IN HIS commentary, ambassador-at-large Bilahari Kausikan said France, and Europe in general, is living in a system "based on an extreme ideological conception of the universality of rights taken to ridiculous length" ("A practical not ideological approach to human rights"; Monday).
He added that in the Charlie Hebdo tragedy in Paris, both the terrorists and the cartoonists were wrong and held strikingly similar modes of thought. He then rounded off his assessment with generalised observations about a revival of fascism and anti-Semitism as a result of an unrestrained values-based concept.
We beg to differ: The level of "intellectual" understanding for militant extremists is misguided.
We do not see a "conundrum" in calling a murder a murder, or that doing this would be ideologically extreme. Paris did not witness a clash between conflicting human rights - it was horrified by a criminal act.
Societies may feel a need to draw the line of acceptable freedom of press differently, often for very valid historical reasons. However, to justify a narrower bandwidth with a terrorist act is disingenuous.
France, as all European countries, does have constraints in place against the abuse of freedom of speech - the most stringent ones, in fact, are on the expression of anti-Semitism, incitation to racial violence and hatred, and glorification of fascism.
The fact that France has had such laws since 1881, and has continued since then to fine-tune them, shows that, far from being "absolutist" on the issue of freedom of expression, lawmakers have deemed it necessary to frame this freedom.
Actually, Charlie Hebdo directed most of its satirical pieces at a very broad array of political, public as well as religious figures, but not against a particular religion.
The European Union does not instrumentalise its position as the world's largest donor of development aid. Our aim is, however, to improve the livelihoods of people, both in economic terms and in their aspirations for a self-determined life.
Terrorism is a global scourge which affects us all; and virtually no part of the world, including South-east Asia, has been spared from terrorist attacks.
In these testing times, the priority is to focus on how all partners can share experiences to effectively counter radicalism and terrorism. Now is the time to show solidarity and to work together.
Michael Pulch (Dr)
European Union Ambassador to Singapore
Benjamin Dubertret
Ambassador of France to Singapore
