In the 1980s I lived in #Malawi. These were the years of Hastings Banda, aka His Excellency, the Life President of Malawi, Ngwazi Dr H Kamuzu Banda.

My brother and I were expatriate teenagers. We were explicitly warned not to make comments about the regime, but it didn't take at all long for us to internalise that.

It was very clear that we were not materially repressed as Malawians were. The worst that would happen to us was deportation. But the strictures were easy to rationalise: don't get into trouble, because you don't want your Malawian friends to get into trouble by association. That was the real risk.

In my time in #SouthAfrica, as an adult, I have rarely needed to temper my voice out of concern for myself or others. That changed quite a bit when Ntando and I started a relationship. She is a #Zimbabwean with relatively fragile tenure in SA. Pissing off the wrong people would make her more vulnerable than either of us wants her to be.

And this is my point. For all that people bang on about freedom of speech being a right, it doesn't exist because of a guarantee in law. It exists only when anyone has the surrounding liberty. In our case, it comes down to whether what we say prejudices Ntando's residence.

You can see the operation of this in #America now. The #FirstAmendment means nothing to a university, an institution or individual when #Trump threatens defunding or deportation.

#FreedomOfSpeech is not only a fundamental right - it's a barometric right. You know society is fucked when people are unable to speak due to infringements of their other rights.