FROM THE ARCHIVES: Speech to FIT on World Press Freedom Day, 2007
WORLD PRESS/MEDIA FREEDOM
Prepared for FIT 3 May 2007
Yesterday, the Daily Post delivered an editorial that made the very obvious point that media work can be life-threatening. For example, so far this year worldwide, RSF has tallied 24 journalists killed, 125 imprisoned and 65 cyber-reporters jailed. It is to their lost freedom I dedicate my thoughts, as well as to the media heroes here in Fiji who have through difficult times managed the mikes, written the stories and got the news out - not because they are merely holding down a job, but because they believe in what they are doing. I salute you.
Media freedom is human freedom
Media freedom is not freedom for the tools of media work, but freedom for the humans who operate them. That freedom comes with the territory of being human. We don’t have to apologise for having that freedom any more than we need apologise for having an arm or a leg. Freedom is endowed to us at birth by the Creator. Freedom is not a privilege therefore, it is a right. A privilege is something you don’t deserve; a right is something you do deserve. It’s yours. It’s ours. It doesn’t pertain to the fact we are media workers, but to the fact of being human.
Freedom of the media, of the press, is therefore not an unusual or special kind of freedom, it is a freedom that comes naturally from the innate desire to want to express a point of view about the world, how we read it, how we see it, how we interpret it.
Media freedom touches every other freedom and right
It is more than that, it is freedom that incorporates other kinds of freedoms - such as the freedom of movement, freedom to research, to consult, to consort, to assemble and of association. Freedom for the media entails a right to privacy, to education, and to property. It engages with the right to be free of harassment and persecution on account of one’s beliefs. All of this is encompassed in media freedom. It isn’t therefore a small or restricted or even specific freedom – despite the manner in which it is defined.
Freedom isn’t free until it is tested
Freedom becomes taken-for-granted by most citizens. It is not something appreciated until it is denied us, until it is risked being taken away or limited. One does not discover that freedom by silence. It is does not come by mere head-knowledge either, by writing safe thoughts, or by writing propaganda. It does not come via academic learning. It is not discovered in textbooks or lectures (such as this). These only allude to where that freedom is found.
Rather, it is found in the experience of challenging the status-quo. Discovering that freedom requires media work which is critical rather than apologetic. By rattling the skeletons in the cupboard. By standing for freedom itself against those who seek to inhibit it and against those who worship censorship.
The example of the Danish cartoons
In this respect, nothing so tested media freedom world-wide last year as the publication by a Danish newspaper of cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed. As Reporters Without Borders put it, this ‘focused the world’s attention in 2006 on the issue of freedom of expression and respect for religious beliefs. Democratic countries did not defend Denmark, whose embassies were attacked, or the journalists who were threatened and arrested. Europe especially seemed to choose silence for fear of offending Arab or Muslims regimes’ [RSF].
We at the Daily Post, of course, had our own trials on this front after we published a small quarter-page representation of the cartoons and an article explaining what the fuss was about in order to appraise our readers of the issues. For this we were met with a lunch’n’lecture from the Malaysian High Commissioner, a public television dressing down from then Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase, and boycotts and threats from some of our angry readers and advertisers.
Freedom is a universal right, not a cultural invention
The RSF 2007 World Press Freedom Index ranks Fiji 59th; NZ is ranked 19th. Surprisingly, Australia is ranked 35th. After the appearance of one of my articles on the subject of West Papua in the leading Australian daily, The Age, the newspaper sent me a thick envelope chocked with angry, threatening letters full of bile from Indonesians who were disgusted that I could possibly have a point of view which differed from theirs.
The point made to me by this, is that freedom is culturally understood and different societies have different ideas of how much freedom should be tolerated. I found this out first-hand when armed soldiers entered the offices of the Daily Post – which for me was a great shock. The point was reinforced later up at the military camp when it was made clear that I had no right, was not free, to complain about the coup to the Australian media – ‘this is Fiji, this is not Australia’ I was repeatedly told. Again, a couple of weeks later, someone claiming to be a military intelligence officer confronted me at a lonely ATM late one night and repeatedly reminded me to ‘zip it’ as he put it, ‘or else you will be running around the camp’.
Media freedom exists when diversity and self-criticism are tolerated
The sign of a mature society is its ability to distinguish unity from uniformity and its ability to cope with diversity and self-criticism, to ‘unzip it’ as it were.
If media freedom means anything it means hearing what we don’t want to hear from those we don’t want to speak through a range of media we can’t control.
If we can live with that without dispatching control-patrols to do their work, we really will have come a long way.
Media freedom is a process not a point of arrival
Finally, because there is no final station on the road to freedom - it goes on forever - media freedom can know no end point either. We never arrive at it; it is always a process, a journey of becoming and discovery. The horizon of what is news, and the limits of what is truth shift even further as we approach them. I pray that we all can keep going along that road no matter where it takes us.
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