Tapu Misa: Judgment a balancing act

It's not often that a television commercial gets us giggling and thinking in our household, but that "togs, togs, togs, undies" Trumpet ad is that rarity.

We even remember that it's advertising icecream and not "budgie-smugglers" - those immodest, stretchy bits of fabric that my boys, who prefer the more discreet boxers and board shorts, are too cool to wear.

The ad asks a profoundly important question for our times: when do togs become undies? It answers it by showing a young man walking away from a beach in his skimpy Speedos - togs, togs, togs - and wandering the streets - undies, undies, undies - causing consternation among parents of young children and old ladies.

When do togs cross the line into undies? When you can't see the sea. Treat that budgie-smugglers rule with respect, says the voice-over, and we'll all be happier. Or words to that effect.

Simple, really. In matters of Speedo-exposure as with so much else, it's all about context and perspective. How things look almost always depends on where you happen to be standing.

You can take it as read that we're not talking here about clearly demarcated rights and wrongs - black and white issues on which we can all agree. It's those problematic grey areas where the lines aren't drawn in thick, black, rigid strokes (unless you happen to live somewhere like Iran) but in invisible ink (which can change position, inconveniently for those who like absolutes and certainty), that cause the most angst. Like fault lines, we're only ever aware of them when the earthquake hits.

Which makes it difficult to always know when the line has been crossed. When does something cross that apparently fine line from decent to indecent, from provocative to incendiary, from persuasive to bullying, from challenging to gratuitously, grossly, unacceptably offensive?

The unsatisfying answer is: it depends. Which brings me, belatedly, and somewhat reluctantly, to that cartoon business. I say reluctantly, not because I fear for my welfare or the country's trade prospects (the latter, as far as I'm concerned should never enter into any journalist's consideration), but because there's no clear line to be drawn here. And for that, I am profoundly grateful.

Fence-sitting? Perhaps I am, but this is what comes of arriving at the issue late, and catching up on a week's developments and commentary in one online-sitting. The upside is that you get an instant overview (big surprise: Muslims are almost as divided on this as the West). The downside is that after reading umpteen opinion pieces, I'm already tired of it.

Should the Dominion Post and the Press be condemned for publishing those Danish cartoons? I went in search of the offending cartoons so I could make up my own mind, so who am I to criticise those editors for allowing their readers to make the same judgment?

But should this mean that the media outlets which did not reproduce the cartoons - the Herald, Britain's Fleet St (were they displaying previously unheard of sensitivity or making a commercial decision not to offend their Muslim readership?), and most major American newspapers - are a bunch of spineless wusses who've sacrificed free speech to appease the most brutish element of the Islamic world?

Call me boringly reasonable, but I don't think so. Neither position seemed indefensible to me, even if some of the justification offered up for public consumption looked self-serving on close inspection.

I find it comforting that, in a free society, people of good conscience made up their own minds and came to different conclusions. We don't have a clearly marked line, beyond which we should fear to tread. That our media failed to react with one mind, whether or not we agree with the decisions they reached, is an outcome that should please us all. There is no correct conclusion. There are only judgment calls.

This won't please those who feel in their bones that religion should be a no-go area for cartoonists, satirists and media. I don't agree with them. Implicit in the right to worship and revere, is the right not to. I can't help feeling that God, Jesus, Mohammed and religion in general, including the Catholic Church, are big enough to take a joke, even a tasteless and poorly executed one. I'm more concerned with the cartoons' racist overtones.

Those who see the decision not to publish as pandering to extremist demands, and yet another example of Western civilisation imploding from an excess of misplaced tolerance, sensitivity and niceness, won't be thrilled, either. But the right to free speech, though a precious one, has never been absolute.

Even Salman Rushdie, whose 1988 book The Satanic Verses put his life on the line, appears to concede this. Writing in the UK Independent this week, Rushdie claimed a victory for the champions of free speech, for having won critical amendments to the Racial and Religious Hatred Act passed in Britain last week. The legislation now provides a legally binding expression of British freedom of speech that is extremely broad and deep. Unless an intent to provoke hatred can be proved, British citizens now have the statutory right to express their views, no matter how offensive those views may be to others. The so-called right not to be offended, which never really existed, has been abolished by law.

Balancing rights with potential harm isn't an exact science, but a British judge had no trouble drawing the line in the case of the radical Muslim cleric, Abu Hamza, whom he sentenced to seven years' jail last week for soliciting murder and inciting racial hatred during his vitriolic sermons.

Mr Justice Hughes told Hamza: You are entitled to your views and in this country you are entitled to express them, up to the point where you incite murder or incite racial hatred.