Monday, March 24, 2014

Freedom to speak badly: one rule for protestors, another for Bolt?

Freedom to speak badly: one rule for protestors, another for Bolt?



Freedom to speak badly: one rule for protestors, another for Bolt?

Image courtesy of the heraldsun.com.au
Image courtesy of the heraldsun.com.au
Andrew Bolt’s racial vilification case and the government’s
subsequent hasty threat to repeal section 18C of the Racial
Discrimination Act has placed ‘freedom of speech’ at the forefront of
political debate. But its importance is always overlooked, or shunned,
when it’s those of the Left side of politics who are exercising it. The
media’s response to March in March rallies is an obvious case, writes Jennifer Wilson.



Peter van Onselen (pictured) devotes almost an entire page in the Australian
this morning (paywalled, sorry) to complaining about the “unedifying”
display of bad manners by some protestors who took part in the March in
March rallies, comparing them with the infamously abusive banners held
aloft by the three hundred or so activists who took part Alan Jones’s
2011 Convoy of no Confidence against Julia Gillard and her Labor
government.



I would appreciate someone drawing up a comparison of the two
situations, given my impression that the number of participants in the
Jones rally carrying offensive placards constituted a far greater
percentage of the whole than those in the March in March rallies.



As van Onselen concedes, in the Jones protest virulent expressions of
rage and hatred were legitimised by the presence of leading politicians
photographed under the placards. No such validation took place of the
relatively few offensive banners on display during March in March.



“Calling a conservative a fascist and portraying his image to
replicate Hitler is deliberately designed to undermine their ideological
positioning in the same way that calling a woman a ‘bitch’ or ‘witch’
carries clear sexist intent,”  van Onselen states, in his comparison of
the two situations.



I would not so readily presume an equivalence between sexist intent,
and the desire to critique, albeit with a degree of hyperbole, an
ideology. Sexism attacks the woman for nothing other than being a woman.
Describing Abbott as “fascist” in no way attacks his gender, and is
merely commentary on the manner in which he is perceived to enact his
conservatism.



Placards claiming that the Abbott government is “illegitimate” are
not abusive, offensive or threatening, rather they are simply wrong, and
likely being employed as payback for the years of the LNP opposition
equally inaccurately describing the Gillard government as
“illegitimate.” What is apparent is that there are hot heads and wrong
heads on both the conservative and Labor side of politics. This should
not come as a surprise to anyone.



Along with Tim Wilson, Human Rights Commissioner for Freedom, (I’m
sorry, I don’t know what that title means) van Onselen is disturbed not
at the exercise of freedom of speech demonstrated by both rallies, but
at the ill-mannered, impolite, potentially violent and “irresponsible”
speech used by a small number of participants in their signage. A
similar rabid element is guilty of foully derailing many otherwise
useful Twitter discussions, claims van Onselen, quite rightly in some
instances, though there are sensitive souls renowned for “rage quitting”
Twitter when they confuse disagreement with abuse.



Van Onselen and Wilson’s desire to see public speech free from
offensive, insulting and at times threatening expression is shared by
many people, but quite how to achieve that remains a mystery. Bad speech
must be countered by good speech, Wilson has asserted, however, taking
the case of Andrew Bolt as an example,
it’s difficult to see how someone with a large public platform such as
Bolt, or fellow shock jocks Alan Jones, or Ray Hadley can be challenged
by the people they offend and insult, who rarely have an equivalent
public platform from which to counter their attacker’s bad speech with
good. It is for this reason we have legislation intended to protect
people from racial vilification, for example, the very legislation Mr Wilson is now intent on seeing repealed, as he believes it interferes with the absolute freedom of speech he appears to favour.



I can see Wilson’s point, however, as long as there are more powerful
enunciators of bad speech with large platforms than there are good,
perhaps we need other precautionary measures.



I couldn’t help but wonder, as I read the article, what van Onselen
and Wilson would make of public demonstrations in other countries,
Mexico perhaps, where I witnessed protests in which politicians were
represented by enormous papier-mache figures with grossly exaggerated
sexual organs, accompanied by banners that claimed they fucked both dogs
and their mothers and ate children. Nobody saw any cause for offence.
Compared to such robust expression, the complaints seem rather prim.



Amusingly, van Onselen concludes his article with the reminder that
“Protest is as an important part of democracy as are institutions
designed to uphold democracy, but only when practised within the spirit
of Australia’s well established political structure.” I am completely
unable to see how any of the offensive signage fails to fit in with that
spirit. Australian politics have, for the last few years and most
certainly during Gillard’s entire term of office, been such that one
would think twice before taking school children to witness Question
Time, and I really don’t know who van Onselen thinks he is kidding.



The ongoing discourse about how we should conduct our discourse is
unlikely to change anything. Van Onselen’s piece appears to make the
claim that those who offend middle-class sensitivities undermine the
more moderate message and concerns of mainstream protestors, and destroy
their credibility. This may well be the case, but only because people
such as van Onselen make it so, opportunistically denigrating the whole
on the basis of the actions of a very few.



It is not possible to eradicate voices some consider undesirable from
public expression. Otherwise we would not have to put up with the
Bolts. A sign held aloft at a demonstration cannot do one tiny fraction
of the harm done by Bolt, Jones and the like. If we are to conduct
serious conversations about how public discourse influences attitudes
and behaviours, surely we must start by interrogating the enunciations
of those with the furthest reach.



This article was first published on Jennifer’s blog No Place For Sheep and has been reproduced with permission.

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