Published in Snap Victoria Magazine May 2009

A crucial tenet of a functioning democratic society is free speech. Censorship is something we vociferously attribute to brutal, dictatorial regimes often branded official enemies. However, a careful analysis of our media and doctrinal system may reveal a deficit in free speech here at home where control of public opinion, as opposed to force, is relied upon to usurp free speech and democracy.

The role of the major agenda setting media – multinational corporations whose legal responsibility is to sell relatively privileged audiences to other corporations via advertising space – is to set sharp limits on the range of acceptable debate. It is the institutional structure of such media that prohibits the expression of opinion from a variety of sources. The analysis of our current economic crisis provides a case in point; trivial criticisms are aired – i.e. executive bonuses that defy any rational and sustainable concept of pay equity – while more fundamental criticisms are ignored – i.e. an economic system in which 20 percent of the population owns 70 percent of everything.

The control of public opinion extends, crucially, to our education system as well. Far from being a stimulant for free speech, post-secondary institutions also function to limit the range of acceptable debate. My alma mater, the Faculty of Business at the University of Victoria, recently hosted a panel discussion on the ‘current global financial crisis’ without a single panel member representing a critical perspective on the structure of our economic system. Crucially, censoring critical thought representing popular public sentiment extends further to the faculty’s Business Class magazine.

George Orwell notes in his unpublished introduction to Animal Farm that ‘unpopular ideas can be silenced, and inconvenient facts kept dark’ in democratic England ‘without any need for any official ban’ because an education instills the principle that there are some things ‘it wouldn’t do’ to say. Unfortunately, our doctrinal system appreciates that unless public opinion is controlled, the population will not willingly accept a subordinate role to unrepresentative systems of power.

Optimism of the will, however, remains. With non-corporate media organizations addressing the pent-up demand for independent, fact-based news and information, many are now more than ever able to break the shackles of our doctrinal system.

www.sahota.org

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