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Making a strong case for global free speech

The phrase “a censorship anywhere is a censorship everywhere” says it all for author Lee C

Endy M. Bayuni (The Jakarta Post)
Jakarta
Sun, April 4, 2010

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Making  a strong case  for global free speech

T

he phrase “a censorship anywhere is a censorship everywhere” says it all for author Lee C. Bollinger in arguing for free speech and free press to become a global cause, and not only a goal that Americans and other democratic countries fight for.

If this sounds too American, which it probably does – and that in itself often leads to rejection in many parts of the world – then consider the following case, which is not in the book but could be used if Bollinger considers a second edition of Uninhibited, Robust and Wide-Open – A Free Press for a New Century.

Remember the global pandemic of the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) in 2002/2003 that originated in China? We learned much later that China had suppressed the story of the first outbreaks in a small village in the province of Guangdong for months, allowing the virus to spread rapidly before the alarm was raised and any serious concerted global action could be taken. SARS eventually affected more than 8,000 people, killing more than 700 people in 37 countries around the world.

The pandemic case could and should have been anticipated if the news had been published earlier. We learned that Chinese journalists who knew about the first outbreaks were under strict orders not to talk to any foreigners, let alone publish the story. One or two did venture, risking jail, by leaking the story to Western journalists in Beijing.

Whether a global free press would have prevented the spread of SARS is a moot point, but it would certainly have brought pressure on Beijing to seriously tackle the problem much earlier. Instead, they were busy trying to suppress the news.

The 21st century is a time of easy travel and easy communication transcending national boundaries and rendering geographical distances almost irrelevant. This makes Bollinger’s argument for global free speech and free press even more imperative. What happens in one country – or in the case of SARS, a remote village in China – can have repercussions, either good or bad, in other parts of the world.

Our right to know must also transcend national borders.

Some readers may find the book smacking of too much Americanism because it is written by an American with an American context and American history. But putting these aside, his argument that every citizen around the world must become an advocate of free speech and free press is hard to reject.

The first part of the book provides an interesting take on the history of the First Amendment. Contrary to what outsiders think, Americans don’t take their freedom for granted. It has been a constant struggle, even to this day, between the government on the one hand, and the people and the press on the other. The First Amendment, which bars Congress from making any law pertaining to free speech, helped to push freedom to its limits, to turn the United States into one of the freest countries in the world today.

The rest of the book takes us on a journey from making free speech an American cause in the 20th century to becoming a global cause in the new century.

Surprisingly, Bollinger finds history is on his side.

In 1946, the UN General Assembly issued a resolution recognizing freedom of information as “the touchstone of all the freedoms to which the United Nations is consecrated”.

This resolution became the basis for the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the subsequent International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Article 19 of which reads: “Everyone shall have the right to freedom of expression; this right shall include freedom to seek, receive, and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers, either orally, in writing or in print, in the form of art, or through any other media of his choice.”

The reference to “regardless of frontiers” and “any other media of his choice” show how visionary those who crafted the declaration were, essentially making provisions for globalization as we know it today and for the Internet.

Interestingly, no American was involved in drafting the Universal Declaration, according to the book. Instead, the handful of experts who drafted it came from Canada, France, China and Lebanon. In other words, history tells us that free speech and free press was never an exclusively American agenda.

It still isn’t in the new century.

Uninhibited, Robust, and Wide-Open –
A Free Press for a New Century

by Lee C. Bollinger
Oxford University Press 2010,
210 pages

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