Cas Mudde
Most Europeans, at both elite and mass
level, have a grossly inflated idea of the extent of freedom of speech in
Europe, a direct consequence of the uncritical and self-congratulatory
discourse on the topic.
“We reaffirm our unfailing attachment to the freedom of expression, to
human rights, to pluralism, to democracy, to tolerance and to the rule
of law: They are the foundation of our democracies and are at the heart
of the European Union. By attacking Charlie Hebdo, police officers and
Jewish community, the terrorists set out to tear down these universal
values. They will not succeed.”
Joint Statement of Ministers of Interior, 11 January 2015
There is a Dutch saying, which literally
translates as “When the fox preaches passion, farmer look after your chickens.”
Call me paranoid, or perhaps cautious, but this is a motto I tend to abide by
when following politics. In fact, experience teaches us that the more
passionate the fox(es), the better one should look after the chickens.
Unfortunately, few of us do. We get mesmerized by the passion of the fox and
don’t see how our chickens disappear, one by one. Enter #JeSuisCharlie!
On the day of the horrific terrorist
attack on the French satirical magazine Charlie
Hebdo, I published a piece entitled “No, we are NOT all Charlie (and that’s a problem)”, which went viral. No one knows why,
least of all me, but it clearly hit a nerve. I argued that we (and I include
myself) are not Charlie, because of at least one of the following three
reasons: (1) we are selective defenders of free speech; (2) we believe that
speech should be ‘civil’; and, the one that applies to me, (3) we are afraid to
stand up to people who threaten violence in response to contested speech.
While #JeSuisCharlie might not have been the most popular hashtag in history, it
was already used more than 5 million times within the first two days after the
attack. Absolutely everyone was Charlie, from embattled Muslims and their far
right enemies in France to authoritarian dictators in Africa and hip coffee
shop owners in Santiago de Chile. Millions of people demonstrated in defense of
democracy and free speech around the world. In Paris some 1.6 million marched through
the streets on January, 11, one of the largest rallies in postwar France. As
many critics noted, the rally included noted defenders of
democracy and free speech, such as Malian
President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita and Jordan’s King Abdullah II.
As so often happens in the aftermath of
a traumatic “attack on democracy,” a short burst of emotional support for
democracy is followed by a calculated, less visible, attack on its core values.
Just as 9/11 was the start of the most significant assault on liberal democracy
in recent US history, the terrorist attacks in Paris have given rise to a broad
onslaught on the core values of liberal democracy in Europe, not least that of
freedom of speech.
It started out with a still
fairly benign condemnation of the few people who did not get swallowed up by
the #JeSuisCharlie hype and a more vocal rejection of those who dared to present
a different narrative. Perhaps the first high-profile case of
JeSuisCharlie-hypocrisy was the arrest of controversial French comedian and
anti-Zionist Dieudonné M’Bala M’bala, who, after allegedly having marched in the big Paris demonstration,
posted on his Facebook page, “As far as I am concerned, I feel I am Charlie
Coulibaly” (referring to the terrorist attacker of the Paris kosher deli). While
he was quickly released, few came to his defense. We were Charlie, not Dieudonné!
Within days the civility argument
resurfaced with a vengeance. While those who dared to claim that the
cartoonists had called the violence upon themselves were (rightly) condemned,
the argument that their cartoons were “racist” and not
satirical (as if the two are mutually exclusive) steadily gained ground. On the Left and the Right people returned to
their previous positions, arguing even more vigilantly against the specific
speech they didn’t like (while often either claiming to be Charlie or defending
the speech they did like with references to freedom of speech). One of the most
bizarre debates was in Belgium, where almost the whole cultural and political
elite tumbled over each other to reject the “unacceptable” banner of Standard
Liège ultras – which features horror image Jason Voorhees holding the
(beheaded) head of former Standard captain Steven Defour, now playing for
opponent, and archrival, Anderlecht. In all these cases politicians argued
that, while they fully supported #JeSuisCharlie and free speech, this
particular speech “crossed borders” and was “unacceptable”. In most cases the
silence of the earlier defenders of freedom of speech was deafening.
Of much greater consequence, however, is
the myriad of new legislations that is being prepared and proposed around
Europe. Barely back home from their demonstration for free speech in Paris,
political leaders from across the European Union (EU) started discussing new limitations
on free speech to “fight radicalism”.
Once again the proposed policies to
protect liberal democracy meant the weakening of key aspects of liberal
democracy. In one of the most significant statements, interior ministers of eleven EU member states
(including Germany, Poland, Spain and the UK) used the attacks to call for
(even) further collaboration between their law enforcement and intelligence
agencies. In a perfect example of newspeak, they stated:
We
are concerned at the increasingly frequent use of the Internet to fuel hatred
and violence and signal our determination to ensure that the Internet is not
abused to this end, while safeguarding that it remains, in scrupulous
observance of fundamental freedoms, a forum for free expression, in full
respect of the law.
The uncomfortable truth is, however, that
Europe has always had an unscrupulous
observance of fundamental freedoms. While openly preaching freedom of speech
European governments have always limited this freedom for specific groups (e.g.
communist and fascists) and with regard to specific topics (e.g. monarchy and
religion) in practice. More...
Cas Mudde is associate professor in the School of Public and International Affairs
School at the University of
Georgia (USA).
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