Freedom of speech at risk?

Leonard Colquhoun
Palaeo-versions of Tasmanian Times ( http://www.oldtt.pixelkey.biz/jurassic/ ) had a side-bar with this dictum from a German philosopher (widely considered after his death as a Nazi fore-runner, although it is unlikely that the then webmeister had any intention of promoting fascism):

“No price is too high for the privilege of owning yourself.
The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe.
If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened.
No price is too high for the privilege of owning yourself.”

– Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900)

One might, perhaps ought to, quibble with Nietzsche’s “no price is too high” claim, but avoiding herd-thinking is one of the best defences of free speech: if worthy people committed to a cause can match their commitment with an open-minded consideration of evidence, we will all be better off.

Currently, Lindsay Tuffin puts his view of TT as a 21st century pipe thus:

“A forum of discussion and dissent — a cheeky, irreverent challenge to the mass media’s obsession with popularity, superficiality and celebrity.”

To which could be added ‘a challenge to the fear of ideological disapproval’.

Take religion, for example.

Christianity, whether the traditional churchy kind practised by the RCs or the C of Es, or the happy-clappy versions emanating largely from the US, gets plenty of “cheeky, irreverent challenge[s]”, from routine dismissal to ‘challenging’ ones like the installation, “Piss Christ”, by Andreas Serrano in the 1980s and 90s.

Among much of Western media and academia it is almost a blood-sport.

There may be valid reasons why such “cheeky, irreverent challenge[s]” are not offered to, say, Buddhism, one perhaps being that has almost no current or historical relevance to our culture, heritage and tradition (though quite a gaggle of celebs are working on that).

Then there’s the Muslim religion – now there’s a charmed run.

Consider the following:

“The ‘Free World’ may be losing faith in free speech.

“In 2008, a 15-year-old boy was arrested for holding up a sign reading ‘Scientology is not a religion, it is a dangerous cult’ outside the organisation’s London headquarters. This year, the British police warned that insulting Scientology would be treated as a crime.

“The subjects of such prosecutions are often anti-religious – especially anti-Muslim – and intolerant. Consider the far-right Austrian legislator Susanne Winter. She recently denounced Muhammad as a pedophile for his marriage to six-year-old Aisha, which was consummated when she was nine.

“Winter also suggested that Muslim men should commit bestiality rather than have sex with children. Under an Austrian law criminalising ‘degradation of religious doctrines’, she was fined EU24,000 (about $45,000) and given a three-month suspended prison term.

“In February, Rowan Laxton, an aide to the British Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, was arrested for ‘inciting religious hatred’ when, watching news reports of Israel’s bombardment of Gaza while exercising at his gym, he allegedly shouted obscenities about Israelis and Jews. Also in February, Britain barred the controversial Dutch politician Geert Wilders from entry because of his film Fitna, which described the Koran as a ‘fascist’ book and Islam as a violent religion.

“History has shown that once governments begin to police speech, they find ever more of it to combat. Not only does this trend threaten free speech, freedom of association and a free press, it undermines free exercise of religion.

“Western ideals are based on the premise that free speech contains its own protection: good speech ultimately prevails over bad.”

Link –

http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/in-turning-against-free-speech-western-nations-turn-against-their-citizens-20090415-a7ij.html?page=-1

Given that the two world-wide monotheisms emanating from the Middle East have so much in common, there has to be a word for the kid-glove treatment of one compared with the no-holds-barred of the other.

How does ‘inconsistent’ sound? What about ‘hypocrisy’?

Finally one special case: many people, and not just neo-Nazis, anti-Semites and current Israel-bashers, are worried about laws in various countries against Holocaust-denial; they see such laws and regulations as denials of, and attacks on, free speech.

Here, in the interests of free speech, and regardless of who and how many agree or disagree, is an eloquent defence of such measures:

“Deniers don’t seek the truth

“THERE is no ‘preferred version’ of the Holocaust, Paul Berryman (Letters, 15/4). It is not a matter of opinion whether it occurred or not. The historical evidence and documentation, especially that left by the perpetrators themselves, leaves no room for alternate ‘versions’.

“Holocaust denial is not the same as denying the earth is round. This incorrect belief causes no one else any harm. To deny the Holocaust, or to argue its extent or causes, however, does cause harm, pain and additional suffering to one particular group of people: the survivors who lost countless loved ones. To have endured the Holocaust was painful enough; to be told that it did not occur, in defiance of mountains of evidence is to suffer again.

“Holocaust deniers or revisionists do not seek historical truth. Their assertions are not harmless, and they have the potential for causing even greater harm. There is an obvious limit to free speech, and Holocaust denial crosses that line. That is why there are laws to prevent it.

Zvi Civins
Director of Education, The Jewish Holocaust
Centre, Elsternwick, Vic”

The Australian, Letters, Thursday 16 April 2009

Let the lesser known version of that well-known dictum attributed to François-Marie Arouet (1694 – 1778 ), better known by the pen name Voltaire, be the last word:

“I detest what you write, but I would give my life to make it possible for you to continue to write.”

Leonard Colquhoun 7248

For www.oldtt.pixelkey.biz
April 2009