BY JONATHAN STRAUSS
Democratic Socialist Party national executive member Peter Boyle has questioned the October 10 ruling by Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commissioner Kathleen McEvoy against the far-right Adelaide Institute's web site.
McEvoy found that material on the web site breached the Racial Discrimination Act because it was "vilifactory, bullying, insulting and offensive" to the Jewish population. She said the institute's head, Frederick Toben, should remove the site's content and publish an apology for having "incited hatred against the Jewish people".
"The Adelaide Institute web site is racist and anti-Semitic", Boyle told Â鶹´«Ã½ Weekly following McEvoy's decision. "Holocaust denial or 'revisionism' has no concern for historical truth."
"However, those who oppose anti-Semitism need to be aware that the ban recommended by the human rights commissioner, if imposed by a court, will not be effective. Moreover, the method proposed by McEvoy to combat the Adelaide Institute's racism — legal censorship — can be turned around and used against those who are opposing racism. It gives capitalist governments, police and courts the power to decide, or at least try to influence, what we think."
Boyle pointed out, "Toben can now present himself as a martyr for free speech — a method he already uses to garner unwarranted interest in his ideas. He can claim, against acting racial discrimination commissioner Bill Jonas' view that 'it is never appropriate to victimise people of a certain race in the name of freedom of speech', that he is the one being victimised and those who don't want to be offended by his web site simply need not look.
"The left should not allow 'causing offence' to be grounds for legal action. The problem is not hypothetical. Take laws like those against 'offensive behaviour'. Police and courts in Australia appear to be grossly offended by people being on the street and being Aboriginal.
"After all, as a socialist, I think capitalism exploits people and I should tell people that. No doubt employers would be offended by this, and even feel victimised. If I managed to offend them enough — that is, if I convince enough people of my views — then they'll find some law, perhaps 'sedition', or get some law passed, to try to stop me. If I then claimed the right of free speech to defend myself, but had not consistently defended it for others, my defence would be weakened."
Boyle told Â鶹´«Ã½ Weekly that these issues arose in the campaign against the racism of Pauline Hanson and One Nation in 1996-98. "The policies of the Coalition and the ALP gave Hanson's ideas breathing space. Some of those opposed to One Nation wanted Hanson silenced: they were happy to see local councils deny One Nation meeting rooms and called on demonstrators to block entry to her meetings.
"Others advocated debating her ideas and uniting as many people as possible in a movement to oppose One Nation's racism, and did not require people to agree to the use of physical force to close down its meetings.
"The establishment media and politicians feared that position; they became apoplectic about the thousands of high school students who walked out of school and demonstrated against racism in 1998 because they know that a mass movement poses a much greater threat to their racist system than any amount of censorship of individual racists."