Q+A expulsion shows we need free speech even for Putin propagandists on Ukraine

Stan Grant ejects an audience member from Q+A. Picture: ABC

The Russian invasion of Ukraine is a battle between freedom and unfreedom where truth is the first casualty of war. Those who oppose Russian President Vladimir Putin commonly criticise his authoritarian rule, citing the Kremlin’s suppression of political dissidents as evidence of harm. Yet when an Australian student dissented by voicing pro-Putin views on the ABC last week, he was sent to Siberia.

In the war of words over Ukraine, university student Sasha Gillies-Lekakis expressed the belief that Putin is a victim of hostile media forces in the West. He alleged that Russia is acting in self-defence because the Ukrainian government besieged Russian populations in the Donbas and killed an estimated 13,000 people.

However fallacious, the arguments are vital to explore because they form Russia’s defence for the invasion. Under Article 51 of the United Nations Charter, a state or states is permitted to take up arms in self-defence against an armed attack. Thus, Putin recognised the self-proclaimed Luhansk and Donetsk People’s Republics as independent from Ukraine and claimed his invasion was a peacekeeping mission. Neither is a legitimate claim under international law.

In respect of the Kremlin’s claim that Ukrainians committed genocide against Russian-backed populations in the rebel regions of Donbas, the evidence is poor. The UN estimated that between April 2014 and February 2020, there were between 13,000 and 13,200 conflict-related fatalities in Ukraine. Of them, 3350 were civilians, 4100 belonged to Ukrainian forces and 5650 were members of armed groups.

The casualties included “deaths resulting from imprudent handling of weapons, road incidents, diseases while on service in the conflict zone, killings and suicides that account for some 30 per cent of the total”. Allegations that the Ukrainian government was responsible for killing 13,000 “mostly Russians” in Donbas appear false.

The notion that the media is responsible for negative opinion about Putin is partly true, but he is most culpable. He has ordered the violent invasion of foreign states, ignored people’s sovereign right to self-determination and violently suppressed dissidents at home.

If Putin sympathisers want the right to free speech in the West, they should defend it in Russia too. There are dissidents under arrest for protesting the invasion of Ukraine. Where is their right to free speech?

After the Q+A bandwagon moved on from Putin defenders, Stan Grant reversed course. He addressed Gillies-Lekakis: “Something has been bothering me … people here have been talking about family who are suffering and people who are dying. Can I just say – I’m just not comfortable with you being here. Could you please leave?”

Sasha Gillies-Lekakis. Picture: ABC

For someone protesting Russian autocracy, Grant’s exclusion of a dissenter seemed remarkably autocratic. Yet the audience applauded his decision. If our collective response to discomfiting thought is to ostracise dissenters, we will live in a despotic state.

As it stands, we live in a democratic state and the public broadcaster should defend it by encouraging, not silencing, dissenting opinion. The obvious exception is where someone incites violence against another without direct provocation. The job of adults is to train young minds to master emotion so that reason can triumph. The public square is the training ground for liberal democratic citizens. It is where we learn how to think.

At no point did Gillies-Lekakis advocate direct violence against another person. He defended Putin’s propaganda with the political passion of youth where emotions tend to govern reason. If we ostracised everyone who held radical ideas in youth, the Australian parliament would be a vacant lot. Puns welcome.

Propaganda found on Russian state media does not make for informed debate on Q+A or any program. However, the ABC has previously given air to guests who have blamed Western democracies for the violence of Islamist groups, or claimed historical colonisation as a justification for radical left militancy. They were not directed to leave, or censored.

Consider a 2017 interview with academic Mohammad Marandi on Islamist terrorism. When asked by host Emma Alberici what he thought of former US president Donald Trump standing against terror-supporting states, Marandi replied: “Well, I think he’s talking about the United States. The United States is the country that created this whole mess. They helped create the extremists in Afghanistan … 9/11 was blowback … now the whole region is collapsing and this is largely due to American policies, American invasions, the destruction of Iraq.” Alberici did not counter his claims.

Is the ABC a political organisation or a broadcaster? Do its staff believe their purpose is analysis or advocacy?

If the ABC is as politically unbiased as its supporters claim, why is there a paucity of conservative hosts on its prime-time shows? And if the ABC is truly independent, as a public broadcaster in a democracy should be, why does it not improve organisational diversity by recruiting conservative thinkers to balance its left-leaning profile?

The Q+A episode was a cautionary tale of how the West will be lost in hostile propaganda wars unless we sharpen our wits and learn to use free speech to win the battle of ideas.

Supporters of the cultural boycott against Russia have claimed the moral high ground, but cancelling people for politically incorrect speech is straight out of Putin’s playbook.

To assert moral superiority from a place of intellectual weakness makes martyrs of morons.

If we are to win the war against totalitarian propaganda, we must arm ourselves and learn how to argue skilfully so that freedom of speech, the wellspring of public reason, can flourish and democracy can thrive.