Speakers' Corner and the Cancel Culture

Freedom of Expression and Why We Need It

Speakers’ Corner is located on the north-east edge of Hyde Park, nearest Marble Arch and Oxford St. The nearest tube station is Marble Arch.

Close to this spot, about 250 years ago, people were still being hanged at the infamous Tyburn Gallows. The gallows were installed in 1196 and by the time they were dismantled in 1783 more than 50, 000 people had been executed there. There were other places of execution in London.

On Monday 15 October 1660, Samuel Pepys recorded in his diary that “this morning Mr Carew [the regicide] was hanged and quartered at Charing Cross; but his quarters, by a great favour, are not to be hanged up.” Five days later he wrote, “I saw the limbs of some of our new traitors set upon Aldersgate, which was a sad sight to see; and a bloody week this and the last have been, there being ten hanged, drawn, and quartered”.

Everyone condemned to die at Tyburn could make a final speech. Some confessed; others protested their innocence or criticised the authorities. For onlookers, executions at Tyburn were big social events. Londoners could buy a ticket to watch executions from a seat on huge wooden platforms.

Eventually, the authorities decided the hangings were too rowdy and transferred them to Newgate Prison. But the tradition for protest and pleasure in Hyde Park continued.

The origins of Speakers' Corner as it is known today stem from 1866, when a meeting of the Reform League demanding the extension of the franchise, was suppressed by the Government. Marches and protests had long convened or terminated their routes in Hyde Park, often at Speakers' Corner itself. Finding the park locked, demonstrators tore up hundreds of yards of railings to gain access, and three days of rioting followed.

The next year, when a crowd of 150,000 defied another government ban and marched to Hyde Park, police and troops did not intervene. Spencer Walpole, the Home Secretary, resigned the next day. In the 1872 Parks Regulation Act, the right to meet and speak freely in Hyde Park was established through a series of regulations governing the conduct of meetings.

The speaking area of Hyde Park as defined in legislation extends far beyond Speakers Corner but it is here where most people congregate.

In addition, Hyde Park's long tradition of accommodating large public demonstrations and rallies continues today.

From 1906 to 1914 the suffragettes held large and small meetings in Hyde Park as part of their campaign for votes for women. In the summer of 1906 they had a meeting every week near to the Reformer's tree. During the Women's Day of 21 June 1908 250,000 women marched to Hyde Park to hear 20 different speaking platforms. In 1913 the Police banned the Women's Social and Political Union from meeting in the park, but the suffragettes defiantly continued to do so.

Historic figures such as Karl Marx, Vladimir Lenin and George Orwell were known to often use the area to demonstrate free speech.

By the 1930s "soapbox" orators were to be found in marketplaces, street corners and parks across the country. Of the estimated one hundred speaking places found weekly in London between 1855 and 1939, Speakers' Corner is the last to survive.

In the 1940’s George Orwell had described the place as "one of the minor wonders of the world", writing that in Hyde Park he had listened to "Indian nationalists, temperance reformers, Communists, Trotskyists, the Socialist Party of Great Britain (SPGB), the Catholic Evidence Society, freethinkers, vegetarians, Mormons, the Salvation Army, the Church Army, and a large variety of plain lunatics".

Even today, on a Sunday morning, it's not unusual to find crowds gathering at Speakers' Corner to listen to enthusiasts expounding their views. Anyone can turn up unannounced to speak on any subject, as long as the police consider their speeches lawful.

I have visited London on a number of occasions. If any of those visits include a Sunday, Speakers’ Corner is at the top of the day’s agenda. In 1981, the first time I went, there was a wide variety of speakers discussing a large number of different topics – politics, social issues, the evils of Mrs. Thatcher and her regime, religion – and there was heckling. But the heckling was more in the nature of a debate and speakers would engage with hecklers and a conversation often involving many voices would take place.

On my most recent visit in July – August 2024 we had two occasions to visit Speakers’ Corner. The variety of topics was reduced and in the main speakers were addressing religious topics in an atmosphere of fervent evangelism. And there were characters.

On the first visit the conversations and the heckling were interesting and the debates, although loud, passionate and at times outspoken to a degree that would not be tolerated in New Zealand, were not characterised by violence or even the threat of violence. The debate was as it should be – a vigorous exchange of ideas.

One speaker made it clear that he believed in evidence which I found to be an interesting approach to empiricism given that belief generally involves a matter of faith. Faith is belief without evidence – like the existence of God. I almost got involved but decided against it.

Another speaker was talking about procreation but the subject swiftly changed to statements like “gays and trans people cannot procreate”. He had his audience, which was small, but he had a good voice and could be heard from a distance. I wondered if he would have survived unscathed had he been in Albert Park during the Posie Parker fracas.

I have been (wrongly) characterised as a free speech absolutist but I lean more towards freedom of expression – the right to express and receive ideas as guaranteed by section 14 of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990 – than towards restricting same. I abhor censorship beyond material that is clearly objectionable as defined in the Films Videos and Publications Classification Act 1993. I am of the view that the Courts in New Zealand have been too ready to find “justified limitations” of the freedom of expression and are unwilling to properly consider the effect of the heckler’s veto or the operation of what is known as cancel culture which is used to silence disagreeable or contrarian views. One recent example may be found in the decisions of the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court in the case of Moncrieff-Spittle v Regional Facilities Auckland.

So it was a joy to see freedom of expression in action at Speakers’ Corner.

The crowd and speaker dynamics are interesting but seem to follow a pattern. Some speakers bring a small step ladder or podium. Others speak from the ground. Some speakers are regulars – others perhaps not so much. And rather like the line from Neil Diamond’s “Brother Loves Travelling Salvation Show” the discussion starts “soft and low – like a small earthquake”. Before long one of two people gather around. Then the heckling or the discussion – call it what you will – starts. Depending on how entertaining that discussion might be, the crowd will begin to gather and the discussion will increase in intensity. Others will throw in their two cents worth. Occasionally sub-discussions will set up between members of the audience and the group fragments to reform again.

One of the speakers whom I found very interesting was addressing Christian themes. He really knew how to engage with his audience. He had a good voice that carried and when a contrary point of view was put forward he would debate it but insisted on an evidence based discussion rather than unsupported comments.

He did his piece but wandered among other speakers and when things began to get heated (and on one Sunday they did get heated) he would step in and calm things down. And hovering in the distance were uniformed Police officers of which more later.

Perhaps the most amusing commentary came from two women who appeared to be from the Middle East. They were colourfully dressed and were very vocal about their particular cause. They attracted a considerable degree of attention and were ready to debate their position with vigour and eloquence.

So articulate were they, so difficult was it for hecklers to refute their arguments that one man in a brown polo shirt and wearing sunglasses proclaimed to the assembly “You are the reason why women should not have so much freedom”. The response was not hostility but amusement.

But despite the passion of the discussion what was notable, at least on my first visit was an absence of any form of violence or even a threat of violence. At no time did I see a clenched fist and if there was anger it was well disguised. What I saw was free speech – proper free speech – in action.

However, Speakers’ Corner has had outbreaks of violence. In July 2021 Christian evangelist Hatun Tash was stabbed by a man wearing a black Islamic robe. Hatun collapsed with blood running down her face and arm. She had to be taken to hospital to get her wounds treated. It is almost a miracle that she survived and wasn’t more seriously injured. As Hatun herself said: “Watching the video, the intention is clearly to kill me.”

Hatun is a regular attender at Speakers’ Corner. She is well-known for her bold preaching and her in-depth knowledge and understanding of Islam. She is very effective at what she does and has seen many Muslims convert to Christianity through her ministry. She was engaging in a friendly discussion with a Muslim when she was stabbed.

This was not the first time that Hatun had been assaulted at Speakers’ Corner. She has been hit, dragged to the floor, had her glasses broken, and had books stolen from her. None of her assailants have ever been arrested or even cautioned. The July 2021 attacker has so far not been caught either.

These outbreaks of violence account, I imagine, for the Police presence which was discreet and in the background.

 There is no doubt that the demographic has changed from my first visit in 1981. At least as many of the preachers are Muslim as Christian. Nevertheless, despite these changes, Speakers' Corner retains the unique buzz generated by the intensity and eccentricity of face-to-face argument.

This demographic shift became very clear on our second visit. There were three Christian evangelists speaking. One of them – apparently from Canada – occasionally blew a whistle when the debate became too heated – rather like a player acting as referee. It was a spectacle not without its amusement.  He was speaking from what could be described as a fundamentalist Christian perspective and he had quite an audience. Within the audience were a number of young men who made no secret of the fact that they were Muslims. Whenever they heard a statement with which they violently disagreed – such as “if you are not Christian you will go to Hell” - they would shout in chorus “SHUT UP” “SHUT UP” “SHUT UP” with a volume an intensity that drowned out the speaker who had to resort to his whistle.

Although this seemed to be good natured heckling it became apparent that the young men were co-ordinated by an elder and SHUT UP became ALLAHU AKBAR to the point that by sheer volume and repetition the hecklers were trying to drown out the speakers with whom they disagreed – the exercise of what is known as the “hecklers’ veto” in action.

This group of young men went from speaker to speaker trying to drown them out. One speaker who had a beautiful voice and an impassioned delivery engaged with the hecklers who were screaming “SHUT UP”.

“Why are you here?” he asked. “You come to Speakers’ Corner and you want us to shut up?’

The irony of the situation was not lost on the audience. Laughter can often defuse a situation.

And this brings me to an example of “SHUT UP” that has taken place here in New Zealand. It seems that the “hecklers’ veto” or “cancel culture” is alive and well and flourishing.

Hobson’s Pledge is an organization that advocates equality for all before the law regardless of origin. This is seen as a somewhat revolutionary concept although it was expressed by Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence as a self-evident truth – that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

When Hobson’s Pledge placed an advertisement on the front page of the New Zealand Herald, controversy erupted.

The advertisement – which was clearly noted as such at the top of the page – demanded the restoration of the foreshore and seabed to public ownership. The problem arises as a result of an interpretation of the Marine and Coastal Area Act by the Court of Appeal.

One possible outcome of that decision, it is suggested, is that Maori were on track to gain control of New Zealand’s entire coastline right out to the edge of the 12 nautical mile Territorial Sea. The question is a vexed one and much misunderstood. The predecessor to the Act – the Foreshore and Seabed legislation resulted in the formation of the Maori Party – now Te Pati Maori.

The Coalition Government announced a timetable for implementing their Coalition promise to restore the Marine and Coastal Area Act to what Parliament had originally intended with a limitation on the applicability of customary title.

 This prompted outrage from tribal leaders and threats to orchestrate a repeat of the protest action against Labour’s foreshore and seabed law change in 2004. One would expect that.

But the problem is deeper than that. The New Zealand Herald has come in for trenchant criticism for running the ad in the first place.

Te Pati Maori announced a boycott of the Herald, has demanded an apology and a review of standards and according to one report has threatened to complain to the Broadcasting Standards Authority. I think that the Advertising Standards Authority might be a better body for complaint.

In what is becoming a customary demonstration of the use of hyperbole Rawiri Waititi stated that “The New Zealand Herald have allowed themselves to be bought off by a well-resourced anti-Māori collective. They have promoted misinformation on their front page so they can feast off the anti-Māori agenda being pursued by this government.”

The boycott is the equivalent of shooting oneself in the foot. Political parties must have publicity. It is their oxygen. Te Pati Maori is good at publicity. Their representatives give new meaning to the term exaggeration and frequently engage in confrontational rhetoric. However, Debbie Ngarewa Packer of Te Pati Maori will no longer write a column for the Herald thus depriving readers of her point of view. It may well be that some Herald readers will be relieved at her decision.

Now of course Te Pati Maori are entitled to do this but why they would want to limit their lines of communications in the way suggested is counter-intuitive. Frankly I would prefer that they speak their piece so that we their audience can make out own judgements about their credentials, ideas, rationality (or otherwise).

Shilo Kino, writing in Te Ao News for 8 August, suggests that the advertisememt appears to be a news article and suggests that this is intentional, designed to mislead readers into believing the content is factual.

Clearly the heading to the advertisement has been overlooked. Whether this is negligence, naive or contrived is difficult to say. The image below is clearly marked “Advertisement placed by Hobson’s Pledge.

The article then goes on to critique the fact that the advertisement was placed in the first place and is also critical of the Herald for publishing a full-page advertisement from a Zionist group defending Israel, the very state responsible for one of the largest genocides in modern history.

Putting to one side the suggestion that what has been happening in Gaza is in fact genocide (and I shall be writing on the way in which this word is misused in another article) it is clear that the author disagrees with what is printed by the Herald, although the newspaper commented that “The content you refer to is a paid advertisement from an independent advertiser and is clearly labeled as such.”

The same applied to the Hobson’s Pledge advertisement.

The article then suggests that there are moral obligations not to publish certain material and that the Herald should not publish material simply because it is paid for. The author states:

“Publishing such an ad in both examples is extremely harmful and dangerous. Allowing misinformation or provocative material without proper analysis can have serious consequences for our communities here in Aotearoa.”

It is of course a common ploy to describe something with which someone disagrees as “misinformation”. The fact that material may be provocative does not mean that it should not be published. A similar case for censorship is suggested further in the article

“Allowing the Hobson’s Pledge group to advertise on the front page is harmful and destructive, using the guise of free speech to bypass accountability for the damage these kinds of narratives cause”

In this passage freedom of speech is described as a guise. In fact freedom of expression or freedom of speech is based on the requirement that it may well cause offence and Orwell cast it in the context of liberty stating “If liberty means anything at all it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.”

It may well be that Shilo Kino is outraged at the Herald for publishing the advertisement and is perfectly entitled to express that outrage. But it ill behoves Ms Kino to deny to Hobson’s Pledge a right that she enjoys simply because she disagrees with or is offended by the advertisement. She would be better employed debating the issue, as others later did, rather than suggesting that the Herald should not publish the material.

Similar sentiments to those of Ms Kino are expressed by other journalistic elements primarily speaking for Maori. This is to be expected. Most of the commentary echoes the themes expressed by Ms Kino are condemnatory of the Herald for running the advertisement at all.

An article on the 1News website does in fact attempt to engage with the issues. The article quotes a Maori legal expert, Carwyn Jones, who suggests that the advertisement is wrong. Under the Marine and Coastal Area Act title to the foreshore and seabed cannot be owned by anybody.

"It can't be owned by Māori and it's effectively held, owned by nobody. In many ways, the same kind of regime that you would expect in a public ownership regime exists.

"My thoughts were that this [ad] is incredibly misleading, inaccurate and clearly designed to whip up anti-Māori sentiment."

Customary marine title is a complex area and recognises the relationship of iwi, hapū or whānau with a part of the common marine and coastal area. It cannot be sold and free public access, fishing and other recreational activities are allowed to continue in customary marine title areas, according to Land Information New Zealand.

Despite the informative approach by Mr Jones, he too is critical of the advertisement.

Mr Jones’ view of the law was later supported by a number of legal experts as well as  the Māori Law Society, the Auckland Women Law Association and The New Zealand Women’s Law Journal and reported in the Herald for 14 August 2024. They too were critical of the advertisement but then set out four reasons why they say the advertisement was misleading. The Herald report states as follows:

“First, the advertisement calls for the ‘restoration’ of the foreshore to public ownership,” says the group of signatories.

The foreshore has never historically been in public ownership: it is not owned by anybody, except for the areas of the foreshore that are currently in (mainly non-Maori) private ownership.

Secondly, they say the ad implied that “customary marine titles” gave iwi, hāpu and/or whānau the right to own parts of the foreshore.

“This is not true. On the contrary, the legislation’s effective extinguishment of Māori property interests in the foreshore has been found to breach their human rights by UN human rights bodies that oversee New Zealand’s human rights compliance.”

Thirdly, they say the ad implied a “customary marine title” would prevent New Zealanders from accessing beaches, including to fish and swim.

“This is not true. The legislation enabling the award of customary marine titles secures public access to the foreshore.”

And fourthly, they say that “contrary to the impression created by the advertisement, there are very hard legal tests to be met before a wāhi tapu (including a rāhui) will be recognised”.

“Moreover, wāhi tapu are subject to statutory restrictions, and cannot, for example, prevent fishers from taking their lawful entitlement in a quota or fisheries management area.”

The group acknowledges that Hobson’s Pledge is entitled to “robust expression of opinion but are not entitled to mislead and deceive consumers” and suggests that the Herald should have investigated whether the information was misleading or deceptive.

Well known media expert, Dr Gavin Ellis is of the view that the Herald has not handled the issue well. He looks at the issue from the perspective of media responsibilities for advocacy advertising and points out that the right to free expression is not unlimited and judgement needs to be exercised in determining the boundaries in individual cases. This echoes the approaches of the Courts, the relativistic approach to freedom of expression and whether limiting that freedom is justified in a democratic society.

Dr. Ellis makes the following observation:

“The Advertising Standards Authority has acknowledged advocacy advertising presents some of the greatest challenges facing its complaints procedures. Before they reach the complaints stage (and the Hobson’s Pledge advertisement is apparently the subject of a number already), the same challenges face the publications asked to publish them. For that reason, the ASA has issued a fulsome guidance note on advocacy advertising.

This was a wrap-around of the Herald, meaning that, although it was clearly labelled as a paid advertisement, it sat directly beneath the paper’s own masthead, which is more significant than if it had been carried on an inside page. The connection with the masthead means even greater care needs to be taken by the publisher in determining whether to accept the advertisement for publication or not.

The question NZME has yet to answer is whether it subjected the material to all of the tests set out in the ASA guidance note. If it did so and all the tests were passed by the first advertisement, there is a compelling free speech argument for its publication. A decision to publish in such circumstances would benefit immensely from a disclosure statement from the editor (the custodian of the masthead) attesting to all of the steps that had been taken in judging fitness for publication. Similarly, readers should be informed whether the same tests had been applied in rejecting a second advertisement and how it differed from the one judged fit for publication.

The guidance note sets out a list of points against which an advocacy advertisement should be weighed:

·         It must be clearly identified as an advertisement

·         It must clearly state the identity and position of the advertiser

·         Opinion must be clearly distinguishable from factual information

·         Factual information must be able to be substantiated

·         Any combination of opinion and fact must be justifiable

·         It must not contain anything that is indecent, or exploitative, or degrading or likely to cause harm, or serious or widespread offence, or give rise to hostility, contempt, abuse, or ridicule

·         Heed must be taken of the likely consumer takeout of the advertisement (in other words, whether there is there a contextual justification)”

Dr Ellis in this explanation at least gives some guidance of the factors that should be taken into account with advocacy advertising. This is a refreshing and reasoned approach as is the approach of the academics who have engaged with the issues and have been prepared to debate them, giving reasons why Hobson’s Pledge may have got it wrong.

That approach is far preferable to the suggestion that the Herald SHUT UP – a manifestation of the cancel culture or the “hecklers’ veto”.

Indeed, the way in which this matter has developed demonstrates the value of freedom of expression. The publication of the advertisement engendered a knee-jerk “SHUT UP” response that was critical of the Herald. However, the publication of the advertisement drew out the academic point of view and engendered debate about the issue.

If the advertisement had not been published – if it had been suppressed – that debate would never have started. We would not have had the opportunity to consider the well-reasoned four point response to the claims in the advertisement.

This is why the freedom of expression is so important. Better to get the ideas out there and debate them even if that debate, like those at Speakers’ Corner is passionate and robust. Better to have contrary views put forward rather than yield to the cancel culture and SHUT UP

And indeed the Herald has yielded.

Hobson’s Choice wanted to run a second advertisement in the Herald. Shane Currie reported on 12 August that the Herald publisher will not run a planned new advertisement from the Hobson’s Pledge lobby group, following the publication of a controversial front-page newspaper ad last week.

The “SHUT UP” culture is alive, well and working it seems.