Free speech needs to avoid turning into hate speech

It is agreeable that free speech has been a vital element in the tool box of liberal democracies, including ours, but the fuss around it recently is trying to make the concept look vague.

Freedom of speech like every other freedom, no doubt, has boundaries and that makes it sensitive.

On August 8, Hobson’s Pledge founder Dr Don Brash should have addressed students’ politics club at Massey University’s Manawatu¯ campus, but it was cancelled.

Members of the students’ club having seen that the event could lead to violence due to posts on social media approached the school management, which in turn cancelled it for security reasons.

Vice-chancellor Professor Jan Thomas found cogent reasons to put the safety of students and staff first.

No doubt, in the university system there must be enabling laws that allowed her to do so. Among other reasons, she cited views of Hobson’s Pledge supporters as dangerously close to hate speech, which was unconducive with the university’s posture as a Tiriti o Waitangi-led organisation.

Ordinarily, one would understand this as an act of patriotism on the part of the vice-chancellor, but it did not go down well with Dr Brash, his supporters and the Free Speech Coalition. They were of the view that the university failed to uphold the tenets of free speech and liberal democracy.

However, it is interesting that Dr Brash while responding to Massey’s decision regretted that his future planned visits and those of international speakers are now all vulnerable to the “thug’s veto”.

In the same vein, Free Speech Coalition spokesman David Cumin in his statement said that “hecklers and thugs” have been emboldened by Auckland Council’s recent capitulation on similar grounds.

I then ask, were their notions of “thug’s veto” and “hecklers and thugs,” free speech or hate speech?

One would readily think that this attack on Massey University’s management was in itself free speech veiled with hate speech and should be a concern for us all.

This is not who we are. There is urgent need for us to exercise restraint even as we express our rights to free speech to avoid descent into hate.