Apr 22, 2007
Vive la difference!
Whatever your disagreements with Simon Jenkins' observations on the French presidential election, I hope you understand his point when he writes:
"A casualty of globalisation has been a growing intolerance of political diversity, diversity not just of national personality but also of ideology, political priority and system of government. I may not share France's view of the world and may believe it wrong to deny the Thatcherite reformation, as in varying degrees do all today's candidates. But as Voltaire, the greatest of Frenchmen, insisted, the right that most needs defending is the right to be wrong.
"On this day of the French election, long live difference."
And, I should add, not least because it is a bulwark against U.S. hegemony.
"A casualty of globalisation has been a growing intolerance of political diversity, diversity not just of national personality but also of ideology, political priority and system of government. I may not share France's view of the world and may believe it wrong to deny the Thatcherite reformation, as in varying degrees do all today's candidates. But as Voltaire, the greatest of Frenchmen, insisted, the right that most needs defending is the right to be wrong.
"On this day of the French election, long live difference."
And, I should add, not least because it is a bulwark against U.S. hegemony.