Norm Geras, one of the authors of the Euston Manifesto, is defending it from its critics. He also explains why we need it.
The attachment to these principles — to democracy, freedom, equality — used to be standard on the Left. But in the opinion pages of the liberal press it has become routine to find journalists and others of would-be progressive outlook telling us that democracy, or liberalism, or Enlightenment values, all possibly suitable in the West, may not be so in other cultural contexts. The right to speak freely — entirely freely, barring only incitement to hatred or violence — is also frequently put in question in the face of religious sensibilities clamorously asserted.
(via Austin Bay)
In the same vein, Jeff Jarvis stands up for Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who is making a courageous stand for the very Enlightenment values Geras talks about. (Including the right to offend, which one of Jarvis’s readers took issue with when Hirsi Ali’s harsh tactics made the audience uncomfortable during a lecture he attended.
At the time, my personal response was that she had a vested interest in her opponents’ bigotry and was willing to engage in blatant self-promoting provocation — ostentatiously putting her copy of the Koran on the floor and refusing to move it to a table when politely asked to — in order to ensure that there would be no possibility of finding any common ground.
Hmmm. Hirsi Ali’s “opponents,” as I understand it, have threatened her, hounded her, proclaimed that they want to do away with her, slaughtered the director of the film she wrote, and intimidated her neighbors and moderate co-religionists into wanting to get rid of her so that they can get rid of the problem. All of this in Enlightened Holland.
I say she’s got the right to say she spits on their “religion.” No one’s religion, cause, or creed is more worthy of respect than the mutually agreed upon rules that bind people together and maintain public order.
