A Word For Our Opposition

[CHIMO]

How I beat Nick Griffin

For the Oxford Union, the recent controversy over the BBC's invitation to Nick Griffin to appear on Question Time is nothing new. In 2007, there was a similar eruption of moral outrage when then union president Luke Tryll invited Griffin to speak in a debate about freedom of speech, and I was assigned to debate against him.

The debate made headlines around the world. A variety of senior politicians wrote angry articles complaining that by inviting Griffin we were legitimising him and his party. The evening Griffin came he and the audience had to fight their way through hordes of screaming protesters to even get into the building.

Inside, I found myself facing a figure who in no way reflected his media image. The most surprising thing about Griffin is how intelligently, and even normally, he comes across. We, in common with most of the media commentators then and now, were expecting him to be a bitter, resentful, hate-filled Little-Englander who would stand up and rant about blacks, Asians and homosexuals. His supporters certainly lived up to these expectations – one of his bodyguards actually told me I should leave the country and go back home (I was born in South Africa). Griffin, though, is much cleverer than that.

The Oxford debate was about the limits of freedom of speech. Griffin gave an intelligent, thoughtful and well-researched talk about restrictions on free speech throughout western history, drawing on Voltaire, Locke and Mill. He spoke about Galileo being persecuted by the Catholic church for his heretical scientific theories, and compared him to the modern far right, demonised and prevented from speaking by a liberal metropolitan elite, blind to the fact that its principal concern – the alienation of the white working class from the political process – is a real, and dangerous, problem. He drew a picture of a middle-class establishment concerned only with London and the south-east, and desperate to marginalise those sectors of society they considered un-PC. His speech was accompanied by the low, rhythmic sound of chanting coming from the protestors outside: "Kill Tryll, Kill Tryll, Kill Tryll," they chanted in impeccable Received Pronunciation. To most of the audience in the room, it was they who sounded like the extremists, and Griffin who appeared the voice of reason.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/oct/22/nick-griffin-question-time-debate