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Wednesday 13 January 2010
Brendan O'Neill
Can we have our Voltaire back please?Voltaire's belief in freedom of speech has been so spectacularly
abandoned by mainstream society that it can now be co-opted by radical
Islamists.
The most striking thing about the trial in Luton, England, of seven
radical Muslim men accused of "being abusive" during a military
homecoming parade is that one of the men's lawyers quoted Voltaire.
In defence of her client, a bearded Islamist who is suspicious of Western
civilisation, the lawyer cited the eighteenth-century French thinker and
author of Candide whose passion for reason and liberty inspired the French
Revolution; one of the greatest thinkers of the Enlightenment who was
suspicious of organised religion. The lawyer told the court:
"Voltaire said, 'I disagree with what you say but I will
defend to the death your right to say it'. If you believe in
freedom of speech, you have to accept that some things will be said that
you will like, and some things will be said that you will not like."
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more:
http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php/site/article/7931/Bloß: Für Karikaturen gilt das nicht? Und für Salman Rushdies Worte gilt es auch nicht?
Klar, es gilt bloß dann, wenn man seine eigenen Gotteskrieger WOANDERS legitimieren will...
.
