nice one d.k. i'm glad to have read this article as it actually discusses a lot of the things that others on the list have been calling for incessantly, without actually explaining to those who might not know about them. maybe i'm naive, in which case i want to make an informed choice not just go along with the loudest voice.
i do find a certain tension in your position tho, although this could simply be an ambiguity. why do you think it's bad to restrict extremists from airing their views by insitutional means such as no platform, but ok to restrict them by a punch in the face? they both seem to serve the same purpose which is to silence the fascist. does this also mean that fascists have the right to beat up "vicarage marxist students" too? whilst fascists obviously aim to stifle those who don't agree with them, you could argue that quite a lot of leftists/"anarchists" do too (e.g. with no platform policies and the like). where does the line get drawn?
I agree. There is a tension. A very real one, which I attempted to reconcile.
The point I was trying to make, essentially, is that restricting people's right to freedom of speech is a bad thing, but may occur as part of our efforts to defeat the fascists.
I'm not really interested in taking away their freedom of speech. I'm interested in maing sure they don't take power and more immediately that they aren't in a position to attack others.
Imagine the following:
We, and a group of other outraged students, go to the NUS/Sanctuary, and demand that they cease to allow far right extremist views to be printed. They accept.
What will happen next? A group of right-wing outraged students will go to the NUS/Peacefire, and demand that they cease to allow far left extremist views (which most definately are what we hold by statistical standards) to be printed. The NUS, /even if/ they supported us in principle (and I doubt they would), couldn't impose a double standard, and would be forced to similarly ban all extremist views.
Its a crazy pact (juxtapositional, if you will) whereby extremist groups have to all support freedom of speech so that they can all have a say, even though they couldn't disagree in practise more.
Finally, (and I don't think I'll convince you on this one), any movement needs popular support. You don't get that if people associate a movement with running on stage and punching someone in the face. Violence may, on occasion, be justified in principle, but in practise its bound to always do more harm than good.
* God, tragedy is one of those words that sounds ridiculous if you repeat it enough. I had to go to dictionary.com and check I wasn't spelling it wrong!
Just reread and realised you already made that point.
Oops!
Nice, considered article, refreshingly free of dogma and with a practical bent. It's a shame that the "no platform" dogma continues to this day. I was an activist in the 80s, in the days of AFA and ANL, when class struggle was far sharper than today and, not uncoincidentally, fascists represented a very real and very present danger. All the Trot sects - Militant, SWP, WRP, FRFI, CDM and bar - were trying to outdo each other in no platformism, turning up mob-handed at events where fascists or far Rightists were speaking, a tactic which usually backfired. I remember well one public debate about nuclear weapons organised by CND or somesuch, at which John Carlisle MP (for you young 'uns, he was a staunch defender of apartheid and an avid publicity-seeking rentaquote) attended as a speaker. Anyway, as soon as he came into the room a bunch of donkey-jacketed middle-class Trots started chanting "No platform for fascists!" which seriously pissed off the rest of the audience and made Carlisle look like a martyr, rather than the racist thicko he was. They were hushed into quiet eventually as the rest of us wanted to see this dimwit taken apart by argument, as he was, but he gained an immediate and massive advantage courtesy of the SWP, and after some Trot twatted him in the chops later he gained shedloads of publicity in the local press.
No platform failed back in the 80s. What succeeded, as you rightly point out, was direct action against the fascists and direct support for communities under threat. There are occasions when the nazis need to be shut up, but as you again point out these need to be judged on a tactical, case-by-case basis. If some BNP-er is ranting to a small bunch of knuckledraggers in some tiny room in a backstreet pub it's hardly going to spread the fascist message beyond the committed. If, on the other hand, nazis are addressing a wider working-class audience, say at a meeting about local housing, then they need to be exposed and confronted.
Nice blog, BTW. I came here by accident on a search for "Lenton anarchist forum", which I'd not heard of before, and was pleasantly surprised to see rational argument rather than the usual frothy-mouthed ranting or juvenilia so common in the blogsphere.
Gerry
G,
Thanks for the vote of confidence!
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