NEWS
Jan 15, 2003Free speech and academic censorship
Now is the time for war preparations. The enemy is identified and properly demonized. Each one has a right to his or her opinions about war and peace, and also the right to express his or her opinion. This is in principle. Speaking against war in wartime is no easy thing however. Such speech is easily seen as taking side with the enemy, and enemies recieve special treatment.
New York Times gives a first page reminder about free speech in wartime on January 14. Emma Goldman roused emotions and fears almost a hundred years ago with her advocacy of radical causes like organized labor, atheism, sexual freedom and opposition to military conscription. She was a Russian born anarchist. During World War I she opposed the war. The United States attorney in New York, Francis Caffey, wrote in 1917: "Emma Goldman is a woman of great ability and personal magnetism, and her persuasive powers are such to make her an exceedingly dangerous woman".
Emma Goldman was dangerous enough to be deported to Russia together with other anarchists opposing the war. She died in 1940. Since more than two decades her papers are housed at the University of California. There University officials have refused a mailing for fund raising for the Emma Goldman Papers Project. The reason for this is a few citations of Emma Goldberg's writing. In one quotation Goldman calls upon people "not yet overcome by war madness to raise their voice of protest". Another is against free speech.
The reason to refuse the mailings is that the citations "could be construed as a political statement by the university in opposition to United States policy toward Iraq". The Director of the project,, says "they reflected Goldman's views, not the university's policies". The quotations mentioned were removed by the "censor" because "they made a political point". The following quotation was not removed: "the most violent element in society is ignorance". What is ignorance in war time?
In 1964 the free speech movement started at Berkeley.
Quotations of writings from another time may be resonant with the time they are made. If they make political points is a matter of interpretation. Free speech in academias are about interpretations, and the interpretations together with the sources form the academic discourse. Censoring the mailing is about the possibility of making political points from the citations removed.
At large anything said or written can be contextualised to make a point at one's own wish. If "political points" are made a criterium for what kind of citations you are allowed to use, few will be possible to use, and which the allowable citations are will be arbitrary. How will this affect research during wartime?
When free speech is suppressed, the image of free speech is more important than otherwise. The NYT article damages the image of free speech at Berkeley, and at a time when the image is more important because free speech obviously is suppressed.
On Reality. Publisher and editor: Bo Walhjalt. ISSN 1650-9323.
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