Our Desk | The Macau Constraint

Daniel Beitler

The idea that censorship – particularly state-sponsored censorship – inhibits creative expression and innovation is not a new one. It’s one I have always taken to be true without ever questioning why it should be.

I suppose that concerned citizens are naturally uneasy about the idea of agents of censorship regulating the dissemination of ideas within society.

This is because agents of censorship only serve those in positions of power. The influential and powerful among us are the only ones who can both afford the expense of such administrative systems and have enough on the line to warrant them.

And since institutions of power such as governments and the mob have no incentive to be genuinely critical of their own conduct, outspoken criticism is left to a particular group of people seeking to highlight injustices and hypocrisy.

These are society’s creative types, who offer social commentary to provide a counterweight to the propaganda of governments and other powerful institutions. Regulating what creative types can produce, or creating an environment that discourages speaking out (read: self-censorship), should in theory come at the expense of creative output.

This is what I had always held to be true, which is why I was initially surprised that a government like Macau’s, with its inch-deep commitment to freedom of expression, would be so keen to promote the cultural and creative industries.

How can a system that is not free profess to want an industry so incompatible with its values and the values of the mother country?

However, I have yet to find a compelling argument that censorship does inhibit creativity. It may be the case but, equally, it might be possible that in some circumstances restrictions on free speech promote creativity.

To some this may be an absurd proposition, but consider the example of overseas Chinese and Iranian communities living in Western societies.

The disproportionately large volume of literature published in their name is not only because of the creative freedom they enjoy as expatriates in France or the United States.

Though they would be unable to publish these works in their home countries, the censorship (and other actions) of their former governments provides both the subject matter and the impetus for these creative works.

Even within authoritative systems, creative dissidents find opportunity to dream up transformative and iconic works. Take for example Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi, whose critical films have led to his arrest and whose 2011 documentary, “This Is Not a Film”, was smuggled out of Iran to the Cannes Film Festival in a flash drive hidden inside a cake. Oh, the creativity!

But if censorship can produce its own sort of creativity, maybe this was the MSAR government’s plan all along. Could the government’s oscillation between its oft-stated mantra of “according to the Basic Law” and its actions suggesting otherwise be part of an elaborate master plan? Could this master plan be edging us closer to the day of the blossoming of Macau’s cultural scene?

A group of writers in 1960s France may have held a similar opinion. They also believed that forms of censorship or constraints promoted creativity. Named the Oulipo group (from the French: Ouvroir de littérature potentielle), the writers argued that self-imposed constraints could inspire them to produce superior works.

The very principle is contrary to what we might expect: that greater freedom and a lack of censorship is conducive to creative production.

Nevertheless, one member of the group, French novelist Georges Perec, composed a 300-page novel entirely omitting the letter “e”. Titled “A Void”, one of the novel’s major themes tackles the mystery of the disappearance of that letter.

This is known as a lipogram; writing where the author has systematically omitted one or more letters of the Romanized alphabet. Another example of a lipogram is called the Prisoner’s Constraint. This excludes the use of letters with ascenders or descenders, like b, d, f, g, h, and j, which all have “legs”.

Funnily enough, the lipogram has another name: The Macau Constraint. Incroyable!