Michael - Thursday
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| EFF members in red being ejected from parliament |
I’ve been
brooding about free speech. Why everyone is in favor of it, but no one really
seems to like it. I suppose this was motivated by the State of the Nation
address that our president – the redoubtable Jacob Zuma – presented to
parliament this week. It’s an annual event that gives the president an
opportunity to present highs and lows of the last year, and enunciate policy
for the coming one. In the event, the speech was long on rhetoric and short on
new ideas or realizable plans. Not many people actually noticed the speech
because it was drowned out by protests from the radical Economic
Freedom Fighters, led by the colorful Julius Malema. In advance of the speech,
the parliament chamber was occupied by the army to keep order. (Yes, the army.
Not the police. There’s a message there.) Julius and his followers were
forcibly expelled from the chamber to join the demonstrators outside, and the
official opposition – the Democratic Alliance – walked out in protest. The
whole thing was good television, and did well on Facebook and Twitter.
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| Julius has his say outside |
Zuma is held
in such low esteem that his address was regarded as an insult, not worth
listening to. More so, he shouldn’t even be allowed to say it. In this case,
the speech was freely available afterwards, and so the opposition parties could
read all the details after the event in time to start objecting to them in the
debate the next day. Was the speech worth hearing? Probably not. Was it appropriate
that people be allowed to hear it? Despite my feelings about the president and
his failings, I would argue that it was.
The press
on the other hand – supposedly the bastions of free speech - face more and more
regulation. Everywhere – South Africa is no exception – governments are
developing more laws and rules, sometimes with harsh penalties, to prevent the
press from reporting ‘certain matters’ or misreporting (in the government’s
view). As the New York Times pointed out today, Trump embraced the leaks of
Clinton’s emails and called for more openness in ‘the swamp’ that he intended
to drain when elected, but he was horrified by the pardon of the ‘traitorous’
Chelsea Manning, and is now very negative about leaks concerning his own
administration.
Perhaps
free speech is only an issue when it’s not the powerful who are doing the
talking? How about the case of Helen Suzman – who spent her life opposing the
apartheid government here as the sole true opposition representative in parliament – being refused
permission to speak at Wits University? There were reasons why this might have
inflamed radical students or perhaps infringed the University’s careful
impartiality in the elections, but was it not worth hearing what she had to
say? Shouldn’t her liberal and consistently honest views have been heard?
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| UC Berkeley demonstartion |
Recently, President
Trump threatened federal funds allocated to the University of
California-Berkeley in the aftermath of a riot that forced the cancellation of
a speech by Breitbart News editor Milo Yiannopoulos. I don’t know that
gentleman from a bar of soap and I suspect I would have rejected his views and hated his speech, but I won’t
know now, will I?
On the
other hand, we have ‘fake news’ – even the Russians are complaining about it –
where people announce events, usually on social media, that they know actually never
happened. Is this also free speech? Surely not. It’s a somewhat weaker form of
shouting ‘Fire’ in a crowded theater. No one seems concerned about this,
however. Much of what’s coming out of the White House these days seems to fall
into this category, and readily believed.
I know that
the boundaries of free speech and what it means in terms of context is a vexed
subject, and it can be argued strongly from several points of view. It does
seem to me, however, that for free speech to be meaningful, you have to be
allowed to listen and make up your own mind.
___________________________________________
Murder Is
Everywhere
Author
Recognitions and Events
LEYE
ADENLE
Won the 2016 Prix Marianne for the Lagos Lady, the
French translation of Easy Motion Tourist: http://www.marianne.net/leye-adenle-prix-marianneun-aller-retour-noir-2016-femme-n-est-pas-egale-homme-son-futur-100246794
Easy Motion Tourist / Lagos Lady, was number 2 on Le
Monde's list of best thrillers of 2016: http://polar.blog.lemonde.fr/2016/12/26/top-20-des-romans-noirs-et-des-polars-2016/
Easy Motion Tourist featured in the Guardian's Best
Recent Crime Novel Review Roundup: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/jun/04/the-best-recent-crime-novels-review-roundup
Upcoming Event:
March 7 to 16: South African Word Festival,
Stellenbosch.
ANNAMARIA
ALFIERI
Strange Gods: Paperback, Felony and
Mayhem, Feb 2016
Idol of Mombasa: Paperback, Felony and
Mayhem, Oct 2016
Sunshine Noir: Editor, White Sun Press, Oct
2016
CARA
BLACK
Murder in Saint Germain, Aimée Leduc’s
next investigation, comes out June 6, 2017.
Just signed the contract for the next
two Aimée Leduc investigations in Paris with Soho Press.
SUJATA
MASSEY
In two panels at Left
Coast Crime in Honolulu, March 16-19
CARO
RAMSEY
Signed two-book contract
with Severn House.
JEFF
SIGER
2016 Barry Award Finalist for Best Novel.
"The Olive Growers,” appears in BOUND BY MYSTERY, an
anthology edited by Diane DiBiasi celebrating the 20th Anniversary of Poisoned
Pen Press, out in March.
MICHAEL
STANLEY
Sunshine Noir: Editor, White Sun Press, Oct
2016
Dying to Live (Kubu #6) to be released in
May in UK and in October in USA
