Health warning: The word arsehole appears several times in this post.
Byron Camilleri and Owen Bonnici announced they are proposing changes to the law to stop the police from pressing charges against comedians and satirists who say out loud that Gordon “sess fil-patata is an abomination” Manché is an arsehole. The Ministers say they want to protect “artistic freedom”.
No one has seen the draft law.
Of course, I agree that no comedian or satirist should have to face charges for calling Gordon Manché an arsehole and that’s not just because Gordon Manché is, as a matter of fact, an arsehole. No one should be charged for calling me an arsehole and though I have one I’d like to think there’s more to me than it.
And yet whenever I hear ministers tinker with free speech laws my ganglia engorge with the acid of flight instinct. I can’t wait to read what they have in mind.
Firstly, putting a qualifying adjective in front of free speech, however attractive at face value, is always a danger. We’re all for “artistic freedom,” aren’t we? But is artistic freedom more important than academic freedom or journalistic freedom? And is it more important than anyone’s freedom for that matter. I can never be accused of being an artist, but do I have a lesser right to call Gordon Manché an arsehole than a licensed, practicing stage comedian?
This might sound pedantically obvious, but I worry about the government feeling the need to write specialised laws on general principles. In principle everyone is entitled to speak freely. And no one is entitled to spread hate. It is unlawful for me or for a stand-up comedian to incite violence on any group, including a religious minority. It is just as lawful for a comedian as it is for me to mock, satirise, and endow with unflattering descriptors, witch doctors and cranks who peddle their wacky, secterian manias publicly.
The law – through the constitution – already protects our right to make fun of a public person who behaves ridiculously. Because there’s the rub, isn’t it? It is less the identity of the person saying Gordon Manché is an arsehole that matters and more the fact that what is being said is being said of Gordon Manché, a public person who expects the public to take them seriously when they fulminate warnings of fire and brimstone over anal sex, and whatever other mumbo jumbo he comes up with.
Authorities who abdicate their responsibilities complain about how tough it is to walk the tight rope over the lava of free speech on one side and preventing hate speech on the other. It isn’t that complicated. People in public life or who expect public attention with their behaviour must accept that they will be criticised, even mocked. That does not mean they have to accept being threatened or having crowds incited to hurt them or those close to them. In fact, no one should accept that.
It’s not a complex value judgement and one should not need to be a judge to make the distinction. We all understand, on sight, that calling Gordon Manché an arsehole in polite conversation does not amount to incitement to anything, except perhaps much nudging, and winking, and laughing at his expense.
Why can’t the police make that value judgement? Why aren’t they capable of sending Gordon Manché packing when he files a police report complaining about being called an arsehole? Why do we need a specific law that introduces a new risk: that before we can claim our innate right to speak freely, we must first prove that we qualify as members of some specialist category; that, say, we must show we are artists before making fun of a ridiculous bible-bashing eejit.
We never had to show we were artists before we could claim our human (not merely artistic) right to speak freely. A new test of eligibility to a basic right, amounts to a dilution of that right. We have yet to see what the ministers are writing but judging by what they’re saying, as ever with their promises of greater freedoms, the ball we must drag is getting heavier.