A month and a week ago, the free world was shocked by extremist bloodbath at attack Charlie Hebdo Paris headquarters. This Saturday, an extremist hand felled film-maker Finn Nørgaard at a debate over freedom of expression and speech. Later, the same criminal attacked Copenhagen synagogue killing the guard next door and wounding two police.
Of the background of the attacker we know little – only what the Danish authorities had revealed by last night. The symbolic meaning of the attack, however, seems clear. Attacking freedom of speech, extremists are intending to subject it to their understanding of Islam. To achieve their aim, terrorists want to create large-scale paralyzing fear. During the string of events, the targets have been cartoonists who in their works, one way or another, have depicted the Islamic prophet.
To this fear, free world’s societies cannot and must not yield. This is not just a matter if Islam’s prophet can be drawn or not, neither is this an issue of how anyone does that. Freedom of expression is a pillar, a foundation of the free world. True, even in free societies this is restricted by laws, but only to protect individual people’s rights – prescribing sanctions for insults and slander, hindering the stirring of hatred and crimes, and for instance forbidding certain types of pornography. The right to express one’s attitude towards political or any other ways of thought, including the religious, needs to be free. Indeed, freedom of religion is guaranteed by those believing one way not allowed to launch weapons against those who believe otherwise; meanwhile, they may speak, write and why not draw about their religious feelings like all other things.
Another pillar of free societies is the rule of law – if you don’t like something, you may contest it in courts and thus seek support or protection to your rights; but one may not indulge in wild justice. At that, it makes no difference if you are an Islamist or whatever – before the law, all need to stand equal.
In reality, free societies are protecting their foundational principles – without the which they would not be free any longer.
This past month – all over the world and also in Estonia – an abundance of analyses have been published treating phenomena old and new in terrorism. Like: is the root of these crimes in Islam, or the psyche of the attackers, or both? What is the new kind of terrorism all about, with no clear cut organisation (necessarily) behind it while the attacks come by radicalised lone wolves? What kind of security measures, and to what extent, are the societies willing to accept? How effective would these be?
Meanwhile, one thing is explicitly obvious: our foundational freedoms need to be protected. How exactly? Surely, open free debates over the methods play a definite role in helping free societies stand against the acts of intimidation of the day.