Censorship of Holocaust flyers is a travesty for free speech

Whatever happened to lively, controversial and dangerous student debate? What happened to the sort of go-get-em’ attitude that led to the formation of the QMU – at a time when the GUU only admitted male members?

Our campus has become a place where the right to feel comfortable, the right to safe space, has outweighed the innate desire to intellectually wrestle with those we disagree with. The students of our university have become a mould – a host of post-modern post-humanist post-individual clones. They waft around superfluously in their Topshop/Topman outfits from lecture to tutorial, barely engaging, as they are readily fed the safest, most tedious academic message from their tutors. Where is the spark?

Students used to be some of the most care-free, politically diverse and intellectually open people in society. We are now essentially the opposite – a group of scared and politically apathetic individuals, oppressively incapable of accepting that contrary opinions exist.

Anti-semitic, holocaust-denying flyers have been found on University campus. It should be made clear that I do not personally condone the views propagated by these, however, I do applaud the desire to engage the wider academic community in controversial debate – in fact, the more controversial the better.

The flyers were found around campus

The real tragedy here is not the views held – people are entitled to their views. The issue is the University’s response to those views: “In common with other universities in Scotland, a small number of leaflets containing objectionable comments on the Holocaust were found, and removed, from university premises.” No matter how repugnant, immoral or personally affrontive you find someone else’s opinions, you have absolutely no right to quieten them.

For two societies, clubs or individuals to disagree on a subject is perfectly righteous and healthy – especially in an academic environment. But when we do so, should we not actively engage with one another? The solution to this sort of offensive propaganda is not censorship – it never has been – but rather to tackle the argument head on, especially when the point made is as flimsy and slanderous as anti-semitic holocaust denial.

This is not an isolated incident. In fact, it is just the tip of an opinion-suppressing, clone-creating iceberg. In 2013, Mufti Ismail Menk was due to speak at the University. Mufti is a muslim clerk from Zimbabwe who holds and propagates some repulsively archaic views. He has compared homosexuals to animals, and described their sexual activity as “wrong”, “filthy” and “immoral”.

His opinions are completely perverse – of course they are. But he is entitled to them. He is entitled to tell you about them – just as you are entitled to tell him about yours, and so you should. The safe-space that University is trying to create is killing open debate and creating graduates with manufactured nuts and bolts for brains.

Are we not able to hold real debate any more?

It is certainly true that there is a fine line between safe-spaces and a blanket acceptance of free-speech. I am exceptionally lucky to have been born a privileged white man, and can scant imagine the oppression faced by any oppressed minority (or group) at Glasgow University. It may be appropriate, for instance, to suppress genuinely threatening ideas – ones that incite action (especially violence).

However, we are all capable of allowing opinions that do not sit well with us to exist. University is not supposed to be a time of intellectual comfort and safety. No – it is supposed to be a place of intellectual discomfort and awkward questions.

Holocaust denial is an idea that may infuriate many, upset some and may even incite fear in others. However, it is ultimately just an idea. We are all capable of seeing a flyer denying an historic event and engaging, and in this case, I hope, disagreeing with it.

If a friend says something that infuriates, upsets or even scares me, I do not ignore them and attempt to remove them from my life – I tend to try and persuade them of why they are wrong. I am sure most of you are the same. Are we so delicate a student body that our campus needs to be kept clear and safe from ideas that do not conform to ours?