Free Speech

Today, I know why I am here.

I was excited to be able to observe another of our national employees as he taught a class on the penal code. This is the same class that I have observed and “taught” twice now. They seem to be a congenial group – except for the chatterers that I told you about the last time I stood up in front of them. Our teacher is very natural. He knows his stuff and explains it easily, and he connects with his students. Of course, I know this not because I can understand anything he says: I see how he says it and how the students respond to him and to the information. I can tell by his voice inflection when he asks a question, and the students all chime in together to answer the question. It is a gratifying scene for one who constantly attempts to engage a mostly unwilling audience of about 12 people, 8 or 9 of whom do not want to be in that classroom!

Anyway, his subject today was the part of the penal code in Afghanistan that deals with what we in America call “attempt” and Afghans call “initiation.” In America, each crime has elements, all of which must be proved in order for a person to be convicted of that particular crime. In Afghanistan, each crime has three necessary elements, and as far as I can tell, there is little, if any, distinction between things such as first degree or second degree murder, or manslaughter. If a person kills another person, and the three elements are present, that person is guilty of murder, period, unless he is excused for a couple of possible reasons (Because I looked at that section of the penal code a few days ago and can’t remember details, I won’t elucidate further; if, however, you would like to know more, I will re-educate myself and let you know). One of the big "initiation" crimes in Afghanistan is initiation of adultery - putting oneself in a position of committing adultery but for some reason not going through with it.

So after the teacher finished, he asked if I would like to say a few words, and do you know any lawyer who DOESN’T want to say a few words?

I told the class about our criminal code that requires all elements of each crime to be proved, blah, blah, blah, and then told them about the different terms: “attempt” and “initiation.” As an illustration, I picked an unfortunate topic. For those of you who have read The Ransom of Red Chief, by O. Henry, you will know what I am talking about when I told the class that a funny story in the United States illustrated an attempted kidnapping. I then told them the basis of the story, which, for you who have not read it, and if you have not, you should, is that the kidnapped kid is so horrible that the kidnapers pay the child’s parents to take him back.

The humor of that situation was completely lost on my students, who told me that if the kidnapped child is that bad, in Afghanistan, the kidnapers just do things such as cut off the child’s fingers. I realized quickly that I had gone down the wrong path.

So I closed and, as usual, asked for questions.

The two men who sit to my right are older – one is 61, and the other is probably my age. One of them asked whether in America we had prejudice in our crimes, as my interpreter put it, between white and black people. I explained that though we believe in justice for all, studies show that the American prison population is overwhelmingly black and poor – but our jobs, theirs as police and mine as judge, are to make sure that the system works the same for everyone. Then he asked whether it was a crime for some groups to insult other groups.

I knew exactly where we were headed, and I prayed quickly for wisdom, the right words, and an interpreter who would repeat only what I said and nothing more. I then talked about hate crimes, and gave them the examples of Matthew Shepard’s murder in Wyoming which happened because he was gay, and the dragging death of Mr. Byrd in Texas because he was black. The interpreter, before telling the class what I had said, asked if those cases had actually happened. He was stunned by both examples. Then, the interpreter, who is the young man who is dying to get married, went on: “Perhaps in Missouri, there are lots of different people in different tribes, like lots of people with different religions, Christian, Muslim, Hindu, like that, and one tribe insults the other tribe. Is that a crime?”

I said that insulting someone was not a crime. I, waiting for what was coming, explained that if someone said something to me that made me afraid, that could be considered a crime of assault, but if I were not afraid, it would just be an insult. I explained that I get insulted quite a lot, but that I just have to ignore it and go on.

The older student pushed it. Is that because of the right to free speech? I explained that free speech does not mean free from consequences. I told them that the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, many years ago, said that we do have free speech, but we do not have the right to yell “Fire!” in a crowded theater because it was likely that someone would be hurt in what follows. I explained that our free speech is censored by the government in things such as what we watch on television, or in movies, where we have a ratings system. But generally, people will say what they think, and that sometimes that is bad, and sometimes that is good, and that they have a right to do so.

At this point, one of the younger men said something a little impatiently, and my interpreter looked at me and said that the “bottom line” was what had happened with the film. I got the idea that maybe my interpreter wasn’t telling me exactly what was being said because he didn’t want to deal with the political issue (as an aside, he told me later that all the Afghans want to talk about political issues, and I told him that I had talked to this group twice before and we didn’t talk at all about politics).

I nodded and told them that I thought the film was a bad idea, but that it did not represent me or my government. I told them that our government stands for the idea that all people can practice the religion they choose without fear, and that no one can force another person to practice any religion. I told them that bad people exist everywhere, and that religion is not a dividing factor. For instance, I told them, a couple of years ago, a man claiming to be a Christian walked into a church and shot a doctor in the head. That was wrong. The interpreter was stunned by that example as well as by the others, and he told the group. I don’t think they had heard that story.

The next question was whether the man, or the group, who made the film would be punished. I then explained that right now, the man who was supposed to be the director of the film either had been questioned or was being questioned, and there exists a possibility that he might have violated his probation by posting the video. If that is the case, he will be punished. If he were to be punished for the deaths of the people in Libya, we would have to be able to prove that his actions caused those deaths, and we would have to prove all the elements of that crime. I told them that I had read in the New York Times that it was possible that the people who killed the Ambassador, the other State Department employee, and the contractors were not connected to the protest about the film at all, but were instead people who had joined the crowd in order to carry out an attack.

I was looking at all of them to see how they were taking what I said. Most of them were somewhat inscrutable, but I got the idea that this was thin ice and I was treading on it. I tried one more thing. I told them that I was here because I believe that most people are good at heart, and that I am good at heart and a good person, and I am hoping that I can do something here that will help us come together. At that point they nodded, and one of them said that he knew I was a good person. I told them that I didn’t have anything else to say, but that I hoped my explanation would help them understand a little more about the difference in our cultures when it came to speech. And then I took a chance.

I thanked them for asking me to talk about it. I told them that maybe talking about it was the best thing. And then I said, “I need to know. Are we all right? Is everything okay?” And they all smiled and nodded and made noises as if they were assenting. My interpreter confirmed that we were all right.

I sat down because my knees were weak. And the older man, the one who started the whole thing, smiled at me.