Not sure if this has made the news in Oz, but it’s been front page news over here for nigh on a week. I’ve written a piece for the Telegraph (not the Oz version, the British version), to which you’re free to add your comments (it seems to be similar to the Guardian’s ‘Comment is Free’ section, but not called that). I suspect you have to register with the paper in order to do so, however, and for those who’d prefer not to do that, please feel free to visit this public Facebook link (which is pretty similar).
53 Comments
In April, the Oxford Union hosted the delightful Jamal Harwood, head of Hizb-ut-Tahrir in the UK.
The BNP are very similar to One Nation - ie they are racists not fascists. Hizb, on the other hand, are a genuinely fascist party.
Not a whisper of protest from any of these so-called anti-fascists.
The Oxford Union has also hosted Gerry Adams and OJ Simpson. Oh, and Jenna Jameson too.
Pommy, you poor unenlightened soul,
It’s alright for oppressed peoples to be fascist.
And a lot of others, too. They do like to shit-stir, although on this occasion finished up with a tiger by the tail in terms of the security issues.
Well yes, why wouldn’t they stir shit?
Sans contention and conflict, what point in a debate?
Well yes, that too. It was a bit shocking to see the carry on, as English people are generally very polite. A few people must have woken up the next day and been a bit worried about what they did the night before - it’s amazing what can happen to even the brightest and most restrained person in a group setting.
Nice article SL, pity about the muckraker posting on the Telegraph.
Ah, diffusion of reponsibility. Ain’t it a beautiful thang?
A bit like the anonymity (or at least, relative freedom from immediate retribution) afforded by these here intertubes, no?
Folks do and say things they might not otherwise.
Not me.
Never.
C$&#S!!!!
It’s funny, but people who advocate violence to silence the opinions of others have forgotten that the same tactics can be used against them.
Point out that the tactics used by the state to hassle protesters in the UK are not much different than the tactics those same protestors use against David Irving and his ilk. Bunch of brown shirts, the lot of them.
The muckracker over at the Telegraph is in all probability a Catallaxy lurker who only learnt my piece was there thanks to the post here.
If that’s not the case, then he’s unhealthily obsessed with me.
That said, and without wanting to impugn anyone for anything, a little extra context for the readers wasn’t out of line methinks.
Done clearly by someone with an agenda, but for the average UK reader quite informative I would have thought.
Unfortunately it’s chased away an interesting UK commenter - someone who lives locally, too. That’s the problem with playing the man - it’s fundamentally gutless.
“If that’s not the case, then he’s unhealthily obsessed with me.”
Metromick? Septic’s post doesn’t read like him but I think I recognise the style from Catallaxy.
Hmmm… it might not have. If I didn’t already know the back story reasonably well, I might be intrigued.
#13 refers to #11
FDB, so you think SL has to attach a biography to anything she publishes just to preempt rudeness? If ‘True Skeptic’ had a point to make other than a bit of mudslinging, then it was lost on me.
Michael would have posted as himself - he’s Michael F on every forum, not just here. Also in light of discussions recently round these parts, I don’t think he’d bother.
No of course she doesn’t. She can write whatever the hell she wants how and where and whenever she wants.
In an environment as heated as that surrounding these particular events, I don’t think calling attention to her past connections with the subject matter is out of line, that’s all.
We are, after all, talking about matters centering on the debating society of arguably the world’s greatest seat of learning - is a bit of contention not permissable?
I refer you to the ENTIRE FUCKING SUBJECT OF THE POST!!!!
D’oh! #17 re: #15 etc etc
It’s “Spell check JC”, JC’s alter ego having an allergic reaction to the kiss & make-up of last night! LOL!
FDB, simmer down. Ad homs directed against me (especially anonymous ad homs) are a touchy subject around these parts, and we’ve thrashed the issue out repeatedly for over a year now, and several people have had brain explosions at different times on the subject.
I saw this on SBS. I agree with the freedom of speech, but this should not stop people from protesting (this is also free speech). Moreover I actually would support such a protest against the anapologetic hate mongers. Of course I won’t support the violence, that is completely wrong.
How this should be addressed? I believe the right way for the Union is to sue these protesters for the extra costs. That would be a good lesson. The same approach may be employed against anti-globalisation looneys and Greenpeace. My observation is that in these cases criminal sanctions are ineffective…
*brain explodes*
Yeah, I’m gonna go roll a fat one and forget the whole thing.
But seriously, I hope you can keep an intellectual life going over thar free from the depradations of your various antipodean detractors. If that is what you want, I reckon writing articles that could even be constured as defending holocaust deniers might be a bad move.
Construed, even.
A polite protest would have won the anti-fascists the argument - that’s the irony of this. Instead by bullying others, they succeeded in making Griffin (in particular) look good.
Irving is basically a headcase, the sort of bloke who goes through eccentric and comes out the other side. He irritates a lot of people but is basically harmless. Griffin is an entirely different kettle of fish. He runs a growing political party that - as Pommy says - is explicitly racist (much more so than One Nation, I might add - for the BNP even assimilated non-whites are not welcome).
By behaving so badly the protesters gave Britain’s wannabe Le Pen a leg up, and that’s damn near unforgivable.
FDB: it would be very easy for me to just swallow my classical liberal principles and never say anything controversial ever again, especially on free speech. It’s also gutless. Of course, I could have just posted the piece on the Cat, or solely in the Telegraph, and not let one audience know about the other. That’s easy too - and also gutless. Maybe I’m tilting at windmills, but I’m willing to run a one-woman manners campaign for a good while to come.
He’s a Cat lurker - various among you all, even the redoubtable Jason, have been named, along with the site (he gets the URL wrong).
FDB
Free speech is fine but Truely Septic balls didn’t challenge SL direct but opened with “Readers should be aware that …”
I’d like to see open debate between the two of them, but TS is a gutless wonder. Nothing would have stopped SL from posting under a different moniker if she had a second agenda. At the end of the day TS is one of green-eyed literary types who thinks that because SL did a first rate impression of Goldie Hawns character “Gwen” in the movie Housesitter over ten years ago, she is a fair target.
I accept your point however that maybe SL has ‘hit me’ tattooed on her forehead, but I like her ‘fuck’em’ attitude which drives her to be open and out there.
Like all of us she’s capable of puerile pieces of writing that should be criticised for their content and any questions of bias can also be put to her. Lobbing a hand grenade anonymously and running for cover is Tread Terrorism.
“Frankly, I would rather have threats of violence (yes, I am referring to Jason S., JC, Adrienswords and various others who know who they are) directed against my moniker than against me personally.”
Do you recognise this?
No, I don’t. Obviously not a fan of the Cat, shall we say
FDB, the subject of the post was mob violence used to supress free speech of the objectionable, not SL’s colourful literary history.
If True Skeptic wanted to question SL’s motivation, then he should have done directly, not obscured the discussion by painting a picture that was designed to show her to be a fascist.
It was Pee Pee Herman,. I’d bet a few dollars it was Pee Pee.
Possibly. This site has a lot of lurkers who never comment - I keep running into people who read it (and I’ve often asked them to comment), but have usually been told that they enjoy the posts, but not the stoushes.
It’s one of the reasons why I’ve made a conscious effort to drain the antagonism out of my commenting, as have Michael F, JC, Sinkers and others. It’s ultimately really pointless and just discourages people from joining in.
Sl
What stoushes? Would you regard my comments to Homer’s idiocy as stoushes? He needs a good crack of the knuckle across the head every day.
I should add that when I saw this on SBS yesterday and did not find a corresponding post on Catallaxy, I assumed that you, SL, are deliberately avoiding the topic, which I thought would be both wise and understandable, especially after the uneasy truce had been just acheieved.Today’s story shows I was wrong.
I know I am gutless but I do find your action to belong to the other extreme. You just have some uncontrollable desire to stir and provoke. I mean why would it be gutless not to write about it? Can’t the Union defend itself, both physically and in the press? I agree the attacks on you are cowardly and grossly unfair, no question, but I can’t escape the feeling that you are almost inviting them.
The SBS said there were Jewish and Muslem protesters protesting together. That seldom happens, to put it mildly.
Why smash BNP Paribas ?
Is this a commie Oxford conspiracy against banks ?
Or is it a secret GMB anti fractional reserve guerilla campaign ?
Boris,
The SBS said there were Jewish and Muslem protesters protesting together. That seldom happens, to put it mildly
So we should be happy that a bunch of thugs managed to put their differences behind them to physically intimidate OU members and trespass on their premises. Take that Palestinian peace process, the answer isn’t to settle differences, but find a common cause to violently embrace?
The Union came unstuck badly on the security front, so no, they probably have proven themselves incapable of defending themselves. However, on a personal front, I am determined to discuss things of importance to me (and as a libertarian, they don’t come much higher than free speech).
I am also determined to do it politely, and to lead by example when others are impolite. If you pop over to the Telegraph site, you’ll see that even ‘True Skeptic’ has dropped the aggro, and is now discussing the issues without ad-homs.
On a slightly more flippant note, a reasonable definition of ‘Australian’ is probably ’shit-stirrer’
“On a slightly more flippant note, a reasonable definition of ‘Australian’ is probably ’shit-stirrer’ ”
Too true !
No… no… not fractional reserve… although there’s already a few other 1000+ comments candidates for a new Thread of Doom ™.
SL of course it is within your right to write about anything including free speech. But I was under an impression that you were trying to avoid/put a stop to those discussions about your past. You even pleaded with your supporters to stop taking part in these stoushes. But with this sort of action you are sort of igniting them again. If you are happy to put up with this, that’s fine.
I would also apply the same approach to this Union. In fact I do not have any sympathy for them. They get their publicity (and probably membersip fees) by inviting these controlvesial figures (to put it mildly). Well then they have to put up with the cosequences, buy some protection etc. Or they can sue for damages.
I think people like David Irving or BNP should have the right of free speech, however decent organisation should not invite them and give them platform. Legal but morally wrong. If they want, they can publish their own papers, start their own radio station, etc etc.
“we should be happy that a bunch of thugs managed to put their differences behind them to physically intimidate OU members and trespass on their premises. Take that Palestinian peace process, the answer isn’t to settle differences, but find a common cause to violently embrace?”
No. I did not mean that at all. I just meant that it was hardly believable, not that it is was justified.
Of course were the protest peaceful, it would be a good thing (in my view).
This tinkers too much at the margins of free speech for my liking, and risks playing a game of dividing speech into ‘acceptable’ and ‘unacceptable’ - as well as placing a tremendous burden on community organisations, who have to take the rap for other peoples’ idiocy. And the OU did buy protection - £24,000 worth. Fat lot of good it did them.
(And I didn’t bring up any history. Someone else did. I can’t be responsible for other peoples’ comments. This is actually an incredibly simple issue, and whether I’m actually Chopper Read in deep disguise, or 10 foot tall and bulletproof, doesn’t come into it).
I can see where Boris is coming from. There was no restriction from government and libertarians are primarily concerned with government restrictions. There is no extraordinary legal issue involved here on either side. There was a minor property rights violation at most and no one blogs about everyday thefts and tresspasses. And community organisations of course are as entitled to be as free of property rights trespasses as everyone else - and equally it is not extraordinary that if they choose to pay for additional security it sometmes does not work just as security guards don’t always prevent robberies.
So this is not really a cause I’m too excited about either way.
The money was actually to pay the state police for extra protection, not a private security agency. I do think that ramps it up a bit, and the spitting, abuse and intimidation was pretty unpleasant, too.
It doesn’t matter - so they paid for additional security from the state police because it was thought that the demands being placed on usual publicly funded security were disproportionate or they could have got it from a private provider. They took a risk and the amount of security needed probably was disproportionate. The culprits are those who took the protest too far and violated property rights, not the taxpayer.
I don’t see the public policy issue. The world doesn’t owe the OU a living or perfectly provided services (which do not exist - people get robbed all the time). As Boris said, they took a risk, got some publicity and if they really want to, they can sue the protesters to recoup the money. And the fact that they are non-profit or a community organisation is neither here nor there.
OT: what’s your view of private security provision, Jason? It’s just I’ve been researching it for one of my papers over here, and it raises some interesting issues, both normative and empirical.
SL does not explicitly say it is a public policy issue. But if she implied this, then I am with Jason. What kind of public policy issue is it? That free speech deserves special government protection at tax payers expense? I wouldn’t support that.
As for acceptable vs unacceptable speech: yes, of course there is socially acceptable and socially unacceptable speech. There are some moral norms and this is good. For example behaviour of some commenters on Catallaxy would fall into the latter category in any civilised real-life discussion (however on blogs norms are different). The key is that it is none of the government’s business, nothing more.
how can Oxford have a union. Didn’t Dame Margaret get rid of them.
The country must be going to the dogs so everyone is barking mad!!
It is a great pity SL is in pommyland and not here
“The world doesn’t owe the OU a living or perfectly provided services …”
Should the Oxford Union be liable to such a degree for the excessive cost of protection from these rioters? It’s ironic that an infamous society such as OU which always tackles contentious issues through open debate and discussion is portrayed in the press as being unconscionable for doing so and thereafter subject to a mob incited by the same press to act in such a ignorant fashion. Control the minds of the mob and increase your sales and/or advertising revenue I guess.
Thanks for #16 SL. Only just read this thread (busy elsewhere). For the record, you are right.
So Skeptic how does
subsidized farnarklingstudent politics break down in the UK. Are they dominated by the Natural Awfulness of Labor Students?SL -
Your stalker is quiet today and he promised.
SL
Good on you for giving those unwashed limey sooks a jolly good bitchslapping!
Reading about their carry-on, the first thing that popped into my head was how terribly common to become so emotional and irrational. Ask the history students, they will tell you it is very difficult to write a good essay about the war (WW2) in the east, without citing Irving as an authority. Irving is a traditional empiricist realist historian, not a slimey postmodernist. Thus, Irving is very easily tackled with the same methods.
I imagine that those “Independent Jewish Voices supporting Hamas” type organisations would have applauded Irving’s presence on campus.
Surely there is no public policy issue, there are laws to cover violence, theft and vandalism.
The last thing we need are laws to enforce good manners, however much we value civility.
Thanks for the post SL, is there a list of past topics, I like the one “That this house will not swim the English Channel” are there others like that?