Maximilien Robespierre was a fearless critic of tradition and incorruptibly committed to liberty: a million miles from today’s webcam jihadists. Continue reading “Defending the Terror”
Category: Politics
The Islamist, by Ed Husain
Critiques of Hizb ut-Tahrir focus less on its dodgy politics than on its intellectualism. But what’s wrong with a devotion to the debate of ideas? Continue reading “In defence of ‘radicalisation’”
The Threat to Reason: How the Enlightenment was hijacked and how we can reclaim it, by Dan Hind (Verso 2007)
Taking Liberties (2007), directed by Chris Atkins
Continue reading “The erosion of civil liberties under New Labour”
The Trap: What Happened to our Dream of Freedom?, by Adam Curtis (first shown on BBC2, March 2007)
Freedom of speech is not a celebrated cause in the West today. While all right-thinking people are concerned about state censorship in China, or the imprisoning of poets by authoritarian regimes across the world, it seems self-indulgent or even hysterical to complain about ‘censorship’ in the liberal West. Consequently, the demand for free speech is often seen as pedantic, eccentric even, the preserve of right-wing social inadequates who like to go on about ‘political correctness gone mad’ or occasionally left-wing social inadequates who like to announce that democracy is being overthrown by neocon conspirators. Continue reading “Free speech is more than a slogan”
An interview with Danny Morrison, Irish republican and playwright
Continue reading “You’ve got a tongue in your head after all”
Dolan Cummings 