On The Freedom of Expression and Speech
One of the most enshrined rights of mankind is the right to free speech, and with good reason. The first censorship of the written word, the filmed image and the recorded voice is usually the first indicator of authoritarian tendency in government. These decisions are often completely arbitrary and represent the narrow-minded and biased views of the small assembly of men and women who have political power. Rarely is the common voter consulted on these decisions. There are many examples of this bias across the world, and across time.
Of course, the very worst example of this oppression would be the orgies of book burning in National Socialist Germany. The literature of Heinrich Heine, Thomas Mann, Karl Marx, H.G. Wells, and other ‘degenerate’ works were offered to Vulcan. The very worst excess of this was on May 10th 1933 when the SA immolated over 20,000 books from the ‘
Institut fur Sexualwissenschaft’ (roughly translated as Institute for the Science of Sexuality). These criminal acts were some of the first committed by the hideous Nazi regime. Modern artwork by artists such as Nolde, Kirchner and Dix was also made a scapegoat of ‘Un-German’ sentiment, and was ultimately exhibited in 1937 among the work of the mentally ill in an attempt to defame it. Later on, it was committed to the same fate as literature.
Of course, it is not only in such obviously morally bankrupt regimes that this sentiment prevails. Book burning has taken place before in the US; for example, a wave of burnings of comic books in 1948, which originated in Spencer, West Virginia and Binghamton, New York and was overseen by members of the clergy and the education system. It has also occurred in Britain; in 1988, outraged Muslims set fire to copies of the Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie in towns such as Bradford and Bolton, even though it can be assumed very few of the offended had ever read the book – no Arabic or Farsi translation was available.
One of the most ridiculous reasons for censorship is of course ‘obscenity’. There can be no natural offence to such work, since sex is merely a natural function that is presumably demonised for reasons of modesty. Of course, the most ‘offensive’ of all to these people is homosexuality. This ranges from open persecution (Nazi Germany in the past, Iran and Afghanistan today) to simple avoidance of the topic (Britain in the past). For example, the novel The Well of Loneliness was attacked in 1928 for it’s lesbian theme. An editor of the Sunday Express even went as far as saying: ‘
I would rather give a healthy boy or a healthy girl a phial of prussic acid than this novel’. The book was banned, and was only republished in the UK in 1949. The United States Customs Court threw out a similar challenge to it in the US.
Then of course, there is the case of profanity. On many radio stations, music containing such language will usually be bleeped, skipped, or even banned altogether in a couple of cases. The simple fact is that profanity is another ‘offence’ created by the prudes in society. If no one were offended by language, there would be no such thing as profanity, and therefore no reason for such an action. The most ridiculous example of this of course is bowdlerising the piece altogether. For example, the song ‘If U Seek Amy’ by Britney Spears being changed to ‘If U See Amy’ by British radio stations due to the mondegreen in the lyrics, or the song ‘Louie Louie’ by the Kingsmen being accused of profanity in 1963 and thus leading to an investigation of the lyrics by the FBI, which, hilariously, decided the song was ‘
unintelligible at any speed’.
The right to freedom of speech is one of the most important of all freedoms due to it being vital in the progression of society. Despite it being enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, oppressive governments who have only their own selfish and introverted biases to base their censorship on continually ignore it. With the dawn of the Internet, still largely unregulated, it remains to be seen whether governments will also bring down the clamp of censorship on this. Of course, in some countries, this has already happened. For example, Saudi Arabia, one of the most repressive societies in the world today, OpenNet Initiative reported in 2004 ‘
The most aggressive censorship focused on pornography, drug use, gambling, religious conversion of Muslims, and filtering circumvention tools’.
Of concern is also the action of supposedly liberal governments such as that in Britain where, from January 2009, extreme pornography has been criminalised. Again, this is simply due to government biases and moral panic. The press will constantly search for a new ideal or issue to demonise, and if a crime such as a murder is linked in any way to it, they hysterically demand action. The lack of a concrete British constitution also prevents hindrance of the government’s violation of the principle of freedom of expression.
Of course, the question is how far the principle of this freedom extends. For example, in my opinion, freedom of speech should not encompass speech that is libellous. Free speech is a right; Slander is not. Nevertheless, it is crucial tenet of modern civilisation that expression be left largely unregulated by government, by society and by corporation. When government does feel the need to intervene in the thoughts of its citizens, it can only begin a vicious cycle of laws, edicts and events that will hinder the individual’s rights and empower the state’s rights.
The final word is left to Heinrich Heine himself, who once said ‘
Where they burn books, they will ultimately also burn people’
