‘If Jan. 7 Was the European Equivalent of Sept. 11, We Can’t Make the Same Mistakes as the Americans’

We must ensure that we don’t lock people up in the name of freedom of expression just because they have a different way of thinking. We really don’t need a Belgian version of the Patriot Act or a European Guantanamo.

For months, European leaders have feared the events that took place in Paris last week. Radical Muslims brought the war in Syria and Iraq into the very heart of the continent. The jihadis that carried out the raid on Charlie Hebdo demonstrated their calm and deadly efficiency in handling their assault rifles, something that proved dramatic for the victims and certainly for our uncertain world.

Last Sunday, several million worried and indignant people marched in Paris and other French and European cities. Before the dead had even been counted, certain political vultures were already trying to capitalize on the attacks. Across Europe, anti-immigrant and anti-Semitic sentiments have been on the increase for months — in Germany, the United States and France, where the National Front reaps a profit from any incident.

‘Speak Softly, and Carry a Big Stick’

It isn’t easy to locate a few hundred fanatics and arrest them. It isn’t easy to ensure cohesion in a shattered society in order to organize dialogue between all of the groups, countries and institutions involved. Dividing up the Schengen area and reintroducing border controls will not stop the terrorists. Over a hundred years ago, the American President Teddy Roosevelt summed up his international diplomacy as “speak softly, and carry a big stick.” Stay calm, but be prepared. We clearly weren’t sufficiently calm or prepared. In 2004, the Madrid attacks cost the lives of almost 200 people. A year later, 56 people were killed in the London underground. Indignation was just as strong then.

Opinions on the – not always very subtle – cartoons by Charlie Hebdo may diverge. The magazine was not really terribly popular within the French circles of power. When, in 2006, Charlie Hebdo published the controversial Danish caricatures, Jacques Chirac – the president at the time – considered it to be “blatant provocation.” Charlie Hebdo had – and has – the right to challenge the obscurantism of a certain interpretation of the Quran, just as it did with the Catholic Church and its leaders; a right that, moreover, was recognized by the European Court of Human Rights.

No Belgian Version of the Patriot Act

If Charlie Hebdo had the right to mock the Prophet, then Muslims also have the right to protest as long as they don’t incite hatred and – obviously – don’t resort to violence. We must therefore ensure that we don’t reach the stage where we lock people up in the name of freedom of expression just because they think differently. We really don’t need a Belgian version of the Patriot Act or a European Guantanamo.

Following the murder of Theo Van Gogh in 2004, the Amsterdam mayor was strongly criticized for having called for everyone to “stick together.” Even within his own Social Democratic Party, certain people considered his approach too soft in the face of the city’s problems. And yet, once again, it turns out that everything starts from there. Globalization and migration have, progressively, deeply changed relationships in the world. Even if we deplore this, there’s no going back.