Free Speech: What Are They Afraid Of?
Belgian police blocking the entrance of the NatCon conference in Brussels, April 2024.
Photo: Simon Wohlfahrt / AFP
Looking back at the troubled but in many ways exhilarating year of 2024, one important lesson we conservatives had to learn was that our liberties cannot be taken for granted. In self-proclaimed liberal societies, fundamental freedoms such as freedom of assembly and freedom of speech came under an unprecedented attack last year, right here in the “heart of Europe.”
The first slap in the face came when an overzealous Brussels mayor, emboldened by years of demonizing and ostracizing the Right, attempted to shut down the National Conservatism (NatCon) conference in April, despite the event being Europe’s most prestigious conservative gathering (proudly co-sponsored by The European Conservative). He labeled attendees as dangerous “far-right” extremists and made it clear that we were “not welcome” in the city.
Even though common sense prevailed in the courtroom where the late-night appeal that we lodged against the mayor’s order was upheld, the fact that this could happen was truly surreal. After the NatCon conference had been barred from two venues, the third venue was surrounded by police as if the attendees and speakers—such as Suella Braverman, Nigel Farage, Mateusz Morawiecki, or Viktor Orbán—were criminals or, rather, public enemies. The conference organizers and the proprietors of the Claridge Hotel stood firm in the face of such intimidation and the event was a great success. But the outrageous attack on free speech was a clear sign to us all of which way the political wind is blowing in Brussels.
Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo did slam the attempted use of Brussels police to censor public debate as “unacceptable” and reminded his rogue mayor that banning political meetings is unconstitutional in Belgium. However, the overall response from Brussels’ left-liberal establishment was that, while the mayor might have overplayed his hand this time, the “far-right” really was “not welcome” in the capital of the EU.
Then came September, when the bookstore that was supposed to host the launch of MCC Brussels’ executive director Professor Frank Füredi’s book The War Against the Past canceled the event a few days beforehand. The bookstore cited concerns about the “political connotation” of collaborating with MCC, and ironically justified its decision by highlighting its commitment to being “an inclusive space.” Apparently, ‘inclusive’ means exclusive of anything conservative.
November was not without cancel culture stunts in the capital of Europe either. As europeanconservative.com reported, a mob of violent Antifa-style protesters clashed with Belgian riot police after an attempt to scare organizers into shutting down the launch of French National Rally leader Jordan Bardella’s new bestseller at the House of Hungary in Brussels. The book launch did take place, as the organizers refused to cave to pressure, despite attendees being branded as “fascist scum” on social media for daring to turn up to a book launch.
In fact, the pervasive cancel culture demonstrated by these 2024 incidents is evident in the Left’s grip on language. This is a sort of semantic autocracy in which certain words are expropriated so that they can be used against whoever dares to think differently. Typical examples are ‘disinformation,’ ‘far-right,’ or ‘inclusive.’ Decoding these words, it is obvious that ‘disinformation’ often refers to any unwelcome truth, ‘far-right’ equals any conservative viewpoint outside the center, and ‘inclusive’ means anti-conservative, anti-native, and anti-Christian.
This false dichotomy manifested through language was also used to justify blatantly anti-democratic decisions in the name of defending democracy, such as excluding the only conservative candidate due to take part from the final TV debate before the EU elections. Presumably pressured by the mainstream parties, the European Broadcast Union banned the one real opposition speaker from being on the same stage as Commission President Ursula von der Leyen—resulting in something that can hardly be called a debate.
At a time when Big Tech is often operating in cahoots with Brussels, removing ‘offensive’ posts from social media, conservatives have often felt obliged to exercise self-censorship for fear of their message being suppressed or outright canceled by hostile algorithms and biased authorities. This is a less visible but equally detrimental form of attacking free speech.
These and other examples of fundamental freedoms being threatened last year did not materialize out of the blue. They were the logical consequence of an advancing trend perceptible for some time: an assault on free thought by several actors, led from the top down by the EU’s “technocratic oligarchy,” as MCC Brussels’ Dr. Norman Lewis put in in his report on how the EU elites are striving to “control the narrative” and thus thought-police their own citizens.
Amajor milestone on the road to silencing dissent in the EU is the Digital Services Act (DSA) of 2024. This road to hell may allegedly be paved with good intentions, with the apparent aim of preventing ‘hate speech’ and incitement, but what we see in practice is the disproportionate restriction of the freedom of expression on social media platforms based on people’s political or religious beliefs.
While this type of censorship is now legally imposed on digital corporations by the European Commission, discriminating against individuals and content these same companies deem undesirable has been their standard practice for years, as demonstrated by the scandals around Facebook, pre-Elon Musk Twitter, and Google. The DSA gives Big Tech the license to censor dissident posts harder and faster.
These assaults on our basic freedoms—relativized and trivialized by the mainstream media—were shocking, but they also served as a wake-up call and a rallying force for the Right. The attempt to silence what conservatives have to say has helped us see our adversaries’ true colors and catalyzed a new defense of free speech on the Right. I am even tempted to say: “Bring it on, keep it coming.” But since democratic discourse fundamentally relies on the unrestricted exchange of ideas, let’s wish that common sense and decency prevail in 2025 for the benefit of us all—while being ready to defend free speech whenever and from wherever fresh threats arise.
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