The freedom to be offensive

ARE some events in history so evil they are beyond discussion? Many passionately believe so. I don't. I understand the genesis of the passion to shutdown those, such as Frederick Toben, who deny the Holocaust. But if we truly believe in freedom of expression as a core Western value, we have to be consistent.

I detest Frederick Toben's views about the Holocaust. They are wrong. They are stupid. They are offensive. But using laws to censor his views does not enhance our democracy. It diminishes our democratic fibre by suggesting that we are too precious, or too lacking in confidence, to confront wrong words with right words. Let the man speak. These foolish views will be defeated by facts in the end.   

Alas, too many people rail in favour of free speech only when it means defending those with whom they agree. That's not the deal. You can't always pick and choose your allies here. Neither is free speech a left/right thing, as Mark Steyn said. It's a free/unfree thing. You are either for free speech - whoever exercises it - or not. Freedom of expression is simply meaningless if it does not include a right to be wrong and a right to be offensive. Protecting nice speech is the easy part.

Many will rightly abhor the views of George Galloway, the British MP who spouts support for Hamas and Hezbollah. But to refuse him entry for a speaking tour as the Canadians did last month is wrong. Let this man speak too. Let us defeat his irrational views with rational arguments. If he is breaking anti-terrorism laws, by raising funds for a terrorist organisation, or if he is inciting violence, then prosecute him for those serious crimes.

To be sure, the right to free speech is not open slather. Laws to protect children and to protect people from words that incite violence are necessary part of civil society.

But using the heavy hand of the law to simply shutdown stupid views is not a sensible limit. It serves only to make men such as Toben and Galloway martyrs to their offensive causes - causes that are then emboldened by celebrity. Mr Toben, the director of the Adelaide Institute, will be loving the limelight that came with the decision of Federal Court last Friday to hold him in contempt of court for failing to adhere to a 2002 court decision that found views on his website had offended, insulted or humiliated Jewish people on the basis of their race.

Laws such as the Racial Discrimination Act and myriad vilification laws are always passed with the best of intentions. But they are too easily corrupted, hijacked by fads and applied inconsistently to suit the prevailing politically correct orthodoxy.

If applied consistently, we would have prosecutions against every reference to those Pommy bastards, the dumb Irishmen, the tightwad Scots and the curry-munching Indians. That might be a good thing because we would soon get sick to death of every precious whinge being litigated in a tribunal funded by scarce taxpayer dollars.

The worst case scenario is what we have at present. These laws are not applied equally. In Victoria these kinds of laws were used against two Christian pastors who offended Muslims. The aim is to sanitise free speech in some areas, but not others.

Canada has become the model of crazy, inconsistent censorship laws. Those who published the Danish cartoons in Canada were hauled before human rights commissions. So were those who have spoken about the clash of cultures between Islam and the West. Yet in January this year the Canadian Human Rights Commission decided not to investigate a complaint against a Montreal imam who allegedly wrote disparaging remarks against Jews, homosexuals, women and every other infidel under the sun. He called for the extermination of homosexuals. Jews, he said, spread corruption and chaos on Earth. The commission said the remarks were not likely to expose members of any identifiable group to hatred or contempt. Go figure.

Only in Canada - one hopes - would you come across a pilot project where students known as “dialogue facilitators” are given the authority to intervene in private conversations they overhear if they find language that is offensive, shows any form of disrespect, or trashes ethnic, gay or religious groups. Happily, common sense prevailed last month when Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario shut down the project. But such wins for free speech are rare these days.

And when we use laws to prohibit people from expressing their offensive views, the unintended consequences are far more offensive. Suppressing even the most offensive opinions won't make them go away. They are driven underground where they avoid the blowtorch of robust public debate and often become more powerful as they fester.

When we shut down offensive speech we lose the best possible method of demolishing bad ideas, namely demonstrating in a public forum why they are wrong. Free and full debate only kills bad ideas. It sustains and invigorates the good ones.

Last month, I made these same arguments during an Intelligence Squared debate in Sydney organised by the St James Ethics Centre. It was refreshing to find myself seated between David Marr and Anglican Archbishop Peter Jensen as we argued in favour of the notion that freedom of expression must include the licence to offend. We may have won the debate that night, but increasingly laws are being used to restrain free speech. More is the pity.

Over to you...