Freedom of Speech

 

Much has been written over the past days about the limits of free speech. It has often been stated that this limit is crossed whenever other people's sentiments, religious or otherwise, are offended.

This is certainly not the definition of free speech that exists and should continue to exist in Western societies. A man's freedom ends only where that of the next man begins. No one has the right to threaten or defame others, for example. Our legal systems provide sufficient remedies for both individuals and the community to combat such abuse. Anything which does not harm others - but simply annoys them because they do not agree with it or because it appears to them to be disrespectful to some higher being or concept - has to be tolerated anyway. Of course, it works both ways. Those who annoy others may be annoyed or (peacefully) protested against in their turn - but not to the point that their own rights are compromised. In other words, no one has the right to harm them or threaten them with harm. The simple truth is that no other system of rights and duties (or freedoms and their limits) is compatible with a free and open society. Any other system could allow the strong and powerful to arbitrarily establish what others can or cannot say or do. And the powerful may not only be governments but any other group or individual that is willing and able to threaten and use violence.

It should - after the events of the last weeks - be patently obvious that this fundamental concept is not yet shared by most Muslims but also by many others within Western society itself. While we cannot impose freedom on others, we should likewise allow no one to threaten such a fundamental pillar of our own way of life.

In the longer term, we would be well advised to invest in educating those beyond our cultural borders of the way our system works - not in order to convert them to it but simply in order to be able to coexist with them. The United States has a deliberate strategy in this regard, with radio and tv stations that explain its way of life and (more controversially) promote it. The European Union would be well-advised to do the same, albeit in a more subtle fashion. This is not a task that individual European governments have the resources or the will to carry out by themselves.