Unintended consequences

History tells us that suppressing ideas we don't agree with can be counter-productive, says a free speech advocate.

- ANI O BRIEN

Humanity has grappled with the issue of how freely we should be allowed to speak in public since at least the time of the Ancient Greeks. But in recent years, the topic has gained new impetus in the wake of horrific incidents such as the Charlie Hebdo attack in Paris and the Christchurch mosque shootings.

In the United States, billionaire Elon Musk has revived the debate with his on-again, off-again bid for Twitter. Here, New Zealanders have taken sides over issues such as the cancelled speaking tour of Canadian far-right activists Lauren Southern and Stefan Molyneux; and the “Listener letter” by a group of scientists over the place of mātauranga Māori in the school science curriculum.

A new book by Danish lawyer and human rights advocate Jacob Mchangama attempts to take some of the heat out of the subject and shed some light instead. Researched with dedicated attention to detail, Free Speech: A History from Socrates to Social Media is resolutely humane, despite the political quagmire it navigates. Mchangama spoke to the Listener about some of its central themes, and what he believes they might mean for New Zealanders. What follows is a lightly edited transcript.

You’ve been talking about free speech for quite a while now, and you’ve had a podcast as well as the book. Why do you find yourself so preoccupied with the subject?

Denmark, where I was born and raised, is a country where free speech is quite secure, where you don’t have to fear torture, disappearance or imprisonment if you criticise the government. But in 2005, a Danish newspaper published a number of cartoons, some of them depicting the Prophet Muhammad, and that really kicked off a global battle of values over the relationship between free speech and religion.