William Butler Yeats wrote The Second Coming, of which this is the first verse, two years after the end of the First World War. It reveals his strong reaction against the Russian Revolution of 1917 and expresses his apprehension that the kind of civilisation he had known was ending. It is said that he later accepted that the poem may have portended an unconscious prophecy of the rise of fascism.

Our more depressed citizens might sometimes feel that Yeats was writing about Guyana. There seems to be so much distrust, so much insecurity in our public life, a kind of emotional fragility or anarchy that recognises no centre, no limits, so that one fears almost anything might happen.

For the centre to hold there have to be some rules, some sense of moderation, some modesty, some willingness to compromise and give and take. There are rights but there are responsibilities. Freedom of expression, for example, must be subject to reasonable and enforceable limitations for defamation and sedition. If I preach ethnic hatred every day I am abusing the right of free speech by exercising it without responsibility to the society and fellow citizens. If I wantonly breach building regulations I do so at the expense of good order. The freest democratic society is founded on the rule of law and cannot survive without some general consensus that it is in the general public interest that there should be laws and that they should be firmly enforced.

There is a limit to the abuse any society can withstand. A sense of anarchy tends to grow and empower others to act. The rule of law does not mean that you cannot protest but you must do so strictly according to the rules established by decided cases, the rule of law does not mean that you cannot express your opinion and criticise others forthrightly but there has to be a framework which establishes basic rules.

The rule of law establishes basic human rights but none of these rights is absolute. The right to assemble assumes that this will be done peacefully and in an orderly manner, otherwise it becomes unlawful. And there are negative rights, such as the right not to be deprived of your liberty except in strict accordance with the law.

Everyone wants a free, open society. But freedom is not absolute, it is not anarchy. Indeed it rests in the final analysis on a clear understanding of the legal and social infrastructure that support it. It is not a gift from the Gods but a human construct that requires vision, restraint and compromise.