I think going forward that a lot of Western countries will get much more isolationist and make themselves much less appealing for would-be immigrants. Won’t be pretty going forward. I’ve heard quite a lot of people now questioning the theory of the ‘multicultural meltingpot’ and calling it a failure.

Agree about the media. I’m a bit older and I remember when the media could be taken seriously. You had major news networks with foreign correspondents overseas. It’s all been dumbed down, they cater the majority who want to hear about Paris Hilton or the accident down the street..few people care about international issues.

Frank (bbqboy)

Thanks for the comment and words of encouragement :)

I did mention in the article that different cultures view free speech differently. I didn’t want to go down that route because the debate with the ‘I am Charlie’ and ‘I am not Charlie’ has pretty much boiled down to an Us Vs. Them argument. For me, as a person who grew up in India the idea of free speech definitely includes respect. I come from a country with enormous diversity in religion, culture, food, etc. As such, it’s always been ‘normal’ to not insult someone else’s god/beliefs. We wouldn’t even do that in the name of free speech.

Zara and I were discussing this the other day. These are interesting times for Europe. Although Europe had many diverse people in the past with varied belief systems, in the last century, Europe has been pretty homogenous (after various long and painful, often brutal events of assimilation). Right now, Europe is being challenged with a diversity problem and it seems like they are unable to deal with it. They start with the typical developed country problem, there’s no one in their population who wants to clean toilets (as an example) because everyone is educated and no one with a PhD wants to be doing that! So in come the immigrants who are willing to do these jobs. Initially, everything is fine. They need the immigrants, the immigrants need the jobs, all good. But then the number of immigrants starts increasing (after all, in general there are more unskilled labor positions than highly specialized ones in most economies). Soon enough there are 2nd or 3rd generation ‘immigrants’ (in quotes because these are actually citizens). Now that there are so many and their culture is suddenly visible on the streets and is markedly different from reindeers and christmas cakes, it’s a problem! Suddenly everyone says “Tell them to go back” or “Tell them to adapt to OUR culture”. This is where I think the lack of respect and cultural animosity stems from. This is where mocking someones God or their beliefs takes shape. Unfortunately, I don’t personally see any easy solution in sight. Respect is a solution but when there’s so much hatred and animosity, respect is perhaps the first thing that is lost.

Is it too late to ask people to respect each other? I don’t know. The governments and media are playing on the fears of the people in Europe. The other day, there were some petty thieves in Chile who put a bomb in an ATM to steal some money. Believe me, no one in Santiago heard about it but there are people from Europe who called us and said “OMG!! ARE YOU OKAY??!!! WE HEARD THERE WAS A BOMB IN SANTIAGO!!!!!!!! THE MOSLEMS!! THEY ARE EVERYWHERE!!!!!”. First of all, Chile never makes it to the news.. pretty much anywhere. Secondly, the bomb was just a homemade explosive in the middle of the night at an ATM in a deserted business district. Thirdly, I’m 99.9999% sure there was no muslim involvement and 100% sure there was no terroristic intent. I blame the media. They’ll chase down any story to create mass hysteria.

There’s an agenda at play here. Every time something like this happens, there is an agenda that gets pushed forward. We’ve seen it happen with 9/11 (and the two ‘wars’ that followed) and we’re seeing it now with the reaction of the governments and media. Yes, perhaps the way the governments are controlling the people is through public opinion and fear rather than wire-tapping, etc. I wish 1984 was a required read for every teenager in the world.

I’ll definitely check out that documentary. Thanks for the recommendation!

When I started reading the post you didn’t go in the direction I expected. I believe in free speech and I also agree that nobody should ever be killed for what they say. BUT I will say this – where is the respect for others beliefs? Can’t free speech happen without insulting the beliefs of others. Apparantly not. I’m no fan of religion and I can’t stand religious zealots of any kind. I’m not planning on going to any Middle East country anytime soon and have no desire – too many crazies. But I think the West, especially in Europe, have been fanning the flames. There’s a lot of hypocrisy. How about that movie “the Interview”? A movie about the killing of the president of another country. And we all get incensed about ‘free speech’ there as well. By the way, I still think it was a brilliant marketing ploy for a piece of shit movie with a couple of piece os shit actors – nobody would have ever heard about this movie otherwise. My point though: what if another country had made a movie about killing off the US President, or more precisely, Obama. Because “The Interview” was pretty specific. How would people in the US act? I think you can imagine…

Lots of hypocrisy in the West. But I think it all boils down to respect.

And once again a comment which was only supposed to be a couple of lines ends up as a long rant :)
All I’m saying is that its a very complicated issue and there is no black and white answer to it.

By the way: enjoy how you guys stick out your necks with your opinions even if I don’t always agree with them. Lots of really boring bloggers out there who just write fluff stories or pose in bikinis. Always enjoy reading your blog :)

Frank (bbqboy)

But from my side, #JeNeSuisPasCharlie.

Happy to tweet it through Triberr.

Ryan