From: gavan@elc.mth.uct.ac.za (Gavan Tredoux)
Newsgroups: sanet.talk.politics,soc.culture.african
Subject: Re: Freedom of Expression
Date: 20 Aug 92 14:18:22 GMT
Article-I.D.: ucthpx.1992Aug20.141822.20762
Organization: University of Cape Town
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL4

scott@concave.cs.wits.ac.za (Scott Hazelhurst) writes:
 
: Where's the right to freedom of expression? The ANC can say what
: they want. If they want they have the right to call for you to
: wear pink underpants. You don't have to listen to them.

Naturally. Actually, they aren't simply voicing opinions,
to which I have no objection, but they're trying to place
people under pressure by having tours cancelled, trying to have
people searched at grounds for flags, trying to have their
freedom of expression stopped. They are actively trying to remove
the freedom of expression of others, by words AND actions.
Thats the crucial difference. Freedom only extends as
far as it does not interfere with the equal freedom of others.

Contrast this to waving a flag at a rugby match, nothing could
be more harmless and interfere less with the freedom of others.

One must note that the principal threat the ANC has in this regard
is "mass action" - which it is threatening to use. This includes
all sorts of things, including the threat of violence, and disruption
which is NOT freedom of expression. This is what touring teams would be
scared of. They wouldn't give a hoot if the ANC simply opposed themselves
to a tour - it's what that opposition connotes that scares them.
It's called intimidation, hectoring, bullying.

It's like claiming freedom of speech when arranging a murder, because
that involves speech, when inciting others to violence, because
that involves speech, etc etc. That is where freedom of speech stops.
Speech that ACTIVELY attempts to remove the freedom of speech of
others, when that is a clear and present danger, is not free. A well-known
legal principle. Try Justice Learned Hand.
  
: Persecuted. Oh please. If they are going to do silly things then they
: must expect to be laughed at. Rugby isn't sacred and neither
: are the spectators.

Laughed at? They're threatened with no more internationals.
Horse laughter from the ANC (or you) threatens nobody, because
nobody cares. Why don't they just laugh then and forget it? No,
they'd much rather bully people. 
 
: My understanding of liberalism is that it cherished
: the clash of ideas (not just of rugby teams). you now insist that
: I meekly accept whatever they do. Not only don't you have a
: bleeding heart, you don't even understand liberalism (long
: essays notwithstanding).
 
Nothing wrong with ideas, unless of course they're ideas
that attempt to suppress other ideas AND THERE IS A CLEAR
AND PRESENT DANGER THAT THEY WILL ACTIVELY DO SO - where the other ideas
do not themselves.

The way the ANC disrupts tours is hardly an expression of an idea.
It's thuggery, on a mass scale. What would we see? Flour bombs,
assaults, vandalism of property, death threats, petrol bombs?
How about occupation of buildings, dumping of night-soil, and
ululating masses intent on drumming up terror?

All been seen before. That's what is at stake here, and that's why
people will not tour if they are told that the "ANC is opposed".

Gavan Tredoux
UCT

"Uit die blou van onse hemel"