrate it
Interview with fugitive hacker Christopher Doyon. "Right now we have access to every classified database in the US government. The access was given to us by the people who run the systems. The pimply-faced kid in the basement"
"In the new South Africa that was reborn in the early 1990s, with its freedom hard-won from apartheid, we now have the imminent threat of updated versions of the suppression of freedom of expression that gagged us under apartheid"
Islamists rising to the top in the Arab world speak of freedom, equality, democratic values. At the same time, they insist Islam is the basis for these freedoms. Does this allow for genuine religious freedom? Evidence suggests not
Final piece by State Dept whistleblower before he was fired. "We thought that our employers would be concerned about what we had stumbled upon and would want to work with us to resolve it. We are guilty of naiveté, not treason"
The year is 1973, the location North Dakota. The head of a school board decides that Vonnegut's novel, Slaughterhouse-Five, is not only inappropriate reading material for students but must be burned. Vonnegut responds with a letter
On the limits to free speech. Is the critical thing what gets said, or how people react to what gets said? If we are frightened to criticise Islam for fear of provoking violence, is it still fair to criticise Christianity?
Is there a difference in moral status between foetus and newborn? If no, where does that argument lead? If yes, what is it and what does it mean? Malik untangles a recent controversy in this typically sensible and thoughtful piece
Exhibition dedicated to Muslim pilgrimage is put on with Saudi help. Scholarly questions are ignored in order to accommodate Saudi and Muslim sensitivities. Is this a price worth paying, if there's a wider societal benefit?
Does freedom of speech include the right to tell lies? US Supreme Court is asked to decide. One plausible answer: Most lies have no value to society. But there is value in the freedom to lie, without worrying about being arrested
Pity poor Hamza Kashgari. He made some injudicious comments on Twitter and now he's a pawn about to be sacrificed by the Saudi ruling family. This has little to do with the sanctity of Islam; everything to do with power politics
The only organised groups in Saudi Arabia are religious, and from the extremist end of the spectrum. Kashgari's appalling case prompts questions of whether giving more power to the people would be wise, and where it might lead
Image from Wikimedia Commons
"I may not agree with you, but I'll defend to the death my right to tell you to shut up"
