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 French ban of the burqa is a good thing

The French ban of the burqa has received a lot of attention and a lot of criticism. The European Citizen says that a ban is disproportional and paramount to a publicly imposed dresscode. And the Council of Europe sees an infringement of the right to personal identity and freedom of religion as they are stipulated in the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR, articles 8 and 9) and threatens to go to the European Court of Human Rights.

But I think that it is a good thing that the sovereigns in several European countries forbid the full-body veil by law. I agree with the European Citizen that official programs to integrate Muslim women into Western societies are absolutely necessary. But I also believe that the European sovereign may give himself the right to ban a full-body veil from European streets by law.

Personally, I would feel awkward and nervous asking a completely veiled women for directions in the street, probably just as much as if she was completely nude. The burqa threatens the openness to look somebody in the face, to see their reactions, to allow them interactions with others on an equal level. As little as I would walk through the streets dressed as General Grievous, I want to be subjected to a person that speaks to me through a veil. I see the freedom of peaceful coexistence and interaction in a multicultural city threatened by the fact that I have to speak through a veil and interpret my interlocutor's words via their intonation.

Viewing the case from another perspective, the Commissioner for Human Rights at the Council of Europe believes that the prohibition of the burqa is "alien to European values". I completely agree that tolerance of religion has to be guaranteed and the ban of the burqa should in no way be interpreted as a discrimination of Islam. Instead, everything should be done to integrate Muslims into European society where this has not already been successfully achieved (let's not forget that most Muslims are perfectly integrated).

But on the other hand, a commitment to multiculturalism and tolerance must not turn into a European carte blanche for every conceivable bit of cultural influx. A lot of cultural influx into Europe is not harmful, and it would be ridiculous to ban Americanization by law. But Ayaan Hirsi Ali, former Muslim and an passionate fighter for women's rights in Islam, asserts for example that the Dutch government closed its eyes to Muslim honor killings on its own soil for too long due to a commitment to a tolerant, multicultural society. European society cannot close its eyes before this; and I believe the European sovereign has a right and a duty to set clear borders to the tolerance that it extends to others and that it enshrined in the European Convention on Human Rights.

As a last remark, in Iran it is absolutely inconceivable that a women dresses in shorts and a t-shirt. In Vatican City, shorts are forbidden because they dishonor the Holy See. I don't mean to say that the European sovereign should give himself the right to install a European dresscode. But in my view, it must be possible to forbid the fact that on certain streets in Paris or London, it is only possible to speak to a piece of cloth where you try to make a conversation.

Update: An interesting round up of different voices can be found here

Ayaan Hirsi Ali back in the Netherlands - and the Islam debate comes back with her

A few years ago the Somalian refugee Ayaan Hirsi Ali caused a major political uproar in the Netherlands. Within a few years, she went from being a refugee to becoming a member of parliament and she spoke out fervently against the - then - tabou topic of Muslim integration. Based on a pillar system in Dutch society in which Catholics, Protestants, secularists and Muslims live in parallel and without interference to one another, the Dutch state long turned a blind eye on mistreatment of Muslim women in the Netherlands, as Ali argues in her autobiography Infidel. After she long believed in Islam during her adolescence, the treatment of women led her to become atheist and she's fought today's interpretation of Islam ever since. Her film "Submission" led to many discussions and triggered the violent murder of her director Theo van Gogh in the middle of Amsterdam - stabbed multiple times in the chest by a radical Muslim, who attached to the knife a life threat for Ayaan Hirsi Ali. She subsequently left the country and fled to the US.

Now Ali came back to the Netherlands for a week to present her second book, Nomad. Like Infidel, it carries a lot of autobiographic traits, arguing that Islam is slowly croaching upon Europe and that Christians (led by the Vatican) and secularists have to join forces to push it back. "We have to bring Muslims away from Islam", she says in this interview regarding her book. I have not read the book yet, but the comments I read suggest that she is hitting a nerve again, and polarizing without wishing to polarize. With her former liberal ally Geert Wilders campaigning for the national elections, the atmosphere in the Netherlands is tense; fear comes up that Wilders may actually win the elections in June with his anti-immigrant propositions. Ali may have distanced herself from Wilders, but the tide of the time is absolutely unfavorable to immigrants and especially Muslims.
On the other hand, in a heavily secured television debate in her former university Leiden, female Muslim students took Ayaan Hirsi Ali under fire for her criticism of Islam. "Have you ever even bothered to read the Qur'an?" was the questions she was asked most of all. To polarize matters further, during her brief stay in the Netherlands Ali also accepted an award from the youth wing of the ultra-orthodox protestant SGP party which certainly drove Christians and Muslims further apart.

News coverage doesn't suggest that there is a completely new debate in the Netherlands - but the publication of Ayaan Hirsi Ali's book at this time certainly has an impact upon political thinking and the elections. If it it will be for the better or for the worse - that remains to be seen.