FREEDOM OF SPEECH
PETER BRUCE: Precept is do no harm, not ‘say no harm’
‘It is difficult today to appreciate how important the right to say what you want is. It gets lost in fear and loathing’
I met a man this week who told the truth as I like to hear it — complex and infuriating. He was a unassuming Danish guy who knows a few of the friends I made as a foreign correspondent in Europe a lifetime ago, here at the invitation of the South African Institute of Race Relations to talk about freedom of speech and how it struggles to survive. It is difficult today to appreciate how important the right to say what you want is. It gets lost in fear and loathing. Social media make everyone with a smartphone capable of communicating instantly with billions and has, paradoxically, throttled freedom of speech rather than encouraged it. The social media world drips with policemen. The Danish guy’s name was Flemming Rose. He is the poor shmuck editor who drifted, probably only half aware, into lifelong mortal danger by publishing cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed in his newspaper, Jyllands-Posten, in September 2005, sparking worldwide protests. Since then, he has become a Senior Fellow at...
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