What would Teddy think?
Posted by Jonathan Birch on November 27th, 2007
One: 500 protesters have disrupted an Oxford Union debate because of the presence of two speakers invited for their controversial views: Nick Griffin and David Irving. This surprised me for two reasons. Firstly, it refutes my theory that all Oxbridge students really care about are absurdly expensive piss-ups. Secondly, it shows that the so-called-liberal ambivalence with regard to free speech that thrives in the academic community (and is attacked at length by Nick Cohen in his recent bestseller “What’s Left?“) is alive and well in the student community.
Two: An English schoolteacher working in the Sudan, Gillian Gibbons, has been charged and threatened with forty lashes after naming a teddy bear “Muhammad”. Again, I confess to being surprised. Firstly, Muhammad is an incredibly popular Islamic name and was suggested by the teacher’s pupils. 20 out of the 23 pupils in the class voted to call the bear Muhammad. Clearly a person called Muhammad isn’t an insult to the Prophet, so why is a teddy bear? What ought to be taken as a trivially mild cultural misunderstanding is taken as an excuse for severe repression.
Friends of Gillian are keen to point out that she is incredibly observant of Islamic sensibilities and would never dream of defaming the Prophet. Britons hoping to avoid free speech mishaps by taking a similar attitude might want to take note of what’s happened to Gillian.
I could make a point here, linking One and Two, about how we should never stand for suppression of free expression in cases other than those of direct threatening behaviour. When we permit further restrictions, many would-be suppressors will want to use them to suppress all kinds of expression that we consider integral to our culture, but that are already illegal under repressive governments across the world. But I don’t need to make that point to anyone reading this, do I? Because the would-be suppressors of free speech are not, for some reason, big fans of debate and discussion.
Filed under: freespeech, jonathanbirch on November 27th, 2007
I have _never_ been invited to speak at the Oxford Union. Is this a violation of my right to free speech?
This isn’t about any individual’s right to free speech - this is about the Oxford Union’s right to invite whomever it likes in the interests of open and provocative debate.
[...] no one has any right to have their song distributed by Radio 1. When I bemoaned the protests after the Oxford Union invited Nick Griffin and David Irving to speak, Colin Rosenthal asked whether I thought anyone had a right to be invited to the Oxford Union. They [...]