Hate speech is a crime. You can’t say thing like, “All blue people are murderers.” However, it is sometimes hard to draw the line between hate speech and free speech.
Two Canadian speakers, Lauren Southern and Stefan Molyneux, are touring Australia at the moment and planned to come to New Zealand next. Both speakers have far-right views about race – including blacks, Asians and Jews – and about immigration, feminism, Muslims and gender issues. However, they are careful to express these views as questions or possibilities. Lauren Southern for instance, was wearing a T-shirt which says, “It’s OK to be white.” Is this suggesting that white people are suffering from discrimination?
Both speakers have been banned from speaking in the UK. New Zealand has not banned them but Auckland Mayor, Phil Goff, will not allow them to hire a venue which belongs to the city council, paid for by rate payers. Now, a group of New Zealanders has raised $50,000 to challenge this decision. Members of the group say that a democracy is based upon free speech. We must allow these two people to speak so that we can make up our own minds.
If Southern and Molyneux speak in New Zealand, it’s possible there will be protests and noisy meetings. Perhaps in the UK, authorities were worried about violence.
Vocabulary
• far right (adj) – very conservative, close to fascism
• gender issues – male, female, transgender, homosexuality etc
• hire (v) – rent
• venue (n) – a place to hold an event, a meeting place
• rate-payers (n) – property owners in the city
• authorities (n) – government or police