Please take the time and read my post on Global Voices Advocacy on how far would go to defend the rights of your political enemies. Selected excepts:
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What has this background to do with censorship though? When Rachad’s website was censored several blogs and websites carried the story including mine, with a petition to oppose all forms of censorship. Replies were extremely distrutful and vehement. Hchicha, a famous Algerian blogger who blogs in French, had a Youtube video that denounced censorship in all forms. He was attacked mercilessly and had multiple video replies. He says he was swamped with angry emails. I received emails to the tune that I am an islamist in disguise for starting the petition and had to alter the text to make it generic. “How dare you defend the rights of Islamists?” was their argument. These emails and Video replies were coming from people who, themselves, oppose the current regime to the core.
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This brings me to the question: beyond the slogans and the principles, how far would you go in defending your political rival some fundamental human right, even if you know that the rival presents a substantial threat to your way of life? Upping the stakes once more, what if even the values that you’re defending for them may be substantially jeopardised in case they win power?
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February 6, 2011 at 01:51
Omar
A question that cannot be answered is not a question to start with. For example do you agree with human rights? This questions and similar ones cannot be answered and are used by those who are not interested in real dialogue, let alone implementation of change.
I believe a better phrasing to the question you posed might be as follows:
Would you defend human values and defend the rights of your enemies to these values? Furthermore one has to define what these values are: For example, every person (child or adult. man or woman, rich or poor) right to respect and dignity.
Now start thinking about the implications for application of the above.
Kind regards.
Omar Acherc
January 5, 2012 at 07:17
Faith Oliver z
2477 rights of way or prescribing how they should be managed, because Congress itself wanted to define the key standards and scope of R.