A long-winded way of telling us what we already know.

If anyone who regularly uses OLO doesn't know that freedom of speech is confined to one side of any argument by most people (both sides) they won't be enlightened by this piece.

Ah, the children of the "enlightenment" going full circle to what the fathers of the "enlightenment" fought against. Amusing, if it wasn't so damn serious for the rest of us. The majority, who understand that to defend the right to say what you don't agree with, as long as there is no harm (which doesn't include hurting their feelings or insulting their beliefs), is more important to freedom of speech, than anything one has to say themselves, are reeling at the attack on freedom of speech by the enlightenment's self-proclaimed offspring.

It won't be long now till the only right to freedom of speech is the sexual objectification of women - as old as slavery itself, in fact an inherent part of slavery. But that, it seems, is the biggest no-no and afront to the right to freedom of speech.

Oh, I forgot, and Christianity and white civilisation - the source of humanities woes, since, like, forever.

Could it be that you have been forced to step outside the narrow cloisters and experience, however briefly, the real world? The real world where nothing is black or white, but only different shades of grey? The real world where there are no absolutes, but where everything is relative.

what's the moral dilemma? you and your colleagues disapprove of right-wing art pieces? well, tough titty for you. the principle is clear. it seemed you arrived at the correct conclusion, but i have no idea why you had to puzzle so much over getting there.

Thanks for your thoughts Helen, not only on what being un-Australian might mean but on how you react when faced by ideas which are surprising and confronting.

As Leigh demonstrates (again), cocksure ignorance is more common than thoughtful uncertainty.

I'd love to know how Helen got this article passed the vetting crew in the Office of the PM?

ahh, Brave New World.

Doubtless Helen would applaud Piss Christ, and run a million miles from an image of Allah.

What a narrow world the author lives in.

Being a libertarian, I would say that anyone that says that anything (other than breaking the law) is unaustralian is himself unaustralian.

By circular argument this then includes me.

All one can do is focus on is preferred Australian values and the term un-Australian should be removed from the lexicon before the ghosts of Hoover and MacArther rise again.

Both Pauline Hansen and the Sheik have the right to wear the flag as long as never break the law.

Taj Din al-Hilali was fair game, no problems with how your students reacted to him, that's typical of cartoonists and satirists in a liberal democracy. The problem seems to have been your own ideological stand-point, I'm sure that similar work repudiating Howard, for example, wouldn't have worried you. Who was the teacher and who the taught in this case?

I just loved the supporters of the racists out at Camden trying to prevent the setting up of a Muslim school. One pathetic loser bleated about his problem with being called a 'racist' just because he was against the proposed school. 'What about freedom of speech?' he whined.

Racists need to understand this: you have the right to denigrate anyone you like and I have the right to call you a filthy bigot, racist, loser or whatever I like. And if you don't like it, move to North Korea.

As a senior educator, one of the most important steps in preparing students for the real world is to consider the consequences of what students creatively produce. The idealistic notion of 'free speech' is excellent when it matches our own parameters, but is unacceptable when it challenges them. We all have different parameters though. For some it is unacceptable to challenge the Holocaust, for others to ridicule religious icons - be it Sheikh Taj, or Santa, for others again, to challenge the various hegemonies that dominate our way of life. Ultimately, there are consequences - detention by ASIO for writing a book on terrorism, riots for insulting a religious figure, or expulsion from a Kindergarten as my daughter faced when she informed a fellow classmate that Santa Claus was just an old man dressed up in a red costume. There is really no such thing as 'free speech' - only consequences for exercising it.

At one time the forging of the nation states into a cohesive whole was a very progressive act that took mankind forward. This process overcame narrowness, provincial backwardness and a complicated society; one example being seperate and different gauge raillines for every state. In Europe, prior to the nation you had feudal restrictive barriers whereby a levy or tithe was extracted, generally about a tenth to pass the barrier. After the nation state formed, it was not too long before the nation itself became restrictive and explosive. Today you have a world economy and seperate nation states. You cannot exist in some national exclusiveness. From about 1912 on this was a time when each nation was pitted against every other nation for an ever shrinking market; each against all. Trade war extended into shooting war culminating in 1914, then competition had to be silenced, blown out of the water. Shrinking markets turned all countries aggressive. It has been said by Leon Trotsky that "inflation itself is an expression of disordered internal relationships and of disordered economic ties between nations.
All the crimes of the last century against people have in one form or another had a nationalist agenda. Wars that were founded on nationalism and capitalism have resolved nothing but turned the world into slaughterhouses. Leon Trotsky explained "Most prominent decadent fascist nationalism, which prepares volcanic explosions and grandiose clashes in the world arena, bears nothing except ruin." Germany and Italy were nations devastated for decades after the war, never too dismissing their youth sacrificed on the alter of profits. The alternative is socialist internationalism. Art which is about the cognition and deeper penetration into life including the illuminious life and flux of the world. But not as propaganda, propaganda is precisely propaganda and not art: Art will only become alive inasmuch as its its imaginative and recreative powers are exerted.

I find the majority of responses to this piece extremely puzzling.

From my viewpoint this is a piece written by a responsible educator; one who questions their own motivations, ponders the effects that one can have on others, questions one's right or abilities or fitness to do so and who is willing to share these uncertainties with a wider audience. In short, the sort of person I would have thought most people would have been relieved to find was in a position to effect upcoming minds and consciousness.

Thus comments about the writer living in a narrow world or "discovering" there are no absolutes leave me gobsmacked.It seems to me that is exactly the point that the article is making.

Schoolchildren are, to differing degrees of course, still influenced by home environments, familial thought and conventions. Undergraduates are so much more vulnerable as part of their rite of passage is to try to make sense of the world on their own terms.

An educator who never questioned themself, who was convinced they knew the right way to think or behave in any given situation and who never was awed and frightened by how close we all sometimes come to mis-using our power to affect younger minds, is not the kind of person I would have thought should have influence on students?

Tertiary education while imparting knowledge and skills is also about teaching people how to think and form opinions based on information available.

The moment you tell students what to think by censorship (well intentioned or otherwise), you have failed by treating them as sub adults who cannot be trusted with "corrupting" information, and training them to deal with dissenting opinion by silencing or ignoring it rather than listening and either accepting or rejecting it based on values or other information.

Censorship of ideas breeds intolerance.

johncee1945, can you only be an imaginative artist if you're a socialist internationalist?

Propaganda isn't art?
Then what the hell is art?

Art is the expression of ideas, so is propaganda.
Take a look at some propaganda posters from the last century, and tell me they aren't "art"!

You just define art as "propaganda" if the ideas are objectionable to you.

You can only define "unAustralian" if you can first define "Australian", something the leftist "intellectuals" try very hard not to do.

They want us all to live in their meaningless cultural wasteland, where "Australia" cannot mean anything at all.

So wars have been fought over wealth and land (which you label capitalism and nationalism)?
Yeah, since history began!

Nationalism expresses whatever qualities a particular nation possesses.
It isn't some universal complex.

An aggressive, authoritarian culture would produce aggressive, authoritarian nationalism.
An egalitarian, irreverent culture would produce egalitarian, irreverent nationalism.

You seem to define all "nationalism" as if it fits only the first definition above.
But Australia is more like the second statement, isn't it?

As for freedom of speech, there's a difference between opinion and lies.
Sedition, blasphemy, homophobia, racism and sexism are *opinions*, which are true or false depending on your personal judgment.

Defamation, false advertising and perjury are "public" lies, not an honest opinion or belief, or even a "private" lie.
That's why they're restricted.

DavidJS: "Racists need to understand this: you have the right to denigrate anyone you like."

Ah, no they don't, not since the Thought Police enacted anti-vilification laws!
"Move to North Korea"? They won't let anybody in!
Why would a white racist want to live in North Korea?!
What a stupid statement.

Art is ideas.
Every idea has an opposite idea.
Any and all ideas should be capable of expression, unless they are "public lies".

Ideas don't kill people. People kill people.

Romany, the educator here professed her left wingers knee-jerk reaction to ideas right wing, and stretched her mind and battled her conscience before allowing a couple of rather mild images passed her censors stamp. As if there is any question that the Sheiks attitudes to women referred to in the article aren't both hostile to and damaging towards women and our society?

At the time he was subjected to vigorous ridicule from many-on both the left and the right. Mike Carltons Friday News Review made great sport with the 'mad Mufti'.

Islam must expect and accept the same level of questioning, criticism and ridicule that the Christian churches, Judaism, the Moonies et al cop.

I don't know what 'unaustralian' means; but I will say that it is a healthy Australian custom of taking the piss out of just about anything.

The author was questioning her totalitarian left wing views and her belief in her right to impose her world view on others. Sad really, but a step in the right direction.

It is always interesting to see the biases and judgemental attitudes that colour our reasoning especially in crossing linguistic and cultural barriers. Sheikh Taj in English appears as a buffoon, but in his native language he is considered internationally as an orator - with humour, subtlety and 'tongue in cheek' attitude - of the highest calibre. With the limited skills of Arabic translators here, his inexcusable lack of English and the inability of his minders to keep him quiet when under pressure, he is an easy target with little chance of reasonable redress. But our judicial system which delivers tortuous sessions in court to rape victims and hands down judgements on the same premises alluded to by Sheikh Taj, are free of similar ridicule and condemnation - sexist judgements and attitudes that cannot claim that they were mistranslated! I wonder how the debate would have been framed if some of our senior judges had been portrayed artistically on a milk carton? 'UnAustralian' or just 'defamatory'?

I do not mean to be recalcitrant - but I still don't see why this author has come in for such a bagging.

You readily agree that she questioned her knee-jerk reaction. Another way of saying that she recognised and interrogated a conditioned response, yes? So surely that's a good thing?

Many of the threads on this forum run into pages and pages which degenerate from niggling to argumentative and into personally abusive responses for lack of this very same self-realisation. Certain words: - Green, Feminist, Christian, Climate Change, Atheist, Immigration - seem to ring Pavlovian bells in some peoples minds who then rush into print regardless of the appropriateness of their conditioned response in the given instance.

You think that she questioned "her belief in her right to impose her world view on others." But I still don't understand why this has placed her in the wrong? Surely it is those who don't do so who are dangerous?

She was not questioning her participation in an arid debate, but her power to influence young minds. This led to a very real dichotomy which, as an educator, artist and private individual could have led to her morality being compromised.

I think that the fact that she took the responsible course she did is laudable. I truly don't understand why, while granting that it was "a step in the right direction" you find her dilemma "sad", nor why others on the thread who obviously do not share what they assume to be her political mindset, are united in condemnation of her decision not to impose it?

David JS you state:

"I just loved the supporters of the racists out at Camden trying to prevent the setting up of a Muslim school. One pathetic loser bleated about his problem with being called a 'racist' just because he was against the proposed school. 'What about freedom of speech?' he whined.

Racists need to understand this: you have the right to denigrate anyone you like and I have the right to call you a filthy bigot, racist, loser or whatever I like."

Now:

a) is the person at Camden a racist? Perhaps not. If the school was not being set up by Muslims, but, say by the National Front as a Neo-Nazi College for Arian Studies, would we be able to object to the ideology of the proposed school;, or would we be labelled racist by David JS and his ilk? Is being anti-Nazism the same as being anti-German?

The fact that Muslim ideology is supported by many 'races' means that if the objectors are against Islam, then this will cover a multitude of National racial groups. So, I may be against Islamists, but, not every Indonesian, Indian, Pakistani, Greenlander etc.

b) Even if we have the 'right' to be wrong, should we exercise it when a rational expose of issues is possible?

Romany

Spot on.

Frank - thanks for the acknowledgment: I was beginning to feel like Sisyphus

Romany, I think that were Helen an undergraduate this kind of dilemma might be expected, but for a University educator to have to think so hard on this issue is a real worry. Ideology paints itself into a corner indeed.

I work on a construction site and daily work with people from Chinese, Indian, Italian, Serb, Croat, Lebanese, Anglo , Koori & Fijian origins, on a one to one level. There are Christians, Buddhists, Hindus and Moslems, at least. (even a Scientologist).

Banter and discussion on the subject of race and religion occurs but goes on with more wisdom and maturity than the prof. could muster.

It's articles like this that reinforce notions of the insular elitist left academic who is out of touch with the real world. That she eventually arrived at the place where we live is no more than a relief. Helens really gotta get out more and rub shoulders with us prols. abit more and discover that it is communication and the interaction and daily argy-bargy between people that will break down barriers. Not pious idealism.

Palimpsest,

It seems to me as though the wisdom and maturity, the banter and discussion exhibited on the construction site is sorely lacking on this thread. Do you, unlike me, know more about this author than is written in the brief biog.? (Which, btw, nowhere claims that she is a Professor).

If not, why should you assume that you and your workmates exhibit more aforesaid wisdom and maturity than the author could ever muster? What makes you think that Universities are not also full of people of all races and creeds? What would lead you to assume she needs to get out more if you have no idea of her lifestyle, habits and preferences? What additional knowledge do you have that leads you to to assume that she does not indeed come from a proletariat background?

If none of the above then surely the whole tenor of your post argues against your point: instead of exhibiting wisdom or maturity what emerges is intolerance and bias based simply upon her profession.

Rather like those sections of the community who consider all construction workers to be steel-capped yobbos, yeah?