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Let Liberty Triumph Over Tyranny and Terrorism

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Terrere means ―to make tremble‖ in Latin. The first Mesopotamian empire, that of Sargon of Akkad, was founded on terror. The same was later true of antiquity‘s first military empire, the Assyrian, whose brutal methods of reprisal were intended to crush the spirit and break the will. Announced with warlike violence, terror remains suspended like a sword in times of peace over the heads of all who dare to rebel. In the despotic societies that make up the major portion of history‘s fabric, it has served as the tool of enslavement and guarantor of mass obedience. State terror, whether implicit or overt, has haunted the centuries as war‘s bogeyman......

Of course it is terrible when deluded terrorists or criminals on probation kill innocent people. But the increased risk that each of us runs is marginal when we insist on enforcing human rights rather than abandoning them just because they have proved inconvenient. It is one of the most honoured traditions to accept the marginally increased risk as the price of respect for individual human dignity. That is what self-respect requires. It is dangerous gibberish to say that the public has a right to as much security as it can have; no one has a right to security purchased through injustice.

The 20th-century tyrannies have taught us that protecting the dignity of human beings, one by one, is worth the increased discomfort and risk that respecting human rights may cost the public at large. We owe to the brilliance of the noted jurisprudential scholar, Ronald Dworkin, for his insightful analyses and the defiant defence of our rights in these trying times.

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