Illustrator and carnival carriage builder Jacques Tilly (trustee of the Giordano Bruno Stiftung) was awarded the Jan Wellem Ring by the City of Düsseldorf last Thursday for his cultural services. In his acceptance speech, Tilly, who made headlines last year with his "Charlie Hebdo Float", called for defending the open society with even more courage, humanity, and humour. Below, we document excerpts from this speech, which, as gbs spokesman Michael Schmidt-Salomon explained, "sums up the stance of the Giordano Bruno Stiftung on the debate about Islamism and xenophobia and clarifies the fundamental differences between rational enlightenment and reactionary propaganda".