How can free, western-liberal-democracies protect themselves against violent terror attacks such as we have seen recently in Boston and the streets of London, while still preserving our essential freedoms and founding values? At what point should the beliefs individuals hold themselves be subject to the laws of the nation? These are difficult questions to answer since our desire to remain free must be balanced against our need for security. Here is my latest Commentary “Islam vs. Islamism: Confronting the terrorist threat while preserving the free society” where I try to establish the lines of demarcation between the freedom to hold personal beliefs, an the freedom to act upon them in society.
Recently, the Macdonald-Laurier Institute co-sponsored a discussion event with renown Middle East expert Daniel Pipes titled “Islam vs. Islamism: an evening with Daniel Pipes” where Pipes gave an impassioned talk on what we mean when we talk about the difference between Islam – one of the world’s great religions – and “Islamism”, the ideology behind so many terror attacks.
Following the talk by Mr. Pipes, there was a panel discussion with Salim Mansour and myself where we explored this issue further. This event was the impetus for a column I wrote for Postmedia which you can read here. But I felt that more needed to be said than the confines of a 750 word column would allow so I have expanded on that column with the following full length Commentary posted at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute’s website.
