On the Idea of Free Speech

"After all, if freedom of speech means anything, it means a willingness to stand and let people say things with which we disagree, and which do weary us considerably" Zechariah Chaffe

Freedom of expression, what does it means? It means the freedom to say whatever a person wants to - freedom to express your emotions, thoughts, ideas, anything in the way and through any medium that you feel like. The medium changes from person to person, like a painter would draw on canvas, a sculptor would chisel over rock or marble, a writer would write and a film-maker would speak through his camera. We can easily understand that the language of expression depends on the language that a person is experienced in. An Englishmen would express himself in English, French in French and a German in German.

There is one important point here too. Even in a society, there are various differences of social classes. Each individual is unique in some way or the other. An aristocrat would express himself through gentle words, quotations from great poets and with a little bit of honey for every sour idea that he would convey. A politician would be cautious, maybe even two-faced, appreciating a person at his face and slandering him before others. A person born in a slum would talk filthily, swearing and cursing in his stinking breath. We all can logically argue that all of these people would be different in their manners of conversation and expression and still they should have the right to speak whatever they want to in their private circles.

The point about private circles is important here. A person should not enter into the private space of other people to express himself. If he does that than everyone would be allowed to do the same and we wouldn’t be living in a stable, civilized society. A chaotic society where people do not respect the rights and privacy of others would not be in a stage to even discuss such things and negotiate upon the rules that would make a civilized society. Like natural beings, societies and languages too evolve. During the Roman era, we used to have a time when the powerful people in the senate used to decide whether a person should speak something or not. But if we agree that powerful people should suppress the speech and medium of weak people than we will have to agree that when the same weak people become strong by a turn of fate, than they should be allowed to suppress the speech of others.

But however righteous this freedom looks like, words are dangerous weapons. They can break hearts and they can bring down despots. Words can hurt and sometimes their pain is far deeper than the physical ones. Wherever I go and whomever I meet, I would just love to hear good things about myself. But I am a man and thus I am susceptible to errors. If I think that I am walking in the right direction and if I am wrong, my stubbornness to disregard the warnings of others can be fatal to me. Criticism is important for an individual. Anything that is good and beneficial for an individual is also good for the society and the state.

Some people are offended by the criticism of people, things and ideas that they revere. History is littered with instances where regimes have burnt books of other writers, where scientists and philosophers have been burnt at the stake and incarcerated, where dissent has been considered as treason, and where lovely and noble ideas of some people have been corrupted and propagated as hatred and lowly by bourgeois controlled media. Heinrich Heine, the Jewish poet of 19^th century Germany once wrote, “Where they have burned books, they will end in burning human beings”. Is it a mere coincidence that half a century later, Books by Jewish and Communist writers were burned in Nazi Germany and millions of people too were killed and burned in the ovens of different concentration camps.

Some people think that some ideas should be immune to criticism. One idea that always tops this list in every part of the world has always been religion. You cannot criticise religion or the gods and prophets of any religion. The second in the list is nationalism, “the idea of nation” and the national symbols. But if you dare to criticise them, you run the risk of being prosecuted and to fire the emotions of a large number of people. Just take the example of Aseem Trivedi. He is a 25 year old cartoonist in India. As we agreed above, a person should be free to express whatever he wants in the kind of medium that is his profession. A cartoonist’s profession is satire. So, Mr. Trivedi drew a caricature of Indian national emblem. The difference was just that he drew three blood thirsty wolves instead of three lions in his cartoon. The Indian police was swift to book him on the charges of sedition, presumably on the orders of the Congress government that had been shown as wolves in his caricature. This is what happens with censorship. If you allow the censorship of a few ideas than a despotic government or a group of zealots can even ask for the censorship of some other ideas. Censorship thus becomes a tool in the hands of people who want to rule and control others. Therefore it is necessary for a democracy to allow total freedom of expression to its citizens. No idea or symbol should be immune from criticism. “The USA” has perhaps never seen a dictator since its independence on 1776 because of the principles of free speech laid by its founding fathers, like Thomas Jefferson, Paine, and Franklin.

Look at the case of Pakistan. It got freedom in the same year as we did. It had the same military as we had. Still, its military overturned its democratic government three times and India has still to see such a coup. What is the reason? One reason is that Pakistan was never built on the foundations of free speech. In case of Pakistan, it was called as an Islamic republic where according to Penal Code 293; one cannot criticize Prophet Mohammad and Koran. Despots like Yahya Khan and Gen. Zia fuelled the fire of Islamism in Pakistan and continued ruling it. Because Islam couldn’t be criticized and a person professing to instil Sharia in the country could not be criticized, Pakistan went on to become a hub of terrorism and an example of failure for the whole world.

A few days back, American Ambassador to Libya was murdered by some religious zealots at the Libyan embassy. The zealots were angry that an American-Israeli film-maker had made a short-film mocking their Prophet. There was no connection between the Ambassador Chris Stevens and the man who made that movie. But still the religious fundamentalists’ were so angry that they killed that innocent person. This is what I call the “limit of censorship”. In a country controlled by such religious zealots, a person would become a slave under their hands. He would say and act according to the whims of those who held control to the death squads and the bloodthirsty government. Censorship would eventually make him a slave. Freedom of speech would be required to break through this cage.

Freedom of speech means nothing if someone doesn’t has the freedom to offend. Afterall, any idea can offend anyone. Let’s say that I am offended by the suppression of freedom of speech. Let’s say that I am offended by a corporation, a person, a religion, a movie or anything. Should I than go on and kill some people to express my anger? You would say no. The society works through social contract (Thomas Hobbes). If we have a problem with something, we should sit down on the table and debate about it to find a solution that benefits everyone.

Judy Blume said, “It's not just the books under fire now that worry me. It is the books that will never be written. The books that will never be read. And all due to the fear of censorship”. I want to live in a society where books, even on controversial matters are written. The modern world did not come about in a wink of an eye. It took generations of people to bring this change. Voltaire once said, “Even if I do not believe in your idea, I will fight to death for your right to say it”. John Stuart Mill wrote in his prominent work, “On Liberty”, that a person is free to say anything until it physically harms someone. Mill, went on to say that even if the whole world except one agrees with something, even then the world would be wrong to censor that lone dissenter, in the same way that that one dissenter (if he had the power) would be wrong to censor the whole world.

I know that Ideas and thoughts can hurt - but without allowing absolute freedom of speech, we would never be able to achieve a scientifically and politically progressed world that we yearn for.