Freedom of Speech

Singapore is multi-racial country consisting of different races and religions. This is what makes the country special and yet vulnerable to dangers and threats. Just a slight disharmony between races can trigger off the start of riots, fighting, etc. Therefore, I think that Szilagyi’s view should be adopted instead. One should be strictly responsible for what he has said and done. If one is going to say something that is going to hurt the interest of other people, he should be stopped. As the writer has posted a question, “What is more important for the democratic advancement of a society - to ensure the freedom of expression of all its citizens (within the limits marked by law) or to protect the collective interests of society?” We should not be giving the person a chance to express himself freely and yet neglects the bigger group of people on the other hand. We should always consider and take care of the interests and welfare of every single one. Thus, there should not have any freedom of speech as Szilagyi has mentioned. In 1964, a small misunderstanding between the Chinese and Malays resulted in racial riots which in turn caused many deaths and damages. Hence, from this, one can see that Singapore cannot afford to have any racial disharmony or distrust or else the consequence is going to be serious. Therefore, out of no choice, Singaporeans cannot be given freedom of speech. Otherwise, they may talk back about other races causing unhappiness. They should instead have some social responsibility and think of the bigger picture.

However, it seems quite wrong to deprive people the chance to express themselves. This is especially important if a country wants to go democratic. Therefore, Singer believes that freedom of expression is essential to any democracy and thus should not be restricted. He mentioned that “Without that freedom, human progress will always run up against a basic roadblock.” It is quite true to a certain extent. This is because in the society, the government does need to hear some voices from the people in order to get to know more about them. Through listening to their grievances, the government can help the people in one way or the other too. The people may have expressed their unhappiness about the government, their way of governing the country, policies they came up with, etc. Through these, the government can learn and make better contributions to the society according to the needs and feedback from the people. Therefore, in this way freedom of speech is desirable since it is beneficial to all people. However, if the speech made is about racial issues, it will be a very sensitive topic. Some people may just get too overboard and said something disrespectful to the other races and religions. This will provoke the other races and religions. The consequences resulted may be very serious for example, riots. This will cause lots of deaths and injuries and affect the economy too. If large groups of numbers of people are to go on riots, Singapore’s economy will be greatly hit since it depends a lot on human resource. Therefore, we cannot afford to face this problem which is likely to occur if people abuse their right to freedom of speech.