Defense Of Freedom Research Articles

In the name of honour and freedom: the sacred as a justifying tool for ISIS’ and secular violence

In this paper, I challenge the misconception that ISIS justifies violence in an ontologically Islamic manner. I argue that ISIS and Western secular governments justify violence against each other through the same logic, by resorting to the notion of the sacred. The sacred is a historical and contextually contingent structure of meaning manifested through bipartite sets of cultural forms, informing social practices based on moral and emotional identifications. ISIS appropriates the Islamic sacred forms of Caliphate (legitimate governing authority) and ummah (collective Islamic identity), and projects the latter as humiliated by Western hegemony; ISIS calls upon Muslims to engage in violence in order to gain honour and recognition. In Western secular states the public sphere is a sacred space and popular sovereignty is the secular collective identity; they justify violence against ISIS as the defence of freedom from ISIS’ alleged barbarity and uncivility.

Truth and Politics: A Symposium on Peter Simpson’s Political Illiberalism: A Defense of Freedom

Truth and Politics: A Symposium on Peter Simpson’s Political Illiberalism: A Defense of Freedom

Literatura infantil portuguesa en tiempos de la dictadura: censura y voces de resistencia

Este artículo analiza cómo autores de literatura infantil portuguesa consiguieron eludir la censura, en tiempos de la Dictadura (1926-1974), y publicar obras cuyos mensajes, que no podían ser discutidos libremente, fueron transmitidos a los jóvenes lectores del momento. Los objetivos de este estudio son dar a conocer obras de literatura infantil, editadas durante la Ditadura, y leídas por las jóvenes generaciones de antaño y actuales; establecer qué temas y valores son presentados en estas obras; y comprender qué mecanismos fueron usados por los escritores para eludir la censura. Como metodología de estudio, emplearemos el análisis hermenéutico a partir de una lectura crítica y reflexiva de los textos. De este análisis concluímos que estas obras abordan cuestiones relacionadas con el racismo y la promoción de la igualdad entre los hombres, la apología de libertad, la resistencia a la opresión y la exhortación a la paz. Los autores aquí estudiados emplearon un lenguaje simbólico, cargado de metáforas, ambigüedades, humor e ironía, mecanismos todos ellos retóricos que fueron usados para transmitir su mensaje a los lectores y eludir así la censura del régimen vigente.

A comparative look at a centenary. A review of World War I commemorative events in Brussels

The centenary of World War I has marked an abrupt change: historical events will never be commemorated in the same way, especially in Belgium. The federated entities have demonstrated the autonomous role which they intend to play in future events of this type. The Brussels-Capital Region was not outdone. While the political choice to be directly involved in the commemorative events was made later there than in the other main regions and communities, it demonstrated its will and capacity to implement different activities aimed at reaching a very wide public. The systematic study of just over 430 activities identified between January 2014 and June 2017 in the territory of the Brussels-Capital Region thus highlights their extreme diversity as well as the exceptional dynamism of the municipalities which were at the origin of one quarter of them. Overall, the theme of the majority of events studied wavered between two main lines: the daily life of the inhabitants of Brussels and the global history of the conflict in its Belgian dimension. But these approaches were also used to prompt debates and reflection on current issues which make sense in today's society: the defence of freedom, solidarity, democracy, social cohesion, etc. The historical approach was therefore used as a tool for cohesion and as a lever for integration, with a past which concerns everybody: the inhabitants of Brussels from here and elsewhere, history enthusiasts, lovers of historical memory tourism, non-natives, expatriates, tourists for a day, etc.

El presente y el futuro del Derecho Natural: una conversación con Robert P. George

This article presents an unpublished interview with Professor Robert P. George (Princeton University, USA) with the aim of reaching out to scholars from non-Anglo-Saxon countries in order to offer a comprehensive view of the main issues currently being debated by legal and political scholars from a non-continental viewpoint. The text shows how a significant number of Anglo-Saxon scholars have recovered the discredited notion of natural law, through the so-called “New School of Natural Law”. With this new approach to natural law, George presents a clear defense of rights and institutions currently confronted by the tyranny of “the politically correct”. One powerful aspect of this new School includes the elaboration of arguments and counter-arguments to one’s own position. In this way, George invites his participant –whether in the classroom or through his dialectical works– to think for him or herself without fear of questioning even one’s deepest ideas and convictions. As a consequence of this thought process, one is able to receive new lights and, thus, rectify and reach a more complete truth. If, on the contrary, one has unsupported explanations or reasonings with logical fallacies, the method will strengthen one’s personal ideas, which must always be presented with the openness of those who do not consider themselves infallible. The main topic of this article is a detailed analysis of the natural law, as understood by the “New School of Natural Law”, in which George is inscribed as one of its main protagonists. It also presents the criticisms of which this New School is frequently the object. It should be therefore an enlightening text for jurists and philosophers interested in knowing first¬hand the principles of this School, still not widespread in the continental tradition. Another aspect of interest is the exposition of the methodology that, according to George, should guide Constitutional Interpretation. For jurists not fully internalized in the tradition of Anglo-Saxon Common Law, his explanation of how judges should proceed when resolving different cases is insightful. The judges must be limited, says George, to the role that the Constitution has assigned to them: to apply the law as is. Thus, Given the frequent tendency for judges to indirectly become legislators, he warns that this mode of proceeding presupposes frequent violations of the Constitution that they have sworn to defend. Another topic extensively argued is the role of religion in public life. Although George prefers to make use of rational arguments in his defense of values (among them the protection of human life in all its instances, marriage as the union of a man and a woman open to life, or the defense of freedom, etc.), he makes it clear that religion has the right to participate in public life by contributing its knowledge and values in favor of the socio-political common good as many important figures have done in the history of United States. Hence, George does not advocate neutrality in the public sphere, nor does he support the opposite extreme: a “sacred public square”. He supports a society that is not only “civil” but also “civilized”, that is to say, a society in which every citizen can manifest his words and/or his ideas and beliefs in an ambiance of mutual respect. Such a society believes that every citizen not only has the right to think, to believe and to live according to his views, but also is able to give reasons for them, whether from a secular or religious perspective.

Against Individualism: A Confucian Rethinking of the Foundations of Morality, Politics, Family, and Religion by Henry Rosemont Jr.

Reviewed by: Against Individualism: A Confucian Rethinking of the Foundations of Morality, Politics, Family, and Religion by Henry Rosemont Jr. Daniel A. Bell (bio) Against Individualism: A Confucian Rethinking of the Foundations of Morality, Politics, Family, and Religion. By Henry Rosemont Jr. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2015. 208 pp. Hardcover $65.85, isbn 978-0-7391-9980-0. Against Individualism: A Confucian Rethinking of the Foundations of Morality, Politics, Family, and Religion by Henry Rosemont Jr. is an important challenge to the dominant individualistic ethos of our age. It is not merely a critique of the idea of the rights-claiming, free and autonomous individual: Rosemont also puts forward a strong defense of an alternative idea of the relational person as role-bearing, interrelated, and necessarily responsible to other persons (the title may be a bit misleading because it suggests that the main point of the book is critical). I am generally sympathetic to Rosemont's view, but I think he goes too far in his defense of the role-bearing person. The book has three parts. Chapters 1 and 2 are more specialized discussions of methodological issues in analytical and comparative philosophy. Given Rosemont's political concerns, he writes in clear and accessible language supported by examples from everyday life in other parts of the book, and the bulk of the opening chapters could perhaps have been relegated to appendixes; those who are not professional philosophers can just skip to chapter 3. The second part—chapters 3 to 5—critiques the dominant Western idea of the self as a free and autonomous individual separated from roles and communities. Chapter 3 argues that the individualist view of the self is descriptively false; chapter 4 argues that it leads to undesirable social and political consequences; and chapter 5 is a critique of its extreme libertarian manifestation in the United States. The third part of the book—chapters 6 to 10—is a positive argument in defense of the Confucian view that we should think of ourselves as ever-evolving, interrelated, role-bearing persons. Chapter 6 argues that the Confucian view is descriptively true, and Rosemont draws implications for family life (chapter 7), ritual (chapter 8), religion (chapter 9), and society and the world (chapter 10). The three parts of the book could perhaps have been more clearly separated in the table of contents. I learned most from the third part, and I will confine my critical comments to what Rosemont says about the role-bearing person and how we should think about our moral obligations, ending with a few words about the relevance of political context for theorizing about the self and morality. [End Page 565] Rosemont argues that "the view of human beings as most fundamentally free and rational, autonomous individual selves is almost certainly false" (p. xii) and that it has led to disastrous social consequences such as huge economic inequalities because its celebration and defense of freedom comes at the expense of social justice and peace. Instead, we should celebrate the Confucian idea "that human beings can only be understood relationally, never as isolates, and are thus best accounted for as the sum of the roles they live, with no remainder or consequence" (p. 4), both because it's the right way to think about the kinds of persons we are and because this conception of the person will lead to desirable political consequences if it becomes widely shared. But there's something strange about distinguishing too strongly between a "false" conception of the autonomous self and the "true" account of the role-bearing person. Rosemont notes that "while Confucianism should be seen as fundamentally religious, there are no solitary monks, nuns, anchorites, anchoresses, or hermits to be found in the tradition. The way is made in the walking of it, but one never walks alone" (p. 96). Does this mean that other traditions with ideals of solitary individuals are false? Even Confucians might object, given that so many adherents of Confucian ethics (such as Liang Shuming) have also adopted the more individualistic ideas of the self in other traditions such as Buddhism during the course of their lives. Rosemont claims that "if all of morality is bound...

Institutionalising Islamophobia in Switzerland: The Burqa and Minaret Bans

This article aims to analyse the legislative processes leading to forbidding the wearing of burqas and the building of minarets in Switzerland by a postcolonial approach. In 2009, a federal popular initiative amended the Swiss constitution by forbidding the construction of minarets across the Helvetic territory. At the same time, several right-wing parties have attempted to pass a general prohibition of the burqa in public spaces since 2006. As a consequence, in 2013, the canton of Tessin has adopted an article prohibiting the face covering in public spaces and, in 2016, a popular initiative for the ban of the burqa in the whole country was launched. Starting from the content analysis of parliamentary debates and legislative documents concerning these bans, hegemonic and Eurocentric narratives excluding Muslims from the national community will be examined. The article also aims at casting a new light on the interlinkages between Swiss direct democracy, populism and Islamophobia. Furthermore, the exploitation of gender aimed at reinforcing Islamophobic narratives will be analysed. In both the minarets and the burqa ban cases, the image of women has played a crucial role in justifying the right-wing discourse on Muslims and Islam in Switzerland. On the one hand, the minarets ban has occupied the Swiss public space by a propaganda poster showing a woman wearing a burqa in front of minarets erected like missiles on top of a Swiss flag. On the other hand, the burqa ban articulated its campaign around the defence of freedom and women's right as Swiss traditional values. By deconstructing political and legislative arguments against burqa and minarets, the article shows how they have encouraged the legitimacy of public Islamophobic discourses and fostered a crystallised and undifferentiated representation of the Muslims' presence in Switzerland.

Space, Society, and Self

Space, Society, and Self

Fernando Pessoa e as diferentes leituras de sua vida e obra

A vida e obra de Fernando Pessoa podem ser lidas e interpretadas de diferentes modos ou níveis. Entre as linhas de força dela destaca-se a do ocultismo ou esoterismo, patente desde cedo nos seus escritos, leituras e investigações. Devido à sua subtileza e natureza simbólica em que se expressa, o Esoterismo não é facilmente aceite ou compreendido por muitos comentadores menos sensíveis ou interessados em tais dimensões. Esta compreensão torna-se ainda mais difícil porque durante a sua vida Fernando Pessoa entrou em tantas investigações, criou tantas afiliações ou projectos, e porque muitos dos seus textos póstumos esotéricos não estavam datados, prestando-se assim a ser vistos como contraditórias. Torna-se então muito importante compreender as suas fontes de conhecimento culto, quem foram os autores que ele leu mais e anotou e que quais os temas e níveis mais investigados. Hoje é possível, com muitos mais inéditos publicados e a sua obra mais contextualizada pelos trabalhos milhares de investigadores, termos uma leitura e compreensão mais profunda do seu vastíssimo conhecimento, desde a poesia à sociologia, da astrologia e simbolismo às ordens esotéricas e iniciação e uma leitura mais acertada do seu caminho hermenêutico espiritual e do seu lugar na Tradição Literária e Espiritual Portuguesa, que delinearemos também rapidamente desde o galaico-português até ao Modernismo do século XX, partilhando ainda alguns textos esotéricos e autobiográficos mais significativos. Toda esta demanda oculta, manifestada hoje para nós nos seus múltiplos textos, anotações ou ensaios inéditos em vida, culminarão nos seus poemas esotéricos publicados em revistas, na sua obra prima a Mensagem, na defesa das Associações Secretas, e finalmente na sua iniciação, de que algumas indicações são dadas nas notas autobiográficas ou testamentos finais, dos quais partilhamos partes, ao que acrescentaremos alguns dos seus mais relevantes textos espirituais.

In Defence of Freedom? The Practices of Armed Movements in Pre-1914 Europe: Italy, Spain and France

the purpose of this article is to analyse the role played by organized political violence in pre-1914 Europe, with special regard to labour conflicts, through an analysis of the social composition and the practices of four movements which deliberately resorted to armed organization: the Somatén in Catalonia (Spain), the Jaunes trade union in the French Département du Nord, and the Citizen Patrols and agrarian squads in the Province of Bologna (Italy). Despite their different origins and contexts, these movements pursued similar political strategies based upon the deliberate use of violence and guns, and shared anti-socialist, authoritarian and anti-democratic purposes. Analysis of their practices and political cultures enables us to evaluate the nature of the democratic processes in pre-1914 Europe and also helps to contextualize and understand the political and social violence which came to the fore after the end of the war in 1918.

Liberdade de expressão comercial como estratégia corporativa do setor publicitário brasileiro

O objetivo deste artigo é investigar as origens do conceito “liberdade de expressão comercial” e analisar como ele passou a ser adotado pelo setor publicitário brasileiro a partir dos anos 90. A pesquisa foi realizada a partir da coleta de documentos e entrevistas que auxiliaram na reconstrução do histórico das entidades do setor, bem como das disputas em torno da regulamentação da publicidade, e permitiu a percepção das posições discursivas contrárias às iniciativas regulatórias que visavam a um maior controle da publicidade no país. A análise constatou que o atual discurso em defesa da liberdade de expressão comercial é uma síntese fundamentada em três matrizes: defesa das liberdades, defesa da autorregulamentação e defesa da atividade publicitária.

Raz tylko... Polenlieder

Raz tylko... Polenlieder

Rebellious Histories: The Amistad Slave Revolt and the Cultures of Late Twentieth-Century Black Transnationalism by Matthew J. Christensen (review)

Christensen, Matthew J. 2012. Rebellious Histories: The Amistad Slave Revolt and Cultures of Late Twentieth-Century Black Transnationalism. Albany: SUNY Press. $65.00 hc. $23.95 sc. $23.95 e-book. 202 pp.Sengbe Pieh, often known in US as Joseph Cinque, was one of fifty-three captives who staged a successful revolt aboard slave ship Amistad in 1839. He was an outspoken advocate for rights of captives when they fought in US courts for their return to Africa. More than 150 years later, Pieh is probably most widely known in United States as heroic protagonist of 1997 Steven Spielberg film Amistad, but he is, more significantly, a beloved icon in Sierra Leonean public arts and theater. He is a symbol of Sierra Leonean national pride and a figure of agency and courage of captive Africans. In United States, he is an emblem of moral authority in exaggerated retellings of nineteenth-century America's emerging devotion to liberty and democracy. His image has been exploited by both Sierra Leonean and US governments to create an imagined heritage of revolutionary heroism in defense of freedom, a lineage from which both governments claim descent. At same time, for political activists, Pieh is an icon of Black transnationalism and centuries- long struggle against global capital's exploitation of people of African descent around world.Matthew Christensen investigates this powerfully elastic trope of revolutionary-who-would-not-be-enslaved in his new book Rebellious Histories: The Amistad Slave Revolt and. Cultures of Late Twentieth-Century Black Transnationalism. As Christensen illustrates, Sengbe Pieh and Amistad revolt are mobilized as symbols by people of African descent to critique contemporary patterns of racialized, global and emblematize complex dynamics of black transnational subject formation within global networks of capitalist production, past and present (10). Ironically, however, image of slave revolt is also appropriated as a rhetorical tool of neoliberal propagandists, who perniciously utilize language of freedom and equality to justify development and other political schemes (such as structural adjustment programs of 1990s) that force African nations into dependent status through debt, undermine opportunity for citizens of African nations, and exacerbate inequality for people of African descent.Christensen's recounting of life of Amistad narrative reveals that, by twentieth century, slave revolt was largely forgotten in Sierra Leone by everyone except a few academics. In 1987, narrative resurfaced through two complementary documents, one published by Sierra Leonean government at request of then presidentjoseph Saidu Momoh and other produced a few months later by United States Information Service for distribution through its Sierra Leone ambassador. Both documents celebrated heroes of Sierra Leone in attempts to bolster each office's hegemonic power over state and national imaginary (58).But these simplistic images of state power and heroism did not go uncontested. Through well-veiled double-speak that skillfully avoided government censorship, Charlie Haffner's play Amistad. Kata-Kata (1988) produced a counter- history to totalizing narrative produced by governments. As Christensen deftly argues, trope of cannibalism-the fear that reportedly motivated Sengbe Pieh and his compatriots to slave-ship rebellion-is evoked as a potent counter-metaphor that exposes the economics of exploitation that consumed enslaved African bodies and decimated African communities from which they were stolen (59). In months following 1992 coup against Momoh's regime and twenty-four-year single-party rule of All People's Congress, largely undereducated and underemployed young men launched a public art campaign in which they painted portrait of world-traveling political icon Sengbe Pieh (among others) on walls across city as a reminder of political empowerment of youth. …

Des récits d’amours libres et sensuelles au XVIe siècle: variations lexicales à Lyon vers 1540

The study concerns lexical variations in two contemporary works published in the same city during the sixteenth century. It approaches the phenomenon of rewriting from a lexical and partially philological point of view by mobilizing notion of «ideolecte», borrowed from sociolinguistics. It points out an ideological convergence between two works written in Lyon during the 1540s containing out marriage love stories: Les Comptes amoureux (c. 1542), collection of short stories writed by certain Jeanne Flore, and Philandre (1544), chivalric novel invented by Jean des Gouttes. The signals which use writers of Comptes amoureux and Philandre to dispute Christian vision of couple proceed by use of same lexemes and of quasi-synonyms. Tacking back terms practice, detectable in particular in two passages translating the same Italian source, goes beyond simple editorial variants operated in printers’ workshops: it conveys a contesting of coercive frame of marriage and a defense of freedom for persons and of sexual intercourse.

Il significato internazionale del magistero sociale del Santo Giovanni Paolo II P.M

The international significance of St. John Paul II’s social teaching
 The teaching of John Paul II undoubtedly became a great provocation for the contemporary thinking of man due to its skillful and innovative treatment of a unique event which has been at the centre of the life of the Church for more than two thousand years and which presents a specific opportunity for any man who wants to cope with his own fate. The Pope offered as the essence of his evangelizational message Christianity presented in its completeness, as a phenomenon which cannot be reduced and compared to any form of ideology. Moreover, such Christianity is capable of exerting a creative influence upon man and providing him with a new form of culture. (We may venture an opinion that the entire magisterium of John Paul II is suffused with two kinds of wonder: the wonder of humanization and the results of humanization i.e. the transformation of man). The magisterium of John Paul II should be viewed as a pursuit to renovate the original identity of the Christian faith, a pursuit to promote the Church in it missionary function, a pursuit of a versatile development of the feeling of responsibility for the defense and promotion of human rights and collaboration to maintain peace. Not only did the Polish Pope supplement the output of the social teaching developed by his great predecessors, but he also enhanced it by the idea that the defense of the missionary freedom of the Church and of the Church itself was also associated with an unconditional defense of freedom and the rights of people and nations. This defense entailed the pursuit of such a social order on all levels, from the national level up to the global level, in which the human person would occupy the central position and would constitute a definitive value, irreplaceable by any other value. In one of his most famous social encyclicals entitled Centesimus annus, the Pope clearly emphasized the idea that by defending its own freedom, the Church defends man who should be more obedient to God than to other men, the family or various social and national organizations which enjoy their own sphere of autonomy and sovereignty. Today, more than anytime else, this line of thought finds justification not so much in the confrontation with overtly totalitarian ideologies, but in the struggle with ideologies which seem less bloody in comparison with past ideologies. However, according to such ideologies the human person and the rights of people and nations are systematically rejected in the name of the realization of a project of economic and scientific-technocratic globalization. By continuing the tradition of his predecessors on St. Peter’s throne in the sphere of social teaching, John Paul II introduced one fundamental innovation. When the great ideologies saw their end, he realized that the social teaching of the Church should above all increase its interest in man in his religious and secular therefore natural dimension. This increased interest should be associated with the care about his fundamental rights. The teaching and the activity of John Paul II made the social doctrine of the Church more authentic and even more engaged in the cause of evangelization today than ever before. The Church “practises” or suggests a social doctrine because it desires to fulfil its evangelizational mission completely. At the same time, it meets man in various historical contexts which are objectively difficult to cope with. The Church was engaged in the consideration of all political problems of the world with a freedom which no other institution enjoys. John Paul II spoke to individual people and to nations who lived in various conditions and various situations, to friends and enemies, without a preemptive estimation of possible reactions, including the reactions of the greatest powers on Earth. He did so for the good of mankind, to help mankind maintain its complete humanity. Man is the fundamental value which is subject to no negotiations. God is another value which is subject to no negotiatons because he reveals the true nature of man. We may surmise that with the long course of John Paul II’s pontificate we witnessed a new phase of the development of the social doctrine of the Church. Above all with the arrival of the third millennium the Church is more and more engaged in the problems of the modern word.

Aspectos bioéticos en la atención al enfermo de Alzheimer y sus cuidadores

Bioethics has spread and developed throughout most of the world, influencing awareness with respect to human life. The currentemphasis is on prevalence of the person’s fundamental rights, respect for human dignity and defense of freedom up to the end life.Given the importance of this hypothesis, the focus is on applying bioethical principles to one of the most disabling of all humandiseases: Alzheimer’s. Considering the impact having a person with Alzheimer´s has on society and the family, the article reflects onthe patient and the caregiver, as well as the ethical aspects that should guide the care and attention both receive during the courseof the illness.

Criminal justice under the Coalition

We will be strong in defence of freedom. The Government believes that the British state has become too authoritarian, and that over the past decade it has abused and eroded fundamental human freedoms and historic civil liberties. We need to restore the rights of individuals in the face of encroaching state power, in keeping with Britain's tradition of freedom and fairness … We will implement a full programme of measures to reverse the substantial erosion of civil liberties and roll back state intrusion… We will restore rights to non-violent protest. (HM Government, 2010)

Viewpoint: In defence of Freedom of Information

Viewpoint: In defence of Freedom of Information

Whose freedom? South Africa's press, middle-class bias and the threat of control

Threats to the autonomy of South Africa's press have prompted protest – understandably so. But, while media control or censorship are inimical to the free flow of information, which is essential to democracy, the mainstream press's response to real and perceived threats has done more to reveal the depth of its middle-class bias than to rally citizens behind the defence of freedom. The article seeks to demonstrate that the mainstream media's understanding of freedom is restricted to the liberties of the suburban middle classes. It supports this argument by analysing both the journalistic preoccupations it seeks to defend and the phrasing of its attempts to oppose state control. And it argues that the framing of press freedom as a purely middle-class concern will make it increasingly unlikely that free expression can be effectively defended.

Defining 'De Facto' Slavery in Australia: Ownership, Consent and the Defence of Freedom

AbstractThis article examines a recent judgment of the High Court of Australia, R v. Tang which raises questions about the definition, conceptualisation and language of slavery. The authors argue that by using the language of 'slavery' to describe certain conduct, the court provides a powerful tool to address circumstances that are criminally harmful to women.