Photo by Jennifer Moo
Louis Jung is keen on free speech. So keen that the international student founded the University of British Columbia (UBC) Free Speech Club.
Jung feels that Canada, North America and Europe are world renowned for their censorship culture. He doesn’t like that. He says that while in the military in South Korea, he could freely express himself there and no one would take offence.
“I really like that culture where you can express yourself even if people disagree. They will politely disagree with you. They’ll be curious why you believe something instead of just outright calling you names, like racist, sexist or homophobe. It seems the list of different insults is growing nowadays,” he says.
Making waves to get the conversation going
Jung, who recently came to Canada from South Korea to study architecture, decided to start a freedom of speech club as a backlash to political correctness. The club, he says, has 250 members signed up, but only 30 or so students show up for the events. One controversial event he held was the “Make Canada Great” campaign. He got corporate sponsors to print big and bold hats with ”Make Canada Great Again” on them. Before the election in the United States, he says, everyone looked down on Donald Trump.
“If I were to give a counter argument, they would call me a racist, sexist, or some kind of bad name,” he says, noting that the baseball caps they themselves wore during their campaign they now consider iconic.
Two types of people responded negatively to this campaign, says Jung: those who just yelled at them and called them names and walked away, and those who tried to argue with them. According to Jung, the latter was the best reaction the club could hope for.
“That’s the best part of it [the discussions]. That’s how I know I’m making a difference. If everyone is apathetic about it, I know for sure I’m just wasting my time,” Jung says.
“I believe that open discussion, open debates lead to a healthy society, a healthy community, a healthy democracy. I hope that the club can prevent laws against free speech being passed like what happened in Korea or what happened in China because I’ve seen this first-hand,” says Jung.
The club is not intending to influence politics, says Jung. They want to influence culture.
“But the end goal is to prevent a culture that would stand idly by while an anti-free speech law is passed. I want a culture where it is the societal norm to believe that I may disagree with your viewpoint but I will risk my life to defend your right to say it,” he says.
Double standards
Shahzad Mansoory, member of the editorial board of Alameen.| Photo courtesy of Al-Ameen Media
Mohammed Jafar Bhamji, managing editor of Al-Ameen Post, a Surrey-based publication that serves Metro Vancouver, says there is a fine line between free speech and hate speech, which most media understand. Mentioning the use of caricatures (cartoons) in Charlie Hebdo, a French satirical weekly magazine, he says that most Canadian media didn’t republish them after the terrorist attacks on the Charlie Hebdo office, not because they were afraid of being attacked, but in order to maintain peace. He feels that Charlie Hebdo had nothing to do with free speech.
“The media that covered it [here] under the guise of free speech are actually trying to prove a point to the rest of Canadians. It gives them an opportunity to propagate hate against a community that is completely ill-equipped to defend itself,” he explains.
Bhamji also feels there are double standards and hypocrisy for publishing – one set for Muslims and one set for the rest.
“The media outlets that did decide to publish the offensive cartoons would never publish material that denigrate or even stereotype Blacks, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, or Christians or poke fun at the Germans for the Holocaust or Canadians about their dark history with the aboriginals native Indians (sic),” he says.
Shahzad Mansoory, a member of the editorial board of Al-Ameen Post, also says there is a double standard – specifically within western society’s interpretation of “freedom of speech” as well as “political correctness.”
“Although [religious organizations] are guaranteed under the Charter to exercise their beliefs freely, without condemnation or retribution, and they are not misquoting anything from their texts, or crafting their own narrative based on their whims, they are still seen as abusers [for speaking out against issues like abortion or LGBT]. Their ‘freedom of speech’ has been silenced in favour of ‘political correctness,’ favouring ‘political will’ or the direction politicians have taken in order to garner votes. These groups exercising their ‘freedom of speech’ are seen as going against the popular belief or trend, thus automatically become the targets,” Mansoory says.
On the other hand, Mansoory feels that when the same right wing groups speak out falsely on some right wing agenda, or propaganda against Islam and Muslims, it is considered acceptable because they are exercising their “freedom of speech”.
He thinks that freedom of speech is more liberal in Canada and the United States, adding that there seems to be no direct consequences to individuals expressing their opinions and views against the political establishments. However, he feels that there can be indirect consequences if an individual or the media does not toe the line in accordance with the whims and desires of the political leadership.
