Now we have Labor MP Anne Aly seeking to widen 18C's net to include anti-Islamic speech.
Similar things can be said against some LGBTI-rights activists who seek to increase the cost of their opponents' freedom of speech and association through trying to imperil their livelihoods by haranguing their employers regarding their extra-vocational associations.
What good are freedom of speech and association laws when our own citizens seek to make them too costly, or inconvenient, or too unsafe to enjoy?
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Hirsi Ali's cancelled tour also raises the spectre of an Islamist threat to freedom of speech in Australia. Why would Hussain, an Islamic activist, tell a venue he would mobilise 5000 people on the night of her presentation? To intimidate.
Hussain's actions were not against the law, but they were against the spirit of our laws.
Clearly the spirit of freedom that historically animates Australia's laws - indeed, the West's laws - is increasingly at odds with the spirit of forced conformity that animates the hearts of many human rights activists and Islamic spokespeople.
As the cancellation of Hirsi Ali's tour shows, the most anti-totalitarian laws in the world are helpless against citizens with totalitarian hearts.
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About the Author
Stephen A Chavura
is a historian and political theorist. He teaches history and politics
at Macquarie University, Campion College, and the Lachlan Macquarie
Institute. His work has been published in journals such as the Australian Journal of Political Science, History of European Ideas, and Journal of Religious History. His first book, Tudor Protestant Political Thought, 1547-1603,
was published in 2011, and he is working on two other books, one on
secularism in Australia (ARC-funded) and another on freedom of speech.
He lives in Sydney's Inner West.
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