Comments on the Fear of Ideas

by Russell Campbell

Of all Forms of Cowardice in the modern world, the fear of ideas is perhaps the most ignoble. The attempt to shield oneself and one's society from physical onslaught is natural and desirable; but an effort to ward off attack in the realm of ideas argues the absence of strength in one's own convictions and a lack of faith in human rationality.

It was the fear of ideas which led the Government to refuse permission to Gerry Mills to visit the Cook Islands last year. "It is Government policy not to allow anyone with any radical views at all to visit the Islands," said Sir Leon Gotz at the time.

It was the fear of ideas which led the parties to combine to keep the Communists off the air in the last election.

It was the fear of ideas which led to the clamping down on student rapporteurs at the Youth Forum and the expulsion of Tony Haas.

It is the fear of ideas which consistently prevents anything radical or controversial from appearing in our newspapers, on the radio or on television.

And most recently it was the fear of ideas which led to the refusal of visas to a team of observers from the International Union of Students (IUS) to the International Student Conference in Christchurch.

Let us forget for a moment the discourtesy of the action (which was clearly a violation of an agreement reached between the ISC and the departments concerned) and the harm that it has done to our international reputation and concentrate on the Government's motives. Why was it felt necessary to exclude the representatives of a Communist-dominated organisation based in Prague?

The Government has said little more than that the exclusions were made on an individual basis. According to the press report, the four representatives proposed by the IUS were "known to the immigration authorities, and inquiries in other countries were made before the decision was made on their visa applications." Said Mr. Holyoake: "The proper formalities have to be complied with."

Now it is clear that we have to have some restrictions on visas, even for the duration of a 10 days' conference. It is justifiable to refuse entry to a person with a record of violence. But is it conceivable that the four delegates chosen to represent the IUS at an international conference were all criminals?

It may have been thought they would prove an incitement to violence. But whom could they possibly incite, and what could possibly happen that the police could not dispose of with the flick of a baton and, most of all, what conceivable purpose would this serve?

As one commentator rightly points out, "What trouble, if any, could those students cause that would be more than a fraction of that caused by the visiting Beatles?"

No, the Government is not plum crazy. The alternative remains that they were refused entrv on the grounds of their political beliefs. Now it is true that an IUS journalist was present at the conference and that visas have recently been granted to a team of Communist Journalists to visit the country. But it is also true that the IUS writer travelled on a British passport, and that the journalists' tour has been widely publicised as a goodwill mission. In the light of other forms of discrimination practised by the Government against Communists, it would seem likely that the prime reason for excluding the IUS observers was the simple fact that they held political views radically different from the members of the Government and from most New Zealanders.

Here, then, is another denial of the principle outlined so long ago by John Stuart Mill; the principle that the health of a democracy depends on the unfettered interplay of ideas. It is a clear example of a barrier raised by people who do not have the courage of their own convictions. It is one more demonstration of New Zealand's cowardice.