The oxygen of freedoms

Timothy Garton Ash, in the Grauniad, takes a sensible look at the cartoon crisis.

For centuries, there has been a good rule for the coexistence of civilisations. It said: "When in Rome, do as the Romans do." Globalisation has undermined that rule. Because of mass migration, peoples and their cultures are physically mixed up together. Rome is no longer just Rome; it's also Tunis, Cairo and Tirana. Birmingham is also Kashmir and the Punjab, while London is all the world. Because of worldwide mass media, there is no longer such a thing as local offence or local intimidation. Everything can reach everyone. Competing cultures try to spread their norms around the globe: George Bush for western-style democracy, Pope Benedict XVI for Catholicism, Omar Bakri Mohammed for sharia.

How should we live in this brave new world? How can we stay free in it? Like most of my friends, I have been agonising about this over the past week. We feel this is a defining moment, for all who live in Europe. And we know that there are no simple answers. The least bad outcome will be a painful compromise between the universal right to free speech - the oxygen of all other freedoms - and the need for voluntary self-restraint in such a mixed-up world.

One thing, however, I know with certainty: violence, or the direct threat of violence, of the kind we have seen in the past few days, is totally unjustified as a response to any published word or image. That is the first thing to be said. I have been saddened to see British politicians and commentators, particularly on the left, hesitating for a long moment to say so clearly, or feeling it necessary to say other things first. (Do you want to leave the defence of free speech and non-violence to David Davis?) I have also been saddened, though hardly surprised, by the weakness of the EU's reaction to the criminal attack on the Danish embassy in Syria, which seems to have been permitted, if not actively encouraged, by the Syrian regime. We should have said: when you burn the Danish flag you burn our flag. Why weren't all EU ambassadors instantly withdrawn from Damascus in protest?