Values, fundamental

It takes a lot for me to get drawn into politics, but my immigrant inclination and vantage point have moved me to comment on the crisis raging through Europe and the Middle East. The freedom to question, to dissent, and to discuss is what enables things like weblogs to exist, but more importantly, it enables the West to be the icon of enlightenment that it is. And it is, correspondingly, irresponsible for the US to stand idly by as long time allies like Denmark, Norway, and (to a certain extent) France are being attacked for the same virtues that we proudly share, the very virtues that millions have fought and died for throughout the course of modern history.

Here are some much needed truths, from a fellow immigrant, the dissident muslim Ibn Warraq on why the west needs to stand in solidarity against this attack on one of the central tenets of Western civilization.

Money quotes:

"The great British philosopher John Stuart Mill wrote in On Liberty, "Strange it is, that men should admit the validity of the arguments for free discussion, but object to their being 'pushed to an extreme'; not seeing that unless the reasons are good for an extreme case, they are not good for any case...."

"A democracy cannot survive long without freedom of expression, the freedom to argue, to dissent, even to insult and offend. It is a freedom sorely lacking in the Islamic world, and without it Islam will remain unassailed in its dogmatic, fanatical, medieval fortress; ossified, totalitarian and intolerant. Without this fundamental freedom, Islam will continue to stifle thought, human rights, individuality; originality and truth."

"...Be proud, do not apologize. Do we have to go on apologizing for the sins our fathers? Do we still have to apologize, for example, for the British Empire, when, in fact, the British presence in India led to the Indian Renaissance, resulted in famine relief, railways, roads and irrigation schemes, eradication of cholera, the civil service, the establishment of a universal educational system where none existed before?... The British even gave back to the Indians their own past: it was European scholarship, archaeology and research that uncovered the greatness that was India; it was British government that did its best to save and conserve the monuments that were a witness to that past glory. British Imperialism preserved where earlier Islamic Imperialism destroyed thousands of Hindu temples....The west is the source of the liberating ideas of individual liberty, political democracy...It is the west that has raised the status of women, fought against slavery...No, the West needs no lectures on the superior virtue of societies who keep their women in subjection, cut off their clitorises, stone them to death for alleged adultery, throw acid on their faces, or deny the human rights of those considered to belong to lower castes."

And finally:

" When the Chinese students cried and died for democracy in Tiananmen Square (in 1989) , they brought with them not representations of Confucius or Buddha but a model of the Statue of Liberty."

We cannot be ignorant of the delicacy of situations, nor can we be ignorant about the values that enable us to live freely, and we must pay the cost of defending these values. This is a war of civilizations, and I hope the West wins.