Speak your mind, lose your life

20 November 2004

Anthony Browne says that the terrible murder of Theo van Gogh in Amsterdam is further proof that radical Islam is not compatible with liberal democracy

Unable to make the moral distinction between offending someone and murdering them, Index on Censorship has forsaken liberal democracy in the clash of values that faces us; but it is not alone. In Britain, the government wants to introduce laws supposedly to ban ‘incitement to religious hatred’ but which will inevitably be used by Islamic activists to silence criticism of their religion and culture.

Democracy too is under attack, with Belgium’s largest political party, the Vlaams Blok, banned last week. Attracting a quarter of the vote in the Flemish region, the anti-immigration separatist party was disbanded because it fell foul of anti-racism laws; unable to beat it in public debate or at the polls, its left-wing opponents killed it in the supreme court. In western Europe in the 21st century, the Left is getting courts to ban political parties because they are too popular.

Repellent though much of Vlaams Blok is, the bigger threat is from courts banning democracy. Democracy works because it is a valve for people’s concerns. What do the Belgian elite want the Flemish to do — overthrow the state in violent revolution? The racist British National party is also repellent, but it is a legally constituted democratic party. The government’s response to the BNP winning a few council seats is to ban all civil servants from being members, and many in the Labour party want to ban it outright.

By curbing free speech and political parties, and demonising those who fight for gay rights and against domestic violence, the Left is telling the world that multiculturalism is incompatible with liberal democracy. The Left’s loss of faith in liberal democracy is a result of its naive belief in human nature. The creators of multicultural societies believe they can abolish tribal feelings of belonging based on shared values, history and culture. Just as communism could only be upheld by totalitarianism, so multiculturalism is being upheld by curbs on free speech and democracy. The lesson of the Netherlands is that there is only so much you can do to change human nature, and the more you shut off the valves of debate and democracy, the more human nature — in all its ugliness — will assert itself, often violently.

Anthony Browne is the Times’s Europe Correspondent.