Up till a few weeks ago we were all ‘Charlie’. Every day, on my way to and back home from University, I pass near a large slogan nicely painted on a concrete wall: #jiena Charlie. The outpouring of solidarity was a spontaneous reaction against the horrible massacre of the cartoonists of the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo. It was also the hip thing to do independently of one’s real position of the right of free expression.
The Charlie Hebdo cartoonists were irreverent to the core but we all said they had a right to be irreverent. Their cartoons were offensive but we all said that being offensive is an essential part of freedom of expression.
Whoever is offended should lump it, the common feeling ran. Long live the right to offend resounded all around particularly in the liberal and progressive circles.
Lampooning the Prophet Mohammed was on. Shockingly showing the persons of the Blessed Trinity in the most compromising positions was deemed to be permissible. Ridiculing popes, premiers and presidents was most welcome. Ridiculing Muslims and other believers was not considered to be a problem. All this, many claimed, showed how progressive and liberal we all were.
Offend us as much as you wish and we’ll throw flowers at you, the liberal mantra reverberated in each corner of cyberspace.
The Charlie Hebdo cartoonists were irreverent to the core but we all said they had a right to be irreverent
But it seems that this outpouring of welcoming openness to the right to offend was not to last very long. It has just been discovered that there are limits to one’s right to offend. It was not the right to offend which was limitless but the right to offend certain people, issues and institutions.
Thou can (perhaps should) offend divinity, the founders of religion and the most important political icons but woe to you if you dare question, particularly in harshly descriptive language, the wisdom of surrogate parenthood through in vitro fertilisation or gay adoptions. If you dare you pay a price.
Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana, the two men behind the fashion label Dolce&Gabbana have just discovered this harsh truth. Their nefarious crime was that they dared speak their own minds albeit in a language which was both crude and offensive.
In parenthesis, I note that I am no fan at all of the use of offensive language and argumentation. Even if legally permissible, I follow the ethical position of Clifford Christians, one of the most eminent media ethicists in the US, who proposes a media ethic based on caring for others unless there is some overriding public interest to do otherwise.
Back to Dolce and his interview with the Italian magazine Panorama, we find that he dared to say: “I’m not convinced by those I call the children of chemicals, synthetic children. Wombs for rent, sperm chosen from a catalogue … Procreation must be an act of love … now not even psychiatrists are prepared to deal with the effects of these experiments.”
Dolce had made controversial comments before. In 2006 he said: “I am opposed to the idea of a child growing up with two gay parents. A child needs a mother and a father. I could not imagine my childhood without my mother. I also believe that it is cruel to take a baby away from its mother.”
Such strong criticism of gay parenting gains more poignancy because Dolce and Gabbana are gay. They met in Milan, in 1980. Gradually, while working together, they not only developed their own brand in 1982 based on Sicilian inspiration but they fell in love. Dolce and Gabbana’s romantic relationship ended in around 2001, although they did not reveal it to the press until 2005.
The allurement of having children like other gay couples attracted them as well. In 2006, Gabbana revealed he had asked a female friend to be a surrogate mother to his children but had changed his mind as he felt that children should be raised by a heterosexual couple. Dolce had said something similar during a 2005 Vanity Fair interview on the subject. Dolce said he would love an “entire football team” of children, but: “I have the small handicap of being gay so having a child is not possible for me.”
The reaction to the comments given to Panorama was strong. Sir Elton John who together with his husband David Furnish, has two children through surrogacy, immediately ranted in a tweet: “How dare you refer to my beautiful children as ‘synthetic’.” He then declared a fatwa in the form of a boycott of the brand. Other celebs followed suit.
The point of this piece is not about whether Dolce’s arguments are right or wrong, dolce or offensive. The point is whether in a democratic society he has a right to express them without facing punishment for expressing them. Quite naturally, organising a boycott is different from organising a massacre. But isn’t the organisation of a boycott a way of punishing someone for the free expression of an opinion?
The same lobby which praised to the skies the right of the cartoonists to offend the Prophet Mohammed and the Blessed Trinity are now saying that punishment should be meted to Dolce for his opinion on gay adoptions following surrogacy.
This is hypocrisy of the first degree, if you ask me. In previous commentaries, I mentioned many other instances of such intolerant hypocrisy. President Emeritus George Abela, for example, was rubbished for taking a principled position deciding not to sign the in all but name same-sex marriage Act passed by the Maltese Parliament, as he strongly believed that the current introduction of adoptions by gay couples was not in the best interest of children.
Barilla’s chief, Guido Barilla, was made to apologise profusely, even grovel for his remarks that he will never feature same-sex families in his adverts, not through “lack of respect” but because “we don’t agree with them.”
Gabbana’s tweet in retort to the fatwa proclaimed by Elton John is a valid riposte for the present and similar controversies:
“This is respect for a different opinion?
“It is simply arrogant not to tolerate those who do not think like him (Sir Elton) poor thing. We live in a democratic country and respect the ideas of others.”
As I declared Je suis Charlie, I consistently and strongly declare Je suis Dolce & Gabbana. However, I do not expect the so-called liberal and progressive movement to show the same type of consistency.
joseph.borg@um.edu.mt