"'George Orwell—a democratic socialist writer—wrote his work 'Nineteen Eighty-Four'—a dystopian social science fiction novel and cautionary tale—in 1944. The story takes place in an imagined future, forty years later, in the year 1984, when much of the world has fallen victim to perpetual war, omnipresent government surveillance, historical negationism, and propaganda. Nineteen Eighty-Four has become a classic literary example of political and dystopian—relating to or denoting an imagined state or society where there is great suffering or injustice—fiction. Many terms used in the novel become common usage, including 'Big Brother', 'doublethink', 'Thought Police', 'thoughtcrime', 'Newspeak', and '2 + 2 = 5,' said the Political Prisoner in a jail, while opening a letter he received from his wife, 'Laluna began a story after saying Basmalah and Salaam. "'In the situation I'm expriencing right now,' the Prisoner added, 'I think, Democracy has a strange behavior. You cannot stop a chariot with another chariot, but with cavalry. You cannot fight a General with a General, but with as many as battalion of armed forces. And you won't be able to overthrow a King, or a Ruler, except with a united people. The worst thing is that, what if the people, not willing to unite?'
He was silent for a moment, then softly, singin',
Oh, it hurts the most 'cause I don't know the cause
Maybe I shouldn't have cried when you left and told me not to wait
Oh, it kills the most to say that I still care
Now I'm left tryna rewind the times you held and kissed me there *)
He then moved on, 'And in my time, and in the country where I take refuge—in the land of Emerald, brothers, sisters, father, mother, uncles, aunts, even grandparents, will all go to prison, just because they insulted the government, or rather, what they called, contempt of the State Institutions.
And I started to question, is it still there a a Right of Freedom of Expression? In other words, what is the conception of a human right that frames my inquiry regarding freedom of expression? When one claims a 'human right,' what kind of claim is one making, and how might one justify it? The kind of human rights claim I am interested in is one that equates a human right with a moral right that exists apart from any particular legal or institutional arrangement, national, ethnic, or religious identity, tradition, or historical circumstance. Allen Buchanan and David Golove put it this way, 'By definition, human rights are those moral entitlements that accrue to all persons, regardless of whether they are members of this or that particular polity, race, ethnicity, religion, or other social grouping.' Put succinctly, a human right is a moral right that can be validly invoked by any person, at any time or place.
Human rights as moral rights entail obligations on others. The obligations can be negative ones—obligations to forbear from actions that impede a liberty protected by the moral right or that threaten some good, such as life or property, protected by the right. Alternatively, the obligations can be positive ones requiring those subject to them to provide others with specific goods or services. A right to freedom of expression is normally thought at its core to entail the negative obligation that government not penalize the exercise of a certain liberty or set of liberties. Nevertheless, the right of freedom of expression is sometimes deemed to place negative obligations on at least some non-governmental actors. And it is sometimes invoked to support positive obligations—almost always on governments—to provide persons with means—for example, media outlets—and capacities—for example, information and education—for expressing themselves.
Some might argue that I have mischaracterized human rights by deeming them to be moral rights. They would contend that human rights are legal rights established by international treaties and conventions or by customary international law. Thus, Article 19 of The Universal Declaration of Human Rights provides that 'Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression.'
And Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, section 2, declares that 'Everyone shall have the right to freedom of expression.'
It is these international conventions, and the subscription thereto by the nations of the world, that create and define the right of freedom of expression. The human right of freedom of expression is a posited, dateable legal right, not a timeless moral right that preexists the instruments of international law.I do not find this argument persuasive. It is true that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights are legal instruments, at least when nations subscribe to them, or when they become norms of customary international law. That point conceded, however, examination of the language of these documents reveals that they assume a preexisting right of freedom of expression to which they refer and declare to be henceforth a right under international law. In that respect, they are similar to the First Amendment of the United States Constitution, which itself refers to 'the freedom of speech' as if the content and scope of that freedom is independent of and preexists the First Amendment itself.
Freedom of speech, which is often used synonymously with freedom of expression, has always been thought to cover more than what is literally speech, that is, spoken language. For example, no one disputes that it covers written language as well as spoken language. Moreover, it is difficult to see how it could be withheld from sign language, pictographs, pictures, movies, plays, and so forth; and, indeed, the legal protection afforded freedom of speech in countries such as the United States has been extended to all of these media of communication and expression, as well as to abstract artistic and musical performances.
Usually, then, freedom of speech refers to—and is frequently referred to as—freedom of expression or freedom of communication. It is commonplace to distinguish between 'speech' and 'symbolic speech.'
All speech employs symbols, whether they be sounds, shapes, gestures, pictures, or any other medium. There is thus no such thing as nonsymbolic speech; there is only speech that employs symbols that are less or more conventional. The same point also applies to any purported distinction between speech or expression and 'conduct' or 'action.' All expression requires conduct of some sort, and any conduct can be communicative. The conclusions to be drawn are that freedom of speech or expression should be thought of as freedom of communication, and that there are no a priori limits on the media of communication that such freedom encompasses.'
A moment later, he opened the letter and read it. His wife asked briefly,
'Dear husband, I have decided to plant some lettuce in the back garden. When is the best time to plant them?'
Knowing that the prison guards read all mail, in and out, after thinking, reasoning and deliberating, the Prisoner replied in a letter,
'Dear wife, whatever you do, please do not touch the back garden. That is where I hid all the money.'
Putting his letter in the envelope, the Prisoner sang,
Oh, it's harder when you can't see through their thoughts
Not that I wanna get in but I want to see how your mind works
No, it's harder when they don't know what they've done
Thinking it's best that they leave, meaning that I'll have to move on *)
Afterwards, he said, 'What will going to happen, we'll see!'
[Part 2]
