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Jalan Presint 5, Apartment 5R1 Putrajaya 62200 Malaysia
and freedom of Speech
Scarecrows are age-old figures of straw and rags—lonely sentinels standing watch over the harvest. While fairy tales often portray them as gentle souls who, despite their eerie appearance, dream of friendship, their true purpose is stern and dates back to antiquity. They are the guardians of the fertile, the protectors of the fruits of labor.
Thematic Exploration: The Paradox of Freedom
In this context, I view ‘freedom of speech’ as the bird that threatens the fields and depletes the soil. It sounds paradoxical, but if freedom is the only absolute, the duty to till the earth—the duty to provide substance and meaning—loses all value. After all, true culture does not arise from boundless liberty, but rather from the friction between freedom and obligation.
Friction as a Trailblazer
Only that fundamental friction paves a way for The Free Word. When freedom becomes absolute and degenerates into mere noise, it ironically blocks the path to true depth and truth. The noise drowns out the essence.
The Role of the Guardian
Let me, therefore, be the scarecrow. Let me be the one who drives the noise of unbridled ‘free speech’ from the fields—not to stifle the voice, but to guard the passage of the true, free word. Protecting the harvest sometimes requires warding off those who come only to consume without contributing to the soil.
Intention & Impact My intention is to challenge the reader to reflect on the structure of our public space. Is everything that can be said also valuable? The scarecrow reminds us that without discipline and boundaries, the fertile ground of our intellectual debate becomes exhausted by the meaningless flights of free expression.
