Freedom of Communication - Problematic Aspects in the Horizon of International Relations

The issue of freedom is one of the fundamental issues of the philosophical thought. In theEuropean cultural area, there is a strong tradition in this respect, starting from the Greek antiquity andreaching to the philosophies of the 20th century. Existentialism, as an exemplary philosophical trendof the last century, is founded in the horizon of freedom. Freedom is an element which allows us toclassify the political regimes in democratic and non-democratic. The democratic regimes are definedas forms of government which allow for the manifestation of freedom, while the non-democratic onesare defined as governments which forbid individual freedoms. The concept of freedom is theoreticallyshaped in the philosophical thought. We distinguish between the individual’s inner freedom and hisouter freedom. According to the philosophical doctrines, each individual’s inner freedom may bealmost immune to any type of constraint, while our outer freedom is problematic. Constraints areexerted in the horizon of the individuals’ outer freedoms. This outer freedom makes itself felt in thepublic space and it is the only form of freedom which can manifest concretely, visibly. The concept offreedom is related to the concepts of communication, policy, and politics. These elementstheoretically shape the issue of the freedom of speech. The truth and correctness of the informationpresented to the public opinion will be correlated with the issue of the freedom of communication andthe issue of the freedom of speech in the public arena. In order to highlight this aspect even better, wehave presented a case concerning the freedom of speech in recounting the facts in the Gaza Strip. Atan international level, the public opinion is informed that in that area of eternal conflict there are“good characters”, namely the Jews, and “bad characters”, namely the Palestinians. But things are farfrom being that simple. To conclude, the issue of the freedom of speech in the public spacerepresents, just like in Constantin Noica’s thinking, “an open concept”, opened towards questioningand conceptual clarification.