Australian Journalist Jason Morrison Gives Al Jazeera More Than They Bargained For in Discussion of Freedom of Speech
How I found out about this fascinating exchange – which took place, I understand, on 9th January, only two days after the assault on ‘Charlie Hebdo’ – is a long story which I won’t go into. But for the transcript of what transpired I am indebted to a bloke called Michael Smith, who presumably saw it and recorded it – or got it from someone else who did – and put it up at his blog, here:
‘Jason Morrison Slaps Down Al Jazeera Paris Terrorist Apologists’
‘Transcript
‘Station – Al Jazeera English
‘Date – 9/1/2015; Time – 7.06 AM ; Compere – AL JAZEERA. Summary ID: W)))59934129
‘ITEM – PANEL DISCUSSION ON PARIS ATTACKS
‘INTERVIEWEES – Jason Morrison, Australian Newspaper Columnist, “Daily Telegraph”; Professor Arsheed Hilali, Islamic Studies Unit; Dr Marilyn Warner, Global Crisis Think-Tank.
‘,,,MORRISON. “I’m sorry. I have to interrupt here. I’m sorry I am not going to sit here and listen to people stupidly suggest that the French or the magazine or anyone brought this on themselves. Are you for real? We have a dozen people dead, killed in the name of a religious belief, and you are seriously going to even slightly justify this?
Ozzie, Ozzie, Ozzie, Oy! Oy! Oy! – CM
‘COMPERE: I don’t think anyone is justifying anything here.
‘MORRISON: Well, that’s not what I am hearing.
“I’m hearing this vaguely-worded defence that France shouldn’t have done this, and Sarkozy said that two years ago, and if they didn’t draw Mohammed then this might not have happened, or whatever.
“It is obscene and a gutless way of almost saying they all deserved this.
“Well if you believe that you are about as bad as the idiot who thinks the pretty girl in the short skirt is asking to be raped so she had better watch out.”
They do believe just that, of course; and they do think just that about pretty girls in short skirts, too. – CM
‘COMPERE: That’s a ridiculous comparison.
‘MORRISON: Is it ridiculous? Tell me how? It’s the “you were asking for it” way of thinking. Your logic is, those who drew the pictures should have known better and should have known what the response would be. Whereas I say, if you can’t accept that people have different views to you, then maybe the problem is with you if your response is to pull out an AK and go nuts.
‘COMPERE: Well, the material was designed to offend.
‘MORRISON: And so what? A lot of what I’ve heard here today has offended me, but if you’re civilised, and I think that’s a major issue with some of the people we are talking about, if you are civilised, you just get on with it. We shouldn’t have to have special rules for special people.”
‘COMPERE: No-one is suggesting special rules, just an understanding that some things are offensive.
‘MORRISON: So, OK, we can have a bit of fun with the Pope, with Buddha, Jesus Christ on the Cross, the Dalai Lama, the Queen, Barack Obama. Want to add to the list? But not anything or anyone associated with Muslims. They’re special, apparently. And that’s where all this free speech talk I’m hearing falls to bits.
Boom! boom! Boom! Bang on the target, Mr Morrison. – CM
“If you defend free speech then you defend offensive speech as well. It’s real easy to stand up for the nice stuff, but sometimes it gets ugly, and if you are fair dinkum, as we say in Australia, you stand for all.
“Now, I’m not fond of Jesus Christ jokes, but if you crack one you shouldn’t fear a few goons showing up with AK47s and shooting everyone in the office dead at their desks.
“So, please, spare me the justification garbarge for these terrorists being upset and just responding to provocation. If you think they were even slightly justified for killing people who drew some pictures, then I’m afraid you are over in their column.“
Mate, I didn’t know you from a bar of soap before I read this interchange, but wow! – non-dhimmi of the year, 2015, if you can keep this kind of thing up, the title is in the bag. – CM
‘COMPERE: Ok, I take your point, but if you deliberately set out to offend there are consequences.
Was that a threat? – CM
‘MORRISON: Yes there are: people might not buy your magazine, or you get nasty letters in the mail from upset people; but not a dozen of your workmates dead at their desks. And here we are again talking about consequences.
“It’s back to the same argument as the pretty girl in the bar example. If you think she’s asking to be raped, you are, in my view, unfit for civilised society. You are uncivilised, and maybe that’s something we should be spending a bit of energy on.”….
END.
One more time:
“You are, in my view, unfit for civilised society. You are uncivilised.”
What he said. Nice to see it put so plainly, bang, bang, bang like drones dropping onto jihadi nests in the badlands, right there on Al Jazeera in English, from an Aussie journalist who is clearly grieved and infuriated by the Muslim massacre of his French fellow-journalists and even more infuriated by the sly, smiling apologists for that massacre.
I should add that I have not yet checked whether MEMRI managed to catch this one when broadcast; and I think at least one person commented that they had not been able to find it on the Al Jazeera site. It is certainly embarrassing enough that they may have thrown it down the memory hole. One does hope, however, that some of the more naive English-speaking Infidels who have gotten into the bad habit of watching Qatar’s bought-and-paid-for dawa channel, Al Jazeera in English, may have seen this broadcast, and may have gotten a salutary jolt.