Arwa Mahdawi - Opinion Sat 15 Mar 2025 09.00 EDT
“It should be clear by now that America is not exceptional; the constitution is not a magical document that will protect our freedoms simply by existing. We are sliding towards an authoritarian future at alarming speed and Khalil’s detention is an important reminder that we can’t fight for our rights in isolation. All of our freedoms are intertwined.”
Of course not.
Khalil isn’t even of any real note to the autocrats who are taking over the government. He’s ultimately just a test case, to set the precedents for the likely millions of people who are going to end up being imprisoned and even killed for the “crime” of holding opinions different from the officially sanctioned ones.
The US has never had free speech. It constantly peddles propaganda about free speech borrowing from the liberal tradition, which rallied against monarchist and state religious restrictions on speech, as liberalism itself struggled to replace both social relations.
But any time speech is perceived to pose a risk to capital - even indirectly, such as making material demands against its favorite attack dog in the Middle East - it brings out the violence of the state. An American’s “free speech” is the freedom to say anything that has no chance of negatively impacting the ruling class. You are free to wail impotently. But a simple reading of history exposes how little the state respects “free speech” when it does threaten the ruling class.
