Tsunami, 9. Free Speech?

Alternative rapper, Pablo Hasel, has entered jail to serve a two year sentence for insults and calumny of the King and state institutions, and the glorifying of terrorism. His case has brought into question whether or not freedom of speech is actually respected in this country.

It's a spiny question. When does openly giving your opinion become illicit? Among the reasons for his sentence, is a song, Muerte a los Borbones. In it, the rapper criticizes the monarchy, and King Juan Carlos specifically. I agree with most of the lyrics of the song, except the title, which is repeated in places, Death to the Borbons. The song criticizes aspects of the monarchy, with which criticism many people agree and comment on in daily life. "El rey hizo lo que más le convenía a su cuenta bancaria..." (The king acted in the best interests of his bank account.) At the beginning of the video on YouTube, Hasel includes an interview ex-King Juan Carlos gave in France, while Franco was still in power, in which he praises Franco for his good work in Spain.

Aside from that, apparently over sixty tweets have cemented the judge's decision. Among them, "Miles de ancianos pasando frío, y sin un techo seguro mientras monarcas dan lecciones desde palacios." (Thousands of seniors suffering the cold, and without a secure roof while monarchs give lessons from palaces.) "La policía asesina a 15 inmigrantes y son santitos..." (The police assassinates 15 immigrants and they're saints...) 

Apparently, according to the judge, words such as "parasites", "mobsters", "thief", and others, damage the dignity of the ex-King. Likewise, statements such as "Guardia Civil torturando o disparando inmigrantes" (Guardia Civil torturing or shooting immigrants.), threaten the dignity of the Spanish security forces. But statements like those, and worse, are made by people every day, whether on social media or with their friends in public. That some statements are slander? Well, some of them have basis in fact. The ex-King has money that he has never declared nor paid taxes on, and is very friendly with the Saudi family, which is committing acts of atrocity in Yemen. Guardia Civiles have shot rubber bullets at migrants crossing over the border in Ceuta and Melilla, or on the beaches of those cities, and wound up killing some of them. 

While Hasel's words here seem to me an exercise in freedom of speech and opinion, where there are more shades of grey is in the tweets and songs where he glorifies some people who were condemned for terrorist acts. When can we defend a person who has killed or destroyed in the name of a larger dream? That is more difficult to gauge. Why does just about everyone condemn Hitler, yet some still admire Lenin? Because the dream of Hitler was debased (glorifying the Aryan race), while Lenin's was more utopian (communism)? If you look at their deeds, one can also speak well of Hitler at certain moments of his government. He created jobs in a woefully depressed Germany. Of course, that came at the cost of breaking the Treaty of Versailles, and stockpiling weaponry, but he did create jobs that fed families. Lenin, while promoting the dream of complete equality between men, ordered thousands imprisoned and murdered, including the Russian royal family. He tried to implement his dreams of a utopia, but at what human cost? Both wound up having millions of souls killed. We can argue that both produced good, but that the evil they created far outweighed that good.

Since Hasel's imprisonment, the Spanish government has declared it will overhaul the laws that govern freedom of speech as it pertains to the state institutions and the monarchy. It would do well to allow criticism. As to glorifying known terrorists, that is another story. A terrorist kills and harms, whether their ideology is left or right. They need to be villified for their actions. Their dreams, mostly, deserve better.

Life continues.