The Curmudgeon

YOU'LL COME FOR THE CURSES. YOU'LL STAY FOR THE MUDGEONRY.

Sunday, November 25, 2007

Oxford Blues

The well-known martyr to Austrian ideas of free speech, David Irving, has been invited to an event hosted by the Oxford Union Debating Society. The leader of the British National Party, Nick Griffin, has been asked along too, and the members of the society have voted by a margin of two to one in favour of letting them speak. Predictably, a row has blown up. A former Minister for Frogs and Huns "condemned the union for 'promoting anti-Semitism'"; apparently the BNP's attitude to non-Jewish non-whites is not a matter for concern. The university's Muslim and Jewish societies said that the principle of free speech was "overshadowed in this instance", as presumably it would not be were those societies to extend invitations to radical imams or militant Zionists. The part-time Secretary for Supporting Our Boys, Des Browne, has felt "forced" to withdraw, though apparently from a completely different debate.

The organiser of the event, Luke Tryl of the rebranded Young Conservatives, has, in the Observer's words, "claimed that it is possible to abhor the views of Griffin and Irving while accepting their right to be heard". Despite the use of the alarm-verb claim, which we are more accustomed to seeing these days in connection with Iranian statements that agree with IAEA reports, there does not appear to be anything wrong with Tryl's argument. A viewpoint that cannot be publicly articulated is one that cannot be publicly shot down.

The planned debate will not even be about anti-Semitism or the Holocaust, so Tryl and his colleagues can hardly be accused of giving Griffin and Irving a public playpen in which to ride their nasty little hobbyhorses. Even if this were the case, the claim by the Oxford University Jewish Society's co-president that "by having them speak, it legitimises their views" shows an understanding of the purposes of debate that would not be out of place in a sermon by the Vicar of Downing Street. According to Tryl, the debate will be about "the limits of free speech"; and it will be a debate, not a political rally. Tryl has said that "there will be other speakers to challenge and attack [Irving's and Griffin's] views in a head-to-head manner", rather than the atmosphere of, say, the Labour Party conference.

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