FREEDOM OF SPEECH

Some of you may be aware of the comments recently of Macquarie University Law Professor Andrew Fraser on Africans. After seeing a picture of some Sudanese people in a newspaper Andrew wrote in and claimed that by allowing Africans into Australia there will be an increase in crime, because Africans have a genetic propensity to crime, or some such nonsense. He also said that studies have shown that sub-Saharan Africans have significantly lower IQs than Caucasians, and that Asian immigration into Australia should be stopped or we risked being ruled by an Asian elite. Now I have to say that I am always proud when a legal academic from the university I received my law degree from makes such public statements. (Note: I am not being serious about being proud)

These comments have raised some serious discussion amongst some of the groups I am a member of. The issue of freedom of speech is a vexed one. However the main discussion is around whether free speech should be restricted to stop comments like Andrew Fraser’s or whether freedom of speech should be absolute and as such he should be allowed to say what he wants, no matter how abhorrent what he says is.

My feelings on the matter; I disagree that freedom of speech should be absolute, but still defend Andrew Fraser's right to make his comments, even though they are wrong and I find them appalling to say the least.

There is the need to restrict free speech generally when that free speech advocates violence against others. In the case of Andrew Fraser's comments, though undeniably racist and repugnant, they do not advocate violence against those groups he attacks. This is why comparisons to Hitler are inaccurate; he did advocate violence against those groups he attacked. Yes some people will use his comments as an excuse to violently attack some groups based on their race. However some people could also use the comments of refugee rights activists about the Liberals as an excuse to violently attack Liberal party members and voters. Should these people be held responsible for this or have their right to say what they want taken away?

Remember, suppressing people's right to make racist comments won't actually eliminate racism. In Marxist countries like the USSR, Yugoslavia and China racism was "officially eliminated" and public racist comments were forbidden. Was racism eliminated in these states? The ethnic conflicts in the former USSR and Yugoslavia, and the continuing mistreatment of the Tibetans in China indicate that it wasn't.

In Australia, people held racist views on Aboriginals before Pauline Hanson made her racist comments on them public. Suppressing her views would not have eliminated racism to Aborigines. There were in fact benefits to her making her comments public; it allowed forums for people to publicly refute certain myths and stereotypes of Aborigines. There were also people who I knew who wouldn’t consider themselves racist yet who held some unenlightened views about Aborigines. When Pauline Hanson and her views were made public they quickly woke up to themselves because they didn’t want to be associated with someone who was such an ignorant bigot.

I think the focus of people should be on attacking Andrew Fraser's claims. For example his statement that sub-Saharan African's have lower IQs. There is much criticism of IQ tests on the grounds that it is very culturally specific to the Western world, and as such is not an appropriate way of measuring a person's intelligence. If there is any appropriate way of measuring a person's intelligence, which I doubt; to me some of the stupidest people I have ever met were people I studied law with at Macquarie Uni, even though most indicators would tend to suggest that they were "intelligent".