In a free country, it’s free speech vs free speech

The historically vital right of freedom of expression (commonly referred to as free speech) has solid grounding in legal philosophy the world over.

However, there has been a significant attempt in some quarters to shut it down and prevent others from being heard … so when I discovered that last week a South African-born YouTube prankster, Josh Pieters, flew Katie Hopkins to Prague to accept a fake award and “make her feel a little bit silly”, was he in the wrong?

What most people get wrong with the concept of freedom of speech is that they believe it is universal and that it allows them to say anything. We are also in the unfortunate situation where we consume a lot of American media and laypeople are somehow convinced that American freedom of speech is identical to South African freedom of speech … it is not!

Philosophically, freedom of speech is entrenched in and born from ideals such as avoiding political monopoly and oppression and encouraging innovation and ideas. The double-edged sword, though, does have its collateral damage. Some express feeling hurt by the opinions of others, yet that has never been enough to prevent free expression … at least not in this country.

In fact, back in 2005, in a beautifully written judgment, the Constitutional Court justices indicated the value of free expression and opinion even if it seemingly infringes on trademarks (the case is SAB v Laugh it Off Promotions and involved the latter using one of the prior’s beer brands to make T-shirts stating “Black Labour. White Guilt”).

Given the history of the world, it’s easy to understand why free expression has been seen to be so important, though one may think that that era is coming to an end with protests the world over to shut down speeches by the likes of Ben Shapiro, Bill Maher and many who espouse differing views.

My fear, when I heard of this Josh Pieters ploy, was that it would further push the agenda that it is okay to shut people down for their beliefs and ideas. I should mention two things here. I’ve known very little about Katie Hopkins and, when I first heard of the video, I assumed she was just a commentator with unpopular views. When I watched the video, though, I was shown that even upon accepting the fake award, she’s a terrible person, employing mockery of ethnic names and other tasteless language … which is of course her right.

Yet, this leads me to my second consideration. Freedom of expression does not necessarily mean expression without consequence.

Few people who employ “freedom of speech” as an excuse to say what they please understand that in order to have a right, others must have it too. It isn’t possible to simply own something and expect to be untouchable from it. The entire foundation on which the right rests is the ideal and desire to not have one set of ideas be the only considerable ones.

So when I heard about this video of Katie Hopkins accepting a fake awards and standing in front of a screen containing the phrase “Campaign to Unify the Nation Trophy” (with, eh, obvious emphasis on the first letters), I cringed at yet another narrative attempting to shut down ideas, not because of how I felt about the ideas themselves but rather because of the idea of shutting down ideas at all.

Fortunately, that was not to be the case and even Josh admits why he did it. To use free speech himself to make Katie Hopkins look a little bit silly.

Were I her lawyer, I’d certainly avoid even exploring ideas of defamation, and I can’t see any court giving any award to Hopkins on the strength of this mockery.

It might not be lekker when one feels vulnerable to attack when it comes to free speech, but the perpetrators generally have the defence of free speech.

Addressing the matter with their own medicine may just be the thing that allows for differing ideas, but also encourages some moderation and considering before making any sort of statement.

Not that Katie Hopkins can make a statement. She’s been suspended by Twitter on unrelated reasons. So you see? Free speech isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, but it is so much more, and those who aren’t wielding it, should, in order to restore equilibrium to the narrative.

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