Griffin prevented from lecturing at my University

[Tom A]

While I agree with that sentiment from an activist's point of view, I find it harder to justify from the point of view of someone who decides what the rules should be. I know what I dis/agree with and it is great when others think the same, but should I impose my views on others to the point where I become oppressive?

So would you have wanted the event to go ahead, and then No Platform to be enforce by milltant antifash AFA-style? I would personally like to see the prospect of such an ugly incident reduced if possible.

 

[chilango]

This isn't a matter of free speech vs. censorship though is it really?

The University surely has every right to decide which events happen within it?

Griffin can legally speak outside the University if he wants.

If/when this is prevented, then free speech comes into play, no?

 

[GarfieldLeChat]

have you lot read the link posted in the OP? to be fair to the uni, they give a very detailed and measured account of the reasons for cancelling the lecture. i think the 'no platform' stance can be dangerous and freedom of speech is always the most important factor, but im inclined to agree with the uni in this case.

see i don't...

the uni has caved into the threats of a massive protest (undefined) unless they pull the event...

now would this be tollerable if the bnp said shut up shop or you'll face massive disruption to your daily life mr and mrs patel?

are the tactcis used to ban this event any more sanctionable than those used by the bnp or c18 ?

intimidation, threat of disruption of a legal and lawful action (however morally represhenseable they may be)...

Is this any better than the xtain actions against the Jerry Springer opera?

 

[GarfieldLeChat]

This isn't a matter of free speech vs. censorship though is it really?

The University surely has every right to decide which events happen within it?

Griffin can legally speak outside the University if he wants.

If/when this is prevented, then free speech comes into play, no?

i see it as the fascist stoped by the fascists...

this and this and this is ok but that... ban that....

 

[chilango]

Yeah, but...

...it's not like anyone can just wander into University and hold a meeting/lecture. The University is private property, no? So you have to ask permission. Which the Uni has every right to deny - and does - to whoever it wants.

 

[TAE]

So would you have wanted the event to go ahead, and then No Platform to be enforce by milltant antifash AFA-style? I would personally like to see the prospect of such an ugly incident reduced if possible.

That is not what I meant.

 

[GarfieldLeChat]

So would you have wanted the event to go ahead, and then No Platform to be enforce by milltant antifash AFA-style? I would personally like to see the prospect of such an ugly incident reduced if possible.

it's a bit of a straw man isn't it why would ther ehave had to be either the fascist talks and a riot or he doesn't...

seems abit black and white there....

 

[GarfieldLeChat]

Yeah, but...

...it's not like anyone can just wander into University and hold a meeting/lecture. The University is private property, no? So you have to ask permission. Which the Uni has every right to deny - and does - to whoever it wants.

true enough but then wouldn't it have been more honest to say actually nick griffin you're not welcome here fuck off rather than oh we might have a riot on campus so we couldn't possible have this happen...

 

[chilango]

true enough but then wouldn't it have been more honest to say actually nick griffin you're not welcome here fuck off rather than oh we might have a riot on campus so we couldn't possible have this happen...

Though, what were the real motives for stopping the lecture? and what is the university putting out for public consumption?

Who knows.

POint is, universites can, and do, stop all kinds of things on their property. There is nos uch thing as freedom of speech on someone elses private property, regardless of your political position.

Now, that is not a particularly good thing, but puts the whole thing in perspective.

If there was and Griffin got No Platformed, then it is a different debate.

 

[Azrael]

Why let people have freedom of speech if they are going to incite hatred against vulnerable sections of society, which ultimately violates their human rights.

Because giving a government carte blanche to restrict what you can say is far more dangerous that the ravings of a hate-filled cyclops.

The dangerously vague concept of "inciting hatred" is a direct attack on free speech. While I have no problem with banning the incitement of violence (which isn't an issue of free speech any more than ordering a massacre is) banning the incitement of "hatred" is in effect forbidding people to provoke an emotion in the listener. Which is the entire bloody point of making a poltical speech. Start judging which emotions it's acceptable to provoke and speech is no longer free.

Free speech is an absolute: you either have it or you don't. I'd rather we did.

The United States' First Amendment takes a far healthier attitude to the fanatics. It gives 'em enough rope. The likes of Fred Phelps are unrestrained in their hatred, and soon descend into such depths of idiocy (the good pastor is currently picketing the funerals of dead soldiers on the grounds that the deceased are "fag enablers) as to seal their own self-destruction.

As a private institution Bath Uni are perfectly within their rights to keep the loathsome Mr Griffin off their property. I just worry about the precedent such bans are setting. Force this sewage underground, force the fanatics to pull on a respectable veneer, and there's the risk that people will forget how badly it stinks.

 

[chainsaw cat]

I disagree with this statement . You are saying that someone is unable to be imparshall in there job . i dont think you/they should be able to make that call . Should the police/civil service be made up of only one sort of person .

I don't know why you are whinging.

Your standard of spelling would get you fast - tracked in any police force in the land.

 

[TremulousTetra]

GarfieldLeChat I think you raise the points, well. Questions that need to be asked, and answered.

I do think it is very important to raise the fact that the notion of free speech in present society is a comedy. I can think of loads of SW members who have been sacked because of their political and trade union views. And I have already given examples of how I have experienced restrictions on my free speech. There are loads more I could recount.

but I think chilango takes the debate forward when he says;

This isn't a matter of free speech vs. censorship though is it really?

The University surely has every right to decide which events happen within it?

Griffin can legally speak outside the University if he wants.

If/when this is prevented, then free speech comes into play, no?

Yeah, but...

...it's not like anyone can just wander into University and hold a meeting/lecture. The University is private property, no? So you have to ask permission. Which the Uni has every right to deny - and does - to whoever it wants.

I think it is very important. The idea of no platform, is not calling for people to not be allowed to have political viewpoints. It is not calling for the banning of political parties. What it is calling for is for the right of people to promote fascist viewpoints to be denied. People who control them platforms have every right to deny access to those platforms, the BBC, universities, public buildings, and even the streets I would argue.

now you could argue this is attack upon freedom of speech. You are allowing me to think what I want, but you are not allowing me to say what I want. And it is true. The fascist are being denied civil liberties that other people enjoy. again this is something that happens every day, it is not something that just happens to fascist. Socialist worker cannot demand the BBC etc give it a platform for its views.

But denied by who?this is an important point too. The denial of these platforms should be the act of working-class people. Not the state. The state can be used by the people to deny this access, but it should come as a result of pressure. Pressure from "the masses". Or pressure through the organisations of working class people, trade unions etc. If anti-fascism is organised in that way, then I think you can rightly deny fascist even the right to use public spaces/the streets as a platform to fascism, because these are our streets.

 

[JoePolitix]

When Mosley's Blackshirts tried to march through East London chanting "the yids, the yids we've got to get rid of the yids" there were some on the left who mobilised to deny these patriots their right to public expression and assembly. What silly "fascists" they were. If only GarfieldLeChat had been around then* to knock some common sense into them.

*a possibilty I haven't totally ruled out

 

[mk12]

Blackshirts marching through East London signing "the yids, the yids we've got to get rid of the yids" is slightly different to the current tactics of the British National Party, isn't it?

 

[JoePolitix]

Blackshirts marching through East London signing "the yids, the yids we've got to get rid of the yids" is slightly different to the current tactics of the British National Party, isn't it?

Yep. What's your point? You in favour of free speech for the fash now?

 

[mk12]

No just pointing out that it's silly to compare what the Moseleyites were doing and what the current BNP are doing.

 

[JoePolitix]

No just pointing out that it's silly to compare what the Moseleyites were doing and what the current BNP are doing.

Eerrm I wasn't. I was comparing what the anti-fascists were doing then and what they are doing now. Just because the fash repackage themselves as "Euro-nationalists" it doesn't mean that anti-fascists should suddenly allow them a platform.

 

[mk12]

I was comparing what the anti-fascists were doing then and what they are doing now

Yes - but things have changed a lot since then. It's not very meaningful to do that.

 

[lights.out.london]

then that is a fascist statement... ironic isn't it...

this and this and this is ok but that that is verboten = fascist...

either you have the abiltiy to say what ever the hell you want or you don't as soon as you apply limits or legisilation this will be build on as an example of well x or y can't say that and this is acomparitive and we're down the road of thougth crime... sadly i'd rather live in a world were griffin and his ilk are time and again proved to be moroic twats by their own voice than in a world which locks people up for having an opinion which isn't state sanctioned.

no good has ever come from censorship or prohibtition, least of all has it enamoured people to consider or adopt those ideas wholesale rather they adopt them by havign them blugeoned into their psychie... forcing things underground is particually in terms of racist morons no way to go... doing so is ultimatley more dangerous than having showboating fat immagrant (where does griffin live it's not england is it??) twats... hollering about sending em back...

No. It isn't a 'fascist' statement. There is nothing that you've written here which demonstrates that it is.

May I refer you to Germany from around 1929 until the bitter end at the Reichstag in May 1945?

Now please tell me that a platform for racists and fascists is a good thing?

Sometimes a judgement call has to made. I'm not a fan of utilitarianism, but in this case the freedom of the few i.e. the fash to whom you'd give a platform, has to be weighed against the greater good of society and the citizens who live in that society, particularly those who are most likely to suffer e.g. homosexuals, people of colour, immigrants and those whose politics are "left of centre".

IRL it sometimes has to be "either/or". I believe this is one of those cases.

 

[GarfieldLeChat]

When Mosley's Blackshirts tried to march through East London chanting "the yids, the yids we've got to get rid of the yids" there were some on the left who mobilised to deny these patriots their right to public expression and assembly. What silly "fascists" they were. If only GarfieldLeChat had been around then* to knock some common sense into them.

*a possibilty I haven't totally ruled out

yes of course saying that all have a right to speak regardless of how abhorent their viewpoint is, is clearly aligning oneself with fascists, silly me...

anyway back to your point, oh but wait stripped of context, it becomes meaningless...

what was the daily mails headline at the time, a national newspaper and as it has been for a large part of the 20th a mouth piece for the right in the uk, was it no terrible these bloody mosleyites nope it was hurrah forthe black shirts... what does that tell you about sentiment and readership appeal of one of the largest national newspapers at the time? concordance and agreement of the seniment or disgust and repugnance at it?

you make no mention of the juedophoic attitudes which were preverlent at the turn of the last centry and attempt to portray this as comparitive with modernday morality. it isn't...

the bnp should be allowed a platform, if for no other reason than every time griffin opens his mouth he proves what a dunderheaded moron he truely is....

 

[GarfieldLeChat]

No. It isn't a 'fascist' statement. There is nothing that you've written here which demonstrates that it is.

May I refer you to Germany from around 1929 until the bitter end at the Reichstag in May 1945?

Now please tell me that a platform for racists and fascists is a good thing?

Sometimes a judgement call has to made. I'm not a fan of utilitarianism, but in this case the freedom of the few i.e. the fash to whom you'd give a platform, has to be weighed against the greater good of society and the citizens who live in that society, particularly those who are most likely to suffer e.g. homosexuals, people of colour, immigrants and those whose politics are "left of centre".

IRL it sometimes has to be "either/or". I believe this is one of those cases.

yes it is seekign to ban something or prevent it's speech in such terms is fundmentally fascist...

i reffer you to thought crime and burning books ....

you mighten like it but seeking to push it underground (as you can't ban it) is no better either....

 

[TremulousTetra]

yes it is seekign to ban something or prevent it's speech in such terms is fundmentally fascist...

i reffer you to thought crime and burning books ....

you mighten like it but seeking to push it underground (as you can't ban it) is no better either....

okay, so surely if you will not allow Socialist workers party to have a public meeting in your living room to promote their party, you are a fascist?

 

[lights.out.london]

yes it is seekign to ban something or prevent it's speech in such terms is fundmentally fascist...

i reffer you to thought crime and burning books ....

you mighten like it but seeking to push it underground (as you can't ban it) is no better either....

I will continue to put my 'money' where my mouth is and continue to work to prevent fascists organising, gathering and disseminating their message, literature and hate.

If you are unable to understand or accept my utilitarian argument, we must beg to differ. Which is fine on a BB.

 

[audiotech]

No just pointing out that it's silly to compare what the Moseleyites were doing and what the current BNP are doing.

The fascists never change it appears.

The incident happened at 4.30pm on April 23.

Around 120 BNP supporters were reported to be milling around Sinclair's Oyster Bar, and were said to be chanting abuse at passers by. Some were wearing T-shirts saying "Love Britain or fuck off" and shouting BNP slogans.
http://lancasteruaf.blogspot.com/

 

[audiotech]

Film of the 43 Group. Thanks to the Hackney Independent site.

 

[GarfieldLeChat]

okay, so surely if you will not allow Socialist workers party to have a public meeting in your living room to promote their party, you are a fascist?

is that' what i have said or jsut the straw man you have built think about it...

your living room isn't a public place is it there would be no reson why any group should wish to promote itself from it...

a universicity isn't however comparible with a living room if your concept of scael or proportion is that badly warped then, forgive me if i don't take anything else you say very tollerently.

 

[GarfieldLeChat]

I will continue to put my 'money' where my mouth is and continue to work to prevent fascists organising, gathering and disseminating their message, literature and hate.

If you are unable to understand or accept my utilitarian argument, we must beg to differ. Which is fine on a BB.

it's not an either or simply put you are preventign another group from legally and legitimately organising becuase it offends your beleifs. to attempt to remove something becuase it doesn't fit into your schemas is inhertently facist...

moreover those who do this in promotion of their poltical ideals at the expense of anothers are fundamentally, unevquivicably, facist...

i understand your good intentions, and the reasons you seek to remove know fascist groups from the surronding society however, you and any organiseation who attempts this is no better than a relgious organsieation who'd wish to see another group banned becuase it offends their morals, prefferences....

 

[mk12]

The fascists never change it appears.

so that's proof they haven't changed since the 30s and 40s?

 

[JoePolitix]

Yes - but things have changed a lot since then. It's not very meaningful to do that.

You miss the point Matt. glc supports giving the BNP a platform on the basis that he thinks free speech is an unconditional and unequivocal right. I was pointing out that if you take this argument to its logical conclusion you would indeed would have to have supported the right of the Blackshirts to march through east London yelling anti-semitic slogans.

 

[JoePolitix]

yes of course saying that all have a right to speak regardless of how abhorent their viewpoint is, is clearly aligning oneself with fascists, silly me...

Actually I never said you had aligned yourself with fascists. On the other hand, you have repeatedly refered to the anti-fascist teachers and students that blocked Griffin from speaking as "fascists" which is rather bizzarre.