Nick Griffin on Question Time
So, despite protests, the BBC had the BNP's chief schmuck Nick Griffin on its last episode of Question Time. There were plenty of people protesting – quite rightly – against the hateful Nick Griffin, but there was also a lot of anger directed at the BBC for "allowing him a platform." If Peter Hain was right in saying that the BNP's (at least current) requirement for members to be "indigenous caucasians" makes it an illegal organisation, then they certainly should not have been allowed on Question Time. But if that's the case, why haven't their local council and european parliament seats been taken away from them, and why was this objection not raised at the time of the elections? Free speech is essential, and has to mean the right to say unpleasant as well as pleasant things, as so memorably put by Voltaire Voltaire's biographer Evelyn Beatrice Hall: "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."
But was the show a success? I think probbaly not – it was a bit of a shambles really. It might not have won the BNP many votes, but I can't imagine it lost them any.
§ Language evolves, and fighting this process is foolish, if not impossible. But I do have a problem with the idea that once a word has found a new meaning, the old one should be considered incorrect and worthy of attack. Nick Griffin described the result of immigration into the UK as "genocide," meaning, in the original sense of the word, what Raphael Lemkin called in 1944 "a coordinated plan of different actions aiming at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves." The mass murder of a particular group can be included in this definition, but it is not the only feature of genocide. Of course, Nick Griffin is flatly wrong to describe (in any sense) as genocide the currrent evolution of British society, but the panel's main response came from Conservative life peer (and Nick Griffin's fellow homophobe) Sayeeda Warsi, who, rather than refuting his claim, simply took deep offence at what she saw as his misuse of the word. In popular use its meaning may have changed, but why did no one point out her misunderstanding?
§ A similar point came when a woman in the audience objected to the use of the phrase "Afro-Caribbean," prescribing instead "African-Caribbean." Perhaps she had heard the phrase "African-American" but not the phrases "Anglo-Indian," "Franco-Prussian," "Serbo-Croatian," "Italo-American" and "anarcho-syndicalist." It's a shame, for everyone's sake, that no one explained her mistake.
§ One audience member pointed out that it was unreasonable to attack muslims and not christians, as (the christian) Nick Griffin does. He was right, but I think he meant that we should therefore go easy on all religions. I'd say that he had it the wrong way round: many of the attacks on Islam (such as on its misogyny, homophobia, and belief in fairy stories, for instance) are justified. We just need to get started all the other religions too.
If you missed the programme, you can catch it for a while longer here, or just have a look at cassetteboy's edited highlights:
