Freedom of speech has become both a contentious and tedious subject of media discussion, political debate and societal cherry-picking. In the aftermath of the Charlie Hebdo shootings, we must evaluate what has been done since then which has also breached the basic principle of an ever-important civil liberty. The fact that some violations of freedom of speech have slipped by, almost entirely unheard of, is unsettlingly indicative of a current state of, not only pervasive anti-Muslim scapegoating, but of political and corporate interests and their hegemony over heard and unheard voices.
Allow me to elucidate: the awfully tragic murder of people, including cartoonists, journalists, a manual labourer and two police officers, drew international attention within minutes after it happened. It blew up on social media and was quickly grabbed up by news media platforms around the world. It was rightly condemned for its ruthlessness and lack of humanity, and criticised as an unnecessary attack on a magazine which simply demonstrated its freedom to satirise beliefs and ideas, as identified by legislation on civil liberties.
The "terrorist" label was attributed almost too easily. A huge amount of shootings and attacks of such sanguinary nature have been perpetrated worldwide, but only a handful have had the "privilege" of being referred to as terrorist attacks. In the '80s it was the Provisional "Provo" Irish Republican Army (IRA). The anarchist movement in some of its more extreme forms has had its own history of terror attacks. But post-9/11, the only terror attacks we ever hear of are those acted out by Muslims.
The delirium of many who make claim to the freedom to speak and express oneself, including the far-right (who, ironically, were also the subject of Charlie Hebdo's satire) can only be termed opportunism. Such opportunism seems to have benefited a recent breach of liberty - I speak now of Peter Oborne's resignation from the Daily Telegraph. In refusal to bow down to the inhibition on publicising the HSBC tax avoidance schemes (HSBC being an advertiser for the Telegraph), Oborne's actions highlighted an epitome of hypocrisy over the free speech debate: not even Western press institutions allow its journalists to express ideas freely. The safeguarding of corporate-affiliations and advertisers are prioritised over principle.
Time and time again Oborne has shown some principle as a journalist, providing well-balanced and articulate comments on the occupation of Palestine by Israel, reporting on the devastating impacts of the Iraq war, and, needless to say, vociferously coming out in defence of a freeing up of the press, with no vested interests in big companies and the alleviation of scandals causing detriment to their Public Relations departments.
One of the most insidious problems within the media is its silence on these issues. But even more guilty are those of us who are not interested enough to be informed about them. Take libel for instance, a piece of UK legislation strongly embedded in our system which allows one individual to take another individual to court for perceived "written slander". In the last year alone, the amount of libel cases prompted by traditional media rose from 20 to 37 (an increase of 85%), whilst social media-related libel suits skyrocketed by 300%. Some of these cases included trivial accusations, only furthering the argument that libel is a rich man's game. But when it comes to sincere (albeit sardonic) reporting on public figures from another satirical magazine such as Private Eye, the resort to defamation allegations is all too common. It is not unlikely that many people might not know that they could be taken to court for criticising someone with enough bob in their pocket to do so.
Of course I don't want you to regard this as a comparison to the means of reacting to freedom of speech which was taken up by the French-Algerian brothers Chérif and Saïd Kouachi. Resorting to violence is never an acceptable response to being offended. We do have the right to offend in our portrayal of other people's ideas just as they have the right to do so with us. The real aim of freedom of speech should be to create a dialogue, and the Charlie Hebdo massacre is too obvious a contravention of this freedom.
But whilst I don't compare the issue of the silencing of people within the media - or of the lucrative libel game which often used to impinge on individuals' rights to freely criticise public figures - to the attacks in Paris, I do stress their importance and relevance to us as a society now more than ever. We are being fooled by those that try to warp our consciousness and use animosity as a tool. It makes us forget or lose sight of some of the most active enemies of free speech.
The English Society debated the issue of free speech in light of the Charlie Hebdo attacks on 19/01/2015. As a Society, we endeavour to uphold the rights of all writers and publishers to freely publish content as a fundamental civil liberty and human right. No idea or belief, whether religious political or philosophical (etc), should be exempted from either frivolous satire or sensible scrutiny.
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