| Popis: |
Chapter 6 continues Part II’s move away from the approach to Islam taken by broadcasters as discrete entities, and towards the trans national circulation of meanings which they negotiate in developing that approach. We begin by reprising the theme of the ideological tension broadcasters encounter in covering the ‘menace’ of fundamentalism within a framework of multiculturalism. We extend that framework to the principle of European tolerance more generally. The principle, traceable to Locke’s Letter on Toleration (Horton and Mendus, 1991), the British Toleration Act of 1689 and the writings of Voltaire and Lessing, is a precondition for liberal democracy. It presupposes a set of normative values broadly shared across Europe. The longevity of liberalism has made it diffuse. Nevertheless, there are baseline public statements to which national governments are willing to be signatories. The Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union (2000) is one such document: a consensual articulation of European liberal values. These can be glossed in various ways, but tolerance of difference (ethnic, political, gender) and the readiness to accord this tolerance legislative force through the principles of equality, free speech and the presumption of innocence is paramount. Our concern here broadens out to include the mediation of fundamentalism’s impact on free speech, equality and the presumption of innocence, as well as ethnicity. |
