Prof Gyampo Writes: Democracy, free speech and the survival of the Ghanaian polity

Democracy is about free speech, but both in its classical and modern representative form, the founding fathers of this system of government, including Cleisthenes, Solon, Locke, Jefferson, Madison, Washington, etc., never even insinuated that freedom of speech is licentious for buffoonery and foolish talk. They encouraged dissent, knowing we cannot all agree.

But the kind of speech they said we could make freely, in expressing our dissent, was civil, decorous, not divisive, not reckless and not the kind that could palpably tantamount to coup d’etat (which in French means killing the state). Indeed, coups d’état are not staged with guns alone; some speeches, especially the insulting ones that incite hatred, can also amount to coup’ d’etat, killing the state, and there are examples across the globe of how speech recklessness has impacted state survival.

It is therefore nation wrecking for anyone in a democracy to encourage the use of insults, intemperate language and words that threaten the very survival of democracy, and insist that victims affected could simply go to court to institute civil suits. Nation-building inter alia dictates that such divisive conduct must not occur at all in the first place. In other words, democracy and free speech are not
about encouraging others to be vituperative in their utterances and telling those affected to go to court.

Those who are well socialised in the dogmas of nation-building and democratic practice would insist that insults and the use of the kind of language that plays on the emotional key boards of people, and could plunge the entire society into chaos, should not be used in the first place.

One distinct feature of politics is GUARANTEED DISAGREEMENT. Society would crumble the very day we all think alike, so by all means, let’s disagree, let there be expression of dissent and let us argue. But let’s do so like people who, first of all, have a culture that enjoins us to be civil, and secondly, as a people who appreciate the true canons of democracy.

It can take up to five years for a simple suit of defamation to be judged by the courts. How many reasonable people would have the patience for this remedy when they are defamed? I make the point again that it is democratically unreasonable to encourage insults and direct affected victims to the law courts. Rwanda got inflamed just because of how language was used.

In our part of the world, sometimes, those who insult and are reckless in their speech aren’t even the problem. Those who won’t insult but cheer on those who insult, and cheaply tell victims to go to court, are the ones who are nation wreckers. If we don’t take care, one day, by the time the court decides on a defamatory suit, the whole nation would have already been engulfed in something else I can never mention or wish for our dear country, Ghana.

Let us be careful as a people, for we are merely a transitional democracy, having climbed only one step on the ladder of democratic progression from authoritarianism. We must guard against implosion and democratic relapse. We must speak freely, but freedom of speech is not coterminous with recklessness, buffoonery and foolish talk. It is also nation wrecking to encourage people to do these and tell victims to go to court. Democratically reasonable people would insist that we must not encourage the offence in the first place.

Yaw Gyampo
A31, Prabiw
PAV Ansah Street
Saltpond
&
Suro Nipa House
Behind Old Post Office
Larteh- Akuapim

المصدر: MyJoyOnline (GH)