Free
Speech Under Fire at UK University and Art Show
  Be the first of
your friends to like this.
Previously published under the name "Free speech loses to
Islamists at UK universities."
Two events last week crystallized the grave danger facing freedom of
speech in the United Kingdom.
Warwick U. Students' Union Censors Speaker Against Radical Islam,
Then Caves
Maryam Namazie
is a human rights campaigner, critic
of Islamism,
and member of the Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain. Warwick Atheists, Secularists
and Humanists Society (WASH) invited her to speak at Warwick University
in Coventry, England, on October 28. The university's students' union
then rescinded the invitation on the stated grounds that Namazie was
"highly inflammatory" and could spread hatred and intolerance
against Muslims.
WASH's president objected and began an online petition
asking the union to reverse its decision. Prominent people, including
Richard Dawkins and physicist Brian Cox, signed the petition. Others,
like Salman Rushdie and science writer Ben Goldacre, also criticized the
decision. Dawkinscomplained,
"To ban a speaker you happen to disagree with is a contemptible
betrayal of everything a university stands for." Rushdie
echoed this observation, commenting, "Protecting students from ideas
is idiocy. It is the free play of ideas that universities must
protect." Under the public pressure, the students' union buckled and
reversed
course on September 27, offering a "full and unequivocal
apology" to Namazie.
Warwick University and its students' union have been criticized
before for creating a campus atmosphere hostile to free speech. Spiked
gave the students' union a red (worst) rating and the university itself a
yellow rating in its Free
Speech University Rankings. What's new here isn't the effort to
suppress speech, but the positive outcome.
The moral? Firm and outspoken support for free speech is an effective
tool against politically correct speech suppression.
"Passion for Freedom" Show Not So Passionate, Censors
Anti-ISIS Artwork
|
"Passion for
Freedom 2015" Poster
|
Censorship at a London art exhibit – ironically entitled "Passion
for Freedom" – has garnered less press attention, but is perhaps
more typical for being more insidious. This was the seventh year for the
annual show, on display September 21-26, whose mission has been described
as "to display the work of artists who are thinking seriously about
freedom, what it means and how you lose it." It describes its purpose as
"Creat[ing] space for artists and writers who discuss subjects
omitted in politically correct circles [and inviting] people to open and
uninhibited discussion." Brave words.
One of the advertised entries this year, called "ISIS Threatens
Sylvania," consisted of a series of seven satirical light box
tableaux by the artist known as Mimsy. The scenes showed peaceful village
residents going about their business, like girls going to school and
people vacationing at the beach, suddenly assaulted by armed Islamists. Police
alerted organizers that they considered the work's content
"potentially inflammatory" and that, if it were included in the
six-day show, police would charge £36,000 for security.
The show opted to drop the piece, which remained listed in the program
and online.
The move was condemned
by the Index on Censorship, but major celebrities did not speak out about
it as they did over the Warwick University Student Union ban; perhaps
they did not know about it.
|
"ISIS Threatens
Sylvania" remained listed on the Passion for Freedom show website.
|
Let us assume the show organizers acted from practical necessity and
not fear. And, since the show had already accepted Mimsy's piece for its
show and advertised it in the program, let us assume political
correctness and desire to censor played no role in the final decision to
exclude it. The end result was the same. The cost (here, financial) of free
expression about Islamist violence simply became too high.
The threat of radical Islam is not shrinking, but growing. As it
grows, decisions about whether to speak out about, expose, and confront
it have become more widespread and urgent. Unfortunately, the
counter-pressures not to do so – be they fear of physical violence,
ideological disdain and intimidation (political correctness), or the more
mundane one of cost – often overwhelm the impulse to speak out. Once upon
a time, a group of people asserted their country's freedom by
"mutually pledg[ing] to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our
sacred Honor." Freedom will survive only if people are willing to
make these sacrifices.
Johanna Markind is Associate
Counselor for the Middle East Forum.
|
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment