Abstract
Protecting free speech means supporting those you don’t like as much as those you do, writes
Earlier this year, I had the great privilege to spend time at the European Solidarity Centre in Gdansk, the birthplace of this astonishing movement. It was a chance to reflect on the way in which Solidarity drew together individuals from widely different industries and social strata who came together initially in support of striking ship workers and then recognised the power of that solidarity to achieve much greater change.
Recent movements such as #MeToo remind us of the continued importance of solidarity, but I worry that in many other cases we have forgotten the lessons taught by movements such as Solidarity in standing together – despite political or social differences – in support of a common principle. As Solidarity co-founder and former Polish president Lech Walesa observed: “The thing that lies at the foundation of positive change, the way I see it, is service to a fellow human being.”
An event held at the museum during my trip to Gdansk reminded me of this. I watched as representatives from different journalist unions discussed media freedom. As journalists from one group complained that they were being sidelined by new laws that gave increasing power to the new conservative Polish government, a conservative journalist hit back. “Where were you,” she asked, “when we were being shut out of the corridors of power? Where were your arguments about media freedom then?”
The point she makes is one often heard, too, in Turkey, where journalists now facing arrest and detention are accused of having failed to speak out vociferously enough when their colleagues on the other side of the political divide were being hounded under previous regimes.
It is not enough for us to stand for a principle only when it suits our political ambitions. If certain universal principles – such as the principle of media freedom or freedom of expression – are to be upheld, they must be defended even when those under threat are not those “on our side”. Acting in solidarity is what gives movements strength and individuals the strength to carry on: it is harder to hit many targets than one.
Index recognised this in 2015 when we called for all those who believed in freedom of expression to stand together to show their support for Charlie Hebdo, the French satirical magazine whose employees were murdered for having satirised Islam.
“We believe that only through solidarity – in showing that we truly defend all those who exercise their right to speak freely – can we defeat those who would use violence to silence free speech,” Index wrote in its call for simultaneous publications of Charlie Hebdo cartoons by other rights groups and media journalists.
Without such solidarity, those fighting to speak freely are alone – and vulnerable.
Matthew Caruana Galizia, the son of murdered Maltese journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, who is himself a journalist, speaks passionately about the importance of standing in solidarity.
“We have to let journalists in that position [of being harassed into censoring a story] know that they don’t have to self-censor; that within the international community of states and organisations, they have allies who will give them the backing that they need,” he told the Gdansk conference in February.
He described how one Polish journalist at the conference had defended Poland’s new Holocaust law. “Members of the audience chose to speak out against this outrage instead of remaining silent. Now we must tell Polish journalists that when the censorship law comes into force three months from today, it is their duty to break it, and that the international community will back them in doing so.”
Having someone’s back is easy when it’s a friend, or someone whose worldview accords with our own, but much more challenging when that person seems to sit in the enemy’s camp.
Former charity boss Kate Gross, who died from colon cancer aged just 36, captured this brilliantly in her blog The Nuisance, which later formed the basis of her book Late Fragments.
Solidarity leader Lech Walesa being carried during a strike in Poland, 1980
CREDIT: Sipa Press/Rex
“I wonder if compassion has to be practised,” she mused. “It is a muscle in our body, there from birth in all of us except the most psychopathic monsters. But it needs to be exercised; I can’t let it sit flabby and loose like my tattered abdominals and just expect it to suddenly power-lift weights. No, this muscle needs a regular workout.”
Acts of solidarity provide that workout: speaking out on behalf of the journalist whose views you abhor when her rights are being shredded; or in defence of the artist whose work you despise when he faces the censor’s axe; or in support of the politician whose opinions veer from your own when she faces jail. These are the acts that force us to put compassion into practice. In so doing, we act not just in service of our fellow human beings, as Walesa identified, but in service of humanity.
