The UK's Authoritarian Hypocrisies
Yesterday afternoon the British police charged Liam Óg Ó hAnnaidh from the Irish language hip-hop group Kneecap with a terrorism offence.
His case has every chance of turning into a spectacular example of political and cultural hypocrisy. Today’s left and right want freedom for their supporters to incite violence but not for their political opponents.
Neither side is willing to accept that free societies should set the bar for state censorship high if they wish to remain free. Neither side is even willing to admit the existence of their own double standards.
We, however, can talk frankly. Let’s start with the left and those brave Kneecap boys.
Liam Barker, a now elderly victim of the IRA, Liam Barker tried to persuade people to shun the band by telling the BBC how the provos kneecapped him. A gang of masked men beat him unconscious with hammers for joyriding when he was 15. They attempted to blow his knees off. But the gun jammed. So, they dropped paving slabs on his legs instead.
Kneecap are “making a living out of other people's misery,” he said.
Continue at Writing From London.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThe first comment on that piece is pretty accurate though I would add that any form of censorship particularly of artists is to be abhorred.
ReplyDeleteDo you believe Steve that the right to free speech allows for a bye when the words spoken may be an incitement to violence?
DeleteAnd why would you not require equality before the law?
Words may inflame but of themselves they are not violent. If a person says something that would incite others then that idea should should be held up to ridicule and interrogation. Banning speech never ends in anything for the betterment of society, usually only for the benefit of Governments who prefer to quash dissent. I would no more charge Kneecap than I would the far right or militant Islamists.
DeleteBut if words are used to incite people to kill other people, the fear of being killed would be enough to stop people speaking freely. I don't have the right to say anything with the intent that it would lead another person to go off and kill you.
DeleteWe are each responsible for our own actions. Blaming someone else for my actions due to being 'incited' by another's speech wouldn't nor shouldn't hold much weight in Law.
Deletewe are each responsible for our own actions. How does that square with seeking the protection of the law for the purposes of not being held accountable for our own actions - in demanding that there are no consequences?
DeleteWould you abolish incitement to hatred laws? What if I urge you to go out and kill a Trans person and you follow through is there no action on my part for which I should be held to account?
I wrote this piece many years ago about the issue. It is very much shaped by the AC Grayling perspective which to me brings clarity and balance to the matter at hand.
"But given its fundamental importance, the default has to be that free speech is inviolate except … where the dots are filled in with a specific, strictly limited, case-by-case, powerfully justified, one-off set of utterly compelling reasons why in this particular situation alone there must be a restraint on speech. Note the words specific strictly limited case-by-case powerfully justified one-off utterly compelling this particular situation alone."
DeleteThis while articulate strays into the unworkable. I mean, how could anyone possibly agree to what is covered? And that's the wedge that would be used by bad actors to stifle dissent-in fairness he does see this problem.
His point is that there are limits and they have to be assessed on a case by case basis. He does not feel there can be absolute free speech even if the conditions he lays down might be challenging.
DeleteIt's the case by case basis which I contend makes it unworkable. Who then would be the gate keepers?
DeleteCase by Case seems to me the only way it can work. The gatekeepers would be societal institutions such as parliament and the courts. Parliaments to legislate for free inquiry, the courts to deal with abuses.
DeleteIf I tell you with my free speech that I shall murder you and your family if you use your free speech that seriously erodes the conditions for free speech. You, not the person who threatens to kill you, should be protected by the institutions of society.
If I, as a powerful politician, general, cop, media mogul, publicly label you as a paedophile and cite free speech as the basis on which I do it, you are entitled to be protected against that.
In both cases I prefer the courts to decide rather than the threat maker or the powerful.
Free speech as an absolute threatens something more important - free inquiry. I have long taken an instrumentalist not an absolutist approach to free speech.
'In the begining there was the word ...'
ReplyDeleteWhen putting flesh on our words we need to be mindful of the consequences. The constraint of law helps keep us in check and needs to be applied evenly. When law is not applied it is diminished.
Let's conduct s thought experiment: If I were a 'Billy Boy'of some standing and influence amongst Belfast Loyalists, Scottish Loyalists, and English National Front militants and were to call for the killing of Kneecap members would you be OK with that?
Would my right to free expression trump their right to safety?
That would be in incitement to violence and murder which is ipso facto criminal.
DeleteI wouldn't be 'OK' with it but in the name of free speech I'd have to allow it. That type of odious dialogue would quickly become sterilizing. I mean, if some halfwit said that stuff then they should rightly be held up to ridicule. One would like to think that in this day and age that person would be shunned and ostracised from society, and rightly so.
DeleteI find Kneecap's lyrics objectionable but I would absolutely never want them censored by the same rationale. Not my cup of tea, but being offended is just a whinge as Stephen Fry pointed out.
Be careful, Steve that you're not oversubscribed to a 'belief in belief' as Dennit pointed to in 'Breaking The Spell'.
DeleteI'm an admirer of Fry and not so much of Kneecap, neither in their political positioning, nor in their music.
AM/HJ
ReplyDeleteI shall ponder on this some more, some good points to consider from you both. Thank you.