Free speech for all? Thoughts from Australia
JVL Introduction
We on the left need to claim (reclaim?) free speech as our issue. We must not cede it to the right wing who make a big deal of it until, as this article from Australia, points out it comes to free speech on Israel. Are we any better on the left? Do we also want to suppress free speech that we do not agree with? Do we say that it is hate speech and therefore unacceptable? We post this opinion piece from Australia partly to emphasise that the fight we are having in the UK is, sadly, the same as in so many other countries but also because it poses questions that we need to grapple with.
LL
This article was originally published by The World is Not Enough on Tue 29 Jul 2025. Read the original here.
Free speech and antisemitism
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” ….freedom is not just for those whose views are popular or fit neatly within the mainstream. Free speech must protect uncomfortable, unpopular, wrongheaded and prejudiced speech, or it protects nothing.”
We must also remember, and I don’t claim to be the first to say this) that for a government to proscribe a pressure group which campaigns against that which is contrary to that government’s narrow political aims is extremely dangerous for democracy.