BNP to speak to Oxford students

[Nemesis6]

To be honest, the BNP ARE racist. There's only one reason that they do not engage minorities like Jews; that it would be "financial and political suicide." You have to read between the lines with these people, unlike many other nationalist parties. I believe the reason for this is their history - You Brits know more about this than I do, so I'll let you figure that one out for yaselves.

 

[Mr Stabby]

My issue is that they should never have been invited to it.

Because you don't want them given a platform to express their beliefs, i.e you oppose their freedom of speech

Imagine if they didn't put up this respectable facade, instead whenever asked about anything they said the most vile, racist filth imaginable. Do you think they would even have been invited? Would that not be blocking their freedom of speech?

It's oxfords own choice to invite them. If they weren't invited, that wouldn't be blocking their FoS no.

Of course, if they were invited, it wouldn't matter, no-one would think "Well he's a blatent racist anti-semite who would like to gass asian children to death... but he spoke at oxford so must be respectable". Whereas with their respectable facade, inviting them to Oxford means the sort of person with the "I'm not a racist but..." mentality is more likely to vote for them.

But, thanks to the tireless effort of the anti-fascist lefties we know they are Nazis... If people want to vote for 'I'm not racist but..' why shouldn't they, if they've come to the conclusion that, it's a good idea, that's how democracy works, people make their own choice who they vote for.

It's a disgrace to the university that they are there too, cleary if they did just shout racist filth undressed, no-one would object to them not being invited. But with their facade, by inviting them, the University are accepting the facade as truth.

The university doesn't endorse their Ideas, good to show they support political discourse though.

 

[repiV]

To be honest, the BNP ARE racist. There's only one reason that they do not engage minorities like Jews; that it would be "financial and political suicide." You have to read between the lines with these people, unlike many other nationalist parties. I believe the reason for this is their history - You Brits know more about this than I do, so I'll let you figure that one out for yaselves.

They probably are, but their policy statements are not racist. They have legitimate concerns, they just take it way too far. They're certainly no worse than the equivalent far-left party.
If Solaris wants action taken against them on the grounds that they're putting up a "facade", he better be able to prove that it actually is a facade.
Sending Asian kids to the gas chambers? No, that's ridiculously far fetched. They're not the reincarnation of the Third Reich.

 

[Atomic_Piggy]

To be honest, while any member of the BNP is barely fit for a zoo, let them have their platform. They'll just make themselves look like dicks in front of Oxford that way. Nobodies gonna listen to them.

 

[Sulkdodds]

****ing ridiculous this whole thing.

Some issues to clear up:

I'm a fresher at Mansfield College, Oxford University, studying English. And I'm popping this post off before I go out to the Union to see what's going down.

The Oxford Union is not actually part of the university - it's a private organisation run by various students and alumini for the purpose of debate. It's funded by the exhorbitant cost it takes to join. As such, legally speaking, it's obviously their choice whether they want to invite Griffin or not.

It's too late to protest, and pointless now to campaign for the debate not to happen; the issue is all over national newspapers and the BBC news and Griffin and Irving have got more than enough publicity as it is. Stopping them now would only create more furore, and would be good for them; it'd do more harm than good for the country. Any arguments that they shouldn't be given a platform because of the damage their views do are now redudant because the best case scenario now is that the debate be allowed to go smoothly.

But they never should have invited the wankers in the first place. If it's a private organisation there's no obligation nor reason to give such people a platform; they've been tried, tested, reviled and knocked down plenty of times and debating them in public will not change their minds - only make their opponents more angry. I believe people need to have their opinions challenged and that mollycoddling students in one of the country's best universities, trying to shield them from 'offensive' ideas, is completely unnecessary: but Griffin and Irving are walking controversy generators and there is absolutely no virtue in having them speak.

If the Oxford Union leaders hadn't been such complete ****ing hacks and headline-whores, this wouldn't be all over the BBC news. Seriously, they do something like this every term - invite contraversial people just to get on the news, and half the time the tossers pull out because they care far more about appearing prestigous and interesting than about actually having decent debates. That's why they've willfully caused this entire ridiculous incident. Because they're tossers.

Heading down there now.

 

[Atomic_Piggy]

When they do their talks you guys should interrupt with things like "bigots!", "inbreeds" and other offensive things. Get in there!

 

[Solaris]

I just thank God Sulkdodds is on our side.

 

[repiV]

Yes, the fate of the world is in his hands...

 

[repiV]

Viva la revolution.

 

[Asknoone]

I love a bit of placard waving.

 

[Mr Stabby]

Christopher Hitchens on free speech

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUphTYPMB4o

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jnD4Mc3VUw&feature=related

 

[Sulkdodds]

When they do their talks you guys should interrupt with things like "bigots!", "inbreeds" and other offensive things. Get in there!

I'm not a member, so ain't happening. In fact I didn't even know the protesters had gotten inside until I heard it on the BBC news in a pub later.

Yeah, I was in a pub!

The protest was generally pretty mellow. Angry shouts of "Fascist scum!" and the like but that was about it. Particularly pertinent was "I don't pay my union fee / to support the BNP" which, in my case, would have had to be shortened to "I don't pay my union fee."

I was mainly along for the ride, making efforts to penetrate the crowd from both ends of the street it was on with my student-journalist friend. Soon met up with the college Labour activist who I soon ended up bouncing wry comments off as we toured the area: masked people playing on drums a song with only one lyric: 'smash fascism', many many film and radio crews, a right media circus. Some woman told me to hold her placard then disappeared, so I ended up waving it for most of the evening.

We didn't really realise any of the crowd had got inside the building (though the noise people were making was immense, it must have disrupted the debate anyway) although there were many people climbing up the gates and standing on top of the wall-pillars with megaphones leading chants. It was all a bit pedestrian. Skinheads or BNP activists were conspicuous by their absence, despite their press promises to turn things violent, making the shouts of "BNP off our streets!" a little nonsensical.

After meeting with more friends the entire protest began to move, embarking on a mass march twice around the block, people shouting, hundreds of placards, easily the thousand people I'd heard reported. Impressive.

Strife came when we came out of the Union's street onto Cornmarket (large shopping thouroughfare) and the police moved to form a barrier. Then a group of twenty or thirty people in black clothing and masks began to assemble near the police line, some of them with weird skull masks, all in all looking like militant jugalos. From their organisation, aggressiveness and clothing I figure they were black block anarchists.

Aggressive as hell they began to bay, approaching the police with banners and making anti-fascist shouts then calling the cops themselves fascists and nazis, shouting. All at once they rushed the line, skirmishing almost to blows with the police, the police horses rearing up and kicking out, a lot of cameras flashing. The cops moved forward, provocatory, trying to break them up, and for a moment it looked like the bloc would be pushed along a side street towards us, me and my friends.

But they pulled back and formed a line, making aggressive movements and chanting "fascist pigs" at the coppers and the flank of photographers that stood between the two camps. The whole thing put me in mind of a skirmishing unit from a Total War game, rattling its spears, approaching the enemy and pulling back. The shouting confrontation continued for about ten minutes they were back up Cornmarket, dispersing.

Friends regrouped outside MacDonald's. Considering the aggressiveness of the Bloc, I was apprehensive - the last time I entered a MacDonald's, it blew up the next day. The police were rushing up Cornmarket and grouping to cut the march off, so we retired to the pub.

There, we saw suddenly on the BBC News at Ten a group of our friends standing around behind the reporter. We annoyed the whole joint by cheering at the TV and rushed back to the main protest area outside the Union building to tell them they'd been on at the news at ten (at that moment Vish's mother phones up and tells him he looks like a thug!).

We hung around for a while, and more of us managed to get on more channels, and I lost my placard; we left before the debate finished.

All in all an ace night out har har.

So things have run their course. A thousand have rallied to chant silly slogans over a silly issue that shouldn't even have existed; we all get on TV, Luke bloody Tryl gets his 15 minutes of fame, racist wankers get even more. The publicity game has given everyone their fun. The only thing to help is that it gives the Union leadership what it deserves.


Not that any of it matters. That's what I ****ing hate about this town. It may be the second best university in the world but it's as if everyone's intellectual and political efforts are focused in a never-ending solipsistic feedback loop of local student politics, local student journalism, local student issues. All of student 'politics' is marvellously irrelevant, completely pointless, and utterly vicious. The newspapers that feed off it are the same. Every tiny issue is made out to be a huge conflict. Worst of all, the reason everyone's doing to this is they want to get somewhere in real politics, in real journalism (oh god - like I do), so the whole ****ing mess is characterised by vast egos, brazen hackery and the constant, disgusting baying after publicity, after incidents like this one: where local issues explode into the national sphere, and all the hacks get hard-ons.

The worst? If I want to get the experience to be hired out of uni as a reporter, it looks like I'm going to have to dive into this bullshit with my mouth wide open.

 

[Solaris]

Wow that sounds pretty cool.

Good old anarchists, fighting the state and all that.