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between people, provides the opportunity to reveal any scandals and lets the journalists or even ordinary citizens keep an eye and condemn any action that could take some welfare out of society by e.g. ill legislation. On the other hand, this privilege has recently been more and more abused, what deprived people of their negative freedom from being insulted or haunted by the others. The Islamic terrorists from Paris committed their attack on the newspaper, because it had mocked the most honoured prophet in their religion: Muhammad. This was truly a triple shock for any Muslim: not only was the prophet presented on the picture (depiction of living creatures is forbidden in Islam), but his followers were also ridiculed and nobody compensated or even felt guilty for this action. Hence, angry young men felt that if they could have been insulted, they have a full right to deprive other people of their freedom whether it is positive (killing the journalists to prevent the newspaper from further publications) or negative (threatening the feeling of security of many Europeans). Pope Francis, when commenting on the assault, admitted that there should be limits to the freedom of expression as faiths “ should not be ridiculed ” 29 . Indeed, the unrestricted freedom did not play a good role here. This however could be prevented if a golden Roman rule “non omne quod licet honestum est” (what is permissible is not always honourable) 30 was obeyed by everyone, what would need all members of society to resign voluntarily from some of their positive freedom (unless we already claim this to be the essential minimum as described by Berlin). There must be however some freedoms that will serve the interest of all. In my opinion an example of those is the freedom of movement. Ever since the Middle Ages people were not allowed to cross state borders freely. This rule was implemented so that governments could control all inhabitants of a country and potentially prohibit them from coming in or out of a country. After the First World War, state border regulations have been becoming much stricter up to today’s infrared sensors with barbed wires and armed soldiers protecting... a line! This paranoia led to countries restricting the freedom of movement more and more ending up with… internal passports! These documents, firstly introduced in the Soviet Union in 1932 31 during the massive famine in Ukraine, were issued only to a limited number of people and constituted a sole permission for a citizen to go to another city or village. Peasants, deprived of all their crops by the government and forbidden from leaving their homes to seek any food, were dying in their villages, surrounded by fields full of grain! Even though the horror has been limited now, the most infamous example of North Korea, where the similar laws are still in use, warns the humanity from reaching the maximum limits of lack of this positive liberty . The freedom of movement does not only have positive humanitarian or political consequences, but also leads to measurable economic gains. For example, after removing the control on German borders, with respect to the Schengen Treaty in 1995 32 , contributed to the change in GDP from $2.21 trillion (1994) to $2.60 trillion (1995)! 33 Despite all that, we do accept today being looked into when travelling by plane or crossing borders with some countries. Are there any rational reasons that could explain the legitimacy for such obligations? One of the arguments frequently cited are the 11 th September 2001 terrorist attacks in the USA. 34 Thorough security and passport control as well as omnipresent 31 Online source: http://www.podlaskibluszcz.pl/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1352:27- grudnia-1932-r--wprowadzenie-paszportyzacji-w-zsrr&catid=59:kalendarium&Itemid=103. Accessed : 17/06/2015 32 Online source: http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/home-affairs/what-we-do/policies/borders-and- visas/schengen/index_en.htm. Accessed : 19/06/2015 33 Online source: http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.CD/countries/DE?page=3&display=default. Accessed : 34 Adelman, H. (2002) ‘Refugees and border security’ 29 Online source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-30835625. Accessed : 20/06/2015 30 Stone R. ‘The Routledge Dictionary of Latin Quotations’ p. 76
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