Freedom of Speech
25/11/2007
Tomorrow the Oxford Union invites David Irving, celebrity holocaust denier and “historian”, and Nick Griffin, political leader of the BNP to their dispatch box. Many people on the left ion this country have fallen in to the trap of calling for censorship of these people and I for one can not agree.
David Irving is a joke who has peddled offensive filth about Jews for years, with comments such as “Yes, hundreds of thousands of people were killed, but there were no factories of death. All that is a blood libel against the German people” and “Without Hitler, the State of Israel probably would not exist today. To that extent he was probably the Jews' greatest friend.” While Nick Griffin two pigs on his farm in Wales called Anne and Frank! Go figure.
However, it is because of the views of these people that their right to free speech should be defended, for if we defend free speech for only those views palatable to us, then free speech loses all its value, and becomes a stuttering contradiction. Freedom of expression or speech gives us the opportunity to see these people, hear their drivel and show them up for what it is. I hardly think the members of the Oxford Union, the greatest debating society there is are going to be taken in by the fascists. If we don't know what they represent, and what they say, how can we defend our own right of reply that is incorporated in to the movement of free speech, and moreover defend the potentially repressed.
I am a white Christian and probably don't fall in to the demographic that these two people find reprehensible, and I find their views poisonous in the extreme. However I want to know what they have to say so I can denounce it as nonsense and try to help other people understand why it is nonsense. If put our hands over our ears, the voices don't go away. If we try to ban them, or their views, we become their best friends because it gives them notoriety, and with that comes sympathy. Also, this is a debate, not merely a platform for them. It will be balanced panel with opposing views and would make for riveting discussion.
They're like the bully in the school playground. Until you stand up to them, they just get stronger.
