“Don’t be fooled… political correctness is exactly the opposite of free speech,” Gareth Cliff told an audience at a Free Market Foundation event.

Cliff said countries with more freedom of speech are better to live in. He said countries with more freedom of speech are also more successful.

In such societies, good ideas are encouraged to come out and bad ideas are challenged.

Cliff said the choices on free speech are binary: you are either for free speech, or for censorship and the policing of “thought crime”.

“We have to have one rule for everyone,” said Cliff. It must either apply to all of us, even to bigots and others with awful ideas, or to none of us.

Cliff warned that given South Africa’s history, South Africans may wish to make the choice to protect people’s feelings. In doing so, you make a rod for your own back.

Banning certain speech doesn’t prevent people from thinking a certain way. You also rob yourself of hearing that idea, he said.

Furthermore, if you believe that certain speech must be banned, then someone must be the censor.

Some might suggest the courts and legislators, however, Cliff said people mustn’t be fooled into believing that there aren’t bigots or racists in our parliament, or in the justice system.