Alexander Gillespie: Tolerating the trash is part of the freedom of speech

Garth George's carefully worded column, strongly critical of the decision by a private company to screen an offensive episode of South Park, is a fine example of why we need free speech, and not censorship.

George's contribution comes from his inability to recognise that if offence is the litmus test of what people should be allowed to say or not, then our society will rapidly descend to a point where either majorities or minorities end up dictating to other members of society what they should be allowed to read, watch and ultimately think.

This descent is the opposite of the Kiwi sense of decency and fair play on which George mistakenly thinks he has a monopoly. The fair and decent society is the one that allows free speech, and defends the right of people to think and say what they believe, and restraints are based upon physical threat, not moral upset.

Over the past year we have witnessed the whirlpool of a debate that began with the murder of the Dutch film director Theo van Gogh, who was critical of some alleged Islamic practices. The response to this slaying was the Danish daily newspaper Jyllands-Posten asking illustrators to make drawings of Muhammad. The rest is history.

Meanwhile, thousands of kilometres away in New Zealand, we are assured that hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders are deeply offended by the South Park episode, that domestic economic embargoes will follow the screening, and that those who choose to watch the episode not only have a retarded IQ and social development, but they have also abused the right of a free press.

The only connection between the South Park episode and the cartoons that originated in Denmark is that both involve highly offensive material. However, George is of the view that the Danish cartoons are only a mild lampooning of Islam's founder whereas the cartoons which have offended him are of a much more serious nature.

Exactly how he comes to this conclusion and determines that the offence that he has taken from the South Park cartoon is greater than his Islamic neighbour has taken from the Danish cartoons, is a mystery.

The joy of the above situation for both audiences is that they have agreed on a common solution. This solution is easy to reach as both have been offended by the respective cartoons before them - but often not each other's.

That solution is censorship, whereby such offensive material should be prevented from entering the public space.

Unfortunately, the support for this view is growing. It is unfortunate because censorship is the antithesis of freedom. The Western World is rightfully obsessed with individual freedom because it has taken more than 1000 years to crawl out of the quagmire of the Dark Ages, when liberty was only for those in power.

Deep in the Western psyche are the memories of countless despots who have tried to control what people can say, think and do.

The leaders of monarchies, religions and ideologies have all taken their turn, telling others what is permissible, and punishing those who have dissented and have tried to turn their freedom of thought into freedom of speech.

The Western tradition has shown that fear and censorship are much easier to implement than living with free speech and the challenge of accountability. Millions have been, and continue to be, targeted because of the offence caused by their religious, ideological, sexual and social views, or simply because of their stupidity or humour.

Under the guise of free speech, citizens in the West burn their national flags, sell pornography and live in a sea of intercultural criticism. Western citizens used to utilise free speech for blasphemy, but in their modern secular world blasphemy is now an historical footnote, although the same idea is beginning to reappear under the generic label of offence.

The best use of free speech in the West is when it is used to attack those in authority, but those in authority do not like to be mocked.

We are currently seeing a reflection of this control in Britain, with its Serious Organised Crime and Police Act of 2005. This legislation banned protest without permit within 1km of Parliament.

The first conviction under the Act was last December when Maya Evans was convicted for reading the names of British soldiers and Iraqi civilians killed in the Iraq War, under the Cenotaph, without police permission.

In a perfect world, the debate about free speech would revolve around weighty items of central importance to democracy being contested in an open marketplace of ideas, from which truth would emerge.

Unfortunately, the great majority of that which demands the loudest to be protected, is rubbish with few redeeming features to anyone except those who spoke it.

The cartoons at the epicentre of the current debates are a perfect example of such trash. They have minimal value, and the troubles they have caused far outweigh the papers they were printed upon, or the pictures that were broadcast.

But those troubles do not outweigh the right that allows the printing or viewing to take place. The difficulty for most people in the Western World, is that they can understand the position of those who would like others censored. What is one person's rubbish, is another person's gold.

In the West, we have learned to live with the rubbish, not because we like trash, but because we have spent 1000 years dealing with others trying to clean out our minds, and replace it with what they think is appropriate.

Free speech laws reflect this situation, but not the basic values of good manners, respect or tolerance. The values of good manners, respect and tolerance are the etiquette that allows people to possess rights, without pursuing them to their absolute limits.

The majority of people in New Zealand and elsewhere would not have recommended the printing of the Danish cartoons or the screening of the South Park episode as they disapprove of their content.

However, this majority will still strongly defend their right to print or broadcast such material, trash or not.

* Alexander Gillespie is a professor in the school of law at the University of Waikato.