The value of freedom
(Photo by CHAIDEER MAHYUDDIN/AFP via Getty Images)
Canada is often on the right side of the argument, sometimes a little bit too politically correct, but usually, its heart is in the right place. By and large, it’s a country that is proud of its national health care system which its citizens see as a uniting force. It’s a tolerant, multi-ethnic society, certainly not without its faults, but when Canadians elected Justin Trudeau as prime minister, it was a badge of pride. He embodied the inclusive spirit of the nation. But Trudeau’s response to France’s president over the most recent attacks has severely dented his reputation by his mealy-mouth response.
Earlier this month a teacher was beheaded in a Paris suburb after showing controversial cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad to some of his pupils. Then three people were stabbed in further “Islamist terror” attacks. Trudeau condemned the murders, of course, saying, ”it is unjustifiable, and Canada wholeheartedly condemns these acts while standing with our French friends who are going through tough times.” Then he added that freedom of expression does not come without limits. “We owe it to ourselves to act with respect for others and to seek not to arbitrarily or unnecessarily injure those with whom we are sharing a society and a planet.”
Other leaders, Boris Johnson and Angela Merkel, stood in solidarity with Emmanuel Macron as France is having such a terrible time, especially across the Muslim world. Turkey called for a boycott of French goods. Pakistan, Bangladesh, Libya and the Gaza Strip erupted in protests. Macron was justified in defending the right to mock religion — the French president declared that France “will not give up cartoons”. But not Trudeau.
Freedom of speech is one of the most divisive issues in the world, and it’s seen as dangerous in many countries. Still, it is one of the core values of the western world, which is why it needs to be defended, even if the subject matter, like the material in Charlie Hebdo, is deeply offensive, because killing is not an option. We have free speech so you can protest.
Fara Dabhoiwala a Senior Research Scholar in History at Princeton University, said “In the west, we try to uphold the opposite ideal — that freedom of expression is vital to a free society. Yet at the same time, we can never agree on its limits: we fight about free speech all the time. Our national attitudes are so different that the same words can be criminal in France or Italy but legal in Britain or the US. And, of course, even within our national cultures, we are hopelessly divided. The meaning of free speech has never been more contested than it is right now.”
When Salman Rushdie wrote The Satanic Verses in 1988, Ayatollah Khomeini slapped a fatwa on him calling on Muslims to kill the writer for his blasphemous account of the Prophet’s life. A decade earlier, Monty Python’s 1979 religious satire, “Life of Brian”, was banned in thirty-nine local authorities in the UK before it became a global classic and was rated by the Guardian as one of the 100 greatest films. However, no death threats were made to the southern American shop filmed in “Borat 2” after Sacha Baron Cohen bought a chocolate cake and asked that “Jews will not replace us” be written in icing. The store owner duly obliged.
In Article 10 of the Human Rights Act, everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers. That’s why in the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville neo-Nazis could march through the Virginia town in a battle over what to do with the town’s statue of Confederate general Robert E. Lee’s. The American Civil Liberties Union, set up to defend the Bill of Rights, defends the rights of groups who hold offensive views.
Respect goes both ways, if respect is what it is. We value free speech because we value freedom. That’s what Trudeau should make clear. Je ne regrette rien.
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