True, not all those who withdrew in Bendigo resorted to free speech arguments. There is no sense those wishing specifically to stand in solidarity with Palestinian voices, or insisting they use their platform to call out genocide, would stand in similar solidarity with a silenced Israeli voice, or object to the removal of a speaker who wished to mount, say, a defence of white settlement in Australia. Their commitment to safety politics is consistent, just partial. It applies only to the marginalised, and not the powerful. Of course, this presumes such categories are uncontestable, and we’re seeing how that now plays out. So, for instance, it currently seems to exclude Zionists, even if that describes a majority of Australian Jews (who define it in lots of different ways), and even if that community is facing very real prejudice and intimidation.
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But all this shows just how promiscuous these politics of safety can be. I understand the appeal, especially to those who feel the marketplace of ideas tends to favour the rich, the powerful, the culturally dominant. That it tends to sideline marginalised, minority voices. But if the only way it can be invoked consistently is to make some prior judgment about who deserves such safety; if we must first tabulate oppressor and oppressed, powerful and meek, then the whole thing becomes an exercise in power anyway: a contest over who decides such things. At that point, it becomes a weapon that, however useful it appears in a given moment, will eventually be used against you. Unfortunately, some of safetyism’s proponents never seem to have considered that possibility until now, and some of its long-standing critics seem unaware of their sudden conversion to it.
Now that we’re here, now that people across the political spectrum have been singed by safetyism’s flame, might we take this opportunity to reassess? Could we draw a common lesson, based on a newly common experience, that in arenas dedicated to public debate, safety makes a poor organising principle? Because if we look closely, in this wreckage lies a certain celebration of what we’ve long had. Not free speech absolutism, but a broad public debate silencing a carefully defined hate speech and little else. Painful, imperfect, in need of more representative voices, but at least capable of surviving beyond one’s own politics, of being applied consistently and – perhaps most important – inconveniently. That may seem a modest virtue, but this heightened moment shows it might be a vital one.
Waleed Aly is a broadcaster, author, academic and regular columnist.