NYTimes | The anti-American violence in the Muslim world demanded a firm push back
from President Obama, who finally delivered it on Tuesday in the last United Nations General Assembly speech of his term.
Since the protests, attacks and flag burnings erupted two weeks ago over
an anti-Islam video made in California, administration officials have
condemned its crude depiction of the Prophet Muhammad and explained that
the government had nothing to do with it. Mr. Obama made a similar
point at the United Nations.
But he also gave a full-throated defense of the First Amendment right
that, in this country, protects even hateful writings, films and speech.
“We do so because in a diverse society, efforts to restrict speech can
quickly become a tool to silence critics and oppress minorities,” Mr.
Obama said. He added that “the strongest weapon against hateful speech
is not repression; it is more speech — the voices of tolerance that
rally against bigotry and blasphemy, and lift up the values of
understanding and mutual respect.”
Mr. Obama was right to deliver that message, however foreign it is in
much of the Muslim world. The assembled leaders applauded when Mr. Obama
said he accepts that, as president, people will call him “awful things
every day” and that he will defend their right to do it. But a number of
Islamic leaders have recently revived a push for an international ban
on blasphemy, which would move in exactly the wrong direction.
Mr. Obama’s more pragmatic challenges to Arab Spring countries trying to
build new democratic societies may have more impact. He said all
leaders must speak against violence and extremism out of obligation to
United Nations norms as well as self-interest. “Burning an American flag
does nothing to provide a child an education,” he said, and popular
outrage can be turned as easily against Muslim leaders, ethnic groups
and tribes as America.
