Free speech: A platform for fascists?

It seems that the free speech fever has really hit Oxford, with ‘No Platform’ hitting the agenda of the Student Union presidential hopefuls to last night’s ‘debate’ on Free Speech with Anne Atkins, James Dray, Nick Griffin, Evan Harris, David Irving, and Jess Prince. With free speech, where do we really want to draw the line in the sand?

The Oxford Union described last nights debate as a ‘qualified success’, this was achieved by having 500 protesters, splitting the debate into two locations (with Irving, Harris and Atkins in the chamber, and Griffin, Prince and Dray in a different room), and by failing to let all those who wished to attend in (approximately half of the 500 ticketed members were allowed into the Union premises). In the Griffin debate, their real success was having an ‘intellectual’ debate, which challenged the views of all those present. The chair of the debate, Emily Partington (President-Elect), steered the discussion back onto free speech wherever possible, which while Griffin was often spouting bigoted and unfounded opinions, mislabelled as ‘facts’, left some remarks unquestioned, and enabled the talk to focus on the general issue of Free Speech.

It seemed that Prince and Dray highlighted that the extent of free speech is both difficult to define in a multicultural society, that there is a fundamental concept which we all hold dear. They raised the point that free speech is there to enable we, as members of society, to express our voices and opinions to others, however not to the extent which impinges on the ‘dignity’ of others. When questioned on the framework of society to upheld this concept of ‘dignity’, they admitted that this is quite difficult to enforce, but starting off with a fundamental concept was more important that trying to draw the line.

Griffin did start off promisingly (although only after he stumbled by insulting Oxford, dismissing them as the ‘intellectual elite’ – Griffin is a law graduate of Downing College, Cambridge), he started his brief speech discussing the merits of free speech and the problems which a multicultural society has when dealing with these issues. However, when he attempted to qualify his argument with ‘facts’, it became quite unsettling as he proceeded to use the famous quote “The right to swing my fist ends where the other man’s nose begins – Oliver Wendell Holmes” to twist his fascist views on the protection of a ‘British Indigenous People’ (read White Working Class) into a seemingly legitimate standpoint. However, he failed to backup any of his ‘points’ with real facts, and instead used half truths, opinions labelled as facts, and cherry picked individual experiences which were clearly mislabelled as generalisations. These included descriptions of ‘Muslim men grooming non-muslim women for sex’, by using cigarettes/alcohol/rollups/cannabis/crack (in that order) and then inviting them back to be ‘gang-raped’ and attributing this sex crime as a race crime. (I agree with Jess Prince, grooming for sex is abhorrent, in this case it was difficult to trace the race related issue.) The audience expressed dismay at many of his unfounded points, either by questioning directly (often linking these back to his fascist doctrine), or by awkward gasps/laughs.

The propaganda which Griffin was uttering, was clearly visible, he pandered to an anti liberal-leftwing-intellectual establishment which was disempowering the Real People, and seemingly providing a rational alternative with his ‘Pro British White Man’ party; citing the injustice of the establishment’s gagging, due to ‘No Platform’ policies, dismissal of BNP views, and ‘limitations on free speech’ with incitement to religious and racial hatred based laws. To make his view point seem more hip’n’interesting he jumped on the climate bandwagon and attempted to blame global warming on immigration. This seemed a little incongruous with his previous arguments, and just served to highlight his blinkered view of the world. (People have a carbon footprint wherever they live, and we as a global society have to deal with that issue, whether they wish to call Britain their home or not.)

As a society, we need to examine what we consider to be ‘decent’ in our society, especially when it comes to our rights and on issues such as free speech. Our right to exist as ‘dignified’ human beings does come with some caveats, as we must be aware of the impact we have on others. The effect of free speech rang most true with the passion and articulate voices at the debate, both from the speakers, the chair and the audience. Everyone was there to listen and to make up their own minds.

The views expressed here are of the author, and do not constitute the views of the Oxford Hive as a whole.