In Turkey, Orhan Pamuk has recently taken to defending a controversial female columnist – Perihan Magden – after the Turkish Armed Forces pursued a case against the author for objecting and denigrating military service. Since the defendant, Magden, is a female supporting Mehmet Tarhan, a homosexual citizen, it has become a case not simply considering the place of women and homosexuals in Turkish culture, but more importantly, a case highlighting the right that all individuals have to express themselves, given the intrusive status of religion in public life. The cases of these authors demonstrate the very reason(s) why it continues to be necessary to defend the freedom of expression on religious matters in Europe’s transitional democracies.

Does the language you speak or use help influence how wealthy you are?

When trying to determine why some countries are wealthier than others, economists rarely, if at all, consider language. However, if you look at the list of wealthiest countries on a per capita income basis, you will notice almost all the top 20 are English-speaking, or use some other Germanic language, with the exception of France, Japan, and Finland (however, most Finns know German and English as well as Swedish, and many Frenchmen know German and/or English).

Mr Huet telephoned me earlier today in a sweat about something he had just read in the newspapers. Apparently, the Government is considering whether to add the teaching of happiness to the National Curriculum. According to a report in The Independent on Sunday,

“Lessons in happiness are to be introduced for 11-year-olds in state schools to combat a huge rise in depression, self-harm and anti-social behaviour among young people [...]

Admiral Horatio Nelson may have guided the British naval fleet to a famous victory at the Battle of Trafalgar, but he faced a far tougher foe during celebrations to mark its 200th anniversary. Organizers of a re-enactment of the sea battle in 2005 decided to bill it as between a “Red Fleet” and a “Blue Fleet”, rather than Britain and its French and Spanish adversaries, describing it as a re-enactment of “an early 19th century sea battle.”

Trafalgar, in which the British Royal Navy saw off a combined Franco-Spanish fleet off the southern coast of Spain, marked a crucial defeat for Napoleon’s sea power. Nelson himself fell during the battle. Apparently, we now live in the age of the Borderless Utopia and the Brotherhood of Man, and shouldn’t be too hung up on Spain, England, France or other irrelevant historical details. It’s just rude. Maybe soon, we will hear that WW1 or even WW2 was fought between the Yellow Team and the Blue Team. We wouldn’t want to insult anybody, would we?

In recent weeks, the London courts have tried protesters for their cause in the disruption and violence on the streets of London after the Danish cartoon controversy. Their charges are varied but have included the soliciting of murder of American and Danish nationals. With these trials underway, but with some hindsight on the events that followed the publication of the Prophet cartoons, it seems important to show that the message is still not getting through.

Exactly one year ago, it was the Bloody Seventh. I was there. Having witnessed two of the mere handful of the mass-terror attacks perpetrated by Muslims in the West in the 21st century – the slaughter of 11 September 2001 being the other – I feel some familiarity with the effects the grim spectacle has on crowds. Surely there is some cultural mechanism at work here, though what specifically it tells us, I cannot say. There is, for the most part, a silent gaping wonder at the unfolding horror. There are the quietly weeping women. There is the occasional bawling man, who always appears to be in his 20s. There is the one person, again usually a young male, repeating something out loud: “Oh no, oh no, oh no, oh no, oh God, oh no.”

Recently the Supreme Court decreed that the captives held at “Gitmo” can not be put before the new tribunals designed for their – originally unanticipated – deeds. Some, and that includes many in Europe, rejoice. The misdeeds of the hard-core activists held there are hard to prove in an American court. So the pleasing implication for the Gutmenschen [”Nicefolks” in my best translation] is clear. They must be let go. Once at large, their deeds will claim new victims. No problem for by then the lenient measure making new crimes possible will be conveniently forgotten.

Female circumcision or clitoridectomy (removal of the clitoris) is a form of genital mutilation that is practised mostly in Islamic countries in East Africa, the Middle East and Asia. Last week, on the same day that nine Muslims were sentenced in Denmark for murdering a female family member in a so-called “honour killing,” a court in Göteborg in neighbouring Sweden, sentenced a 41-year old Swedish citizen, Ali Elmi Hayow, to four years’ imprisonment for the genital mutilation of his daughter. He also has to pay her 346,000 Swedish kronor (€37,300; $46,000; £26,000) in damages.

Is the European Union a democracy? The Europeans and most others will argue yes, but there are many different degrees of democracy. Many Europeans increasingly feel powerless when it comes to their national government and particularly that of the EU, and for good reason. Despite the fact that many of the nations of Europe are much older than the U.S., all of their democracies are much younger (with the partial exception of Switzerland), most have only been real democracies for the last several decades, and even less for the former communist states.

When the Emperor Romulus Augustulus was deposed in 476 the Roman Empire ceased to exist. The dark ages descended upon Europe. Christian civilisation in the West collapsed. The second christening began about one hundred years later from an area that had itself been christened by Roman missionaries but had geographically never been part of the Empire because it was situated across the sea, even more to the west than the Western outskirts of the Empire had been. From here the Saints Columba and Aidan and other holy men travelled east to bring the ancient heritage back to the lands where they had originally come from.