Gareth Cliff - Cliffhanger: Confessions of a Shock Jock

People dont understand free speech at all.

Believe it or not, those seven words caused me more trouble than George Carlins seven dirty words ever could. By the way, do you know what Carlins seven dirty words are? Theyre the seven words youre not allowed to say on television and radio. Youll have to look them up, but the one that doesnt belong there is tits. Somehow tits is one of the worst things you can say on television.

It was 4 January 2016. After a short break over Christmas and New Year, on my first day back at work, I became embroiled in an ugly Twitter party that I unwittingly gatecrashed because of those seven words. I really should have stayed at home. But well get to that

My two decades of broadcasting, ranging from campus to talk to music radio and now pioneering unradio, have been underpinned by my unwavering belief in freedom of expression. It is as close to sacred as anything is ever likely to be for me. Everyone is entitled to an opinion, right? Opinions may be about a whole range of things what we read or watch, hear or taste, feel or think or whatever. Sometimes you will hear opinions you dont like. Sometimes those opinions wont be very nice. Occasionally an opinion will be completely wrong, even unacceptable. Sometimes the people expressing those opinions may even be assholes.

Many who came before us paid with their lives so that you and I could talk as we do now, as equals, across continents and time zones. Throughout history people have been forced to fit in with someone elses opinion of how things should work, but thanks to the Enlightenment, the abolition of slavery, the spread of democracy and the deconstruction of discredited ideas such as racism and patriarchy, as well as increased access to education and information, we are now universally able to voice our opinions. So freedom of speech isnt free.

Here in Africa were still vulnerable to militant religion, tribalism, racism and corruption but free expression is the foundation of all the other rights, and the beginning of the solution. If you want to liberate people, you must first allow them to communicate freely with ideas, with each other and with information. We should jealously guard this right to have and express opinions, just in case the politicians decide to chip away at it again and they will. Authority doesnt like opinion; it likes obedience. If you dont like someones opinion and your solution is to threaten, intimidate or harass them, then perhaps the problem lies with you.

In April 2015 I was invited to give a TEDx talk, at the London Business School, which I called Africas New Voice. The theme of the talk was you guessed it freedom of expression. As a broadcaster in South Africa, I believe that this is a fundamental human right that underpins all other rights. The right to speak your mind freely on important issues in society, the ability to access information and to hold the powers that be to account is vital to the healthy development of society. We have a long history of suppression of freedom of expression both pre- and post-colonisation in which people were excluded from meaningful participation in society, and in turn from the opportunity to better their own circumstances. But things are changing

Do you remember how the vuvuzela became a symbol of South Africa when we hosted the World Cup in 2010? While it became a sought-after souvenir at the time, it also created a controversy because of the thundering cacophony it generated during matches. What our international visitors may not have known, and what even some South Africans might not know, is that the vuvuzela is actually a traditional instrument originally a kudu horn used to summon villagers to community meetings in rural South Africa. It was a means of communicating, and had to be loud enough to reach people in outlying places. Today, the vuvuzela is mostly used for fun at football matches, and cellphones have become the main means of summoning the people. The cellphone has catapulted Africans into the 21st century in a big way, and were actually ahead of the curve in some ways too.

Thanks to technology, the true democratisation of the media is taking place. The community meeting, once manifested by trumpeting animal horns, now takes place on the internet a common area, a public space, just like any village marketplace, except that it is the largest and most diverse space that has ever existed. Anybody with something to say can be heard by anyone else with access to the internet, and this is Africas new voice.

People get their news and entertainment, connect with their friends, access information and, increasingly, do business via their phones. It wasnt always like this. Growing up in South Africa, we used to have only two options: the state broadcaster, which churned out propaganda and controlled what we could hear about, or international news networks such as CNN, the BBC and others, where we found ourselves listening to our stories, told by foreigners. It was pretty bizarre. Looking at the SABC now, it still is.