books and T-shirts

A few days ago, a man was sentenced to eight months in prison for wearing a T-shirt.

If you make a list of the countries you think are likely to play host to this scenario – Iran, Turkmenistan, North Korea, no, scratch that, they're too dismal for T-shirts there, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Cuba, Pakistan – you'd be going on for a long time until you reach the place where the story really unfolded. It was here in the UK.

The T-shirt celebrated the cold-blooded murder of two police officers in Manchester with the ill-chosen words "One Less PiG Perfect Justice". Even without the poor grammar (fewer, not less!), that's a stupid thing to say – and highly offensive to grieving relatives and good taste. Despicable and reprehensible, no doubt, but criminal? And eight months of jail? What happened to free speech?

Talking about free speech, last night I got to see the BBC documentary on Salman Rushdie's time in hiding after the call for his head by Iran's chief criminal demagogue. Much like the other events surrounding the book launch, the show can be considered an extended commercial for Salman Rushdie's recently published memoir, but it was also rather insightful, more so than any interview I've heard or comment I've read.

I realized for the first time the depth of darkness the author found himself in when the world as he knew it collapsed. From one the day to the next, he was forced from his home and family, and then it got worse. He lived as a prisoner of his protection officers and couldn't make a single free step in years. I can now understand the relief when the ordeal was over and the endless parties that followed. It was the celebration of a second life.

Just a few weeks ago I started reading The Satanic Verses, the book that triggered the violence, confinement and death, but I'll have to withhold my judgment until I finish it. So far, I'm not much impressed – and actually getting more confused with each chapter, full of allusions and hidden significance. Maybe you'll have to be religious or even Muslim to fully appreciate the book and to be moved by it on a raw level.

I'm not religious, and while I grew up in a vaguely religious environment I've always felt that for my family, religion served primarily as a counterbalance to the madness of the "real existing socialism" that stifled and demeaned us. But even oppression has its good sides. Living under communism firmly impressed upon me the value of free speech.

I am convinced that the freedom to offend always surpasses the freedom from offense. I don't accept that offense is something that happens to you. You have to actively take it. With this in mind it was that I got all worked up about the business of the T-shirt and the jail sentence, which should have never been imposed. But maybe I reacted too rashly.

Yesterday on Any Questions, one of the panelists said that it wasn't about the T-shirt, and he wasn't dodging the question. It isn't about the T-shirt, he said, it's about the context. If you say it's good someone died, that's free speech. If you call his mom and say the same thing to her, it's harassment. By that reasoning, if the fool in the T-shirt paraded around town, it should be his choice, but if he got into people's faces, he deserves punishment.

I don't know the details of that story, but I know that Salman Rushdie never got into anyone's face. Whatever offense is in The Satanic Verses, it's hidden between two covers and behind the doors of a bookshop. If you think you won't like it, don't read it. There's nothing more to say.