2008 - Exeter College - University of Oxford

The Conundrum of Free SpeechIn Michaelmas 2007 The Oxford Union invited David Irving, once jailed fordenying the Holocaust, and Nick Griffin, the leader of the British National Party,to speak in a forum on free speech. This led to a fierce debate in College.BY INDIA BOURKE (2005, HISTORY AND ENGLISH) ≥Copyright Guardian News & Media Ltd 2007LEFT: IRATE DEMONSTRATORSMARCHED ON THE UNION INPROTEST, MANAGING TODELAY THE FORUM BYAN HOUR AND A HALFBELOW LEFT: DAVID IRVINGAND NICK GRIFFINIn response to two of the mostcontroversial invitations to speakever offered by the Oxford UnionSociety, three Exeter students submitteda JCR motion asking the student body toshow solidarity in the face of what theycalled “divisive” BNP politics. Themotion aimed to persuade the Exeter JCRto show its disapproval of Nick Griffinand David Irving by refusing to supportthe Union’s invitation. Backed bystudents from ethnic minorities, thisappeal shifted the whole register of theissue, suddenly making it personal towhat is a staunchly apolitical JuniorCommon Room.After a lengthy and emotional debate,the JCR decided not to vote. Thisoutcome perhaps spared the JCR alasting sense of division. Yet at the timeit apparently pleased nobody. Those insupport of the motion were left feelingostracised, and the apparentmalfunctioning of the democraticprinciple also disappointed those whosupported the Union’s forum.So should this outcome be read as anapathetic evasion of a difficult decision?Or as a testament to free speech withinthe JCR body? Or did the move not tovote perhaps simply reflect the JCRconstitution’s inability to deal with suchweighty and multidimensional issues?DIFFERING OPINIONSAmidst the obscurity and the fiercenessof opinion, two distinct poles ofargument did emerge. Oppositionarguments were fuelled by the defenceof the Liberal right to free speech itself.The ethos behind Voltaire’s dictum,‘I disapprove of what you say but I willdefend to the death your right to say it’,was brilliantly advocated by some ofDr Michael Hart’s politics students. TheBNP’s status as a legal political party,one that is incorporated, for better orworse, into the national democraticprocess, was also used to endorse theUnion’s invitation. Yet, on the other side,the proposition received strong supportfor its moving commitment to the JCR’swelfare mandate. This led to anapparently intractable conflict betweenreason and emotion; between respectfor the liberal tenet of toleration forfree speech and the desire to showsolidarity with those individuals who feltdirectly affected because they belongedto ethnic minorities.“It marked a shift to broaderdemocratic anxiety aboutthe tyranny of the majority”The whole process led to further, morepenetrating questions over the veryrepresentative adequacy of JCRdemocracy. It marked a shift in thedebate from specific concerns aboutIrving and Griffin to broader democraticanxiety about the tyranny of themajority. To have either passed orrejected the motion would have mergedthe debate’s great spectrum of opinioninto a reductive single category. Evenmore worryingly, it would have imposedthat category onto the large proportionof absent members.In this light the decision not to votebecame a ‘least-worst’ solution in theface of a fiercely divided body ofopinion – albeit one that cast questionsover the power of JCR democracy tounite and stabilise.The blessing of the no-vote wastherefore also its curse: it deliberatelystrove to say nothing. Yet to infer fromthis that the individual members ofExeter JCR had nothing to say about theUnion’s actions, a BNP platform andthe principle of free speech in general,would perhaps be the greatestmisrepresentation of all.www.exetercollege.net EXON AUTUMN 2008 21