Freedom to criticize? Yes, but let's not forget that others can criticize us too

After the attack on Charlie Hebdo and the “I am Charlie” manifestations, somebody shared an interesting video on Youtube. The video was made by the ARAM Production house and explains that freedom of speech and Islam both contribute to a peaceful world – as long as they are not abused. 

Video by ARAM Production - English with Chinese subtitles 

While condemning any attacks in the name of Islam, the video also says that freedom of speech is not a blank check. It is important to remind this fact given all the people waving “I am Charlie” posters today. Freedom of speech also carries a responsibility. 

In this context, it is quite interesting to take a look at the discussions in China about the Charlie Hebdo attack. Some Chinese commentators take offense when Europeans and Americans declare our Western concept of freedom of speech as a universal value (see tweet below for example. In their view, it shows a degree of Western arrogance that the Chinese have long despised. Put bluntly, in our self-centered look at the world we fail to notice that there are other philosophies in this world that deserve to be listened to. And we should not exclude by default that other philosophies may offer things to this world that are superior to our own thinking. 

Le président @fhollande au Gouvernement "Paris est la capitale du monde, le pays va se lever tout entier sur ce qu'il a de meilleur"
— Élysée (@Elysee) January 11, 2015

 In a more general manner, these Chinese commentators take offense that the debate in Europe is so disproportionately focused on bad things that happen to Europe because of influences from outside. What the Chinese would like us to do is take a more critical look at the negative influence that we and our so-called universal values have exported from European soil to the rest of the world. The Chinese have not forgotten the atrocities that we have committed in China and in the world in the last 200 years. And when we remember that these atrocities have given us wealth and development while locking the rest of the world into underdevelopment, we can never stop apologizing. The negative side of our Western influence on the world has so far been excluded from the European debate - and it should not be so. 

Please, RT! #CharlieHebdo attack has another victim! Via @MiddleEastMnt #ParisShooting pic.twitter.com/PNesB88POL
— Carlos Latuff (@LatuffCartoons) January 7, 2015

You could say that the Chinese are free to criticize us in as many articles as they like, the same as we criticize human rights and environmental mismanagement in China. But that would be to judge by Western values and mistake the Chinese philosophy. Yes, they did resort to criticism once by calling the UK “merely a country of old Europe with a few decent football teams” and it spurred a lot of offended talk in the British press. But in general, open criticism is not common to China. In return, if we praise our philosophy for its freedom to criticize, Chinese commentators expect us to also apply that criticism to ourselves. 

Bottom line: While we should uphold our freedom to criticise others, we should never forget that others also hold criticism against us. If we are taking freedom of speech seriously, that criticism maybe deserves a bit more attention in our media in the future.

The pope is right: Europe should be ashamed

Since the beginning of the Syrian civil war, 560,000 refugees (or about 9% of the Jordianian population) have crossed into Jordan and asked for asylum. The cost of providing shelter, food, water (Jordan is a desert state) and assistance for all these refugees has cost the government of this upper-middle income country 1.53 billion USD since the beginning of the refugee crisis. Commenting on the refugee situation, Jordan's interior minister said

Jordan is a safe haven; even if we have to share some of our livelihood we will not deprive anyone of the privilege to be here. This is the nature of Jordanians and their leadership, and I pray to God that we are never in a position where we would make a different decision. I want to emphasize Jordan’s moral, humanitarian and political commitment.

Meanwhile, 6,400 Syrian refugees have reached the European Union through Bulgaria. Others come into the EU through Greece or Italy. Two boats carrying African refugees capsized at Lampedusa this week, killing hundreds of them. At the Council meeting of Interior Ministers this week, some of these countries asked for help from their richer, northern European neighbours. They find that the 2003 Dublin II regulation – which obliges asylum seekers to file their asylum request in the EU country of arrival – does not respond to the challenges of today any more.

But the richer north European partners refused to move an inch away from the Dublin II regulation. A representative survey conducted in Germany last week revealed that a majority (52%) of the Germans believe the EU should accepted more refugees, but the same majority (51%) thinks that these refugees should go to a country other than Germany.

For a bloc of the most developed countries in the world, but especially for a union that prizes itself for being a value-community, this is completely unacceptable. The pope put it a bit more bluntly: This a shame.

The EU not only has the economic resources and cultural diversity to accept a far greater number of refugees, but it has also proclaimed to the world that it promotes humanitarian values and human rights.

But the picture that it gives of itself in the African and Syrian refugee crisis is a club of wealthy countries, busy with itself, ignoring the rest of the world.

Control values? Control the media!

In three European countries citizens are deeply at odds with their leaders, and public opinion in these countries is shaped in different ways. The media play an important role in it.

• In France, a country with a history of very complicated state affairs (Clearstream, Dreyfus, Bettencourt), the foreign minister lost her job over something as simple as flying in a plane that belongs to a friend of dictator Ben Ali's. (And a controversial statement on the repression of protesters.)
  
• In Germany, the defense minister is under heavy fire for plagiarism in his PhD thesis. But a whopping 68% of the population still support him.
• And in Italy, thousands of Italian protesters all across Europe joined demonstrations against their prime minister on 13 February. Yet, many Italians, in particular elderly women, still support the prime minister. Of those who demonstrate against him, quite a few believe that he will somehow manage to remain in power after all.

Apparently

• in France you don't get away with stuff unless you control the public sphere (Sarkozy does. MAM didn't)
• in Germany you get away with quite a lot as long as you control the public sphere (Guttenberg receives favorable coverage from BILD)
• in Italy you get away with everything because you own the public sphere. And those defying you are either retarded or criminal

It strikes me how public opinion in these societies, all of them rather critical of politics and of political elites, would be so volatile depending on the way in which the media cover these affairs. It strikes me in particular because it touches values as well.

• France is gloating because a morally correct politician who didn't do anything "illegal or improper", is no longer "chef de la diplomatie française".
  
• Über-correct Germany has a new debate about the acceptability of cheating.
  
• And Italy spends more time debating "bunga bunga" than fighting unemployment.

Values are shaped because of media coverage. And coverage is dependent on political influence over the media.

I find that worrying.