It is time that the world got together and finally decided a few things about free speech. A situation where one set of beliefs is protected from all sorts of attacks, because of its sacred value to a particular denomination of course, while another is openly demonised despite its large following and that too in the name of free speech is simply untenable because of its inherent contradictory and downright outrageous nature. The thing about free speech is that it comes with responsibility about how, when and where to exercise it. When that crucial aspect is missing, and the cart is effectively placed before the horse, then what you have more often than not is simply implementation of the might-is-right approach. And that, needless to say, completely defeats the purpose behind what was supposed to be an expression of collective maturity and growth. The French president’s recent display of Islamophobia, what all its fallout, is a good example of just how this privilege should not be misused and, indeed, insulted. Now who’s better off after his attitude angered the Muslim world and even led to a war of very undiplomatic and undignified words with his Turkish counterpart and a growing global boycott of French products? In this way people that have nothing to do with their president’s public position on the matter, regardless of how they might feel in the confines of their own homes, are going to pay the price for it; quite literally. It is for a reason that countries that have the power to implement their laws introduced the right to free speech along with visible and very serious curbs against it in case important and sensitive lines are ever crossed. That is precisely why nobody dares question the legitimacy of the holocaust anywhere in central Europe. Doing so, even if in keeping with all the glorious ideals of free speech and expression, causes injury those whose near and dear ones suffered because of it and there is just no space for such provocation in progressive societies. That is all very fine and exactly how things should be, but the selective nature of such laws and concerns betrays disregard for some of the world’s largest and most prominent communities like Muslims. And when the law is not there to guard their interests, it is only a matter of time before the more frustrated among them are pushed to extremism. Time has come for the whole world to associate a sense of responsibility with the right to free speech or withdraw it altogether. *