Or have we moved away from that …
I’ve been watching with concern some of the news stories about a certain Crazy Person who’s been trying to spread his own brand of religious hatred. I usually stay away from talking about politics and religion but I’m making an exception here.
The issue is one Geert Wilders, who has attempted to enter the UK today because of his anti-Islamist views. The link above is to the BBC News story about his being refused entry.
I’m finding this a little scary because :
It shows that we have a few people who make up their own rules on laws in this country. Geert Wilders is a European citizen, which means he should have access to all European countries. I’m not altogether clear how legal it was to exclude him. What laws are going to be ignored next ? And my long memory is remembering a certain Deputy PM who was not charged with assault after striking someone who threw an egg at him.
It exposes even more naivety on the part of the people who are supposed to be running the country. How to get a hateful person with an evil message more attention ? Ban him from talking ! Or issue a decree attempting to silence him. I’m not sure how much of the world would have heard of Salman Rushdie or Dan Brown if they hadn’t had measures taken by various parties to attempt to stop them talking. The usual effect of silencing a message is typically an amplification of that message.
As a “democracy”, we’re supposed to allow free speech. Allowing people to talk doesn’t mean we have to listen. Same as putting violent images on the telly doesn’t mean we have to watch them and I didn’t rush out to buy the Manhunt game because of the notoriety induced by its ultraviolent* nature. I think the various groups who like to ban everything, apparently for our protection, whether we like it or not. I’ve got a message of my own for those people – “I want to make my own mind up.”
*(I don’t shy away from violence or death in games – I’ve been known to Death Star inhabited planets regularly in Moo2. But if ultra violence is a game’s only selling point, sorry – not interested here)
I don’t think the people interfering with freedom of speech or freedom of expression are too interested in allowing other people to make their own minds up about what they want to be exposed to. I’d rather check something out for myself than go by what someone else tries to tell me what to think. Maybe they don’t want us to actually think.
So what should have happened today, instead of the media circus generated by excluding this fellow ?
Let him in. Allow him to present his message … to an empty room. And when asked by the media about it, tell them that we were aware of the individual but only wished to give him as much attention as his credibility deserved. Which would be none. That kind of statement would quite happily show a distancing from the message.
I wonder if the next step is to ban soapboxes from Hyde Park ?
PS Time to scrub my hands … talking about politics makes me feel unclean ! 🙂