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Business News/ Opinion / Protecting essential freedoms
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Protecting essential freedoms

In the face of terror, democracies should safeguard essential liberties more fiercely

The aim of terrorism is to sow divisions in society that spawn hysteria and panic by the state. Photo: AP Premium
The aim of terrorism is to sow divisions in society that spawn hysteria and panic by the state. Photo: AP

The despicable attacks in Paris defy any effort to comprehend them. France continues to mourn after a three-day horrific drama of violence and mayhem. It began when two extremists barged into a Paris office building demanding access to the magazine Charlie Hebdo. It ended with a volley of grenades and the cross-fire of automatic weapons as two inter-connected operations ended in death and shocked relief for a nation. The aim of terrorism is to sow divisions in society that spawn hysteria and panic by the state. It therefore remains vitally important for France—and democracies elsewhere—to remain balanced in any response and not abandon reason.

The brutal murders and hostage-taking in France attest to some critical problems faced by other European communities and beyond them too. The obvious one remains Islamic extremism. It has sought to promote ideas that contradict the very essence of a democratic society: freedom of speech, freedom to dissent and freedom of individual choice. There is little doubt that this radical form of Islam is inimical to notions of liberty and a rights-based discourse. The truth is that it simply cannot be appeased and needs to be challenged. The risk of allowing its baleful ideology to spread in schools, universities or to proliferate in places of worship is far too great.

Clearly, moderate Muslims should not be blamed for the violence of extremists. That is a statement of the obvious but those moderates must strive to make themselves heard louder in the search for renewed thinking on preventing the radicalisation of disaffected young men from Europe’s largest Muslim minority.

By the same token, the social conditions that allow for vulnerable young minds to extremist ideology need to be tackled too. The biography of the Paris killers says a great deal about France’s stratified society. The killers were boys from the ghetto that lived on the fringes of mainstream civic life. They were abandoned by their parents or neglected and did not feel integrated into the wider society. It goes without saying that none of these details can ever excuse their crimes. But it places them in a particular context. Large sections of France lead virtually separate existences. A majority of French Muslims live in grotty suburban estates—faraway from pristine city centres—in de facto segregation because it is easy for policymakers to ignore them.

Underneath the surface, France remains a country of deep divisions, of alienated Muslim youth and long standing social and racial grievances. Anti-semitism is on the rise too. It is clear that France cannot afford to wallow in denial about the schisms that threaten its social fabric. A national debate on race relations and the radicalisation of Muslim youth is badly needed too.

In a broader context though, other critically urgent aspects deserve close attention too. First, the tragedy in Paris marked the first time in the West that a group of citizens were slaughtered because of their thoughts, expression and beliefs. Salman Rushdie had once memorably noted: “One of the things a writer is for is to say the unsayable, speak the unspeakable and ask difficult questions." The brave journalists of Charlie Hebdo held up to that ideal but paid the ultimate price for their unwavering commitment to freedom of expression and for asking difficult questions. They knew they ran such risks but were undeterred. But what about others? The truth is that in recent years a culture of self-censorship has operated in large swathes of the western media that has shied away from any objective critique of radical Islam for fear of reprisal. Yet, in the aftermath of this tragedy, what is called for is a redoubling of the effort to express without fear or favour. That forms part of an essential and irreducible core of a democratic society.

Second, it needs to be acknowledged that in the fight against extremism, moderate Islam has been incredibly weak in combating the radicals within its fold. That needs to change. Even though the prime victims in radical Islam’s expansion have largely tended to be fellow Muslims, for instance in the Shia-Sunni conflict, the truth is that liberal Muslim leadership has been either turgid or non-existent. There seems to be no pan-Islamic reformist movement to thwart the extremist ambitions of some of its co-religionists.

Third, it is instructive to note that those who seek to wreak instability upon a society can be brought to justice. In an American court last week, the radical preacher Abu Hamza was sentenced to life in prison for facilitating the 1998 abduction of western tourists in Yemen, providing support to Al-Qaeda and sending recruits to Afghanistan. It took a long time to extradite him from Britain and bring him to justice but it did happen eventually.

Ultimately then, in the face of such terror, the appropriate response from liberal democracies should focus on safeguarding essential liberties even more fiercely. That would be a firm rebuttal to the extremists who seek to divide us. Only then will the slogan Je Sui Charlie (I am Charlie) endure with the lasting dignity that it deserves.

Rishabh Bhandari is a lawyer and commentator based in London.

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Published: 12 Jan 2015, 11:17 AM IST
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