The World Press Freedom Index published recently shows that Malta has climbed two places in the global list of Press Freedom ranking 46th out of 180 countries in a situation where more world leaders are becoming increasingly paranoid about press freedom. I once firmly believed that an essential element for designers of Utopia was freedom of speech and the right to choose and not an allergy to these truths. By sheer coincidence I have just finished reading a glaring confirmation of this in Pamela and David Sington’s brief history of visionary realms entitled Paradise dreamed: how utopian thinkers have changed the modern world (London 1993).

David studied natural sciences at Trinity College, Cambridge and was subsequently awarded the highest honours in science journalism. Published after the fall of the Berlin Wall, in this book the Singtons demonstrate that it was not only communism the bane of freedom of speech. They pointed out that most literary utopias are inhabited by standardised androids, humans resembling robots, who bear only the dimmest resemblance to real people..

Let us for a moment leave local politics out of the equation and reflect upon the interminable blessings the good Lord has bestowed on our fair land, not least the freedom to choose, an undeniable right in a true democracy. In fact we are spoilt for choice – we support the political party we fancy, we decide on the education we give to our children, we support the parochial saint or band club we choose, the same goes for football, preferred singers and even religion.

Furthermore, both political parties have somewhat agreed on the abolition of criminal libel giving more opportunities to express their views. We take “the right to choose” and freedom of expression too much for granted. In such a pensive mood I groped for the merits of literary utopias of my student literature days.

We should not delude ourselves that utopian dreamers through the ages pontificated about the merits of freedom of choice which we expect in a modern western society. In my quest for the dtopian dream I delved into Utopia (1516) by Thomas More often attributed to have coined the word “utopia’ in which he pre-figures modern western society. In fact the surrealist Utopia of Thomas More, the Elizabethan profound scholar, to my great chagrin is a nightmarish drab conformity where everyone wears the same homespun clothes, all cities are built on the same plan and private property is unknown.

Furthermore, More’s dictat condemns law breakers to slavery and, travel is forbidden except by special licence. Adultery is a capital crime. Patriarchy is severe and once a month, wives kneel before their husbands to confess their sins and ask forgiveness. Surely this constitutes the total negation of what we, in western society believe in. St Thomas More’s vision of Utopia is most unsaintly and disgraceful.

Plato (c427-347BC) the great political philosopher who influenced western philosophical thought, set the trend when he ordained that his Republic, the pro-type of western utopia should be ruled by a caste of saintly self-denying philosophers markedly unlike any philosophers known to recorded history. Since eliminating human nature was the ultimate aim of utopians, it was vital that what normal people valued most dearly should be prohibited. Plato outlawed the right of parents to choose what was best for their children.

He condemned parental love, decreeing that children be cared by the community and not even know their real parents.

The Singtons’ fascinating book reveals that later utopians endorsed this tyrannical scheme, the dictat “not to choose”.

Freedom of speech is not a licence for character assassination, slander or defamation

The relatively unknown Italian shoemaker’s son and rebel monk Tommaso Campanella (1568-1639) ensured the abolition of family life in his City of the Sun by taking infants from their mothers as soon as they were weaned and handing them over to the State. The nuclear family was still a target of hatred and derision.

After my obvious revulsion of these utopian theories, I recalled a scholarly study of Erasmus (1466 - 1536) the humanist reformer who more than other figures stands at the centre of the two historical movements – the Renaissance and the Reformation. To me he is more familiar with the first, namely his belief in human reason and moderation rather than the uncompromised doctrinal positions of a rigid confessional allegiance.

Erasmus was a breath of fresh air who exuded humanity and freedom of expression, a Dutch humanist, the crowning glory of the Renaissance. Today his name is associated with the European Community Action Scheme for the mobility of University students.

Of the modern utopians Adolf Hitler is remarkable for his wildest dreams. He planned to create a vast rural utopia in Ukraine, after eliminating the “ridiculous hundred million Slavs” who happened to be living there.

More glaringly, the great utopian experiment of our era, that of Russian Communism, has failed irrevocably because it was utopian. In the 70 years it lasted, it bred human misery and repression of an unparalleled scale.

The only figures who come out with credit from this book are the relatively modern operators – pioneers of Garden Cities such as Ebenezer Howard (1850-1928 ) and the chocolate magnate George Cadbury, who built Bournville as a model estate for his workers, I believe that to classify these benefactors as utopians is somewhat misleading.

Unlike other utopians they did not try to alter human nature, though Cadbury, according to the Singtons, issued “rules of health” to Bournville residents advising them “not to let tea brew for more than three minutes”.

Such old type capitalist paternalism, concludes Dreamed Paradise, contrasts benignly with the maniacal utopian modernism of the great Swiss/French architect Le Corbusier (1887-1965) pioneer of pre-stressed concrete, who yearned for high-rise blocks crammed with humanity and sought the help of dictators Mussolini and Stalin, in order “to quell mankind’s anarchic individualism”.

If there really is any modern western society that literary Utopia prefigures, it would be good to know its location so as to be sure of not going there. What the Singtons’ collected utopias glaringly illustrate is not the splendour of intellectual aspirations but the folly of putting ungodly ideas before the real needs of mankind – mainly the freedom to choose in an ambience of freedom of speech.

However it has to be made clear that freedom of speech is not a licence for character assassination, slander or defamation. Neither is it a vehicle for the vilification of what a person holds dear or sacred.

Like all other human behaviour, freedom of speech can be used for good or for evil. Used well it can foster excellent human relations, friendship, tolerance, compassion, solidarity and respect for others; used badly it can inflict untold sufferings, misery and psychological repercussions.

Above all else it is a basic human right that needs to be nurtured and appreciated at all times. In a global epidemic of allergy to press freedom, journalists are often accused of “tilting at windmills” in the fashion of Cervantes’ Don Quixote’s imaginary foes, but we should always be on our guard to uphold our values.

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