Al-Mithaq [Archives:2003/643/Press Review]

archive
June 19 2003

16 June 2003
Columnist Dr Abdulaziz al-Maqaleh writes in his column this week on opinion and the other opinion observing that there is much talking about the importance of showing respect to opinion and the necessity of opening the mind to receive and accept the other opinion. But the practical application of these ideas has happened but very rarely and was recognized only at very little number of places in the world and under exceptional circumstances. Except for these few cases the unilateral opinion is the prevalent, and this assumption is equal in the countries described as democracies and those that are dictatorial, especially at this stage of human history. Perhaps the most apparent ordeal the freedom of expression does suffer from is when it is prevented from the majority in order to be granted to the minority under pretext that he majority is lacking the efficiency and qualification. This does happen in the backward peoples or those categorized as from the third world but also inside the advanced peoples. It is not an incorrect assumption to say that the contemporary world is suffering from dual ordeal, represented in talking about freedom and experiment at a time when any meaning of freedom and liberation is strangled.
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