Nowadays, words are often seen as a source of instability. The violent reactions last year to the caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad published in a Danish newspaper saw a confused Western response, with governments tripping over their tongues trying to explain what the media should and should not be allowed to do in the name of political satire. Then Iran trumped the West by sponsoring a conference of Holocaust deniers, a form of speech punished as criminal almost everywhere in Europe.
Nowadays, words are often seen as a source of instability. The violent reactions last year to the caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad published in a Danish newspaper saw a confused Western response, with governments tripping over their tongues trying to explain what the media should and should not be allowed to do in the name of political satire. Then Iran trumped the West by sponsoring a conference of Holocaust deniers, a form of speech punished as criminal almost everywhere in Europe.