What was once an open, inclusive, exhilarating politics
Beatrix Campbell posted a letter to the Working Class Movement Library to offer support for their invitation to Julie Bindel.
May I share some of my own experience with you — in the hope that it might encourage you to withstand the hostility.
I have been involved in working class, progressive politics all my adult life and I have received many awards and honours for my writing. I came out as gay in my early 20s — in the 1970s — and like many other gay people I have felt over the past few years that what was once an open, inclusive, exhilarating politics, which has been spectacularly successful in advancing gay rights, has become overwhelmed by a toxic element of trans activism, a campaign of authoritarian silencing in the name of ’safe space’. Many gay activists, particularly women, are now deeply alienated. Some years ago I wrote an article in the Guardian opposing the NUS no-platforming of Julie Bindel.
I should say that she is a friend, I’ve known her since the 1980s when I made a TV documentary on battered women who kill their assailants, and since Justice for Women and Southall Black Sisters campaigned successfully for the release of Kiranjit Aluwhalia.
Julie Bindel is one of the founders of Justice for Women, a pathbreaking movement supporting women who live with violence, and an enduring campaigner against violence and sexual exploitation of women, and for gay rights.
We have disagreed about many things — not least the Green Party, for whom I’ve been a local and Parliamentary candidate. But I would go to great lengths to defend her right to write and speak and, just as important, for people’s opportunity to hear her in person and to challenge her. She is always interesting, adroit and sometimes very witty and, yes, offensive.
I support the Index on Censorship approach to this: there is no right to not be offended.
During the 2010 General Election, trans gender friends in the Green Party alerted me to some trans activist threats to picket me at hustings — they offered to attend the hustings in the event of trouble. There was no trouble, those making the threat never turned up.In the last couple of years the movement to no-platform people who are against the sexual exploitation of women, who support the ’Nordic model’, or who have a critique of some trans positions on gender, have also found themselves being subjected to harassment.
It was in response to this that myself and Prof Deborah Cameron (also a working class lesbian, by the way) organised a letter to The Observer opposing no platforming. The 130+ signatories included people who are transgender, and who have been involved in prostitution.
This was repudiated by another letter the following week, initiated by Sara Ahmed.
I suggested to a couple of publications — a progressive Oxbridge journal, and a lesbian magazine — that they host a round table to air the issues. My contact on the Oxbridge journal rejected the idea on the grounds that it was universities’ duty to provide students with a safe space, a ‘home’ away from home. The lesbian magazine editor rejected the proposal — the editor, very committed to trans people, admitted to me that she was afraid.
I also wrote a couple of letters to the London Review of Books in response to a long feature by Jacqueline Rose which had failed to address these controversies, and which did not engage with trans activists who do not support no platforming, and who have a critique of some trans people’s theories of gender…
You may, of course, not be interested in all of this. You may disagree with me.
But whatever your position on trans gender debates might be, there are vital ethical and political issues at stake here for all of us:The claim that critique or analysis or debate amount to ‘killing’ is an abuse of language.
And what is being suppressed by no-platforming is not only the right to speak, but other people’s right to listen, to participate and to challenge.It has taken centuries of heroic effort for oppressed and marginalised people to find their voices; Julie Bindel is one of those voices; the Library is a monument to those efforts and to its founders, Ruth and Eddie Frows’ commitment to honouring them.
Please don’t be afraid. Be brave, be normal, keep on doing what you do so well — showing the richness of working class life and struggles.
Yours in solidarity
Beatrix Campbell
I second that.
Yes. This.
My position is that, even if someone is utterly, completely wrong in one area, that should not preclude them from speaking or debating on topics other than that area. To blacklist someone entirely because of one set of views leads to a limited and limiting selection of bland and uninteresting speakers who never introduce any new ideas because they are restricted to the ideologically approved party line.
I can understand Julie Bindel not being asked to speak on Trans issues or politics – unless it was a formal debate – but to suggest she not be invited or given a platform to speak on anything because of her stance on one area is basic McCarthyism.
I also agree. The only situation I can imagine ‘no platforming’ to be a reasonable response might be one where the speaker specifically and deliberately incites violence. Or, perhaps, the forum is a scientific one, and someone who promotes pseudoscience (creationism, alt med, crank physics) was accidentally engaged as a scientific expert.
It seems to me as though both these frameworks are being misapplied here. Having a controversial view is being equated to inciting violence AND being a crank.
Anyone disagreeing with Jacqueline Rose has my ear.
Interesting how these trans women who say they are women – full stop, use fear and intimidation to silence women and particularly lesbians and persuade the liberal feminists to place trans needs front and center. It’s almost as if they’re acting just like that other group of people, you know – men.
So, being ‘wrong’, (or at least, utterly, completely wrong) should nullify their rights to speak about the topic they are ‘wrong’ about? Or perhaps we should allow them the right to talk on that, as well? If they are really wrong, it gives an opportunity to get the ideas out in the open, air them, and point out to others who might be swayed that they are wrong. If they are not wrong (or at least not utterly, completely wrong) the rest of us might be persuaded by their evidence to give their ideas a hearing, if they can show us why they are not wrong. Either way, it all comes down to which segment of society, which individual, which group, gets to determine what is ‘wrong’.
To many people, my ideas are ‘wrong’ on almost everything – feminism, global warming, overpopulation, atheism, to name but a few. In the state I live, there has been a law passed to prevent certain elements of society from publicly discuss global warming as a possible problem for our state’s changing climate and water problems. The legislature decided global warming was ‘wrong’, and they have the power to stop it.
I believe my ideas are right. That is why I keep believing them. It is almost certain that at least some of them are wrong, at least in some sense of the word, but who gets to decide that? Is it a vote of the majority? I would certainly be deemed wrong then, even if I could present substantial evidence to demonstrate that my ideas are in line with evidence (such as global warming).
Eugene Debs was determined to be ‘wrong’ when he spoke out against the draft during WWI. He was ‘wrong’ enough to be jailed. Society did not approve of his ideas, at least not while there was a war on. David Irving expressed an unpopular (and inaccurate) opinion about the Holocaust, and was sent to jail. Is this where we want to go? Or do we stop at no-platforming, and call that okay, because they are still ‘free’? Why are we so damned afraid of ideas that differ from ours? If we are ‘right’, we should be able to deal with opposing opinions through debate and argumentation. The minute you refuse to let your opponent speak, you have forfeited the debate, because you have tacitly admitted a weakness in your own position…even if there is no weakness in your own position. Silencing your opponent usually tends to make them stronger, not weaker.
@ Iknklast #5
The key here is that no one is entitled to a platform – that is one thing I agree with. We’re specifically talking about inviting someone to speak. I wouldn’t expect a feminist group to give a platform to, say Milo Yiannopoulos but I expect him to be allowed to speak if another group invites him. I wouldn’t expect a trans rights group to invite Germaine Greer or Julie Bindel to speak but they should be free to speak to a feminist group – on the same campus for instance – without attempt to shut them down.
I completely agree with you about being exposed to challenging beliefs but I don’t expect every group to have to invite any random speaker. I wouldn’t expect a feminist group to invite Yiannopoulos to talk about rape culture but if he could talk about something else relevant to feminist interests I would support his invitation.
I’ve said many time in the past I support counter speech rather than suppression of speech – but that doesn’t mean I expect a group to invite someone to speak on a subject – which often costs at least expenses – when they are known to be hostile to that group’s core beliefs. However if someone else invites them I believe in – as I’ve said before – seeding the audience with your best and most knowledgeable debaters and using that forum to criticise what is being said. Or to protest – politely and respectfully – outside with carefully composed written matter.
Yes, Steamshovelmama, but this is about someone who has offered her a platform, and is being harassed about it. This is about other people wanting to take away the right of someone to offer a platform to someone they disagree with. The museum offered her a platform, gave her an invitation, and they have a right to do that. They would have a right to do that even if it was on a topic that some members of the public thought were ‘wrong’.
The problem is that certain activists have set themselves up as the arbiters of ‘right’ thinking and ‘wrong’ thinking, and will harass anyone who gives a platform to the ‘wrong’ people.
@Iknklast #7
Yes, and I agree this is completely wrong. I’m sorry if it didn’t come across as that. What I was trying to say (perhaps badly) was that even if you completely disagree with a speaker regarding subject A, that should not prevent that speaker being invited to speak on subject B.
In my last comment I was trying (again, perhaps badly) to say that while noone has a right to a platform, neither should someone be blacklisted for holding views about one specific area of politics/culture.