Gordon McLauchlan: Freedom a gift that must be shared

COMMENT

Freedom belongs to a group of what I call therapeutic words, used in abstract catch-cries to make people feel better. To offer - in no matter how vague a way - to fight for it makes them feel noble. As with other therapeutic words, justice for example, politicians hold "freedom" close to their mouths. George W. Bush can almost never get through a speech without it.

Even though freedom is a complex concept, one maxim seems obvious: if you won't give it to others you don't deserve to receive it yourself. It must be collaborative, reciprocal, mutual. The temptation to make it one-sided is always with us: freedom for me but not for him because he's wrong-headed.

This is an important weekend to think of these things because today is Courage Day, when writers support freedom of expression, and next week Amnesty International will be conducting street theatre in our cities to rally support for an important principle: "Ahmed Zaoui: Freedom or a Fair Trial".

The point is that if we don't offer Zaoui the same sort of justice we demand for ourselves, then it diminishes our right to receive it. When you find a way around being decent and humane in your treatment of other people, even at some risk, they will soon find a way around being decent and humane in their treatment of you.

The present Labour Government's callous disregard for Zaoui's plight is a stain on its civil rights record. I also worry about its reliance on the SIS. It may be more professional now but I had dealings with three of its officers years ago: one was a moron and two were overgrown boy scouts.

This afternoon, in St Matthew-in-the-city, New Zealand writers will demonstrate their outrage at governments around the world which have imprisoned or sent into exile fellow writers who had the courage to write and speak according to their conscience. This time last year I was with a group of writers from 31 different countries and while we were around a table I noted how many were able to write or speak up without fear in their own communities. The answer was three, including me.

But that doesn't mean we should ever take free speech for granted; so the Courage Day ceremony this afternoon will be used to remind us all of the fragility of free expression even here. It was only three years ago that the Prime Minister, Helen Clark, thought it would be useful to legislate for criminal libel during election campaigns.

Philosophers such as the late Isaiah Berlin have pondered the issue of how the freedom of one individual may impinge on that of others, and the consensus is that no freedom is absolute. However, because sticks and stones will break my bones but names will never hurt me, the freedom of expression comes closer to being absolute than any other.

Attitude matters. For example, I have been receiving letters from a member of a Christian sect in Te Aroha and I infer from what she says that she is a pleasant and sincere woman, content with her lot. But she cannot conceive that I may lead a relaxed, enjoyable and fruitful life without believing what she believes. I am delighted that she and her family are content and not for one moment would I want to nag her into sharing my agnostic opinions.

I'm sure she wouldn't want to oppress me but her certainty that she is right about everything and therefore I must be wrong betrays a mindset all too common. Arthur Koestler once suggested that it wasn't so much an innate aggression that plagued human beings but a barely resistible urge to confirm our own beliefs by imposing them on others. Hence the drive to conquer and convert by religious and political zealots.

The key ingredient is tolerance, an acceptance that all questions remain open, that you after all may turn out to be the one who has got it wrong. I had correspondence with a friend on the subject a few weeks ago and one of his remarks surprised me. He said free speech was too frequently used by "cretins who wish to pour ill-informed slop into the public domain".

I replied that fundamental to an understanding of freedom of expression is accepting that those cretins think he is a cretin pouring ill-informed slop into the public domain. He also described a broadcaster he didn't agree with as "dangerous". That is the word used more frequently than any other by people who want to shut you up. To my deep shame, I've even heard writers use it of other writers. By the way, today is called Courage Day by a happy co-incidence.

It underlines that New Zealand had its shameful times of suppressing honest writing. The name commemorates two members of one family. Sarah Amelia Courage was a station owner's wife whose lively story of early days in Canterbury, Lights and Shadows of Colonial Life, was published in 1896. About 10 of the 18 copies printed for private circulation were seized and burned because it was thought some of the characters were real people too thinly disguised.

Fifty years later, a novel called A Way of Love, written by James Courage, a descendant of Sarah's, was banned in this country. James had abandoned a stultifying life in conservative Canterbury for London because he was gay.

A Way of Love was described by its publishers, Jonathan Cape, as "a dignified novel upon an important subject", but the authorities here, probably a police sergeant and a customs clerk, made a cultural and moral decision against the book on our behalf.