Free Speech is a Responsibility

Freedom from consequence is a failure of justice

Ten years ago, I found myself teaching a journalism course at a Catholic university in France. My French wasn’t great when I accepted the gig, leading me to misunderstand the post. It wasn’t until the end of the year, when I got a panicked call from an administrator, that I realised I was meant to have been teaching them English all year. Anyone who has ever worked with young French people will be unsurprised that none of this 150-strong cohort ever asked why they spent their time in class doing things like multi-day workshops on investigative journalism instead of grammar exercises.

I thoroughly enjoyed my accidental job. Throughout my year with them, one particular class stands out. We were discussing the satirical French magazine Charlie Hebdo, and their publication of cartoons mocking the prophet Muhammed. Terribly, the magazine’s headquarters were attacked by two al-Qeada members in January 2015, who murdered 12 of magazine staff and injured another 11. My friend’s father survived the attack only by virtue of his desk being hidden by a pillar.

We all condemned the murders. But where I diverged with my students was whether or not the magazine was morally justified in its publication of cartoons which degrade and demean the beliefs of a significant portion of France’s population.

Every single White student thought that the cartoon was protected by the right to free speech. They did not consider the cartoon to be Islamophobic because the magazine positions itself as political satire. They argued that the magazine has a long history of punching down on just about every ethnic group in the country, and said it was incumbent on readers to understand that the cartoon was joke.

I pulled up another political magazine cover which showed a photo of a Black female lawmaker under the caption “Does she want a banana?” I asked my students if this was acceptable and they burst out in adamant fury that the cover was racist and despicable. I queried why they did not consider it merely a joke. They said racism can never be funny. They argued that mocking people based on their ideology is not comparable to mocking people based on their skin colour. When I suggested that racism is itself an ideology, and thus of course comparable, they repeated that freedom of speech protects our right to humour, but that some humour simply isn’t funny.

In the end, only one member of the 150-strong cohort argued that both the cartoon and the magazine cover were of the same ilk. He was the only person of colour in the group. He said he saw no distinction between Islamophobia and racism, and therefore no distinction between a cartoon which deliberately mocks the beliefs of a many French citizens and another which paints a racist caricature of a single French citizen. They vehemently disagreed, arguing racism is a unique form of discrimination which allows it to supersede France’s inviolable right to freedom of speech.

At this point I asked whether or not any of these students would mock Islam if they were standing at a bus stop beside a woman wearing a hijab. They looked aghast, and all said no. When I asked why, they said, as if it were obvious, because the women in the hijab is probably Muslim. I pushed them again, querying why that be a problem—by their own logic, shouldn’t she know a joke when she hears one? They emphatically disagreed. Even if she knew it was a joke, she could still feel annoyed, upset or intimidated. Freedom of speech, they said, doesn’t give you the right to be an arsehole.

Freedom of Speech is Not Permission To Harm

I’m writing this in response to my piece last week on the moral inconsistencies surrounding the response to Charlie Kirk’s death. It discomforted folk across the political spectrum. One thread that appeared in the comments is that freedom of speech must be protected at all costs, for we fear losing our journalistic and civic right to tell the truth. I absolutely agree with this. However, conflating Kirk’s murder with an attack on free speech undermines the political reality that those who are actively targeted by institutions are those who seek to disrupt—not shore up—power.

Freedom of speech is a cornerstone of democratic society. But freedom of speech does not grant us freedom from consequence because consequence is an inherent part of learning how to function as a member of a group. Every day, we all take responsibility for our speech by using it to avoid conflict, soothe pain, and speak up. We also take responsibility for ourselves by mediating our speech depending on our environment. If I were to say a racial slur in an empty house, I wouldn’t expect any consequences. If I were to use that racial slur in front of a group, I would expect to be disciplined. Frankly, if I were to call someone by a racial slur, I would expect to be punished. There are plenty of environments I can imagine in which doing such a stupid and cruel thing would incur corporeal punishment.

Every day, we make hundreds of risk-assessments to determine the repercussions of our words and actions. We avoid swearing at work, we choose fruit over dessert, we express gratitude to wait staff, we hit the brakes when the lights turn red. This is a very normal part of being a functioning member of society. Our adherence to it should be proof enough that our personal liberties are afforded by a taking responsibility for our own behaviour.

Legally, too, our personal liberties are not permission to cause harm. Murder, assault, theft, rape, kidnapping, extortion, fraud, harassment—these are criminal offences because they cause harm. When we engage in behaviour the courts deem criminal, we risk the consequences of our behaviour. The problem is the rules are not enforced equally. Nation states assassinate dissidents. Corporations are rewarded for exploiting their workers and annihilating the living body of the Earth in the name of profit. Royal families are often legally untouchable and billionaires can afford the best possible defences. The most dangerous among us are those whose violence is permissible, and it is permissible because they are never forced to come face to face with those on whose backs they have built their kingdoms.

Inequality has created societies where a minority are freed from the consequences of their actions. The freedom of the few at the expense of the many is an intolerable injustice that we learn to tolerate. This extends to our free speech. We are in danger of tolerating the intolerable thanks to vague concepts of liberty which are inapplicable in societies of inequality. If we pay attention, freedom of speech is granted to those whose words validate hegemonic power whereas those who speak truth to power are swiftly silenced. Consider Greta Thunberg, the UK protest collective Palestine Action, and journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Thunberg was swiftly de-platformed by the mainstream media after calling Israel’s onslaught in Gaza a genocide, Palestine Action was proscribed as a terrorist organisation by the UK government, and Khashoggi was assassinated in 2018 by the Saudi Arabian regime for criticising it.

Each of the attacks on these individuals’ freedom of speech—and lives—was an attack on our own because they were targeted for revealing the injustices embedded in our systems of power. This is very, very different to those who speak on behalf of power to advance injustice, and use their proximity to power to shield themselves from consequence. Freedom of speech is not the great equaliser on our political stage.

To enjoy freedom of speech, we must take responsibility for what we say. Equally, we must take responsibility for what others say. We do not have to accept what others say just because they have the right to say it. Karl Popper clearly explained that a truly tolerant society must retain the right to be intolerant of the intolerant. He wrote: "We must therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate intolerance."

In truly democratic societies, our collective intolerance would be mandated by our justice system.

Facing Consequences

Six hours into our very first conversation, I traced the thick scar on the throat of the man I love and asked what happened. He explained he was jumped by a group of young boys in London and stabbed through the back of his neck. He firmly believed, as he bled out on the streets, that he would die. He is lucky to have lived. I asked what happened to the boys and he said that they were never caught, but that he was glad of it. He said he had told the police he didn’t want to press charges but, because of the severity of the crime, his request was not taken into consideration. When I asked why, he explained that the boys were very young, around 15 or 16, and Black. He said he knew the kinds of conditions that drive young Black boys in London into criminality and did not consider them culpable for their actions.

Over the past week, we have revisited that conversation. If we are all victims of circumstance, I asked, then should any of us be held morally accountable for our actions? He smiled and explained very clearly: “It’s not that I didn’t think the boys who stabbed me shouldn’t be punished at all, it’s that I don’t believe the criminal justice system is fit for purpose. They would come out of prison more likely to re-offend.”

Most justice systems around the world are poor substitutes for justice. Particularly in the United States, where Black men are disproportionately jailed and their labour stolen, the justice system is a reflection of the inequalities from which centralised power structures emerge. It fails every single person it disqualifies from justice—and that includes even those who benefit from that disqualification. Were our justice system capable of justice, we would not exist in systems of abuse and exploitation, and those who attempt to furnish their own lives at the expense of others would be held accountable for their actions long before they face threats to their lives. (I particularly enjoyed Sarah Wilson’s piece last week, which uses some language from my own, which explained how someone like Kirk can be a victim of the same system which benefits them.)

The degrees of separation that inequality and technology afford us mean many who cause harm don’t suffer consequences. Usually, these people belong to the social strata of the powerful which not only buffers them from legal, social or political ramifications, but rewards them. And yet, even though they claim their absolute right to freedom of speech, they know there are consequences for disrespect, hatred and cruelty. If they didn’t think they risked any consequences, they wouldn’t hire security teams; if the justice system worked appropriately, they wouldn’t have to.

I firmly believe these people understand the risks they take by virtue of the steps they take to mitigate them. I believe this because I also take risks to do my work. I know for a fact I am on at least one government list, and there are countries I would not dare set foot in because their ruling classes have been the subjects of my investigations. Like the guarded capitalists, I mitigate my risks as much as possible: I don’t use personal social media accounts, location services, and try to limit my conversations on Meta-owned apps. There are some conversations I don’t have around devices and I never announce where I have been until after I have left. I have been told I risk my life for doing this work, and that risk increases as my profile grows.

I think my work is worth the risk, and I fully accept the consequences whilst mitigating them as much as possible. I learned this attitude from my old boss, the indomitable Clare Rewcastle-Brown, who single-handedly exposed the largest financial corruption scandal in the world, and has spent years being stalked, harassed, intimidated, sued, threatened with death, and even put on terrorist watch lists because of it. She was targeted by power and had the bravery and tenacity to keep telling the truth. We must not equate someone like her, who risks her life to mitigate the failures of the justice system, with those who risk their lives to undermine justice at the behest of power.

We are subjects of consequence; evolution is a sequence of happy accidents and significant results. More specifically, our species survived the ice age because of our cooperative, collaborative and creative nature. It is only through our consequential relationships that we lived to watch the sun rise over the next geological period. To say, now, that our freedom of speech—or rather, freedom to say whatever we want without consequences—supersedes our responsibility of conduct spits in the face of our history. Alienation from consequences is alienation from progress. The freedom to weaponise deontological gospel in pursuit of power is not an indication of liberty. It is a symptom of a systemic failure of justice.

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