Charlottesville and the freedom of speech

Black cop defending white supremacists in Charlottesville: Striking image

Disclaimer (published on August 16, 2017): I wrote this text in agreement with the informations I read in Brazilian newspapers and sites; but according the reader Professor Harjira Busier, the story was not well this, the supposed attack of the antiracists was a counterattack after the white supremacists went up against them, when they was doing a peaceful monitoring of the white supremacists, that is, all violence in both violent episodes would have departed from the white supremacists.

Inspired by a video of Brazilian comedian Rafinha Bastos (see here), I decided to return to a topic that I have dealt with before in this blog: freedom of expression; however, this time linking it with the sad episodes in Charlottesvile, VA. If you don’t know about what I’m talking, you certainly haven’t watched news in the last days. It occurs that white supremacists (neo-Nazi and KKK) organized a march against the removal of a statue of the Confederate General Robert E. Lee, which motived both aggressions and a Antiracist march, which suffered an attack of a man who with his car ran over several people, killing one and leaving five in critical condition.

Therefore, I'll start by citing a text published in my Portuguese Blog some years ago (read here), in which I commented on my departure of Brazilian ONG called Liga Humanista Secular (Secular Humanist League), entity that I supported (and still support and agree with) in many fights against racism, sexism, sexual exploration, interference of the religion in the State, homophobia… Why did I leave the league? Because it took the attitude of silencing a facebook group, with which I disagreed, called Lobo Insano (Insane Wolf), a group which, at that time, I rated it as bad taste, with no intelligent humor, disgusting and appealing. However, in the same text I explained that the cause of my displeasure for the League was summarized in the expression Freedom of Expression (I’m sorry for the pun).

In my opinion, the fact that the League has silenced the Wolf's voice contradicts the maxim mistakenly attributed to Voltaire: “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it”; that is, it is not the fact of not agreeing, of being in bad taste, or of being disgusted with what you say which should give me the right to shut you up.

About Charlottesville, I confess if I lived there, I would be in second parade, and maybe I had been run over; I consider racism deplorable, however… The fact that I consider racism, sexism, homophobia or other things as deplorable, in my opinion, doesn’t give me the right to want to shut up those who defend them, as simple as that!

The fact is that, in Bastos's words, there is no "half freedom"; if you are free, but you sleep in prison, you aren’t a free man, but a prisoner in semi-open regime. And this freedom must be valid everywhere on any issue, and not be subjective as it is in Brazil, where freedom of expression is controlled by the state.

For many conservatives, for example, what we advocate (the League and I) when we speak out in favor of homosexual marriage or freedom of choice in relation to abortion, will certainly appear insane, disgusting, wrong, immoral, in bad taste; after all, it contradicts their world view; in the case of abortion we are even considered defenders of the murder. However, It is not the disagreement of such groups that should keep us silent. I was right and they wrong? In my opinion yes, in their opinion not. And who among us is right? Maybe I, maybe them, maybe no one.

If I think so, that I have the right to express myself freely, whether or not I like what I say, how can I deny this right to others? We must have the right to express our vision of the world, to fight for it, to press, to spread, even to know why we agree or dislike a certain idea... How can I say “no matter what you think; I think I am right and I will continue to manifest myself,” and at the same time say “you think different from me, therefore you have no right to manifest?”

For saying such things, you may consider me an asshole or, at least, someone with no sense of reality. Well, you can think so, and more, you can express your thinking about me, guess why? Because you enjoy freedom, that word that the human dream feeds, that there is nobody to explain and nobody who does not understand (according Brazilian writer Cecilia Meirelles).

Both here in Brazil and in the US, the justification for trying to shut up those we disagree with is moral, that is, the other group is morally and ethically wrong. When such matters arise, I always like to remember that morality and ethics, while fundamental to life in society, aren’t absolute values, but vary according to personal vision, they vary in time and space; that is, what counts for Brazil in the 21st Century, would be considered absurd in Brazil of the 19th Century, and even considered offensive in other countries in the middle of 2017; in other words, there is no “absolute moral and ethical truth,” there is what I am based on and why I fight, and what others are based on and why they fight. Maybe 100 years from now, what we stand for today as ethical values are seen as absurd and even disgusting; who knows?

With all the above, I make it clear that the physical assaults of both sides are indefensible, and the trampling is a crime that must be severely punished (I am happy to know that, it seems, the criminal will be tried for an act of terrorism). But morally and ethically right or wrong, one thing BOTH sides tried against was the right to free expression, something foreseen in the first amendment of the American Constitution, of which I have already declared myself a fan (read here). So, the episodes in Charlottesville aren’t demonstrating a greater politicization of the population against this bad, wrong and disgusting thing that is racism; on the contrary, it is a demonstration of what we know so well in Brazil: the radicalization of the sides being that want to silence each other. By the above, I think that silencing dissenting voices is as bad, wrong and disgusting as a group of white supremacists marching.