The trend is to propose banning anything that we happen to dislike or
disapprove of. Don’t like Donald Trump? Good, neither do I! He’s a rich,
arrogant buffoon with zero understanding of politics running for President of America. His disgusting comments about women,
Ebola, and horrible bragging about his wealth put me off him long before he
mentioned U.S. immigration.
Want to ban him from coming to the UK? No; we should be better than that!
Trump wanted to ban Muslim immigration to the USA, so half a million (minus
those who manipulated it by multiple-signing) retaliate with a petition wanting
to ban Trump from Britain. What an irony: does anyone seriously think ‘let’s ban
someone to show how much we oppose banning people’?
Then there’s Tyson Fury. A heavyweight boxer, for pity’s sake. He’s said
some not-very-nice things. Boxing clubs are pretty down-to-earth places. Heaven
forbid, there may be swearing and macho comments. But they keep lots of young
people away from a life of crime.
All we had to do was not publicise Fury’s comments (partly an act we’ve
fallen for hook, line and sinker anyway).
We could recognise he’s pretty good at punching people, that he’s only
the third ever undisputed (lineal) heavyweight champion of the world hailing
from our shores.
Instead we had petitions to ban him from the Sports Personality of the
Year award. What a waste of energy; he didn’t win it anyway. Are the calls for a
ban racist; do we say they disrespect Fury’s gypsy heritage? (And before
anyone tries to ban me for using the word ‘gypsy’, it’s Fury’s word – he calls
himself the ‘gypsy King’)
We’ve seen Dr David Starkey, who years ago uttered mildly
unpleasant remarks about ‘black culture’, banned. The banning and gagging
brigade recently re-interpreted the comments as targeting all black people,
complained to Cambridge University - who took leave of their senses, forgot that
universities are about freedom of speech, and airbrushed
him.
Ivory-tower academics often have some odd views, and when Sir Tim
Hunt expressed unfortunate comments about women scientists the internet rightly
pilloried him. That wasn’t enough for the new thought police; a valuable Nobel
prize-winner had to be sacrificed on the political correctness
altar.
Have you ever seen the film A Beautiful Mind? Battling paranoid
schizophrenia, John Nash – arguably the greatest mathematician of our generation
- returned to academia and thrived. The real life account is even more moving
than the film, but I wonder: if the Nash of the 1950s and 1960s were here today,
would he be hounded out of academia, not given a chance to produce his
brilliant, Nobel prize-winning research?
A few days ago, Oriel College at Oxford bowed to pressure from a
student petition, announcing that it would ‘consult’ about removing a statue of
their benefactor Cecil Rhodes.
Yes, Rhodes indeed did some bad stuff – as many people of many
cultures did at that time. No one’s defending that. But history is about the
‘warts and all’, it’s understanding that the romantic notions we have about the
great Queen Elizabeth might not be quite as we understand
them.
It’s understanding that the road to the present is as red in
tooth and claw as nature itself, and recognising those visionaries like William
Wilberforce who effected change.
Where do requests for bans end? Do those who wish to ban Rhodes
for historic racism extend that same logic and want to ban Ghandi too (google
‘Ghandi kaffir remarks’ if you want to see what I mean)?
The Rhodes Trust does so much for Oxford; the Rhodes-Mandela
Foundation pays for students from poor black townships to attend university.
I’ve seen no spoilt rich white kids call for the banning of Mandela, or for
those black students to refuse their grants. Yet.
Ban unpalatable history and what remains is meaningless, sterile,
homogeneous revisionism. How illiberal, how authoritarian, have those
(generally) left-wingers become in their quest to airbrush history and curb
dissent? They’ve even attacked Iranian feminist Maryam Namazie. Her ‘crime’?
Opposing extremist interpretations of Islam which would execute
homosexuals.
In their topsy-turvy world, violent extremism’s okay; supporting
killing people for being gay’s okay, but Tyson Fury possibly disliking them
isn’t. Labour’s Shadow Chancellor pulling out a mass-murderer’s Little Red Book
in the Commons is amazing, but mild prejudice is disgusting. Confused
yet?
When Oxford and Cambridge are at the forefront of caving in to
political correctness and pressure, there is something wrong. Our academic
institutions have for centuries been the bastions of freedom of
speech.
I grew up proud to live in a nation of freedom of speech,
choosing to challenge unpalatable and extreme views publicly rather than
repression. Voltaire’s ‘I despise what you say but would defend to the death
your right to say it’ is a personal maxim.
Myleene Klass famously summed up Ed Miliband at the General
Election, saying “You can’t just point at things and tax
them”.
My message to the Left-authoritarian types who are so vocal
online: You can’t just point at people and ban them. Let’s make 2016 the year of
freedom of speech.
Jonathan Arnott is Ukip MEP for the North
East.
