Two Freedoms. Hugh Segal

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      Freedom from fear also means freedom from official discrimination on the basis of gender, race, creed, colour, or sexual orientation. Even more important, in terms of day-to-day life, it means no tolerance, official or unofficial, for discriminatory activities that create fear within specific groups. Extreme harassment, or worse, by Buddhists of Muslim populations in Myanmar or Sri Lanka is a new but serious manifestation of intimidation-based extreme nationalism. Tolerating hate crimes or violence against minorities is as bad as officially sanctioning such crimes or violence. A society where the legitimate apparatus of the state does its best to prosecute the illegal purveyors of fear is a society where freedom from fear is real. A society or state that looks the other way when minorities of any kind are subjected to violence is a society that tacitly encourages the use of fear against its own people.

      In recent years, Sri Lanka has become a discouraging case in point. At the end of a brutal anti-terrorist war in 2009, the spirit of reconciliation, accountability, and generosity, that was so essential to the rebuilding that took place in post-apartheid South Africa and post–Civil War United States, seemed to be furthest from the mind of the Rajapaksa administration.

      While nominally democratic, the government was, in fact, a family dynasty, with Rajapaksa brothers in control of Defence, Economic Development, the Parliament, the Presidency, and all aspects of state regulation and private enterprise. The brothers used fear to energize a soft ethnic cleansing of the Tamil population and serious harassment of the Muslim minority. Media voices were intimidated, brutalized, or murdered. Muslim stores and properties were destroyed by roving gangs of thugs while police stood idly by. Not one scintilla of accountability was exacted from either side for the thousands of civilians who had been killed by the end of the civil war with the terrorist Tamil Tigers in 2009.

      Judicial independence was done away with when the chief justice of the Supreme Court was summarily and unconstitutionally impeached because of a ruling the Rajapaksa clan disliked. While the United Nations human rights commissioner made serious findings and a multitude of recommendations, very few have been addressed. The Commonwealth of Nations, of which Sri Lanka (then Ceylon) was a founding member, has done almost nothing of substance to defend its own core values of rule of law, defence of democracy, judicial independence, and human rights. In fact, it gave Sri Lanka the privilege of hosting the 2013 Heads of Government Meeting in Colombo in November of that year — the first meeting in more than four decades where the queen, as head of the Commonwealth, did not attend.

      Terrorism in any country is about the targeted and energized use of fear as a political and tactical weapon. The damage any terrorist attack achieves is rarely, if ever, an existential risk to a country or community. But the fear it seeks to generate, and the overreaction it hopes to incite is all about creating a circumstance where freedom from fear begins to erode. Depending on the extent of the extreme fundamentalism of the terrorist group, or its nihilist excess, a society’s freedom from fear, its belief in diversity as a basis for rational discussion and open debate, and its tolerance of a multiplicity of views, will serve as strong counters to the agents of terror — in fact, they are likely their worst enemies.

      The challenge for national security agencies in a democracy is that of balance and of choosing the right approaches in their fight with terror and the appropriate level of intensity. The main purpose of terrorists, whether homegrown but externally inspired or externally sourced, is the manifest and literal explosion of fear, beyond whatever death and destruction their initiatives produce; meanwhile, the legitimate forces of a democratic state have a duty to protect national security. They have a series of tools at their disposal; these vary from country to country but cluster around some common elements. Police intelligence networks, electronic intelligence shared between allies, Interpol, undercover security operatives, and terrorist units of the kind one can now find in major cities such as New York, London, Montreal, or Paris all enhance a democracy’s capacity to protect its citizens from attacks on the freedom from fear. The caveat, of course, is that in democratic societies the reduction of overall freedom or legitimate privacy so as to protect the “freedom from fear” can become, in extremis, counterproductive. Finding the right balance between security and freedom, and maintaining legitimate and democratic oversight over security operations is all part of the architecture of the threshold freedom, freedom from fear. Pre- and post-9/11 realities in North America, pre- and post-Madrid, London, and Paris realities in Europe, and pre- and post-Sinai and Beirut realities on the issue of freedom and security are not only instructive but also indicative of the balances to be addressed and calibrated.

      A central question emerges: Against what standard will national security practices be judged? If there is a legal framework for that assessment, what is the instrument by which discretionary judgments are made? Why does any of this matter? Because for citizens to be free from fear in their day-to-day lives, in their workplace, in their neighbourhood, in the cafés or concert halls they frequent, or in their places of worship, they must be confident that the law applies to everyone and is broadly applied in the same way. They must be certain that all have access to due process before open and uncorrupted and unintimidated courts. This is fundamental. Citizens must be certain that those who protect the peace and order of a society, who work against the purveyors of fear, be they criminal gangs, terrorist networks, or violent racists, are governed by laws and procedures that underline the fact that the security forces are not in business for themselves but are agents of a democratic society. And, further, they must be sure that this society has norms, rules, laws, and legitimate expectations of appropriate standards of behaviour — standards for which security forces have been trained and to which they are accountable.

      One Canadian example that makes this point is the 2001 Summit of the Americas in Quebec City, where police and security forces anticipated serious though largely peaceful demonstrations. There was an expectation, however, that there was an unavoidable risk that some “black ops” or “direct action” vandals would seek to infiltrate the legitimate demonstrators. In the lead-up to and training for the summit, the various police forces in charge of the planning for an event that would bring most hemispheric heads of government to Quebec City were, much to the surprise of the demonstrators and even the media, given detailed briefings on the content, purport, and interpretation of both the Quebec Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The briefings on these, and on the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Act and the Criminal Code provisions that applied to mass dissent, were an integral part of the preparation for the multi-day event. There were still demonstrators who got out of hand and not every police officer was beyond criticism, but the broad framework of rights, i.e., the right to lawfully demonstrate one’s opposition and the right of the public to law enforcement and maintenance of the peace, were kept in balance — as both are essential parts of the freedom from fear.

      A few years ago, I recall my wife Donna and I visiting Newfoundland for a brief summer holiday during the celebration of their “400th” Anniversary of Discovery. The province was alive with countless artistic, cultural, and music events. Newfoundlanders are unfailingly friendly and deeply hospitable. We enjoyed our trip very much. One day we drove out from St. John’s, the capital, to Trinity, along the eastern coast, where we spent a wonderful day visiting galleries, having a relaxed lunch of cod cheeks, and doing some afternoon whale watching. In the evening, Trinity featured a summer stock company with local folklore — light but enchanting fun. At about 10 p.m. we headed onto the Trans-Canada Highway for a three-hour drive back to St. John’s. That night was very dark and on a very isolated patch of road we were pulled over by an RCMP police cruiser. An extremely tall RCMP officer approached our vehicle. He pointed out that we had been driving about fourteen kilometres per hour over the local speed limit. We acknowledged that that was probably true. He then asked if either of us had been consuming alcohol. Donna indicated she had not — that is why she was driving. I confessed to local draught beer that had been consumed with dinner about two hours earlier — that was why I was not driving. He was friendly, asked to see our licenses and insurance, and inquired if he might inspect our trunk “just to make the stop worthwhile.” He did so and then returned to our driver’s window to thank СКАЧАТЬ