The people who want to celebrate the slaughter of Jews have a right to free speech, just as we have a right to debate whether Australia needs more Muslims and mosques
You’ve got to give credit to Josh Lees, of the Palestinian Action Group, for proposing to pursue the legal right for him and other Mohammedans to gather and yell hackneyed anti-Jewish slogans on the streets of Sydney this Sunday, the day before the anniversary of the worst attack on Jews since the Holocaust, followed by a “candlelight vigil” the next day to mourn the death of Palestinians killed in the ensuing war.
As an Australian citizen, he has every right to challenge the state government’s ban on these rallies, which is supported by both Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and his Opposition counterpart Peter Dutton.
And here’s something you won’t hear from any other conservative commentator in the country: the courts should grant Lees permission to hold these protests, albeit with a caveat that is as old as our legal system: that they do not hinder other citizens from going about their own lawful business.
For the courts to do anything else would be to impose tyrannical restraints on the protesters’ free speech, which is (or was) considered a fundamental right in Australia.
If Mr Lees wants a conservative commentator to appear in court supporting his case, I’d be more than happy to oblige, on one condition: that on the day of the protest, he supports my right to stand among him and his friends and burn a Koran.
Do we have a deal, old son? If not, then maybe you and your mates should find a place where your one-sided attitude to free speech is more appreciated. I hear Gaza is nice this time of year.
Censorship is as fundamental to the leftist world view as child labour is to the batteries that power their cars and bicycles. Rational hypocrisy troubles not the mind that runs on raw emotion.
It’s disappointing, then, to witness conservatives also reaching for the censorship lever, even if it is of the most vile morons in our country.
Peter Dutton has said the proposed Palestinian marches are “utterly sickening” and should be banned.
On the contrary, that’s exactly why they should go ahead. If you want to defend free speech, then you need to defend the speech you hate.
I’ve heard that Dutton is planning to attend a Jewish memorial service on October 7, which is what you would expect a decent politician to do. Jews are a productive and harmonious group who have contributed much to our country, and almost all Australian Jews have friends or relatives who were killed on October 7. (If Prime Minister Anthony Albanese also attends a Jewish commemoration service, he will surprise us all, but will also infuriate his natural constituency, which he can’t afford to do at a time when his popularity is sinking like a stone.)
But here’s the nub of the problem: none of the Jewish organisations can freely advertise where these services will be held, for fear of attacks. Neither will Dutton’s office confirm if he is attending one, or where.
Let that sink in, as the cool kids say when they discover that the iPhone lenses they use to take crystal-clear selfies at Palestinian protest marches were developed in Israel.
The leader of the Australian federal Opposition can’t announce where he will commemorate the rape, torture and murder of innocent Israelis for fear that some other Australian citizens will take offence and express their disapproval in a manner that is more customary and satisfying to them than polite debate.
I say let the pro-Palestinians march on October 6 and 7. Let them screech abuse at the friends and relatives of those raped and murdered on that horrific day last year. Let them pretend that the deaths of Hamas and Hezbollah militants are as tragic as the babies and young women tortured and killed in their Israel homes.
There are two advantages to allowing them to express their feelings: We will be able to clearly see who these people are, and they will reveal the depth of their hatred for the only liberal democracy in the Middle East, a hatred they likely share for Australia itself.
And once both of those become clear, we can then exercise our own freedom of speech even further, by debating and even holding a referendum about whether we want any more mosques, or Muslims, in Australia.
Forgive me if I missed it, but I don’t recall us being asked if we even wanted this new demographic to colonise parts of our cities. My guess is that a referendum would return a resounding “no” to its continuation.
This is not, as some might misconstrue, my own attempt at censoring Islam in Australia. Nor is it antipathy towards individual Muslims. I’ve met some fine Muslims, including one at Bondi recently who happily participated in my random survey asking young blokes if they would fight to defend this lovely nation.
To butcher Martin Luther King, I’ll judge people by the content of their character, not the colour of their kaffiyeh.
But all societies require a basic level of cohesion to survive. The decline of our own cohesion correlates with the growing cohort of Muslims in our midst. We either debate it now or let the best of our culture – our mateship, freedom and secular values – to continue disappearing, to be replaced by the misery and fragmentation of “multiculturalism”. Future generations will rightly think us pathetic for not addressing this when we should. If we feel uncomfortable raising this question, then that is even more reason to do so. There is no law – yet – against debating what sort of society we want in the future.
When the British subjects living in the 13 American colonies in the 1770s had a similar debate, they came up with the defining declaration of our times: that all men are created equal, endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, including life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. From that, they built what was (and might still be) the most powerful and freest nation in the world.
Australians rarely acknowledge how much their peace and prosperity have relied on this revolutionary concept. Nor have we been inclined to debate the philosophy behind our own pursuit of happiness. Being founded by emancipated convicts and free settlers, it probably didn’t seem necessary.
But it’s time we did. And when we do, we will quickly realise how indispensable is free speech, and how Judeo-Christian values are the bedrock of our liberal democracy. Whether our Palestine-loving friends agree with this, we will soon find out.
This article originally appeared on Fred Pawle’s Substack and is republished by The Noticer with permission
