Freedom of Speech
After last week’s long post I thought brevity might be the order of the day this time.
Usually the BBC ask one eminent thinker to deliver its annual Reith lectures, but this year it chose to have four different speakers, with the umbrella theme, The Four Freedoms, dealing with freedom of Speech and Worship, and from Want and Fear, inspired by the famous speech by Franklin D Roosevelt. The first speaker, on the freedom of speech, was the acclaimed writer Chimamanda Ngosi Adichie. A must-listen for me.
Wow! What a thoughtful, beautifully articulated and erudite lecture. She spoke eloquently of the price people have paid for speaking out – the lives and well as freedoms taken, the abuse and violence suffered. Nevertheless, she argued, freedom of speech is the bedrock of an open and democratic society. So it grieves her that there is currently an epidemic of self-censorship, with people afraid to voice what they really believe because they feel they should not. Those who find the courage to speak up face the possibilities of a terrible online backlash of ugly personal insults, invasions of their privacy, risk to their jobs and families, threats to their lives. Society is in the grip of ‘cancel-culture tyranny’. Publishers are loathe to take on anything sensitive which might draw the fire of the vigilantes. Unpublished manuscripts are now scrutinised by sensitivity readers whose job it is to cleanse them of anything that might just constitute potentially offensive material.
But imposing silence and calling it tolerance doesn’t make it so. Real tolerance requires understanding; understanding comes from listening; listening presupposes speech.
In Chimamanda’s view, social censure is the crisis of our day. But, she concluded: We can protect our future. We just need to have the moral courage to speak up for truth and right. Not simply apologising to the victims, but directly challenging the perpetrators of hateful messages and behaviours. Given that she herself has been the victim of abuse for what she says and writes, this aspiration carries considerable weight.
A powerful message that resonated with me. I’m trying hard to build up my own moral courage to face discrimination and intolerance in my field of operation.
Historical fiction The perfect thriller …?