Free speech as an antidote to error and falsity | Lili N. Zemplényi

“No-one has done more for Chinese women than Mao Zedong”. This is one of the most shocking statements that I have ever heard from a speaker with a perfect British accent and is undeniably morally questionable. I witnessed this happen at Tsinghua University in Beijing where I was doing a summer course in 2019.  Yet this statement does not only disclose the speaker’s ignorance of historical facts, it also raises two much more fundamental problems. 

Firstly, let us consider the possibility of worsening political extremity if such mistaken beliefs are allowed to go unchallenged. If someone on a British university campus considers himself or herself already to be ‘literally a communist’ or Marxist (as another student did), then when they are exposed to even more radical left-wing views, they’re naturally going to be far more inclined to accept these ideas. Needless to say, the same pattern is true of the right. Free speech, critiquing perspectives and an open, honest exchange of ideas are some of the best measures we have against such radicalisation.  

Secondly, if the young lady who said the above-quoted sentence was not aware who Mao Zedong was, then this example shows the failure of the British education system to equip students with knowledge and critical thinking to orient oneself in the world.

While toying with Marxism or radical left-wing ideas on British university campuses might not seem too dangerous, it can realistically act as a gateway to the adoption of more radical views. For instance, while Jeremy Corbyn was certainly a strong left-winger even during his early career in the UK, his socialist political imagination was consolidated only when he was exposed to more radical ideas in Latin America in 1969 and 1970. 

Indeed, one of his most formative personal experiences is said to have been when the Marxist Salvador Allende won the elections in Chile in 1970. The conclusions that he reached about politics could not have been based on the British reality- but, once experiencing the socialist atmosphere in Latin America, he demonstrated an ability to articulate views which would later be called ‘crazy revolutionary socialism’ by Tony Blair. Due to his obsession with Latin American socialism, upon Fidel Castro’s death, Corbyn praised the Cuban dictator for his ‘heroism’, with utterly no recognition or denunciation of how much regular people suffer in Cuba. 

To prevent students from taking their obsession with any political idea to the extremes, young people must be shown what the limitations of their political belief are through healthy debate. Debate allows us to reveal the truth of a matter, which is also an integral objective of the education system. This proves the necessity of having a reasonable and civic discourse at universities in the UK. Debates with those from the other side of the political spectrum often make students more aware of the major flaws of their own political beliefs, as well as of those lines that they are not supposed to cross. As far as I am concerned, claiming that Mao Zedong was a hero of women is beyond this line.

This brings to light questions about the effectiveness of the current education system. If the young girl who said the quoted comment had received an adequate history education about China and Mao, she must have known, when making her statement, that it cannot be true. 

The death toll under Mao’s rule is of course hardly measurable- the famine of 1959-61 alone resulted in the death of up to 30 million people. The deaths of vast numbers of women are accounted for in this statistic. However, it cannot accurately represent the number of women who suffered during these years. This is because during famines it is the infants who die first and far more miscarriages occur. The deaths of infants are captured in famine statistics but miscarriages due to starvation and malnutrition are not. Therefore the suffering is underestimated even by the horrifying statistics. Mao is responsible for depriving women- in their millions- of their children and future children and he robbed them of the security of knowing they would live to watch them grow up. 

The reality of this legacy is drastically different from how the British student portrayed Mao’s legacy. Furthermore, it shows that, in light of the famine associated with the Great Leap Forward and the impact of the Cultural Revolution which followed, Mao’s general legacy is famine, death and astounding human suffering. Anyone responsible for such horrors ought never be considered a hero to women or to anyone else. 

Moreover, if this young lady had been made aware that in some countries professors at universities are made to incorporate state propaganda into the curriculum and cannot educate freely, then she might have been more critical of everything which was said in a state-owned, and state-run university in China. 

British higher education enjoys an independence from the government whereas in China the universities are hugely dependent on the state. Fudan University was obliged to add the commitment to its charter that “[the university] adheres to the leadership of the Chinese Communist party and will fully implement the party’s educational policy”. Therefore, when attending courses in a state-owned and state-run university in China, one should listen to the lectures more critically without carelessly echoing professors. This applies for Tsinghua University even more as it takes special pride in the fact that Xi Jinping is an alumna. 

If students are allowed and able to go to China without such knowledge- or still yet having been trained to seek it out- then this proves my argument that we need a rounded education system which promotes discussion and critique of information.

We all come across error in the form of various kinds of extremism our lives. While the British education system is unable to prepare us specifically for the individual moments when we will face such comments or situations, during our education we are supposed to be given guidelines to be able to recognise the worst forms of radicalism when it materialises. Therefore, students need to be equipped with adequate knowledge to be able to spot speakers who spread radical ideas as well as to identify and critique such views. 

Encouraging different viewpoints on campus facilitates this. This is another argument in favour of free and meaningful discussions on campuses. The more speakers and ideas one is exposed to, the better one can orientate oneself between these ideas and judge their fundamental nature. If students are protected from all ‘harmful’ ideas, they might not be able to recognise radical ideologies when faced with them.

The views in this article are the author’s own.