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'Oxford liberals stumped by free speech' - a headline inspired by the decision of the Oxford Union Society in November 2007 to hold a debate on 'free speech'. That the headline came from India's National Newspaper, 'The Hindu', demonstrates the debate's worldwide media impact (1). And this because two of the invited speakers to that debate - the historian David Irving and Nick Griffin, the leader of the British National Party [BNP] - are associated with unacceptable or controversial opinions, that of 'Holocaust denial' and 'fascism', respectively.
The Oxford Union was "founded in 1823 as a forum for discussion and debate at a time when the free exchange of ideas was a notion foreign to the restrictive University authorities." (2)
It should be mentioned that the Oxford Union is independent of Oxford University and its Student's Union, and "unlike other student unions, the Oxford Union holds no political views", but rather "believes first and foremost in freedom of speech", while its "guiding principles" are "diversity and outspokenness" (ibid.)
Harold Macmillan had described the Union as "the last bastion of free speech in the Western world" (1), and yet when David Irving was invited to speak at the Union six years before on the motion 'this house would restrict the free speech of extremists', the debate was - somewhat ironically - cancelled. (3)
At that time The Association of University Teachers threatened "to call for an academic boycott of the Union both in this country and from amongst the academic community and other trade unions throughout the world." (4)
However, in November 2007 the Union held firm to its "guiding principles" in the face of similar pressure - which included the much-publicised resignation of the Conservative MP Julian Lewis from the Union in protest. (5)
On the evening of the debate itself, noisy and 'abusive' demonstrations were held at the Union, while some protestors actually invaded the debating chamber in order to stop the debate. This forced the organisers to move Irving and Griffin into separate rooms for their own protection. (1)
The Holocaust is defined by its advocates as "the systematic policy of genocide launched by the Nazis against the Jews during the Second World War." (6) 'Holocaust denial' is therefore regarded by the same as a form of 'historical revisionism' that "underplays or actually denies Nazi crimes" (7), and claims that the Holocaust was "scientifically and logically impossible ... accusing those who offer documentary proof that it took place of being 'establishment historians' bent on fabricating a legend" (8).
While such Holocaust revisionists and deniers will claim they are merely searching for historical truth, their more outspoken critics say, that "those who deny the Holocaust today do so because they wish to repeat it" (9)
In his book Hitler's War [1977], Irving "explicitly denies" that Hitler "gave the order for" the Holocaust, and "manipulates evidence to suggest that over-zealous henchmen such as Himmler organised the exterminations behind his back" (10)
The same charge - this time in court - was upheld in 2000 by Mr. Justice Gray when Irving took out a libel case against an author who described him as an "Holocaust denier" (11).
In 2006, Irving was jailed for a year in Vienna for denying in a speech that "Nazi Germany had killed millions of Jews" (12). On each occasion, Irving claimed that it was always "a question of free speech" (11), (12), and at the Oxford Union in 2007, he stated that "freedom of speech is too important not to defend ... [as it] means the right to be wrong sometimes". Adding - "John Stuart Mill put it so much better." (13)
It was no accident that Irving invoked Mill - but would Mill have agreed with Irving, or with the Viennese court who jailed him?
Before going on, let us look briefly at the issue of fascism itself, as Holocaust denial is often regarded as an apologia for fascism. However, what is 'fascism'?
Griffin's BNP has a "programme based primarily on hostility to immigration" (14). But is otherwise - it would say - a patriotic party, which firmly believes in democratic, values [including free speech]. Its critics, though, insist that there is a 'hidden agenda' here - a 'crypto-fascism.' This "refers to movements that have adopted broader right-wing or even conservative public images, while concealing a darker and fascist-like mode of operation ... These parties appeal to respectable middle-class conservatives with nationalist or traditionalist themes but also show tendencies toward violence, thuggishness and ambiguity about past fascist crimes as a palliative for their more hardcore followers." (15)
The problem with the word 'fascist' is that it has become rather imprecise - and perhaps it always was. Writing in 1937, Shaw said, "there is nothing new in Fascism ... Julius Caesar, Cromwell, and Napoleon ... are the bygone Fascist leaders ..." (16) In 1933, the Communist International defined Fascism as "the open terrorist dictatorship of the most reactionary, most chauvinistic, most imperialist elements of finance capital." (17) And yet many of the key figures in fascism - not least Mussolini and Hitler - "were socialists in their youth or claimed that their ideology was a form of socialism." (18) More importantly for our discussion, post 1945 the term 'fascism' has been used carelessly and inaccurately as "a pejorative term of abuse directed at people who are conservative, right-wing or authoritarian in the traditional sense. It can be used even more widely to refer to simply disagreeable people or opinions." (19)
Let us return to Mill (1806-73), who even as a youth was an agitator for free expression. Some polemical letters and articles he wrote to newspapers and journals when he was between the ages of 16 and 19 years show uncompromising views we can relate to the debate: "Whatever might be the evils of freedom, they could not be worse than the evils of restraint." (20) Even if Irving and Griffin were as 'evil' as their detractors suggest, it would be a worse evil to restrict them, as "there is no medium between perfect freedom of expressing opinion, and absolute despotism." (21) And if Irving and Griffin are wrong on the Holocaust and on immigration, even here "false opinions must be tolerated for the sake of the true." (22)
As for the ignominy of being a 'fascist', or a 'denier', Mill notes that 'despots' often try to "vilify" those they wish to oppress. (23) And when it comes to deciding who can and cannot speak in a debate, who are we to judge? "It is obvious that there is no certain and universal rule for determining whether an opinion is useful or pernicious; and that if any person be authorised to decide, unfettered by such a rule, that person is a despot." (24)
Furthermore, "the evils incurred by permitting any person or persons to choose opinions for the people are evils of the greatest magnitude." (25)
Mill was to maintain these core beliefs, refining them in the mature work, On Liberty (1859), a classic of libertarian philosophy. Mill sets out his position in the first chapter as "one very simple principle ... that the sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or collectively, in interfering with the ability of action of any of their number ... against his will, is to prevent harm to others." (26)
This is restated in the last chapter as "the two maxims which together form the entire doctrine of this essay ... first, that the individual is not accountable to society for his actions in so far as these concern the interests of no person but himself ... Secondly, that for such actions as are prejudicial to the interests of others, the individual is accountable and may be subjected either to social or to legal punishment if society is of opinion that one or the other is requisite for its protection." (27)
How should the limitation of "harm" apply to 'free expression'? It seems that Mill assigns it to the realm of actions at one end of the scale, while to the realm of thought at the other, it does not apply: "the appropriate region of human liberty ... comprises ... the inward domain of consciousness, demanding ... liberty of thought and feeling, absolute freedom of opinion and sentiment on all subjects." (28)
So where does Mill locate the kind of 'freedom of expression' we are concerned with here - i.e., the expressing of controversial views at an organised debating forum?
Clearly, he places such expression in the 'region of human liberty', it "being almost of as much importance as the liberty of thought itself -" (ibid.) - "Liberty of Thought, from which it is impossible to separate the cognate liberty of speaking and writing." (29)
While Mill is undoubtedly right to connect expression intimately with thought, it is hard to see how he cannot make a similarly intimate connection between expression and action. It is on this putative disconnection that he is able to limit the "harm" principle to actions alone. He would either seemingly deny that publications are able to influence the actions of people, or else he would regard those who are influenced by the words of others - to cause harm, for example - as weak and irresponsible, and so not allow them to use such supposed influence as an excuse for their own actions. This underlines Mill's view of the individual as an autonomous being [see the third chapter of On Liberty, 'Of Individuality as One of the Elements of Well-Being', passim], and which allows him to say that "there ought to exist the fullest liberty of professing and discussing, as a matter of ethical conviction, any doctrine, however immoral it may be considered." (30)
On this basis, Mill would surely be on the side of the Oxford Union.
Now let us look more closely at the protestor's arguments. They work under a broad umbrella concept they call 'No Platform', which policy "means excluding fascists from all debate." Moreover, if "fascists" are given a "public forum" by anyone else, then "other political parties and organisations should refuse to share it with them." The reason for this is that "fascists hold such detestable and disgusting beliefs, most people feel they cannot bring themselves to have dialogue with them." (31)
But to Mill such an "attempt to exercise control would produce other evils," (32) and not only that, "but the peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is that it is robbing the human race, posterity as well as the existing generation - those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it." (33) For it is possible that the opinion could be right - and this brings in one of Mill's main reasons against the prohibition of free speech, that of human fallibility, which would surely lead him to reject a dogmatic position like 'No Platform' : "all silencing of discussion is an assumption of infallibility." (34)
Human beings are fallible creatures who need to subject their opinions to constant discussion if they are to achieve knowledge and correct their mistakes. (35)
Mill would regard the refusal of a forum as barbarous; indeed, he thinks that we compare badly with the ancient Greeks when it comes to the art of discussion, as the moderns " have lost those they formerly had ... [the] Socratic dialectics, so magnificently exemplified in the dialogues of Plato." (36) Socrates - one of the central figures in On Liberty - who "finally gave his life for his principles when, put on trial on a charge of impiety and corrupting the youth of Athens, he refused to renounce." (37)
The protestors describe "Fascism as an ideology ... inherently opposed to free speech," (31) and "call on the Oxford Union to withdraw its invitation to Griffin and Irving to speak and replace them with people who actually support freedom of speech instead." (9) Notwithstanding the rather paradoxical nature of that "call", it would make a deidedly one-sided debate!
As Mill states, "if opponents of all-important truths do not exist, it is indispensable to imagine them and supply them with the strongest arguments which the most skilful devil's advocate can conjure up." (38)
No Platform "believes its policy denies fascists the opportunity to gain political credibility. If the BNP is allowed to share a stage with Labour, Conservatives, Liberal-Democrats and other responsible political parties, they will be seen as a legitimate alternative." (31)
Nevertheless, Mill thinks that minority views need to be preserved: "if all mankind minus one were of one opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind." (39)
In direct contrast, the protestors claim, "it would be impossible for the UK to develop as a multicultural and free society while the views of people like Mr. Irving were offered refuge by important institutions like the Union." (4)
We might make a comparison here with Mill's defence of Mormonism, "this polygamous community", which to its critics seemed to be "a retrograde step in civilization." Mill scorns such talk, opining that only a civilization that had "become so degenerate" could be damaged by the "Mormonite doctrine" - and "if this be so, the sooner such a civilization receives notice to quit, the better." (40)
By a similar Millian token, multiculturalism must be healthy enough to withstand the presence of an Irving speaking at the Oxford Union!
The one argument of 'No Platform' that seems to offer a serious pause to libertarian thought is that of 'racist attacks', as it clearly appeals to the aforementioned Millian notion of 'harm':
"Wherever the BNP is active, racist attacks and other hate crimes increase ... it is unacceptable to expose students and staff to the possibility of attacks and to give a platform ... to Griffin and Irving." (41)
However, on closer inspection, it applies to BNP "activity" - i.e., their political campaigning, marches etc., - and not to Griffin speaking at the Union. In other words, it applies not to free expression, but to political activism and action. To Mill, Griffin should be able to speak freely on immigration, for example, in debate, but should he lead a group of supporters, chanting anti-immigrant slogans through an immigrant area, then he might be "controlled".
Mill makes a concrete example that can serve as a parallel:
For Mill, "freedom of opinion and expression" is "necessary" to the "mental well-being of mankind." Truth is also served, as incomplete truths can only be completed by on-going discussion, whilst truths - which are not open to the same rigour - can become dead dogmas, and the dogmatic adherence to truth can actually vitiate it. (43)
All this will serve "utility in the largest sense, grounded on the permanent interests of man as a progressive being." (44) A type of being perhaps only previously glimpsed in the example of Socrates, that martyr to free speech - a mantle which policies like No Platform surely hands in this example to Griffin and Irving.
NOTES & REFERENCES
(1) Hasan Suroor, 2007, Oxford liberals stumped by free speech [online] The Hindu. Available at: http://www.hindu.com/2007/12/08/stories/2007120853501300.htm [Accessed 12 July 2008]
(2) The Oxford Union Official Website. About Us [online] Available at: URL:http://www.oxford-union.org/about_us [Accessed 12 July 2008]
(3) BBC News: Oxford drops Hitler historian debate [online] Weds 9 May 2001, 17:30 GMT. Available at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/1321775.stm [Accessed 12 July 2008]
(4) BBC News: Oxford Union in Hitler historian row [online] Friday 4 May 2001, 10:12 GMT. Available at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/1312212.stm [Accessed 12 July 2008]
(5) BBC News: Union debate row speakers arrive [online] Monday 26 November 2007, 19:17 GMT [online] Available at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/oxfordshire/7112480.stm [Accessed 12 July 2008]
(6) Davies & Lynch p. 294
(7) ib., p. 293
(8) Griffin p. 314
(9) Unite Against Fascism: No Platform for Fascists in Oxford Union. 05/11/07 [online] Available at: http://www.uaf.org.uk/news.asp?choice=71105 [Accessed 12 July 2008]
(10) Griffin pp. 335-6
(11) BBC News: Hitler historian loses libel case. Tuesday 11 April 2004, 14:17 GMT [online] Available at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/709128.stm [Accessed 12 July 2008]
(12) BBC News: Holocaust denier Irving is jailed. Monday 20 February 2006, 20:19 GMT [online] Available at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4733820.stm [Accessed 12 July 2008]
(13) David Irving, Focal Point Publications 2007: Transcript of speech at Oxford Union [online] Available at: http://www.fpp.co.uk/online/07/11/Oxford_Union_transcript.html [Accessed 12 July 2008]
(14) Davies & Lynch p. 260
(15) Ib., p. 5
(16) The Intelligent Woman's Guide To Socialism etc., Vol 2, Bernard Shaw, Pelican 1937 p. 442
(17) Griffin p. 263
(18) Davies & Lynch p. 6
(19) Ib., p. 2
(20) Mill [1959] p. 109, The Westminster Review, April 1825
(21) Ib., p. 108
(22) Ib., p. 119
(23) Ib., p. 113
(24) Ib., p. 108
(25) Ib., p. 42, The Morning Chronicle, January 1823
(26) Mill [1859] p. 68
(27) Ib., p. 163
(28) Ib., p. 71
(29) Ib., p. 74
(30) Ib., p. 75
(31) N.U.S.: No Platform [online] Available at: URL:http://www.nusonline.co.uk/campaigns/antiracismantifascism/11534.aspx [Accessed 12 July 2008]
(32) Mill [1859], p. 70
(33) Ib., p. 76
(34) Ib., p. 77
(35) Ib., p. 80
(36) Ib., p. 106
(37) Dictionary of Philosophy, ed. Mautner, Penguin 1997 p. 528
(38) Mill [1859] p. 99
(39) Ib., p. 76
(40) Ib., pp. 161-2
(41) N.U.S. On Line: NUS comments on the possibility that David Irving and Nick Griffin may speak at Oxford. 10/10/2007 [online] Available at: http://www.nusonline.co.uk/news/274787.aspx [Accessed 12 July 2008]
(42) Mill [1859] p. 119
(43) Ib., pp. 115-6
(44) Ib., p. 70
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Davies, P. and Lynch, D. [2002] Routledge Companion to Fascism and the Far Right. Routledge
Griffin, R. ed. [1995] Oxford Readers, Fascism. OUP
Mill, J.S. [1959] Prefaces to Liberty: Selected writings of John Stuart Mill, ed. Wishey. Beacon Press
Mill, J.S. [1859] On Liberty, John Stuart Mill, Penguin 1974,
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Transcript of David Irving's speech to the Oxford Union, November 26, 2007
[ALLOTTED a ten-minute time to speak, Mr Irving began by introducing himself, and went on to emphasize the importance of the written word. He proceeded to give an example of the power of the Word: In the 1980s he had researched several times in communist Hungary, a country still behind the Iron Curtain, at that time, and interviewed Miklos Vásárhelyi, one of the ministers in the doomed anti-Soviet Uprising of Imre Nagy in Hungary in 1956. Curious about what had motivated Vásárhelyi, who had spent years in prison as a communist, and would now spend more years jailed as a revolutionary, Mr Irving has asked him what had moved him to take such a mortal risk with his own life, and the lives of his family. A member of the audience seated forty or fifty feet away now switched on a camera phone and recorded the rest of the presentation. The resulting sound track is briefly obliterated by the chanting from outside the building. ]
DAVID IRVING:
… his entire family and their lives. "What was it that persuaded you to take your life in your hands and join the uprising, the revolutionaries?" And he said, "Mr Irving, I read a book." Of course I asked what that book was that he had read, and he said, "It was George Orwell's Animal Farm".Now, I have read that book, and most of you have probably read it too. You don't understand… The way that Orwell wrote it, you don't know whether it's fascists or Nazis or communists too. It is "cross-platform," that book. It doesn't target any particular group or ideology. It's against dictatorship. It's against repression. It's against the people who say, "Some are more equal than others."
Well, I've been more unequal than others in the field of writing books in the field of historians.
I started writing books in 1963. My very first book was a best seller. I've written thirty books since then. In fact last night I had a dream that I was in a ski lift -- this is true -- rising up into the mountains and beneath me were the titles of all my books, and I could see ahead the three books that are still to come, I suppose, before I die: The third volume of my Churchill Biography - the third volume of my Churchill Biography! How many of you even know that I have written volumes one and two. My Himmler biography. A biography of Heinrich Himmler, the mass murderer who thought ... [drowned in chants from outside]. An interesting question: what did he know, what did he tell Adolf Hitler? Who was responsible?
These are questions which I have researched in depth for the last ten or fifteen years.
The book will probably never be published, because I am "more unequal" than the other historians, because of the networking of the people who have paid for the demonstrators outside, who paid for the coaches to bring them here from across the country.
These coaches cost money. Who put up the money for the coaches to bring demonstrators here to Oxford today, to try and stop us speaking? Ask yourself these questions!
Then again, we have brave people in this country, like Mr. Michael Howard, who was Home Secretary of this country at the time when the question of "Holocaust Denial" laws were raised in Europe. The thirteen, then, ministers of the tnterior for Europe, all voted in favour, except for one, and that was Michael Howard. He said England is a free country, and historians and writers must be allowed to research, and write, and publish what they find to be true, without fear of the law.
Let us be ...[word lost in chanting]. A year ago, two years ago November the eleventh two thousand and five, I was on a motorway in Austria. I had been unable to address the University of Austria students in Vienna, on a very interesting subject. The subject was in fact, the negotiations between Adolf Eichmann and Joel Brand, and the British, uh, role of the British code breakers, who were following these extraordinary negotiations between Adolf Eichmann, the mass murderer, and Joel Brand, a leader of the Jewish community in Budapest; and we British, British Intelligence, were following what was going on [six words lost] to speak to that student body. [Several words lost.]
I drove south, towards Italy, to try and get out of Austria on time, because Austria is a dictatorship again, very similar to the Nazis in fact now. Similar ...
Within two hours my car was stopped on the motorway, and eight policemen jumped out, and held their nine-millimeter Glock automatics to my head, and I spent the next four hundred days in solitary confinement in a prison in Vienna -- which is why I limped from the bench over to here just now: being in solitary confinement twenty four hours a day, you don't get the exercise that your muscles demand.
But I still refuse to be bowed, and am not going to write what they want me to write. I will write what I find in the archives, and I will try and publish what I find in the archives, and my enemies will continue to try and stop me.
Not because it's a Jewish matter. It isn't &endash; and with respect to the previous speaker [Evan Harris], whose talk I greatly admired: I found myself agreeing with almost everything he said -- it isn't a Jewish matter. What people don't like about what I write about history is what concerns me as an Englishman.
I WAS born in 1938 into a great world empire. We saw that empire frittered away in a useless war, and I am convinced as a historian, from the records that I have read in Germany, and in Britain, that Britain was never at risk. We could have got out of the war cheaply in 1940. We could have accepted what was ... offered to us, had we wanted to, and there would have been no Holocaust, because it happened after 1940! The selfish British politicians decided to fight on, and the records show it quite clearly. The records of the German Naval Staff, the Naval High Command, the records of the British Public Record Office in Kew, show this beyond a shadow of doubt.Well I've got the right to publish that. I published it in my Hitler biography, Hitler's War, I published it in the Churchill biography; people don't like this, because they don't like being told that World War Two, was a journey we shouldn't have taken. In World War Two the posters on the wall said, "Is your journey really necessary?"
We were bankrupt on the fifth of December 1940, when we were fighting in a war that damaged only Britain, and benefited only the United States.
And this was a very, very great shame, because I personally am proud of what we British did around the world - the Empire that we built over so many years.
I've been directed by the President to bring my remarks back to the motion being debated. The point I am making is that I am prevented from publishing these facts, which are so unpalatable to the English now, because it doesn't suit certain groups of people. It's not "the Jews," it's nothing to do with them, it's the establishment of this country, and the establishment has had it in for me for the last four decades.
Go to the Public Record Office, and you can see the records that are now coming out under the thirty-year rule, how they tried to have me arrested, and prosecuted, and put in prison, even in this country too.
Freedom of speech is too important not to defend. But as the previous speaker said, it must be hemmed in with certain conditions, and certain allowances. We mustn't confuse liberty with license -- Liberty with license. Liberty is important, that's what has to be defended -- Liberty for people like me to tell you things which aren't palatable.
Freedom of speech means the right to be wrong, sometimes. Because, when you see other people being wrong, then you realize what is right. And if you prevent other people from making mistakes, or propagating views that may be wrong, and even unpalatable to you, then you can not satisfy yourself about what is right -- John Stuart Mill put it so much better that I did -- and we have to have libel laws within that liberty to pursue people who use that liberty deliberately to smear.
The journalists, who are what I call Schmierfinken, using the German word, the Schmierfinken, [two words obliterated by audience cough], they say "David Irving the Holocaust Denier" -- but they've stopped saying it again now, they're more cautious and say "Holocaust Revisionist." Okay, a Holocaust Revisionist.
You don't have to buy the whole package. You're entitled to open it up at some point, [two words], and you must be free to read it and make up your own mind. The freedom to make up your own mind is as important as is the right for us to be able to speak freely, and the people outside would do anything to prevent us from speaking freely.
I wish I could invite them in, so that they too could join in and come back at me with their counter-arguments. Of course their minds are closed. It's shocking. They can't debate, they can't argue.
Every time they try to prevent me from entering a country -- the university of Rome, the countries around the world where I am now banned: in Australia, I can't even visit my own children and grandchildren in Australia; I can't visit Canada; I can't visit Germany; I can't go to Austria now -- every time that happens, I regard it as another victory! Its a victory, because it proves that in that country there is nobody ... somebody who hasn't shaken his own [word lost], somebody who's shaken the hands of all the members of Hitler's and Churchill's staff and done the primary research the way that I have.
Other historians hate me, because I have done the work that they haven't.
I must be free to publish and print, and research, and write, and distribute the truth, as I find it to be.
[No recording is yet available of the lengthy question and answer session that followed]
Transcript: Dave Catleugh
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