Pete’s blog

Freedom of thought is one of the few freedoms that is entirely enforceable by yourself and never impinges on the freedoms of others. People may attempt to control or manipulate your thoughts, but you can resist or question this. You can always hide your thoughts – saying one thing and thinking another. Your thoughts are your own, no-one else need know what you are thinking unless you chose to express them.

(Note your freedom of thought is also protected by South Africa’s constitution, section 15 of the Bill of Rights: “Everyone has the right to freedom of conscience, religion, thought, belief and opinion”)

Freedom of speech or freedom of expression is a different matter – this is all about interaction with others and can have a huge impact on people. This freedom is also enforceable by others, through censorship and imprisonment. This is one of our greatest freedoms, but also one of our greatest responsibilities. This is how we manifest our thoughts – both good and bad.

The American constitution has this to say about freedom of speech (the infamous first amendment):

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

Hmm, so the American Congress can’t make any law prohibiting freedom of speech… but that does not mean that people other than the government can’t limit the freedom of your speech… not too helpful… technically speaking, if I don’t like what you are saying in America, I can shut you up. The other side is that in America you can go around saying things like “Let’s go kill us some nggers”, “The world would be better off without any Jews in it”, or “All Arabs are terrorists, let’s go bomb some Arabs”.

The South African constitution takes the matter much further:

“Freedom of expression
1) Everyone has the right to freedom of expression, which includes
a) freedom of the press and other media;
b) freedom to receive or impart information or ideas;
c) freedom of artistic creativity; and
d) academic freedom and freedom of scientific research.

2) The right in subsection (1) does not extend to
a) propaganda for war;
b) incitement of imminent violence; or
c) advocacy of hatred that is based on race, ethnicity, gender or religion, and that constitutes incitement to cause harm.”

Now it gets tricky. There are always two sides to the story. Freedom of speech is vitally important, being told something contrary to your beliefs will either strengthen your beliefs or make you question what you believe. Freedom of expression is how we define ourselves and how we are defined, it is how we learn and grow. The problem is, as always, that anything powerful can be used either for good or bad. The South African constitution recognises this and limits the freedom with the ‘hate speech’ clause.

Hate speech is difficult to define, but as the cliché goes – it is like porn, you know it when you see it. A true liberal would not even limit hate speech, knowing that if someone feels that strongly about another person it might be important information. Hate speech, because of how extreme it is, can also unite people incredibly strongly around a belief (either for or against the hate speech). Two very good reasons against hate speech – the Jewish holocaust and the Rwandan genocide (a radio station there referred to the one group (can’t tell my Tutsis from my Hutus) as ‘bugs’ that should be exterminated and killed – they were convicted by the UN tribunal for their part in the genocide).

But what is it? Hate speech in essence is using your speech to convince people to harm others. Very blurred lines though… Saying “I hate the French, they are all arrogant” is not hate speech. Saying “I hate the French, I wish the Germans would invade them again” is almost hate speech. Saying at a German party “I hate the French, why don’t you guys invade them again” could be hate speech. Saying at a German party “The French are arrogant worms, let’s go invade them” is hate speech. Saying “The French are worms that don’t deserve to live and should be wiped off the face of the planet for their arrogant ways” is most definitely hate speech. Incitement to violence is the key, but then our constitution also says “incitement to cause harm” and harm is a very complex word. Telling everyone that Afrikaners are stupid is not hate speech, but keep on saying it, say it on public radio, convince all your friends to say it, and bit by bit it becomes hate speech. Harming someone else’s dignity and self-worth can also be important. Apartheid was all about that. Apartheid never really incited whites to kill blacks, but it did advocate hatred against blacks that led to great harm.

Now part 2) a) is where it gets really tricky… the exciting topic for this week (or next week, or whenever I get a chance…) “War journalism”