Power is the enemy of free speech

From of a letter to the The Independent, published today:

Power is the enemy of free speech

Sir: Both Johann Hari and Adrian Hamilton's columns (9 February) were important contributions to the current debate about free speech vs religious sensitivity in our beleaguered times.

When English PEN celebrated the House of Commons vote (31 January) in favour of the Lord's amendments to the Racial and Religious hatred Bill, we recognised that this was not only a victory for us but for the intricate processes of parliamentary democracy so dependent on that very freedom.

However, we knew, in Philip Pullman's words, that there would be "a continued need for vigilance": power, whether religious or secular, is always jealous, hates ridicule and any representation of itself that it doesn't control.

The problem in the west today is that we (and that "we" includes people of all faiths and none) are unwilling to think of religion as a cloak for power. We collude in seeing its symbols either as signs of holiness or, in migrant groups, as a comfort for the very humiliations of poverty and lack of belonging that the host society inflicts. If the Danish cartoons were offensive, it was because they targeted an immigrant group in a stereotypical way. The sense of humiliation they felt is better dealt with by addressing social problems. Religious leaders would do better to provide help for the community at home than to seek solace in jihadist movements abroad.

The reason free speech is crucial is that its opponent is most often power - whether the soft British state, Hitler's totalitarian one, the Catholic Church or Islamic orthodoxies, which in their own states are quick to lock up dissidents of all kinds.

Powerful institutions use different arguments against free speech - "national security", "multicultural harmony", "sacrilege" or "blasphemy" - but all these attempts to limit free speech are in the service of power, not of the higher values behind which they parade. It is in the interest of our plural democracies that as long as expression does not directly incite violence, it be kept free. Better to suffer the occasional offence than the full force of religious or state oppression.

LISA APPIGNANESI

DEPUTY PRESIDENT, ENGLISH 'PEN' LONDON N19