GRAHAM HRYCE DRAWN INTO A SOCIAL BATTLE
The late political cartoonist Bill Leak fought to preserve free speech much to the chagrin of the urban elites
BILL Leak, the political cartoonist and artist died just over a week ago at the age of 61.
A public memorial service was to be held for Leak at the Sydney Town Hall yesterday afternoon.
It is a measure of Leak’s stature that Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull agreed to speak at the service. Turnbull had been shocked by Leak’s death and had described him as “a good-humoured sceptic of anybody and anything in authority”.
Newspaper readers will be familiar with Leak’s cartoons, but he was much more than a political cartoonist. For the past few years Leak had also been a prominent campaigner for free speech and an acerbic critic of political correctness and identity politics. These two roles overlapped. Leak wrote articles and made speeches, but it was his cartoons which most effectively criticised the doctrines of political correctness and identity politics, while also lampooning elites who sought to impose such views on all of us.
Leak had a rare ability to pen cartoons which highlighted social problems and implicitly suggested that political correctness could offer no effective solutions.
Leak also understood political correctness was intolerant of contrary views. In recent years, he had learnt that the high priests and priestesses of political correctness – whether they be Muslim clerics or Human Rights commissioners – sought to destroy anyone who disagreed with them.
It was this understanding that gave Leak’s most recent cartoons such a poignant and personal edge.
A few years ago he published a cartoon responding to the Charlie Hebdo massacre in Paris which featured an image of Mohammed. For his troubles Leak received death threats, was forced to accept police protection and had to move house.
Last year, when he pub- lished a cartoon highlighting the appalling conditions in remote Aboriginal communities and suggesting Aboriginal males might bear some personal responsibility for this, he drew the ire of the politically correct elite.
Enter Human Rights Commissioner Tim Soutphommasane, who urged people to bring Email: editorial@goldcoast.com.au legal proceedings against Leak under section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act.
Leak counterattacked with his pen. In one cartoon he portrayed Soutphommasane in a Kim Jong unmilitary uniform and haircut, and in another he pictured him and Human Rights Commission president Gillian Triggs standing un- comfortably at the bar in a pub wearing “L” plates. The caption read “We’re here to take our pub tests”.
This was Leak at his most pugnacious and insightful.
Leak’s last cartoon, published the day he died, dealt with another major social problem: the growth of Muslim ghettos in Sydney’s western suburbs and the rise of Islamic radicalism in public schools in these areas.
Leak was a divisive figure – but that was only because our society is so deeply divided.
On the one hand, you have the urban elites living in their politically correct enclaves, never having to come into contact with those experiencing real social disadvantage.
On the other hand, you have ordinary Australians, many of whom can no longer afford to live in large cities, facing a range of serious social and economic problems – some of them suffering serious disadvantage.
This divide is becoming more pronounced as the elites refuse to contemplate the kind of economic and social reform necessary to assist ordinary Australians, let alone seriously disadvantaged groups.
Bill Leak knew who he sided with – and so did the elites. And the elites hated him all the more because they had once thought he was one of them. After all, he had worked for the Fairfax press and occasionally appeared on the ABC.
It is not surprising that Leak was branded as a “racist” on the ABC’s Q&A program this week and that the ABC refused to apologise.
The truth is Leak saw freedom of speech as essential for the maintenance of a free and democratic society and he believed political correctness and identity politics were its enemy.
He was of the view that “freedom of speech is the freedom to offend, and that means the freedom to offend anyone”.
It is also true Leak’s free speech campaign has achieved a great deal of success.
Tributes have flowed in, culminating in yesterday’s memorial service.
Barry Humphries described Leak as “the best political cartoonist in the world”. Leigh Sales said he was “one of the most generous souls you could meet” and “an absolute giant of Australian media”.
Editor-in-chief of The Australian, Paul Whittaker said Leak was “a towering figure at this newspaper”. Journalist Paul Kelly described him as “a cartoonist of genius and a great Australian”.
Brendan O’Neill said simply that “Australia won’t be the same without him”.
Such praise is well deserved.
Bill Leak knew who he sided with – and so did the elites