Enemies of freedom

Enemies of freedom
published: Sunday | February 19, 2006
Ian Boyne, Contributor

CUBA MIGHT be busy supplying light bulbs to poor Jamaicans, but its
citizens remain in the dark as far as freedom of expression and freedom
of the press are concerned.

Muslims continued to kill, burn and destroy in massive protests last
week because they believe no one should have the freedom to offend their
religious sensibilities. Some Christians arose from their slumber last
week in the National Church Alliance to ensure that homosexuals continue
to be liable for arrest for what they do in their own bedrooms.

And homosexual activists continue to lobby for the denial of the right
of free expression to artistes who oppose their homosexual practice. In
China, which is dazzling the world with its economic prowess and
prodigious economic growth, the over 1.2 billion citizens don't have the
right to free access to the Internet. In Saudi Arabia you can be locked
up for preaching the Christian faith and for trying to convert Muslims.

HATE SPEECH LEGISLATION

In North America and Europe so-called hate speech legislation is
curtailing some basic freedoms under the guise of protecting minorities.
In seven European countries it is illegal to say that Hitler did not
murder millions of Jews, as some anti-Semitic publications have claimed.

Free speech is under threat all over the world and in some subtle forms.
While some might regard the vociferous opposition to the new Charter of
Rights by Jamaican Christians as alarmist and much ado about nothing,
those who have been following trends in the United States and Europe
will think otherwise about the group's larger concerns about the
impending charter. It is not just a matter that A.J. Nicholson and the
PNP Government might not intend to legalise homosexuality or restrict
the free speech of Christian preachers; it is that ambiguous language
can be skilfully exploited by others to push particular agendas.

SENSITIVITY TO EMERGING TRENDS

What is seen as alarmist by some could well turn out to be vigilance and
keen sensitivity to emerging trends. There is an emerging 'intolerant
view of tolerance' which says that tolerance means that I cannot
criticise what you believe or practise, or that to do so is necessarily
discourteous, unkind and unbecoming.

Authoritarian societies like Cuba and China have long been known to be
opposed to civil liberties and liberal democratic traditions. But there
is a more subtle and pernicious threat to free speech which is creeping
in - indeed, it is picking up speed - in the West, borne of some noble
motives but potentially dangerous nonetheless.

Those acquainted with philosophy, more particularly the philosophy of
science, would recognise the preceding sentence as the two-part book
title of one of the foremost philosophers of the 20th century, Professor
Karl Popper, who was an unrelenting critic of all totalitarian
ideologies, more particularly Marxism. And Popper showed that at the
root of totalitarian ideologies is a philosophical arrogance and a view
that one system alone has all truth, knows the 'inner logic of history',
and knows what the ends of mankind should be.

Communism, Islam and Fundamentalist Christianity all share a totalist
philosophical perspective which makes them inherently susceptible to
being anti-democratic. Does the majority Christian population have the
right to legislate morality for the minority of homosexuals wanting to
carry out consensual sexual acts in the privacy of their bedrooms?

Now, I believe the Church must have the right to do what Christians did
last week: to lobby, to raise the alarm, to call the society to arms, as
it were, about an allegedly dangerous legislation. It is right to get
your point of view across. And the Church must certainly be free to
preach against homosexuality, to condemn the lifestyle as sinful,
harmful and degrading. The Church must also have the right to say that
those who practise homosexuality will spend eternity in hell. To say
that is hate speech is absolute nonsense and philosophical bunkum.

But in a secular, pluralistic society, should the Church have the right
to impose its views on adultery and fornication on the population?
Remember that in the Bible capital punishment was prescribed not only
for homosexuality but also for fornication and adultery - very common
sins among very respectable people in Jamaica. Apart from calling
homosexuality contrary to nature, the Bible does not assign
homosexuality to a special category of sin, in distinction to the sin of
fornication and adultery.

But should Christians prescribe morality for a secular population? And
shouldn't democracy protect the rights of minorities as long as they are
not infringing on the rights of others? But this is where the rub is,
for many Christians will assert that homosexuality does affect society
negatively, and that what people do in their bedrooms do have public
consequences. The point can be quite plausibly argued.

Divorce and adultery do have negative effects on society and an army of
psychologists and sociologists can cite reams of studies to prove that.
Should divorce and adultery, therefore, be criminalised?

Alcohol, whether taken in the privacy of one's bedroom or in public, has
disastrous effects on many families, the workplace, the healthcare
system etc. Should we criminalise the drinking of alcohol? And
certainly, the scientific evidence is conclusive that cigarette smoking
leads to death and has an enormously negative effect on the society.

So if we use the argument of baleful societal effects, there are many
things which we would criminalise. At the heart of these matters -
whether of the cartoon crisis generated by the Muslims, the lobby to
continue the criminalisation of homosexuality and the suppression of
human rights in Cuba and China - are philosophical issues.

But most of us are unskilled in these matters and so we conduct our
discourse devoid of proper grounding and context.

FALSE PHILOSOPHICAL PRESUPPOSITIONS

Sir Karl Popper was brilliant in showing that it was false philosophical
presuppositions and assumptions which led to totalitarian ideologies.
This is why he pushed what is called a fallibilist view of knowledge. He
insisted we should be rigorously scientific in coming to knowledge. At
the heart of the issue is the view that Big Brother knows what is best
for you and has a moral obligation to see that you act in your own best
interests, as determined by Big Brother.

It is not just because of the unjust American embargo on Cuba why Castro
is denying Cubans the right to have access to the Internet or the right
to a free, unfettered press. This is the usual argument used by
propagandists for the Cuban dictator to justify the repression of the
Cuban people. It's the Americans' fault for they have a policy of
aggression against the Cubans and the Cubans have to tighten up things
or else the imperialists will use counter-revolutionary means to subvert
the Cuban revolution.

It is a fact that the Americans have had a flawed policy toward Cuba
which can't be justified on any grounds whatsoever. (You can't talk
about not embracing totalitarians when America became known for that all
over Latin America in the 1970s, and when it is known for embracing the
dictators in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. Besides, they have had strong
relations with other Communist states).

COMMUNIST IDEOLOGY

But what defenders of Fidel Castro - like John Maxwell - miss is that
their hero has an ideology which led his fellow comrades all over
Eastern Europe and in the former Soviet Union to behave precisely in the
same ways when they were not faced with the threats on their doorsteps,
as Cuba faces today with America. It is inherent in the communist
ideology to close off certain paths and to label them
counter-revolutionary. While there are elections in Cuba, why shouldn't
there be a multiparty democracy there? Why shouldn't people have the
right to choose right-wing, pro-capitalist parties? Why shouldn't the
Church be free to have a party pushing theocracy?

Why determine the limits of free expression and choice so narrowly? Cuba
is the second highest violator of the rights of journalists in the
world, followed by (surprise!) another communist country, China, now the
darling of the hypocritical United States. John Maxwell is an ardent
defender of the rights of journalists but it apparently does not bother
him that Cuba is home to the second largest number of imprisoned
journalists. And when there is no independent judiciary to determine
guilt, how do we know that these persons are really there for
'counter-revolutionary activities'?

I was stunned when I read John Maxwell's column of February 5 where he
said, "Next to oxygen, water and food, the freedom to communicate,
freedom of expression, is the most basic of human rights. Democracy
cannot exist without freedom of expression because democracy is the
child of freedom of expression. Without freedom to express ourselves, we
are slaves, no more, no less."

Yet, in his favourite country in the Caribbean, Cuba, that freedom does
not exist. People cannot freely start their own newspapers or get on
freely to the Internet. They are not free to import foreign publications
as they wish, and radio stations beamed at them are jammed. People
should be free to listen to counter-revolutionary messages from America
or wherever. Caribbean governments have turned a blind eye to the
repression in Cuba while talking glibly about democracy and human
rights, and while criticising the United States for hypocrisy.

As long as there is no pressure on Cuba, Caribbean governments have no
moral authority to lecture the United States about how it interacts with
its dictator friends.

The open society has even more enemies today than when that
extraordinary philosopher, Karl Popper, wrote his two-volume masterpiece
in 1945. We must continue to oppose them - all of them.

Ian Boyne is a veteran journalist. You can reach him at
ianboyne1@yahoo.com .
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