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Does It Matter How One Opposes Memory Bans? A Commentary On Liberte Pour L'Histoire, Robert Kahn
Does It Matter How One Opposes Memory Bans? A Commentary On Liberte Pour L'Histoire, Robert Kahn
Robert Kahn
This paper examines Liberté pour l'Histoire, a group of French historians who led the charge against that nation’s memory laws, in the process raising unique arguments not found elsewhere in the debate over hate speech regulation. Some of these arguments – such as a focus on how the constitutional structure of the Fifth Republic encouraged memory laws – advance our understanding of the connection between hate speech bans and political institutions. Other arguments, however, are more problematic. In particular, Liberté historians struggle to distinguish the Holocaust (which is illegal to deny) from the Armenian Genocide (which is not). The Liberté …
Why Do Europeans Ban Hate Speech? A Debate Between Karl Loewenstein And Robert Post, Robert Kahn
Why Do Europeans Ban Hate Speech? A Debate Between Karl Loewenstein And Robert Post, Robert Kahn
Robert Kahn
European countries restrict hate speech, the United States does not. This much is clear. What explains this difference? Too often the current discussion falls back on a culturally rich but normatively vacant exceptionalism (American or otherwise) or a normatively driven convergence perspective that fails to address historical, cultural and experiential differences that distinguish countries and legal systems. Inspired by the development discourse of historical sociology, this article seeks to record instances where Americans or Europeans have argued their approach to hate speech laws was more “advanced” or “modern.”
To that end this article focuses on two authors whose writing appears …
News Value, Islamophobia, Or The First Amendment, Why And How The Philadelphia Inquirer Published The Danish Cartoons, Robert Kahn
News Value, Islamophobia, Or The First Amendment, Why And How The Philadelphia Inquirer Published The Danish Cartoons, Robert Kahn
Robert Kahn
The typical framing of the United States in the Danish cartoon controversy is driven by the refusal of most papers to republish the cartoons. On this view, American journalists, unlike their European counterparts, focused narrowly on the cartoons' "news value" which--even at the papers that published the cartoons--ruled out the anti-Muslim stereotypes that accompanied the running of the cartoons in Denmark and Europe.
This paper puts this frame to the test by looking at the debate that unfolded after the Philadelphia Inquirer ran the turban cartoon. While editor Amanda Bennett defended her decision as "what newspapers do," a detailed review …
Are Muslims The New Catholics? Europe's Headscarf Laws In Comparative Historical Perspective, Robert Kahn
Are Muslims The New Catholics? Europe's Headscarf Laws In Comparative Historical Perspective, Robert Kahn
Robert Kahn
ABSTRACT: Many European opponents of the headscarf view themselves as engaged in a “struggle against totalitarianism.” This article explores an alternative framing: What if Muslims—rather than Nazis or Communists in training—are the more like nineteenth century Catholics, who were seen as a religious threat to European (and U.S.) liberalism? To explore this idea, this article looks at the headscarf debate through the lens of the German Kulturkampf (1871-1887) and nineteenth century U.S. laws that banned public school teachers from wearing clerical garb. It reaches two tentative conclusions. First, many of the claims made against European Muslims—especially about the “backward” nature …