A very thought provoking article. The attack on Charlie Hebdo was a heinous crime, not an act of war. The response to it should be to combine good policing with a confident civility. Despite occasional moments of terror, we – unlike the people of Syria or Afghanistan – should stop pretending we are under attack. Compared with other causes of unnecessary mortality, relatively few people die in Europe from political violence, Islamist or otherwise. We need to remember that our society is not only held together by law and rights. It also depends on practical civility, on our willingness to converse with respect with people who don’t share all our beliefs. In Europe, free speech is not under threat. Instead of championing supposed liberal civilisation against its alleged enemies, we should treat those we live amongst with civility. Here, the danger is not Islam or Islamism, but the assumption that people who are different from us cannot be our friends.
Posted on: Sat, 10 Jan 2015 00:50:23 +0000
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