A protest rally took place in Oxford on Tuesday evening against a forthcoming debate on free speech scheduled for next Monday at its prestigious Union to which David Irving and Nick Griffin have been invited to attend as speakers.
Whether next Monday's debate goes ahead remains to be seen. The matter is to be put to a vote of Union members after a debate on the matter tomorrow.
Quite apart from whether the two speakers should ever have been invited in the first place, the question of whether the debate should go ahead has now become a matter of public safety.
Last Friday, the Oxford University paper Cherwell reported that University students had received death threats from neo-Nazis and that BNP supporters were planning to “target” demonstrators at next Monday’s debate.
On this question, it is interesting to contrast the reasons given by two people who have publicly argued the debate should go ahead.
The first of these is Deborah Lipstadt, the historian whom David Irving unsuccessfully sued for libel in a British court. Despite thinking it to have been folly for the Union to have invited Irving and Griffin in the first place, now that they have been, argues Dr Lipstadt, the debate should be allowed to go ahead, although when she said that the present security concerns had not yet surfaced.
Last month, Dr Lipstadt wrote on her blog:
‘While I think the invitation should never have been issued, I tend to think a strong campaign against the invitation should NOT have been mounted. All it will do is make Irving look like a martyr rather than the reviled character [he] has become.’
Contrast the reasons Dr Lipstadt gives for why next Monday’s debate should be allowed to go ahead with those of Dr Raghib Ali, a lecturer at Oxford and a founder member of iMap, the Oxford Islam and Muslim Awareness Project, created, according to its website, to ‘convey the message of peace, tolerance and understanding which represents true Islam’.
Dr Ali is quoted as having said about the debate:
‘The views these men hold are dangerous and lead to further prejudice. But by not giving them a platform you push them underground and make them more dangerous.’
As I read Dr Ali’s remarks, the reason he is in favour of the debate going ahead is that he considers it is a good thing that Messrs Irving and Griffin were invited to speak at the Oxford Union, no matter how dangerous their views might be.
According to Dr Ali, by denying their views a public platform, they become still more dangerous.
Hmm.
Dr Irving had his day in a British court, where his dangerous and repugnant views about the Holocaust were thoroughly aired and discredited.
Not giving Messrs Irving and Griffin a platform, by not inviting them to speak at the Union, is not pushing their views underground. It is simply denying them the soil in which to germinate their views.
If, as the organisation he founded states to be is its goal, Dr Ali really wants to ‘convey the message of peace, tolerance and understanding of true Islam’, he would do well to dwell on that distinction.
Otherwise it can all too easily look as if what he is lending his support to is the expression of views that are anything but peaceful and tolerant, however unrepresentative they might be of true Islam, as against false Islam of which Holcoaust denial and other forms of antisemitism are most decidedly not unrepresentative.
Comments (2)
Here is the statement sent to me by Deborah Lipstadt which I read out at the protest on Monday night:
" In 2000 I spent 12 weeks in court defending myself against charges of libel brought against me by David Irving. My defense team proved that David Irving, in the words of the judgment issued against Irving, “perverts,” “distorts,” “falsifies,” “misrepresents” the facts, and, simply put, lies. The judge found his writings to be racist and antisemitic. In the end we defeated David Irving by using facts and demonstrating that nothing this man has said about the Holocaust – and many other things -- can be taken at face value.
Why should the Oxford Union give one of its coveted places to a man such as this or a man such as Nick Griffin, who spews hatred and racial prejudice? I am firm believer in free speech. In my country the much maligned First Amendment gives everyone a chance to make a complete “arse” of themselves. However, the right to free speech does not mean that everyone is deserving of a platform at the Oxford Union. If the Union wanted to debate the issue of free speech and laws against expressions of Holocaust denial and racism, there are many good people with severely opposing views who could have been invited to do so. Inviting these two men smacks of a stunt which gives them what they most need to survive: publicity.
The President of the Union has claimed that they are not being invited to spout their views. What then is there for them to say? That they have been denied the right to speak? Griffin has a platform anytime he wants it and David Irving used and abused your courts as a platform to spew his distortions of history.
Some of those who have defended the Oxford Union have called for open minds. The problem with people with open minds is that sometimes their minds are so open their brains fall out. And that is the best that can be said of the organizers of this evening’s debate. "
Deborah E. Lipstadt, Ph.D.
Dorot Professor of Modern Jewish and Holocaust Studies
Emory University
Atlanta, Ga
www.lipstadt.blogspot.com
www.hdot.org
Posted by Jonathan Hoffman | November 28, 2007 12:24 PM
Posted on November 28, 2007 12:24
I really don't see what the big deal is all about. I suppose allowing them to speak is now the modern equivalent of blasphemy.
The BNP proposes voluntary repatriation with generous grants, saying it will pay between £30-50K per immigrant who chooses to accept this grant. My concern is that of a taxpayer and that white people will be blacking up to avail themselves of these grants to leave the country they were going to leave anyway!
As for Irving, whatever he has said about how many Jews died or whether or not there were gas chambers in Auschwitz ought not be an imprisonable offence in Austria or here.
I would be very interested to know what they have to say for themselves and so would most people I know, whatever their colour, religion or race.
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Posted by Andromeda | November 26, 2007 12:14 PM
Posted on November 26, 2007 12:14