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David Irving/Nick Griffin at the Oxford Union
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
Story.
I'm in two minds really. I think if we don't challenge the BNP and the likes of Irving openly we only help them. These people need to be exposed, censoring them and stifling debate doesn't allow that to happen.
But, at the same time you can allow freedom of expression without giving a platform to racist homophobic anti-Semites...
I'm in two minds really. I think if we don't challenge the BNP and the likes of Irving openly we only help them. These people need to be exposed, censoring them and stifling debate doesn't allow that to happen.
But, at the same time you can allow freedom of expression without giving a platform to racist homophobic anti-Semites...
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It's pretty obvious, as long as they don't incite any hatred or ask people to go out and kill ethnic minorities and Jews then they can say whatever they want.
Legally that is 'obvious' and true... but that doesn't make it right for the Oxford Union to invite Nick Griffin and David Irving. The Oxford Union is one of the most prestigious venues someone can speak at; past speakers have included lots of US presidents, Mother Teresa, Malcolm X, Richard Dawkins, the Dalai Lama, etc. This isn't about Griffin or Irving and their right to mouth off at Speakers' Corner or on the internet...
Thinking about the NUS and its policy of 'no platform' for the BNP and Hizb ut-Tahrir I probably agree with it. To force people who would refuse to share a platform with these people to do so infringes on the freedoms of the former... The BNP/Hizb ut-Tahrir can still hold their views but the NUS and its members should be free to choose not to be in the same room as them...
Mate - he claimed only a few 1000 people were killed by the nazi's and there was no systematic attempt to kill the jewish race. He wasn't arguing about a term but about the event.
To be honest though I'm happy for this to go ahead. They've said they haven't been given a platform for their ideas but to discuss the issue of free speech and they'll be the opportunity for people to ask questions from the floor that won't be controlled or censored.
It's a Freedom of Speach rally, I'm sure they deliberately picked them to display some sort of emotive message on the issue and show that everyone has a right to free speach.
And to be fair the Oxford Union also had two women, one dressed as Judge Anderson and the other as Durham Red to debate the issues of 'Blond vs. Red-head' on behalf of 2000AD...
The Oxofrd Union was created on the back of an attempt to nullify students right to protest etc - it's whole basis is about freedom of speech.
As I have said so many times, the minute you stard to have exclusions to free speech then you are arguing for your own opinions to be outlawed.
Say Hitler hadn't commit suicide and ended up in prison. Allowed out for a day, he was invited to speak at the Oxford Union. Would it be alright for him to speak? Free speech and all that?
What about getting Ian Huntley to speak if he could be allowed out for a day?
In principle I agree but the fact is that there are limits on free speech - and I suspect you support some of them. Inciting murder or hatred against minorities is a step too far. If a religious extremist starts calling for gay people to be thrown off cliffs and Jews to be blown up they should face legal consequences.
Irving and Griffin are clever - these days at least, you won't hear either openly inciting murder; they know the law and unlike some extremist Muslim cleric they're better at staying on the right side of the law. I'm not saying that the law should be tightened to get Irving and Griffin. And I don't think we should be denying Irving the right to peddle his books. Tolerating Irving and Griffin is one thing, giving them a platform another. I assume you'd have no problem if a major national newspaper gave Griffin a column? Free speech after all? (I'd accept legally the right of a newspaper to do that - but it would be entirely right to protest against it because it would be promoting him... Griffin should be free to mouth off but he shouldn't be helped).
The idea that free speech is always a free for all isn't true - in practice few accept that. There are general limits on taste (that would stop Ian Huntley speaking) and there are limits on inciting murder - and it's right that there's a limit on promoting hate (which is what the NUS do and the Oxford Union are not doing).
Actually I would quite like to have heard Hitler speak. Reports suggest that as an orator, he was exceptionally gifted so maybe would have been quite riveting.
Doubt Ian Huntley would have anything remotely interesting to say.
But Muslims ARE allowed free speech. As was posted above :
The BNP are capable of having some debate without including blatant racial hatred, as are (militant) Muslims. As long as neither incites violence or racial hatred, then both are free to speak.
MOK: I'd certainly want to listen to Hitler or Ian Huntley speak, and i defy anybody to try take my right to hear them away from me.
There may be some limits to free speech, but you haven't come close to giving us any valid examples that apply to Griffin and Irving. They aren't 'inciting murder', even covertly. You might find that your own arguments about being allowed to say whatever you want apply much more forcefully against yourself than them in this case.
It's easy to agree freedom of speech for those you agree with. But it is ultimately worthless if it doesn't cover those who we think are mad, bad or dangerous to know.
I thought the theoretical situation was them speaking after they'd been let out of jail?
:yes:
I thought it was day release - but if they'd been let free, they'd have served their time and I can't see any reason why they shouldn't be allowed to speak (though I suspect that if Hitler had been captured alive he'd have been in jail up to the morning he had his appointment with the hangman's noose...)
Ah, the woman-hating, poverty loving Mother Teresa herself? I guess they're in quite good company then?
Maybe the reason it is such a prestigious venue is that it allows people of all different opinions and worldviews to talk?
Ditto for Hitler. The fact remains that using people who have clearly committed crimes, or died before they were brought to book, let alone booked to speak, to argue against free speech is logically invalid.
Given your views on immigration and that you have advocated torture for convicted criminals I'm surprised you disagree so much with the BNP.
As for them being given a platform - yes definately, they should be pushed into far more hard debate and hopefully people will notice what crap they're talking.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/oxfordshire/7113984.stm
Not that I think he was right to Hound the booksellers (He tried to sue them personally I believe) but that they were wrong to deny someone else an opportunity to make a choice.
Anyway - I still think he is an idiot, I still think his books are pushing lies and corrupting minds.
or both?
Yes, good point, I didn't think of that. Let's see how well David Irving's self pitying crap about being persecuted for supposedly examining history without pre-conceptions stands up in front of people who really do know that history, because they had to live through it.
exactly. Though I wouldn't like to see holocaust survivors subjected to the kind of abuse they may experience in front of your typical BNP Rally. Hopefully there would be some people there capable of some serious thought and discussion.
I guess (I hope) that at the Oxford union there would be a reasonably intelligent audience.
In fact the oxygen of publicity doesn't work very well for Nick griffin at least - a few years ago he was being interviewed by Dimbledy during the election night coverage and got well and truly pwned.
Irving's a bit more dangerous, but that because when i saw him interviewed the TV interviewer seemed unprepared.
At the same time, don't write him off, some of his early books were pretty revlatory - he was one of first British WW2 historians who looked at German sources. Up until irving came along there was a tendency to see Rommel as a 'good German'. Irving was one of the first to show his links with the nazis and his personal support and admiration for Hitler.
I think Nick Griffin is too desparate to paint himself as Mr. Respectable at the moment to allow the true face of his followers to reveal themselves in any such debate. That would soon change if they won any significant measure of power, so maybe now is the right time to show him up for what he is. Pitting him and Irving against Holocaust survivors, and indeed survivors of other attempted genocides, like Rwanda and Bosnia, would wipe away the mask of supressed anti-hero that both like to cultivate, and show them up as a pair of dangerous and immoral nutcases.
I'd love to see people like them widely ignored, really. They shouldn't even be seen as controversial, just ignored.