28 April 2016
Freedom of Speech
Have we lost the understanding of what this means?
by Lynda Goetz
Free speech is generally understood to be fundamental in a democracy. It has been enshrined in international and regional human rights law, although it has a long history which predates such legislation. Most would probably consider ancient Athens to be the cradle of free speech or freedom of expression, but for those of us in the West in the 21st century the freedom we took for granted a few decades ago has been and continues to be eroded in a number of ways.
Author Timothy Garton Ash recently broadcast five fifteen minute programmes on Radio 4 on the subject of ‘Free Speech’ http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b077ndw5. This is billed by the BBC, rather ironically perhaps, as ‘one of the most hotly debated subjects of our time’; although not, it would seem, in the universities. In the second programme he addresses the fact that in those places where free speech should be most expected to thrive it is currently being stifled by the ‘safe space’ policies and the practice of ‘no-platforming’ (amusingly addressed here in Shaw Sheet last week by Chin Chin). Sadly for Chin Chin, it is yet again a well-known person who has been ‘no-platformed’ this week. Boris has been banned by students from King’s College London from speaking in an EU debate after his ‘inappropriate’ remarks about the US President, Barack Obama. They were referring, of course, to Mr Johnson’s comments in his ‘Sun’ article about Mr Obama’s ‘part-Kenyan’ heritage and his possible ‘ancestral dislike of the British Empire’. Whether or not the article (which hinged on the removal of a bust of Winston Churchill from the Oval Office) was good (Nicholas Soames MP, grandson of Sir Winston, was of the opinion it was not) or the comments were appropriate or relevant, was beside the point. The issue, as always, is the right of anyone to express an opinion without being censured for it.
Part of the problem currently, as Professor Garton Ash touches on in his programme, is the fear of terrorism. This has resulted in government imposing on universities a duty to prevent the expression of extreme views, rather than the classic liberal view of allowing discussion and counter argument. However, aside from that, the threat to free speech comes from within the universities themselves where ‘one group of students is being prevented from hearing something they do want to hear because another group of students doesn’t want that voice to be heard’. Online magazine, Spiked, has for the second year running produced a Free Speech University Rankings (FSUR) http://www.spiked-online.com/free-speech-university-rankings#.Vx9UW_krJD8 and as they say, things are not looking good. 90% of universities are banning free speech, up from 80% last year, and the more prestigious the university, it would seem the more censorious both the university and its students are. The Russell Group universities come out worst of all in these rankings with a mere dozen of largely lesser-known universities with a ‘green’ or hands-off attitude to free speech. One of the better-known amongst the latter is Southampton and the other, interestingly, is the private Buckingham University, whose Vice-Chancellor is Sir Anthony Seldon, historian, biographer of Prime-Ministers and former Master of Wellington College.
Professor Garton Ash makes the point that the current keenness, particularly in universities, to ban those whose views we dislike, appears to confuse the legitimate silencing of those who would cause real harm and a subjective view of harm. It should not be enough to claim that some individuals may be seriously upset, offended or psychologically harmed by hearing a point of view they disagree with. Articulate debate is essential; only by such discussion and debate can we pick apart threadbare arguments; reveal the real intentions of the opposition and air fundamental differences. Individual, subjective vetos should not be allowed to prevail. This problem of subjectivity appears also in the tensions caused by free speech and religion in our modern world. Historically, different religious beliefs have been the cause of wars, both international and civil. The religious differences between Muslims and Christians were at least in part a cause of the Crusades, the first of which began in 1095 (although it would be naïve to assume that the exercise of power was not also at the heart of these ideological wars sanctioned by the Popes, which continued until the end of the 13th century). In Tudor England it was not safe to express Protestant views whilst Mary was on the throne. Your life could literally have been at stake. It was generally considered that things had changed by the 21st century until, amongst other things, Isil and the Charlie Hebdo killings brought us up rather short. Now, it would seem, we are once again living in a society where free speech is either not welcome or can result in very unwelcome violence – what Professor Garton Ash refers to as ‘the assassin’s veto’, as opposed to ‘the heckler’s veto’ and ‘the offensiveness veto’ used in the university situations discussed above.
Faith of course is a very difficult thing to discuss. Either you believe, or you don’t. If you do, no amount of argument is going to convince you otherwise. You may be offended or upset by the views of those who do not share your faith or whom you feel do not respect your faith. In a free and open society we should not have to live in fear of offending those of differing religions. We should be free to air our differences and if our belief is in tolerance and freedom of expression then we have a right to expect those who live with us to respect that too. We should have the right to offend, but not go out of our way to do so.
Our discrimination laws, drafted (almost all would agree) with the very best of intentions, have not only encouraged but endorsed the view that being ‘offended’ should be unlawful – hence the ‘offensiveness veto’. ‘Political correctness’, a term which has become very familiar since the 1990s, has been increasingly restrictive in terms of what people feel it is allowable to express, at least in public. The term PC has become, for the conservative media, a catch-all term to describe everything that is wrong with so-called regressive left views. Interestingly, in the Guardian online this week, Gay Alcorn concluded, in a rather rambling article entitled ‘Conservatives love to hate political correctness, but the left should rail against it too’, that “progressives should argue against it…because it’s not progressive in any way. The censors of the left may have the best of intentions but, too often, they’re just another bunch of reactionaries.” Of course, but how to open up discussion when in so many ways it has been reduced to personal insults (as in online trolling), mindless heckling and the equivalent of ‘fingers in ears’ blocking out of viewpoints with which we do not agree? Perhaps it is time, as Stephen Fry said in an interview on free speech on American television, to ‘grow up’. Of course the remark was taken out of context and he was forced to ‘apologise unreservedly for hurting feelings’ and for the fact that he had ‘offended and upset people who didn’t deserve to be offended or upset’.
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