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Liberties
Wim Blockmans
Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study
in the Humanities and Social Sciences
Institute of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences
Meijboomlaan 1, 2242 PR Wassenaar, the Netherlands
Telephone: +31-(0)70-512 27 00
Telefax: +31-(0)70-511 71 62
E-mail: [email protected]
Internet: www.nias.knaw.nl
The Twenty-eight Uhlenbeck Lecture was held
in Wassenaar 4 June 2010
NIAS, Wassenaar, 2010/4
ISBN 987-90-71093-67-8
ISSN 0921-4372; 28
(c) NIAS 2010. No part of this publication may be reproduced
in any form by print, photoprint, microfilm or any other means
without written permission from the publisher.
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Liberties
Liberty! “No concept has been used in a greater variety of meanings, and struck
the minds in so many ways”, noted Montesquieu in his Esprit des Lois, published
in 1748.1 In 1994/95, one of the concepts studied by a theme group at NIAS was
its use in Dutch history. I will not address this issue here as a historian, even less
so as an intellectual historian, but simply as a humanist. It appears that Western
societies nowadays are overwhelmed by a great variety of conflicting claims to
personal liberty. In this lecture, I will first try to give a brief inventory of the
current issues. Then I will discuss the arguments put forward in the ongoing
debate on the contested clothing of some Muslim women. In a third part I will
search for the origins of the concepts of liberty in Western Europe. The fourth part
will provide a case study showing how these concepts have been remediated over
time. In the fifth act, I hope to come to some conclusions.
Current challenges
Academics as we are, the concept of academic freedom is the one that concerns
us directly. It refers to the freedom to choose the theme and the method of one’s
research, and to speak publicly about the findings. The general expectation is that
a scholar becomes most creative under conditions of freedom. We all highly value
1 Charles de Secondat baron de Montesquieu, Œuvres complètes, R. Caillois, ed., vol.II, Paris 1951, 394,
quoted by Wycher R.E. Velema, ‘Het Nederlandse vrijheidsbegrip. Ter inleiding’, in: Vrijheid. Een
geschiedenis van de vijftiende tot de twintigste eeuw, E.O.G. Haitsma Mulier & W.R.E. Velema, eds.
Amsterdam, 1999, 2.
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this freedom, which is far from self-evident, as ideological or allegedly managerial
motives – which are equally ideological although disguised under a veil of
rationality – continue to be used to limit some forms of curiosity-driven or socially
required research. Institutes for advanced study are the apex of academic
freedom, as fellows are left entirely free to carry out their own research. The only
limitations are the self-imposed forms of collaboration as in the theme groups.
There, in a purely imaginary hypothesis, tension may arise between the personal
freedom to work at one’s own rhythm and along one’s personal lines of thought,
and the common good of attaining a higher level of insights arising from
contributing to a common scheme.
These elementary observations already provide us with three fundamental
dimensions of the concept of liberty. Fellows enjoy positive liberty in that they are
free to do what, how much and when they want, and to deliver the results in the
way they themselves choose. Fellows also enjoy negative liberty: they are
protected from external interference which might distract them from their selfchosen seclusion. Modern media offers lots of temptations to disrupt the brooding
researchers’ concentration, but it remains the fellows free will to accept or resist
these, for the common good. Restrictions are clear within a theme group: the
freedom is limited by the requirements of collaboration. Thus, even the closest
and chosen colleagues reduce each other’s liberty. The liberty of each member
may come into conflict with that of the others – a phenomenon which is typical
for any communal life. One person’s liberty may jeopardise another’s liberty. How
can one choose between countervailing liberties?
In the Netherlands, freedom is currently associated with the commemorations of
the liberation from the Nazi occupation, held each year on 5 May. In 2010, the 65th
commemoration received special recognition. In Amsterdam it was celebrated
with a ‘Great Freedom Contest’ that included a lecture, debates and selected music
about ‘freedom, liberation and freedombattle’. The general theme for 2010 reads
as follows: “How free is Amsterdam in the year 2010? Where are the boundaries
and how to preserve our freedom in a city where all kinds of interests are clashing
and liberties are being fought for by the square metre?” This year, Leiden
University commemorates the 87th lustrum of its founding as the Praesidium
Libertatis (The bulwark of liberty) in 1575, after the withdrawal of Spanish army
troops. On this occasion, the University and the City, whose motto is Haec
libertatis ergo (This for the sake of liberty), initiated an annual Freedom Lecture.
The first Freedom Lecture will be given by Salman Rushdie on 18 June 2010. The
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lecture series was created to emphasise the importance of freedom for science
and democracy, and, in particular, the freedom of speech.
These initiatives were taken in a climate in which the freedom of expression is
under discussion. In April 2010, from which month date all the cases I will
mention here, the High Court ruled that the constitution of a political party
established in 1918 on the basis of orthodox reformed principles, the Staatkundig
Gereformeerde Partij, may not prevent women from standing election. After
studying this case for seven years, the Court urged the government to take
appropriate measures leading to the inclusion of women on that party’s poll lists.
As these measures have not yet been designed, the implication is that the national
elections on 9 June 2010 will still infringe the Constitution and the UN ‘Convention
on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women’, agreed upon in
1979 and ratified by the Netherlands in 1991. Article 7 stipulates that ‘states
under the Convention have to take adequate measures to ban discrimination
against women in political and public life.’ Women belonging to that political and
religious orientation claim that they don’t wish to be eligible. This argument is
ethically and constitutionally unacceptable, as it is unlawful to waive fundamental
human rights. Interestingly, it is a similar argument to that used by some
defendants of various forms of discrimination against women in Islamic
communities. I will come back to this later.
In a different domain, in 2003, a reverend was acquitted in appeal in the High
Court for a charge of offending homosexuals, as he had called their orientation a
‘dirty and sordid sin’ in a daily newspaper. He was acquitted on the ground of his
‘firm belief in the word of God’, with a reference to Leviticus 18:22.2 This
protection of the freedom of speech opens the way for many offensive remarks
against all kinds of specific groups. The Partij voor de Vrijheid (Party for Freedom),
and especially its leader, uses its name and the constitutional freedom of speech
to carry out a rough battle against immigrants, and particularly against Islam. Its
leader calls the Qu’ran a ‘fascist’ book which should be prohibited and banished.
He is now under trial on charges of engaging in hate speech and incitement to
violence. In the last elections for the European Parliament, this party won four of
the 26 seats. Until recently, the Netherlands cherished its self-image of being the
2 Rev. Herbig in newspaper Twentsche Courant Tubantia, dd. 16 January 1998; Sentence Hoge Raad,
dd. 14 January 2003. I am grateful to NIAS Fellows Hans Nieuwenhuis and Helen Stout for this reference.
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guiding nation of the world, ethically and even in the sphere of social and
economic relations. Nowadays, some liberties, guaranteed in the constitution, the
European Treaty for Human Rights and other international treaties, are under
vehement discussion. Whose liberty has to prevail?
The Freiheitliche Partei Österrreichs (the freedom party of Austria), established in
1956 and has formed part of the federal government for some years since 2000,
had already demonstrated how campaigns against immigrants could be launched
under that label of freedom. In April 2010, an opinion poll showed that 71 percent
of Austrians consider Islam to be incompatible with Western concepts of
democracy, freedom and toleration. They think that Muslims do not adapt
themselves ‘to the lifestyle of the Austrian community’; and 54 percent of the
interviewees see Islam as a threat for the Western way of life.3 In the elections held
in Hungary in April 2010, the Jobbik party obtained 16.7 percent of the votes. This
party openly fosters hatred against foreigners, especially Rumanians, Gypsies and
Jews. Last year, adherents of this party, dressed in the colours of the Hungarian
fascist movement of the Second World War. They launched attacks against
Gypsies, including setting fire to a house and killing a father and his son when
they fled. In most Western countries this would be a basis for prosecution. In
another part of Europe, a Belgian Member of Parliament was convicted for
offending immigrants: the European Court for Human Rights in Strasbourg denied
him the use of his political rights for 10 years. However, in the Hungarian
Parliament a two-third majority is now held by a firmly nationalist party. Hungary
epitomises feelings of insecurity which are only partially based on facts and are
magnified by media and populist politicians. In such a scenario, in which the
labelling of scapegoats also occurs, the risk of serious derogations from
fundamental rights and liberties is ever present.
All over Europe, diffuse feelings of anxiety are focused on the growing number and
the increasing visibility of Muslims. These feelings may be exacerbated by
international terrorism, and, on a more structural level, by the partial integration
of the immigrants. It has led to discrimination and, as a reaction, has provoked the
aggressive behaviour of youngsters. It is true that the integration of migrants in
the labour force is lagging behind, due to social and ethnic, rather than religious,
factors. Migrants’ children, especially boys, generally achieve weaker results at
3 Research Institute Imas.
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school. The percentage of unemployed young migrants is relatively high. Around
10 percent of the boys hangs around on the streets and gets involved in all kinds
of gangs. Some of these engage in criminal acts. Confrontations with the police are
spiralling as the boys look for ‘kicks’ and an opportunity to show macho behaviour.
As individuals, policemen are not always free of racist reflexes, which adds to the
hatred. This reciprocal image of an enemy leads to street fights in the banlieux of
cities in France and elsewhere. Thanks to the blowing up of the situation by the
cameras, the banlieux become the tournament fields where honour is to be won
under the watching eye of the cameras. Populist political parties channel and often
stir up the feelings of unrest, but the solutions they propose only aggravate the
tensions. They use their democratic rights to forcefully reduce the liberties of other
citizens, while mediation, communication and education have been proven to be
the more successful approaches.
A striking case is the referendum against building minarets for a mosque in
Switzerland. Why should this slender construction harm the beauty of the
landscape more than a traditional bell tower? Even trickier are the intentions of the
French government and the nearly unanimous Belgian Parliament to forbid veils
covering the face in the public space, for the sake of security. The Danish Prime
Minister declared that “There is no place for the burqa and the niqaab in Danish
society. They are symbols of a vision of women and mankind against which we are
firmly opposed.”4 The question under debate in this issue is who is discriminating
whom, and on which grounds. It is true that, under the overall concern for security,
the proposed laws target the common criminal’s balaclava just as much as it does
the burqa and the niqaab. In Nantes, a French woman who converted to Islam was
fined for ‘driving in uncomfortable circumstances’, which referred to her niqaab.
The affair became an issue in the national press as her partner, a naturalised
Algerian, appeared to be a polygamist entertaining four wives and 12 children and
living on fraudulent social allowances. In France, some 1,900 women are thought
to wear such clothes, two-thirds of whom are French citizens and 90 percent of
whom is younger than 40.5 This share, three in 100,000, is so low that one may
wonder why there is a problem. Are Western societies not obsessively staring at
symbols by which small minorities are marking their collective identities, while
these are not shared by the vast majority of their ethnic group?
4 Quote of Prime Minister Lars Rasmussen, 1 April 2010.
5 Estimates published by the French Ministry of the Interior, April 2010.
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On the other hand, Western societies rightly want to defend their own values,
including the security of persons and their property, tolerance and the freedom of
expression. But how far can one go in the proclamation of one’s values without
abusing the liberty of expression? Where does free speech degenerate into
provocation and offence? On 31 March 2010, the Anglo-Dutch writer Benno
Barnard intended to deliver a lecture at the University of Antwerp. It was
announced under the title in Dutch “Long live God, away with Allah”. Some 40
radical Muslims, spurred by the website sharia4belgium, prevented this lecture
being held. Nine days later, a court adjudicated the city’s claim that ‘each
infringement of the freedom of expression, or of the laws against discrimination
and terrorism’ should be fined € 25,000.6 That may be justified, but was it wise
for an internationally renowned author to hurt the religious feelings of Muslims if
his intention was to contribute meaningfully to the public debate? The European
Court of Human Rights stated that politicians in particular need to enjoy greater
“freedom to address issues in ways that others may find provocative, shocking or
disturbing, given their special role in public debate and democratic deliberation”.
This implies, however, their responsibility to protect and enable the exercise of the
freedom of others. “Freedom of speech is at issue when a contribution has the
potential of being disruptive, shocking, provocative, or offensive.”7 Opinion
leaders in general, including artists, have to be aware that they might make a
greater contribution to our society by showing the respect that keeps people from
harming others, especially those in a weaker position.
Personal liberties are under pressure in many parts of the Western world, and from
various sides. The state of Israel takes the liberty to curtail the freedom of press
and to kill its opponents anywhere in the world, without any form of process.
However, these persons see themselves as fighting for the freedom of their people,
against a foreign and oppressive military occupation. In the territories that Israel
occupies against international law and against scores of UN resolutions, it takes the
liberty of using disproportionate and random violence against civilians, and is
starving the whole population of Gaza by cutting it off and even preventing
fishermen to go to sea. That sea is heavily polluted anyhow, due to the lack of
means to rebuild an adequate infrastructure, including the sewerage.8 Does the
6 The sentence was limited to lectures by this writer only, but has value as a precedent.
7 Ineke Sluiter, ‘Deliberation, free speech and the marketplace of ideas’, in print.
8 Ilan Pappe, The ethnic cleansing of Palestine. Oxford, 2006; Dries van Agt, Een schreeuw om recht.
De tragedie van het Palestijnse volk. Amsterdam, 2009.
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right of Israelis to live safely within their own borders justify such outrageous
violations of humanitarian law, and the deprivation of a whole population of both
the most essential freedoms and basic necessities, for over half a century? The
report by the chair of the UN fact-finding mission on the Gaza war in 2008/09,
former NIAS Fellow Justice Richard Goldstone, has been endorsed by the UN Human
Rights Council, the UN General Assembly and the European Parliament. However,
Justice Richard Goldstone himself has become the victim of the most horrible
personal vituperations by, among others, the South African Zionist Federation. This
organisation went as far as to threaten to disturb the bar mitswa celebration
ceremony for Goldstone’s grandson in Johannesburg if he would attend that
important religious rite de passage. This outrage against the personal liberty of an
internationally highly esteemed judge, clearly demonstrates that these people have
lost all feeling for human rights as they are valued in the Western world.
Fundamental Rights and Symbols
As the dress code of Muslim women is being pushed onto the political agenda in
several West-European countries, the question arises which values are at stake,
and whose liberty is under threat. We have already noted that, at least in France,
90 percent of the women wearing face-covering veils, are younger than 40. This
demonstrates that the issue is not connected to the traditions of the first
generations of migrants. Defendants of the hidjab, the burqa or the niqaab
currently claim that the Qu’ran imposes this type of dress. This allegation brings
the issue under the protection of the fundamental freedom to practice religion or
philosophical faith. This is guaranteed by article 9 of the European Treaty for
Human Rights, dating from 1950, which includes “the expression in cults,
education, in the practical application and in the observation of commands and
prescriptions”. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, agreed upon by the
United Nations in 1948, formulated these rights in articles 18 and 19 as follows:
“Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion;
this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and
freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or
private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship
and observance.
Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right
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includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek,
receive and impart information and ideas through any media and
regardless of frontiers.”
In many developing countries, the Universal Declaration has in the mean time
been qualified as a typical product of Western societies and therefore not directly
applicable to other cultures. In 1990, the Organisation of the Islamic Conference,
which now counts 56 member states, issued the Cairo Declaration of Human
Rights in Islam which subjects all the rights and freedoms in the Universal
Declaration to the Islamic Shari’ah. “The Islamic Shari’ah is the only source of
reference for the explanation or clarification of any of the articles of this
Declaration.” (art. 24 and 25) This implies that Islamic countries do not accept
either the Universal Declaration nor the European Treaty as such. During the
course of its history, the Muslim World did not develop the idea of separation of
religious and secular authority, as it occurred in Western Europe. Nor did it
develop a clerical hierarchy which prescribed the unique orthodox interpretation
of the holy book. Instead, various schools derived their authority from a great
master. As a consequence, religious prescriptions have been interpreted in very
different ways through the centuries and between countries. The reference to ‘the
Islamic Shari’ah’ leaves the Muslims thus with a variety of interpretations.9
The scarce references in the Qu’ran about proper dress concern only women; they
do not command women to cover their face, hair or neck. Concrete prescriptions
about types of clothes fail entirely. The main concern is that a religious woman
should ‘protect her private parts’ and cover her bosom with a veil, ‘apart from
what is apparent’ and normally visible. Women should ‘draw their cloaks around
them’ in order to be identifiable and not to be harassed.10 What was considered
as ‘normality’ evidently depended on the climatic and geographical conditions,
and thus was very diverse. Later authorities are often contradictory and disputed.
Thus, allegations that the Qu’ran prescribes any particular type of clothing only
show the defendant’s ignorance. Furthermore, it should be noted that the Qu’ran
9 I follow here the admirably clear and convincing report by Etienne Vermeersch, De islam en de
hoofddoek in België, een bredere benadering. http://www.etiennevermeersch.be/vermeersch/artikels/
god_rel/islam_hoofddoek. (accessed April 2010) It has to be added, however, that the CDHRI is not a
juridically binding declaration, while the European Treaty for Human Rights creates duties for the
parties.
10 References to suras 7, 24, 26, 31, 33, 59.
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admits that males consider it to be normal to harass women, but it requires
women to protect their chastity. These attitudes and norms fit well in the
patriarchal stateless societies of Arabia in the seventh century.
From the 12th to the 19th centuries, most traditional schools of Islamic thought in
Northern Africa prescribed clothing covering the whole face, hair and neck; but in
Turkey, Iran and Moghul India the sensuality of the décolleté was highly
appreciated. In these regions, many paintings demonstrate the cult of the physical
beauty of both sexes. It is therefore incorrect to consider any dress code as a
general religious prescription in the Islamic world as a whole. Interestingly, in
1974, the conference of the united ulama’s in Riyad prescribed reserving the
niqaab exclusively for free women, to distinguish them from slaves and to protect
them against harassment. Curiously enough, for these religious leaders, male
harassment was still in evidence as it had been since the seventh century, just as
was the availability of female slaves to meet the relentless male needs.
Nevertheless, since the early 20th century, women were laying aside their veils as
a sign of their emancipation in more progressive regions. It was the Iranian
revolution in 1979 which launched a fundamentalist reaction. The chador and the
hidjab became the imposed markers of the new order, re-inventing a tradition
which neither goes back to the text of the Qu’ran nor to the alleged texts of the
prophet, and had never been observed in the whole Islamic world.
It is probable that the young girls nowadays who choose to cover their faces, have
not been well-informed about the varied traditions in Islam. If they think that they
are making a religious statement by wearing a burka or a niqaab, they are grossly
misled. They ought to be aware that the legal prescriptions of the Qu’ran imply
quite other rules, such as exclusively male liberties concerning polygamy,
repudiation, lapidation and other physical punishments, arranged marriages, and
the authority of brothers over sisters. And indeed, some fundamentalist groups in
Western Europe, and particularly in the United Kingdom, are already on their way
to imposing such a Shari’ah within their segregated communities. The imposition
of the ‘traditional’ female dress code is just an expression of the rejection of the
Western culture in which they choose to live. Other steps already include calls for
sexual segregation, which go in the opposite direction from the evolution towards
gender equality that Western societies went through in the last century. Universal
suffrage, equal rights and treatment for both sexes in education and professional
life, respect for the dignity of the female person, mixed education, taking part in
sports and swimming, medical care, birth control, the right of abortion and other
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ethical issues: all these relatively recent achievements are such deeply-felt values
in Western societies that attempts to reject these touch a very sensitive chord. The
UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women
of 1979 is a great text, but its observation is far from evident, as the case of the
SGP’s denial of passive voting rights for women in the Netherlands reminds us.
Feminists rightly point to the distance we still have to go to really achieve equality
in the distribution of social roles. Westerners should not accept expressions of
lack of respect for women, such as the refusal to shake hands, as a religious
prescription. First, there is no such command in any general Islamic doctrine, and,
second, secular societies do not have to accept behaviour they learned to ban as
contradictory to human rights.
If the relatively small groups of fundamentalists are not controlled, they will
continue to contest Western science including the evolution theory, the historicity
of the Shoah and the toleration of homosexuality. In this respect, they claim
liberties which are entirely opposed to fundamental developments in Western
culture. Migrants coming from less developed regions in countries where the
successive emancipation movements had a much weaker, if any, impact, have a
hard time catching up with this huge cultural gap. This difficulty adds to their
different linguistic and religious traditions. Many of them make admirable
advances in this respect, but for the majority the challenge is simply too great. We
have to respect that and help them to overcome their difficulties, which may well
take several generations. The tiny minority, however, who choose to reject all but
the material advantages of living in the West, should be aware that they will not
be given the liberty to destroy the liberties that our ancestors have developed
over centuries. Those who prefer the Shari’ah above Western Human Rights,
cannot appeal to our freedom of religion and expression.
A Genealogy of Liberties
Cultural transformations in most cases take time as people do not change ideas
and values as they change clothes; and even a dress code is a cultural expression,
as we have seen. I would like to mention the main steps that Europe needed to
take to develop its current concepts of liberty.
1.
To begin with, starting in Athens from the fifth century BCE onwards, the
freedom of speech and truth-finding in sciences and citizenship became wellestablished. The agora was a place for public debate and sound deliberation,
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based on moral and juridical principles.11 Liberty was opposed to slavery, a
social condition which remained undisputed, as was the restriction of
liberties to male citizens only.
2.
The Roman Republic of the first century BCE further elaborated civic rights
and liberties, including the protection of private property and the right of
political participation, the ius suffragii. The main contributions were the
formulation of written law and the system of jurisdiction which were
gradually extended to entire territories.12
3.
The Catholic Church grew as an institution within the structures of the late
Roman Empire, and it inherited, among many other features, its legal
framework. By claiming immunity rights, the Church protected its properties
against interference by lay persons. From the 10th century onwards, a
stronger movement within the Church strived to reduce the influence of lay
authorities with regard to the appointment of members of the clergy and the
management of its domains. Jurisdiction about church property and
personnel, as well as about the sacrament of marriage and orthodoxy, were
reserved exclusively for ecclesiastical bodies. This movement was labelled
libertas ecclesie, the freedom of the Church, by which its negative freedom
was meant, that is, its autonomy vis-à-vis the laity. By extension, the Church
strove at limiting the use of physical violence among Christians. It used its
symbolic authority to impose periods during which, and allocating spaces
where, violence was banned. Vulnerable, unarmed people such as clerics,
travellers and peasants were thus ‘liberated’ from the often exorbitant use of
physical violence by the aristocracy.
4.
The growth of cities and towns, starting in southern Europe in the 10th
century and gradually spreading north and east, was a decisive step towards
the creation of spaces where particular liberties applied to its burghers.
Citizens were free persons in the sense that they were neither slaves nor
serfs who had to fulfil all kinds of duties and were bound to the land they
had to cultivate. The larger and wealthier a city, the better it was able to
protect its citizens within and outside the walls which enclosed the
privileged community. Urban liberties were negative, as they protected the
11 Sluiter, ‘Deliberation, free speech and the marketplace of ideas’. J.S. Mill, On Liberty, [1859] S. Collini,
ed., Cambridge, 1989, 19-55; Sluiter, ‘Deliberation, free speech and the marketplace of ideas’.
12 Van Gelderen, Martin and Wim Blockmans, ‘Het klassieke en middeleeuwse erfgoed: politieke vrijheid
van de Romeinse Republiek tot de Bourgondische Nederlanden’, in: Vrijheid, Haitsma Mulier & Velema,
11-25, esp. 11-14.
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burghers against violence and exaction by aristocrats as well as against the
religious prescriptions which hampered the economic development they
were pursuing. The liberties also were positive, as they enabled citizens to
develop their specific way of life, and their systems of norms and values.
Urban liberties dealt with self-governance, the autonomy of legislation and
jurisdiction, and safety for its travelling burghers. Characteristically, until the
end of the 18th century, urban liberties were negotiated in particular with the
aristocracy or princely powers of each and every city. This brought great
variation in the content of the privileges, which all cities jealously restricted
to their own sworn burghers.
5.
Medieval universities combined the liberty of ecclesiastical institutions with
the liberties of urban communities. Their statutes, dating from the early 13th
century onwards, guaranteed an independent status ruling out, in principle,
lay or ecclesiastical interference in the studies. Universities were put under
the direct authority of the pope, which made it possible to launch pathbreaking empirical research, especially in the field of surgery. Academic
freedom applied in particular to the masters, the full-fledged members of the
scholarly community, while students enjoyed only some of the privileges.13
6.
Only under exceptional external pressure did the privileged cities and
territories collaborate to defend their common freedom. A breakthrough
towards the territorialisation of liberties occurred during the revolution of the
Low Countries against Spanish rule in the second half of the 16th century.
Resistance was unified against the increasingly authoritarian style of
government, directed from the Spanish court. Its most influential
representatives in the Low Countries were foreigners, imbued in the
aristocratic mentality of the Catholic reconquista in Spain. This style clashed
vehemently with the Low Countries’ long established urban and regional
liberties. The religious cleavage of the Reformation brought the ideological
justification for the claim to the freedom of conscience. The oppression of
tendencies towards Protestant orientations, which were particularly strong in
the larger cities and industrialised regions, triggered a revolt, leading to a
social revolution on an unprecedented scale. The liberty of thought for free
men, as well as the observance of personal and property rights of the privileged
communities, were the main themes of this largely ideological conflict.14 It
13 Verger, Jacques, ‘Patterns’, in: A History of the University in Europe. Vol. I. Universities in the Middle
Ages, Hilde De Ridder-Symoens, ed. Cambridge, 1992, 35-41.
14 Van Gelderen, Martin, The Political Thought of the Dutch Revolt 1555-1590. Cambridge, 1992.
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eventually led to the ‘liberation’ of the Northern Provinces from Spanish rule.
In 1581, the States General formulated an extensive declaration to depose
King Philip II as lawful prince of the principalities in the Low Countries. Its
main line of argument was that the king had systematically broken his oath
to respect the citizen’s liberties, privileges, rights and customs.15
7.
The motivation of the 1581 Act of Deposition of Philip II inspired the
revolutionaries in England in 1688, and in the North American colonies in
1776 to depose unlawfully ruling kings on behalf of what was now clearly
labelled as the people’s sovereignty. The latter revolution inspired in its turn
the French National Assembly to issue its Déclaration des droits de l’homme
et du citoyen in 1789, stating that all men are born and remain free and enjoy
equal rights:
“[…] considérant que l’ignorance, l’oubli ou le mépris des droits de l’homme
sont les seules causes des malheurs publics et de la corruption des
Gouvernements, ont résolu d’exposer, dans une Déclaration solennelle, les
droits naturels, inaliénables et sacrés de l’homme, […]
Article 1.
Les hommes naissent et demeurent libres et égaux en droits. Les distinctions
sociales ne peuvent être fondées que sur l’utilité commune.”
8.
In the course of the 19th century, most national constitutions would confirm
these rights, especially the inviolability of the individual person and his
property, freedom of religion, secrecy of private letters, freedom of the press
and of association.
9.
The mobilisation of the masses, brought about by the French revolution and
the revolutionary wars, triggered the sense of national consciousness. This
introduced the generalisation of nationalistic movements leading either to
the unification of peoples within a unitary state, as happened in Germany
and Italy in the course of the nineteenth century, or to the splitting of
multinational empires and states into nation-states. The movements against
foreign rule were felt to be liberations.
10. A further decisive step towards the recognition of new liberties, at the
15 Blockmans, Wim, ‘Du contrat féodal à la souveraineté du peuple. Les précédents de la déchéance de
Philippe II dans les Pays-Bas (1581)’, in: Assemblee di Stati e Istituzione rappresentative nella Storia
del Pensiero politico moderno. Rimini, 1984, 135-150.
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beginning of the 20th century, of universal suffrage for men and women.
Female voting rights were recognised in Finland as early as 1906, in Belgium
in 1948, in Spain only in 1977. Let us keep in mind how relatively recent
these acquisitions still are in several Western countries.
11. In the context of the strife for political rights, social rights, such as the right
of education, association, demonstration and to strike, have gradually
become acknowledged.
12. Much later again came all kinds of ethical liberties, which had traditionally
belonged to the competence of churches, such as the liberalisation of sexual
relations, contraception, abortion, marriage of homosexual couples, and –
still widely under discussion – euthanasia.
If my 12 major steps towards expressing the European concept of human liberties
somehow reflect its increasingly rapid evolution, one will become aware that this
process lasted 2,500 years. This explains why other cultures, whose trajectories
have been very different, cannot easily cope with the concept of ‘universal’ human
rights as declared under evident dominant Western influence in the aftermath of
the Second World War. Central in understanding the gradual acceptance of ever
further reaching liberties, is that these have always been fought for by opposing
tendencies and interest groups. They are the emanation of countervailing powers
which had to learn to settle their conflicts peacefully through regular and open
discussion, in full respect of otherness. Discretion in the way arguments are put
forward helps to create an atmosphere of meaningful deliberation in which each
lawful and ethically acceptable opinion will finally be settled.
L’amour de la liberté
Forms of mass communication were needed to share principles that were
formulated or practiced by large communities. The message needed to be spread
and internalised rationally and emotionally by these communities. In ancient
Greece, the agora was ‘the marketplace for ideas’; in Rome it was the forum. In
the middle ages, the Catholic Church used the written word, imagery, rituals,
music and the pulpit to disseminate its messages. Cities used similar media as
well as some aristocratic symbols such as heraldry, walls, towers and gates. They
re-created new forms of the public space by extending the dimensions of these
elements. The Reformation as well as the Low Countries’ Revolt massively used
the printing press to reach many thousands with their pamphlets, songs and
16
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images. From the French Revolution onwards, mass mobilisation reached yet a
higher order of magnitude. Newspapers, and later on all further technological
developments, supported ever new types of social movements.
I would like to develop the example of the ways new concepts of liberty were
mediated and re-mediated by theatre plays. In the late 18th and in the 19th century,
plays had the considerable potential to convey social criticism and even to stir up
revolts. Many texts were used in different forms, typically serving as the basis of
opera scenarios. One of the most influential writers choosing the strife for liberty
as his main theme was Friedrich Schiller (1759-1805). In his scholarly study
History of the United Low Countries’ separation from Spanish Rule, published in
1788, he expressed his fundamental idea as follows: “The whole history of the
world is a continuously repeated conflict between the lust for domination and
liberty, for their mutually contested domain”. One year later, he was appointed
history professor at the University of Jena. While doing his scholarly source-based
research, he used this material for a largely fictional drama, Don Karlos, first
performed in Hamburg in 1787. He combined personal ethical issues with major
political and social movements such as the Revolt of the Low Countries against
Philip II’s tyrannical rule. Individual dilemmas represented broader conflicts, all of
them focused on the idea of freedom. In 1800 he finished his play on Mary Stuart,
in 1804 that on William Tell. Frequent reprints show that these works were
immediately received by the literate bourgeoisie as the expression of their longing
for greater national cohesion and social liberty.16
In Schiller’s play, the tyrant King Philip II, his chief executive Duke Alva, the king’s
confessor Domingo and the Grand Inquisitor are the evil characters. The priests
are evidently the worst: Domingo inspires Princess Eboli to seduce Philip, to steal
Queen Elisabeth’s letter case, and to accuse her of adultery with the heir apparent
Karlos. The Grand Inquisitor accuses the King’s favourite, the Marquis of Posa, and
his friend Karlos to subvert the holy order through their support of the rebellion
in Flanders and Brabant. To do so, he urges the King to deliver them both to the
Inquisition’s ordeal. In the final act, the Grand Inquisitor even threatens Philip that
he will summon him before the Inquisition if he, Philip, does not submit himself
and deliver his only son to him. Philip’s hesitant search for moral justification is a
confrontation of his fundamental beliefs to the Inquisitor.
16 Safranski, Rüdiger, Schiller als Philosoph. Berlin, 2008, 7-32.
Liberties
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“Kannst du mir einen neuen Glauben gründen,
Der eines Kindes blut’gen Mord verteidigt?
- Die ewige Gerechtigkeit zu sühnen,
Starb an dem Holze Gottes Sohn.
- Du willst durch ganz Europa diese Meinung pflanzen?
- So weit als man das Kreuz verehrt.
- Ich frevle an der Natur – auch diese mächt’ge Stimme
- Willst du zum Schweigen bringen?
- Vor dem Glauben Gilt keine Stimme der Natur.” (vv. 5267-5274)
These verses show the Inquisitor’s heartless rigidity and his ultimate supremacy
over the King. Philip has to forsake the three persons he values most, as each of
them represents the search for liberty: Queen Elisabeth on the personal level; his
only trusted favourite Posa; and his only son Karlos, who both defend the liberty
of conscience for the people in the Low Countries. The Inquisitor has no
hesitations: “Der Verwesung lieber, als der Freiheit” (v. 5278), “Rather corruption
than freedom”.
Schiller’s Don Karlos was rapidly translated and adapted by no less than three
French authors, the first of whom was André Chénier in 1801, under the title
Philippe II. There are indeed good reasons to consider this character to be more
interesting than the rather weak and hot blooded Karlos. The second author was,
Alexandre Soumet who published his version as Elisabeth de France in 1828. This
title must have appealed to nationalistic feelings of sympathy for the queen who
gives up her own country and her first platonic love for the young Prince Carlos in
order to bring peace between France and Spain in 1559. A third version was that
by Eugène Cormon in 1846. All these texts served for the opera libretto written by
Joseph Méry and Camille du Locle, which the French publisher Léon Escudier
brought to Giuseppe Verdi in 1865, hoping to inspire him to another work for the
Parisian opera house. In previous years, the Italian composer had tried to get
recognition in this most praised centre of music theatre, but Les vêpres siciliennes
and Macbeth had not really met the triumphs he had hoped for.17 In previous years,
Verdi (1813-1901) had reached great international success with his very lyrical
works La Traviata, Il Trovatore and Rigoletto. Now, as a man of ripe age, he was
17 Günther, Ursula, ‘Verdis “Don Carlos”: Eine französische grand opéra’, in: Don Carlos, booklet to the
DG CD edition directed by Claudio Abbado. Hamburg, 1985, 16-18.
18
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seeking more ambitious projects with more clearly ideological content. He had
earned a great reputation in Italy from his early operas Ernani and Attila, which in
1846 had raised strong nationalistic feelings in divided Italy, whose northern
territories were still under Austrian rule. In the revolutionary year 1848 he served
the patriotic movement led by Mazzini for whom he composed the popular song
Suona la tromba. In the same vein his opera La battaglia di Legnano, tells the
heroic story of the resistance of the Lombard cities against Emperor Frederick
Barbarossa in 1176. Verdi became immensely popular after its première in Rome in
1849, where republican crowds had forced the pope to flee. In the same year, he
chose Schiller’s play Kabale und Liebe (Intrigue and Love) as the basis of a libretto
for the opera he named Luisa Miller, and which expressed bourgeois respectability.
Viva VERDI became the rallying slogan for the nationalists who wanted to see
Victor Emmanuel, the King of Piedmont, as king of a unified Italy, Re D’Italia. A
liberal, nationalist and republican, Verdi was elected member of the assembly of
Parma in 1859, soon to be united to Piedmont. In the years 1861 to 1865, he
served as a member of the national Chamber of Deputies.18
Paris had been the summit of many composers’ ambition, such as Rossini and the
German Meyerbeer. Meyerbeer’s ‘grand opéras’ Les Huguenots, Le Prophète and
Robert le Diable scored the greatest triumphs of those days. Originally written in
the 1850s, they dealt with the nature and causes of social and religious
revolutions in past centuries. Under the pressure of imperial censorship, their
productions in the 1860s were ‘evicerated’. Older works like Gioacchino Rossini’s
Guillaume Tell and Daniel Auber’s La Muette de Portici which sparked the Belgian
revolution in 1830, were refashioned into less provocative versions than the
originals. Auber became more circumspect when he was promoted to the
emperor’s maître de chapelle in 1857. Theatre directors had to impose deletions
and cuts to shift the emphasis towards pure divertissement. That necessarily
included a ballet, fancy costumes and spectacle. Napoléon III’s Second Empire
pursued a policy to foster national feelings by popular musical performances.
Hector Berlioz was commissioned to produce large-scale patriotic works. Choral
societies were encouraged to perform the great repertoire in popular versions in
which possibly ‘seditious’ pieces were omitted. In the year of the Universal
Exhibition in Paris, the new opera house designed by Charles Garnier was under
18 Osborne, Charles, Verdi. A life in the Theatre. London, 1987, 85-165; Budden, Julian, Verdi. Oxford,
2008, 37, 70.
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19
construction. With its location on the boulevards across the axis of the Comédie
Française and the Tuileries, then used as the Imperial Palace, the new building was
a central element in a meaningful political symbolism.19
Verdi’s Don Carlos was written on a French libretto for the opera in Paris. It was
the intention that it would contribute to the glorious events of the Universal
Exhibition held on the Champs de Mars in 1867. While the revolutionary slogan
Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité had been removed from public buildings, criticism
grew against the lack of liberty. Napoléon III invested great energy in studying
antique Roman military techniques, and published a Histoire de Jules César in
1865-66, dealing mainly with Caesar’s war in Gaul. This led him to think of himself
as a great scholar worthy of election as a member of the Académie. Instead, the
former minister Jules Dufaure was chosen, who in his inaugural speech in 1864
vehemently attacked ‘the limits imposed on the freedom of speech under the
present regime.’ The government was forced to accept gradual liberalisation. In
1868, a new law on the press allowed for a full-scale offensive to be launched
against the imperial regime. Throughout the Universal Exhibition, the regime
underwent a fatal loss of prestige as a result of its failed occupation of Mexico in
1862. The attempted occupation was presented as a crusade to replace the
secular and republican government with a Catholic monarchy.20
In this context, the republican Verdi offered the Parisian opera public an
unwelcome message with his version of Schiller’s plea against tyranny, clerical
power and for liberty of the peoples. In the Italian context, it meant a vehement
reaction against the Pope’s anti-liberal publication in 1864 of the Syllabus
Errorum, fulminating against the liberties of conscience, expression, and the
press. An opera libretto is necessarily much shorter than a theatre play, its
dialogue and its plot simpler. Although Verdi invested heavily in the texts,
reworking over the years certain pieces and bringing them closer to Schiller’s
wording, their literary quality remained poor. Nevertheless, some essential
accents have been sharpened, as appears from the dialogue between Philip and
the Inquisitor, quoted above. Schiller’s “Schütz mich vor diesem Priester” – “Protect
19 Fulcher, Jane, The Nation’s Image. French Grand Opera as Politics and Politicized Art. Cambridge,
1987, 172-179; Fontaine, Gérard, L’Opéra de Charles Garnier. Architecture et décor extérieur. Paris,
2000.
20 Baguley, David, Napoleon III and his regime. An Extravaganza. Baton Rouge, 2000, 52, 79-91, 176179, 233.
20
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me against this priest” and “Mässige dich, Priester” – “Moderate yourself, priest”
(vv. 2741, 5248), became “Tais-toi, prêtre” – “Shut up, priest”.
PHILIP
- “Puis-je immoler mon fils au
monde, moi chrétien?
the world, I, a Christian?
INQUISITOR - Dieu, pour nous sauver tous,
sacrifia le sien.
foi si sévère?
tairont-ils en moi?
- Tout s’incline et se tait
lorsque parle la foi!”
- Can you impose everywhere
so harsh a faith?
- Partout où le chrétien suit la
- La nature et le sang se
- God, to save us all, sacrified
His.
- Peux-tu fonder partout une
foi du Calvaire.
- “Can I offer up my son for
- Wherever the Christian follows
the faith of Calvary.
- Will nature and blood be silent
in me?
- All bows and is silent when
the faith speaks!”
The Inquisitor applied his theocratic views by refusing Philip’s offer of
reconciliation after their quarrel, and by suppressing a revolt by his command to
kneel, “A genoux ! ” The opera scenario may be a simplification, but Verdi’s score
added tremendous dramatic effects. The scenes of the clerics, those of the
Inquisitor and those of the choir of the monks around the tomb of Emperor
Charles V in Yuste, are caught in the deepest basses and the loudest outbursts of
authority. The extremely emotional 10 minute airs of Philip (“Elle ne m’aime pas”
– “She does not love me”) and Elisabeth (“Toi qui sus le néant des grandeurs de ce
monde” – “You who knew the emptiness of this world’s splendours”) belong to the
greatest music ever composed, although their texts are simply trivial. The great
airs of Verdi’s principal characters evoke sympathy as they show moral dilemma’s
between destiny or duty and personal free will. For Don Carlos, this happens in
his duet with Posa in the second act:
“Dieu, tu semas dans nos âmes
“God, Thou sowest in our spirits
Un rayon des mêmes flammes,
A ray of the same fire,
Le même amour exalté,
The same exalted love,
L’amour de la liberté.”
The love of freedom.”
The intriguer Princess Eboli shows her fair face in her air “O don fatal et détesté ”
– “O fatal and detested gift” in the fourth act. In all these pieces it is the music,
Liberties
21
not the text, which provides the deeply dramatic meaning. The inclusion, on
Verdi’s initiative, of a grandiose mass scene lasting 20 minutes, representing a
horrible Auto da fé, the public burning of so-called heretics, would never reach the
same intensity in spoken theatre. The dramatic contrasts between the joyful
singing of the people, the dark tones of the monks, and the Flemish deputies
begging the King’s clemency, are melodic and rhythmic, not textual.
The deeply Catholic Empress Eugénie, whose Spanish roots mirror the role of
Queen Elisabeth de Valois, was not amused by the anti-clerical, anti-imperialistic
and anti-monarchical tones of Verdi’s grand opera. Nor will she have been amused
by the three scenes of Philip’s rudely jealous behaviour towards Elisabeth, while
he had Eboli as his mistress. Eugénie’s jealousy of her Napoleon’s numerous erotic
escapades was a public secret. Don Carlos did not become the success Verdi had
hoped for. This may have had to do with the ideological controversies of the time,
just as much as with the modernity and expressive power of the music.
The re-mediation of the theme of the liberation of the Low Countries from the
tyranny of the Church and the King of Spain, may show how this rich material has
served various liberation movements in different forms: the national unification in
Germany and Italy; and the fight for secularisation and constitutional liberties in
general, including the last years of the Second Empire. References to a faraway
past are common recently invented traditions, and are relatively distant from our
present day knowledge of historical reality. In his father Philip’s words, Don Carlos
(1545-1568) ‘in intelligence and personality as well as in judgement lags far
behind what is normal at his age’ – which at that moment was 19. Several sources
describe his tantrums and rages. He was mentally ill as a consequence of
inbreeding: he was the great-grandson of Queen Joan the Mad, and his parents
were cousins. His mother died in his childbed and his father was abroad during
most of his youth.21 He never visited his fiancée Elisabeth in Fontainebleau in
1559 – when he was 14. Carlos never thought of taking the lead of the revolt in
the Low Countries, although he did want to flee from court. His father did
imprison him after a night of playing cards with the Queen. Both died in the year
1568, he in prison and she in childbirth. The Marquis de Posa was a purely
fictional character conveying Schiller’s ideological views. All these facts do not
really matter for their ideological remediation in later centuries, as essential values
21 Parker, Geoffrey, Philip II. Boston, 1978, 87-94.
22
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could very well be transmitted emotionally by various artistic media. The way in
which these messages were conveyed, contributed substantially to their
internalisation in ever larger layers of Western societies.
My conclusion will be short. I have tried to demonstrate the ways in which the
various concepts of liberty have been fought for in the course of 2,500 years
of European history. These concepts have been constantly reshaped and
reformulated, to become more encompassing. Many of our liberties have been
acquired in relatively recent times. A harmonious and meaningful dialogue
between cultures has to take in account the trajectories by which each of them has
developed and mediated. Western leaders should be wise enough to protect the
values achieved, which also includes the desirability to carry on a meaningful
dialogue with others.
Liberties
23
About The Author
Wim Blockmans (1945) has been Professor of Medieval History at Leiden University
since 1987, and Professor of Social History at the Erasmus University Rotterdam
since 1975. He has been Rector of NIAS since 2002, and was a NIAS Fellow in
1997/98. Professor Blockmans is a member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of
Arts and Sciences, the British Academy, the Royal Historical Society, Academia
Europaea, foreign member of the Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium for Science
and the Arts. Among many other books on late medieval and early modern state
power, some of Blockmans’ most influential works are Introduction to Medieval
Europe, 300-1550 (2007), Emperor Charles V 1500-1558 (2002) and A History of
Power in Europe – Peoples, Markets, States (1997). Blockmans was decorated for
his achievements on several occasions, including receiving the Arenberg Prize for
General History in 2002. He is Commander in the Order of Leopold II and Knight
in the Order of the Lion of the Netherlands.
In honour of his retirement as Rector of NIAS Wim Blockmans gave the 28th
Uhlenbeck Lecture.
24
U H L E N B E C K
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UHLENBECK LECTURES
Uhlenbeck Lectures are organised by the NIAS Fellows Association (NFA) to honour
the founder of the Institute, Dr. E.M. Uhlenbeck, Professor of Linguistics and
Javanese Language and Literature at Leiden University from 1950–1983 and
Chairman of the NIAS Board from 1970-1983.
Previous Uhlenbeck Lectures were:
1. 1983: E.M. Uhlenbeck
Linguistics: Neither Psychology nor Sociology
Published by NIAS, 1983
2. 1984: N. Luhmann
The ‘State’ of the Political System
Published by NIAS, 1984
3. 1985: G. Steiner
Word and Logos
Published as: Woord en Rede. Pleidooi voor
een ethische literatuurbeschouwing
by Goossens, Tricht, 1985
4. 1986: M. Fuhrmann
Die humanistische Bildung des
19. Jahrhunderts und was davon
erhaltenswert gewesen wäre
Unpublished
5. 1987: A.J.F. Köbben
Interests, Partiality and the Scholar
Published by NIAS, 1987
6. 1988: G. Modelski
Is America’s Decline Inevitable?
Published by NIAS, 1988
7. 1989: P.W. Klein
The Monetisation of the Dutch East Indies:
A Case of Changing Continuity, 1602-1942
Published by NIAS, 1989
8. 1990: M. Blaug
The Economic Value of Higher Education
Published by NIAS, 1990
Liberties
25
9. 1991: Esther Cohen
Gift, Payment and the Sacred in Medieval
Popular Religiosity
Published by NIAS, 1991
10. 1992: P.H. Kooijmans
Maintaining the Peace in the Shadowland
Between the Old and the New International
Order
Published by NIAS, 1992
11. 1993: Wolf Lepenies
Toleration in the New Europe: Three Tales
Published by NIAS, 1993
12. 1994: Kristofer Schipper
The Gene Bank of Culture: Reflections on the
Function of the Humanities
Published by NIAS, 1994
13. 1995: Terence J. Anderson
The Battles of Hastings: Four Stories in
Search of a Meaning
Published by NIAS, 1996
14. 1996: Maarten Brands
The Obsolescence of almost all Theories
concerning International Relations
Published by NIAS, 1997
15. 1997: Frits van Oostrom
Medieval Dutch Literature and Netherlandic
Cultural Identity
Published by NIAS, 1998
16. 1998: Fritz Stern
Five Germanies I have known
Published by NIAS, 1998
17. 1999: Dirk J. van de Kaa
The Past of Europe’s Demographic Future
Published by NIAS, 1999
18. 2000: Arend Lijphart
Democracy in the Twenty-First Century:
Can We Be Optimistic?
Published by NIAS, 2000
26
U H L E N B E C K
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19. 2001: Çiğdem Kağitçibaşi
Development of Self and Competence in
Cultural Context
Published by NIAS, 2001
20. 2002: Henk Wesseling
The Idea of an Institute for Advanced Study:
Some Reflections on Education, Science
and Art
Published by NIAS, 2002
21. 2003: Christopher Brown
The Renaissance of Museums in Britain
Published by NIAS, 2003
22. 2004: Kees Schuyt
Common Sense Philosophy from Thomas Reid
to Charles Pierce: Its Relevance for Science
and Society Today
Unpublished
23. 2005: Ekkehard König
Reciprocity in Language: Cultural Concepts
and Patterns of Encoding
Published by NIAS, 2005
24. 2006: Peter Mair
Polity-Scepticism, Party Failings, and the
Challenge to European Democracy
Published by NIAS, 2006
25. 2007: Ernestine van der Wall The Enemy Within: Religion, Science, and
Modernism
Published by NIAS, 2007
26. 2008: Paul van den Broek
The Mind in Action
Cognitive Processes in Comprehending Texts
Published by NIAS, 2008
27. 2009: Anne Baker
Learning to Sign – Challenges to Theories of
Language Acquisition
Unpublished
Liberties
27
NIAS is an institute for advanced study in the humanities and social sciences. Each
year, the Institute invites around 50 carefully selected scholars, both from within
and outside the Netherlands, to its centre in Wassenaar, where they are given an
opportunity to do research for a ten-month period. Fellows carry out their work
either as individuals or as part of one of the research theme groups, which NIAS
initiates every year. In addition, through its conference facilities, the Institute also
functions as a meeting place for scientific programmes of a shorter duration and
more specific character, such as workshops, seminars, summer schools, and study
centres. NIAS is an institute of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and
Sciences (KNAW).