Lofty thoughts

re: "No conscience" (BP, PostBag, August 17, 2023) & "Denmark on heightened alert after Koran burnings", (BP, August 4)

Dear editor,

I agree with Don McMahon that both social conscience and intention matter in determining law in democracies.

Even for reasonable people, however,  judging intent is a little more complicated. There is no doubt that those who burned the Koran did so with intent. They fully intended to perform that act. Reasonable people will likely also hold that they knew that act must "inflame, [and] stir up emotions." Anyone who burns a US flag in Washington to make a statement knows the same. And yet the US Supreme Court consistently upholds that the law protects such acts, even  against popular efforts by well-intended law makers who would criminalize such an offensive act. 

There is a distinction to be drawn between knowing that some result might follow and intending that result. A Koran can be burned with the intention of demonstrating that it is just one more book made of paper and ink, having no more magical quality than any other book ever produced. A Koran can be burned intent on expressing that the burner does not believe in its particular god. A Koran can be burned to intentionally dissent from the perceived bad morals it preaches. None of these intentions entail a further intent to "cause civil unrest," even if the actors know that such a consequence is likely. No more is it my intention, even though I know it is a certain result, to worsen global warming when I take a fossil-fuelled taxi to Paragon to buy unagi flown in from Japan. 

This is where social conscience becomes relevant. Our conscience pricks us to do what is right against our wishes, attitudes, and inherited prejudices. The bedrock of democracy is not mob rule by majority opinion. What sets democracy apart is the principle that each individual counts equally as an individual. This is why democracies respect human rights, even when a majority personally dislike something like same-sex marriage.  In particular, each individual person in a society has an equal right to a voice in forming the cultural mix out which that society elects it government. This is why free speech is foundational to democracy. This is why social conscience demands that Koran burning, like flag burning and making bonfires of other sacred vanities be not merely permitted but actively protected by the law.

Denmark and Sweden set the democratic example of respecting social conscience by legally protecting Koran burning and similarly peaceful, albeit deeply offensive, expressions of opinion. 

 Felix Qui 

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The above letter to the editor is the text as submitted by Felix Qui to the Bangkok Post.

The text as edited was published in PostBag on August 20, 2023, under the title "Lofty thoughts" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/2632445/down-with-the-devil