THEY’RE ONLY WORDS?

As a journalist and so-called wordsmith  for more than 45 years I am emotionally and professionally attached to those three democratic words: ‘freedom of speech’.

It is one of the freedoms that Australians fought and died for in two World wars. It is one of the precious freedoms that is not available  in some of the dictatorial and totalitarian states that some of our more bilious and rancid and hate-filled Islamic clerics hold up as examples of some sort of paradise.

It is a freedom that did not exist for decades in the Soviet Union when it was supposedly a utopia for the working man. It still does not exist in China.

Freedom of speech. Precious. You are entitled to an opinion and to your rhetoric and rabble-rousing  -- within the bounds of defamation.

But. I was watching a TV special last night which showed where unfettered freedom of speech can lead. It was a documentary on the gas chambers at Treblinka and Auschwitz. Hitler’s final solution. Hitler’s Master Race started with freedom of speech. And his speeches roused a nation and plunged it into it’s second  war in thirty years.

The latest debate over freedom of speech was sparked, for once not by the hate-filled Sheik Ukelele but by an Australian-born Islamic cleric  The head of the Global Islamic Youth Centre in Liverpool, Sydney, Sheik Feiz Mohammed.

On a collection of DVDs called the Death Series -- sold in Australia and overseas – he has called Jews ‘pigs’ and urges children to die for Allah.  I don’t mind if he dies for Allah as long as he doesn’t take innocent people with him.

In the past the Sydney sheik has taken the line that ‘ rape victims ask for it”. He has said that women who wear alluring clothes are eligible for rape.

So where should the line be drawn? If anywhere?  In the United States  freedom of speech is protected under the constitution. In this country we have increasing anti-vilification laws and tribunals and words can get you charged under anti-terrorist laws.

I once faced an investigation for defaming Muslims because I said on radio that some – and I stressed some – Islamic sects treat women as inferior beings and ban them from heaven.

Thursday, January 18, 2007

©Copyright Derryn Hinch 2007