John Stuart Mill and the “Books of Hate”

It was recently reported that the Attorney-General is seeking to ban books that glorify “suicide bombing, jihad and anti-Australian conspiracies”. The books in question were found at a Sydney Islamic bookshop by one of the newspapers and investigated by the Australian Federal Police (AFP) to determine whether the books contravened some laws. Their assessment was that the books did not break the law; a decision which has prompted the Attorney-General to look at changing the laws to ensure that such books are banned.

One of the books — and the book which seems to have most irked the government — is the book, In Defence of Muslim Lands by Sheikh Abdullah Azzam. The book apparently carries an introduction from Osama Bin Laden. That the book was written in the 1980s, with the tacit approval of the West, to encourage young Muslims to travel to Afghanistan to fight the communists has yet to be mentioned. As has the fact that the book simply cites a series of earlier religious edicts, many of which relate to the Tatar invasion of Baghdad several centuries ago, and reach the less than staggering conclusion that when a Muslim country is attacked, Muslims should rise to the defence of their country. The problem, it seems, is that the late Sheikh Abdullah Azzam didn’t limit his ruling to those countries where the United States believed it was politically expedient to promote jihad but left it rather open; open enough to include countries such as Iraq or contemporary Afghanistan in its scope.

For this reason, the government wishes to see this book and others like it banned and removed from shops, libraries and, one presumes, homes. The ideas contained within these books are apparently so dangerous that they represent a threat to our security: if people are allowed to reach such books, they might be somehow metamorphise into terrorists. Oddly, the transformational effect of Islamic literature isn’t mirrored in the books of other religious and political traditions which also discuss what many might consider offensive or ‘hateful’ — such as communist literature, the writings of Adolf Hitler, or the dispensationalist eschatology of some Christian sects.

Ironically, the discussion about banning books comes almost 200 years to the day that the British philosopher John Stuart Mill was born. J.S. Mill was, of course, a British philosopher who is perhaps most well known for bringing Bentham’s philosophy of utilitarianism into the mainstream. He is also noted for his book, On Liberty which popularised liberalism: the idea that the individual should be morally and economically free from the state and what Tocqueville would decry as the ‘tyranny of the majority‘.

Whilst they may be much that a Muslim might find objectional about the idea of unfettered freedoms, there is still considerable value to be found in this book: particularly in Mill’s proscriptions for how a society can be organised such that the political and intellectual freedoms of its constituents are duely maintained (and is there a better example of a society where many, competing ideas coexist than a modern, pluralist country such as Australia or the United Kingdom?)

Mill was of the view that freedom of thought was an inviolable tenet of the free society. In On Liberty he makes a compelling case against the very sort of censorship that the state is today attempting to engage in with relation to these so-called “hate books”. Mill writes:

If all mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind. Were an opinion a personal possession of no value except to the owner; if to be obstructed in the enjoyment of it were simply a private injury, it would make some difference whether the injury was inflicted only on a few persons or on many. But the peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error.

Put simply and in more contemporary language: by banning books, we deny people the opportunity to benefit from the ideas they contain if these ideas are later proved to be factual; and, if the ideas are incorrect, we deny people the opportunity to learn from the mistakes and misguidance that they may contain. Mill speaks of truth being strengthened by a “collision with error”. By this, he means that ideas that we deem to be incorrect should be opposed by correct ideas and that, through this collision, the truth would emerge stronger. If, however, we engage in a kind of intellectual protectionism — refusing to refute or debunk ideas that we consider false — then it strengthens the falsehood by creating the impression that our reluctance to engage in debate is a concession of intellectual defeat.

For this reason, it makes no sense to ban books. If the ideas contained in these “hate books” are incorrect, as the government alleges, then let those who disagree with them confront the ideas with the truth; exposing, for posterity, the fallacy of the arguments they contain. However, by banning these books and others that contain what might be seen as hateful speech, the government is making it impossible for people to debate, discuss and ultimately refute or debunk these ‘dangerous ideas’. For example, how can the government expect Muslim intellectuals, leaders and scholars to confront the supposed threat of religious extremism in our community if these same people are denied access to the books of religious extremism?