Civil Liberties

Andrea Pető and Éric Fassin on the “culture wars” and the conservative attack on academic freedom.

With civil society organisations increasingly questioned by those in power, NGOs need political representation and popular support.

After the Paris attacks on 13th November 2015, instead of selectively grieving within a national frame and restricting liberties, what we need is transversal grief, time to think and a serious monitoring of the discourse on liberty. That will prevent dangerous classifications and dichotomies as well as impulsive actions and belligerent acts.

We should recognise that the national context and legitimacy is here to stay for some time. We might overcome it one day, but not tomorrow. We therefore need to develop a new approach that allows for combining the national more legitimately and more democratically with the European.

A broad public debate and continuous campaign is needed to ensure that governmental invasion of our private information is kept to a minimum, but the PRISM revelation may be the tipping point that brings this about.