21st Century. 25 Years: Death of free speech

Who is Lucy Connolly ? If you are aware of the name, you would realize that one of the bedrocks of the self proclaimed superiority of the Western civilization, which is free speech, has been in terminal decline in the 21st century. In case you do not recall her name, the son of migrants from Rwanda took a knife, went to a school in Southport in England and stabbed three young girls to death, apart from injuring many others in 2024 This triggered a lot of anger and resulted even in violence and riots against illegal immigrants in UK. Lucy  is a mother of a 12 year old daughter, and she posted a diatribe on X, formerly Twitter, which denounced the murders and ranted against the violence caused by illegal immigrants. She was charged with inciting hatred; she was prosecuted, and she was given a sentence of 31 months in prison. It’s only in 2025 after serving her statutory sentence that Lucy  was released. Now Lucy represents just one of the numerous developments that have occurred in the United States and Europe and in Canada that have completely destroyed the claims of the Western countries that they hold free speech in great value. There is a well known, though low profile billionaire called Pavel Durov, who founded the social media platform Telegram with 900 million subscribers was arrested in France in 2024 and charged with abetting criminal activities. The real reason: Telegram is encrypted and Pavel  was not willing to share encrypted details with the European authorities. Currently, Pavel Durov has been given the freedom to leave France and live temporarily in Dubai. 

Similarly, there is the celebrated Case of Dr Jay Bhattacharya, who is currently the Director of the National Institute of Health in the United States. He was a very, very well known and renowned Doctor of Medicine at Stanford University during the times of the Covid  pandemic, Dr Bhattacharya took to X, which was then Twitter, and repeatedly claimed that indiscriminate masking and indiscriminate closure of schools and other places of work and leisure were actually counterproductive. Dr J Bhattacharya was deplatformed by Twitter, actually blacklisted him and his tweets were removed from Twitter Trends. It was much later that it was discovered that this was done under pressure from federal agencies.

Then let’s go back to the United Kingdom all over again. All of us know about the famous author of the Harry Potter series, J, K Rowling. She is one of the most celebrated and easily one of the largest selling authors of the 21st Century. Now, J K Rowling supported a college teacher who said that she believes genuinely that there can only be two sexes, one male and one female. The transgender community was up in arms, and she was sacked from her job. J, K. Rowling came out in open support of her and said that there are only two sexes, XY chromosome and  XX chromosomes. So  furious was the backlash that even JK Rowling was deplatformed, and so terrible was the deplatforming that the Hollywood producers of this Harry Potter series of movies removed her name, face and everything else from the promotions of the movie. These are just a few examples. If you start counting, there would be more than 25 such instances in Europe, North America, where free speech has been sacrificed at the altar of social cohesion, or because it offends some people’s feelings. 

Look at Canada under Justin Trudeau. During Covid, a lot of truckers started protesting the lockdowns and gathered to register their protest. Not only were they arrested, but they were also completely de platformed, and their bank accounts were frozen. So much for free speech and the habit of Western countries to hector and lecture Asian countries when it comes to upholding the values of free speech and individual liberty. 

Now don’t for a moment think that Asia is a paragon when it comes to upholding free speech. India did enjoy absolute free speech between 1947 and 1951. But then the First Amendment killed it. The problem is, Asia has learned to live with complicated social scenarios and multi ethnic societies where these problems are a routine occurrence. It’s only in the 21st Century that European countries and North America are experiencing what has been described as multiculturalism, and they have failed, and failed miserably. Just to recall, there was one experiment at multiculturalism in the 20th century in Europe that was called Yugoslavia in the aftermath of the Second World War, But soon after, the authoritarian ruler of Yugoslavia, Marshall Tito, passed away. Yugoslavia broke up into fragments in a violent spasm of ethnic discord and ethnic disputes. So you have Serbia, you have Croatia, you have Bosnia, which are separate countries now. In effect, multiculturalism back in the 20th century, failed in the western societies, and the developments that we have witnessed over the last 25 years In this century are a clear indication that free speech is just a convenient tool to be used to hector countries in the so called third world or the second world. But  when it comes to your own backyard, free speech is something which can be comfortably dispensed with.

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