On Freedom of Speech and Censorship

I was imprudent enough to bring back from a trip to New York a copy of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, bought at the UN shop, which I gave to my eight-year-old son as a present. For the following months, he persecuted me by ‘claiming his rights’ while making unreasonable demands, booklet in hand. While this is a lovely memory of a bright child, many of the demands I now witness being made by individuals – most often on behalf of their ‘communities’ in furtherance of ‘rights’ – are characterised by the same self-centred immaturity.