HOME | IMC UK | Editorial Guidelines | Mission Statement | About Us | Contact | Help | Support Us

Oxford Indymedia

Demo agenst extream right at Oxford Union

hamish | 27.11.2007 08:52 | Anti-racism | Social Struggles | Oxford

100's of demonstrators disrupted a talk by Nick Griffin and other extream right wingers at the Oxford Union.

Protesters blocked the gate
Protesters blocked the gate

Few peopul got in
Few peopul got in

The gate was locked with most of the audeance outside
The gate was locked with most of the audeance outside


A fun time was had by many...

hamish
- e-mail: hamish@undercurrents.org
- Homepage: http://www.undercurrents.org

Comments

Hide the following 8 comments

Free speech

27.11.2007 14:28

should be just that. In my opinion these people stopping these people from speaking are playing into the facists hands and syrely acting in a facist manner. Why not allow these people to spout thier rhetoric and let us make up our own minds rather than censor. Is this not a form of dictatorship and self censorship. I may not beleive in what they have to say but I will defend thier right to say it! This is what I deem to be democracy.

Winston Smith


Free Speech? No Platform their asses!

27.11.2007 15:05

'Free speech' might sound like a 'noble' ideal, but in practice it means those in power decide what is within the acceptable spectrum of opinion. The government allows fascists relative freedom to express themselves because they consider them useful. How many people vote new Labour 'to keep the fascists out'? Come to that, 'mainstream' politics is getting ever closer to fascism itself. The ruling class want us scared, and those who resisted the fascists last night are clearly anything but scared. If we are working class activists, we should want our enemies to be scared of expressing themselves.

Big Brother


sample letters from bbc hys website i have to say i agree with them

27.11.2007 15:55

The protestors wouldn't be so despised and objectionable, if they also had the principle and courage to turn up at black supremacist Nation of Islam gatherings, muslim jihad gatherings, etc. Do you really need to be white to be a fascist? Typical Left-wing discrimination: Huge numbers of muslims want every race or creed wiped out. Not just a couple, like the nazis: It's ironic that dictatorships have almost always been left-wing (Hitler, Stalin, China, USSR, etc etc). Time to redefine the terms?




To all the protesters who didn't want last night's event to take place: will you be protesting the same way when someone wanting to deny the rights of women and wishing to see a country wiped off the map is invited?
Something tells me the vast majority won't, which tells you all you need to know about the bleeding heart, PC liberal state of our country today.
Free speech means just that - I'll make my mind up what my views are after listening to any extreme set of views I see fit.

didnt see you guys outside finsbury mosque did you get lost?


Any1giving nationalsocialists the main platform to discuss freedom of speech wi

27.11.2007 16:42

Have you been to Iraq or Afghanistan or Isreal to support the secular opposition & freedom of speech where million are dying Finsbury man?
Didnt see you there did we? you went to Finsbury,wow!
No it seems you cheer on the so called war on Terror & protest those scapegoated nutters like Hamza who is the kindred spirit of Griffin.

Meanwhile over 6million die in Afghanistan &Iraq since 1991.
Why do so many wanna be nazi dictators have one eye or one ball?
In war most of the isms have been funded & used by bankers to play us off against each other escpecially fascism,
has anarchism?
all anarchists oppose war,
anarchists uphold freedom of speech in word & deed,
everyone sane or mentally over 16 knows fascists like Griffin & Hamza are unevolved shite on the colon of humanity.

remember Catalonia before you blubber Winston,

Ray winston


no platform for fascists

27.11.2007 19:06

For some the idea of stopping fascists from speaking at the union is a stupied idea as left wing people are supposed to defend freedom of speech. However as everyone knows the fascists if in power would ban all freedom of speech and kill all dissenters. the BNP stand in the tradition of the nazi party. here's a link to a picture of the founder of the BNP if your in any doubt.
 http://www.hopenothate.org.uk/images/BNP_JohnTyndall02.gif

Here is a link to redwatch, the website step up to hound anti racists or also people who they will get revenge on when they are in power. I went specifically to the page where are they now? at the top of the page the nazi brag about the death of anti nazi league member blair peach who was killed by police.

The BNP aren't to up on freedom of speech when they have beat up people who have being handing out anti fascist material. The mainstream media gives the BNP an easy time while demonising the left. The BNP would say they have the right to freedom of speech, yet what about the rights of the black, asian, jewish, gay, disabled, socialist and trade unionists who the BNP threaten and utlimately want to kill. Should we let the BNP march through a predominately black area and intimidate people because they should have the right to protest.This is not a abstract moral argument, it is a tactical argument, if the BNP are allowed to grow and be perceived as a viable party everyone one on this site would feel the consequences.

If the oxford union believe in freedom of speech will they be inviting any representatives of Al Qaida to talk about 9/11, of course not it would be offensive, and the person who did the talk would get locked up on anti terror charges, however the BNP who support a "holocaust type solution" to the "problems of britain" are given freedom of speech.

Speech should not be used to threatern or intimidate others, if i said i wanted to kill someone i would be in trouble with the police, whereas a party that wants to kill a whole section of society would not recieve the same punishment.

here's a link to UAF, that might outline the no platform policy better than me.  http://www.uaf.org.uk/news.asp?choice=71105
Marxist?



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Regarding left wing dictorships (which doesn't really make sense), nearly all dictorships have not been left wing think about the history of most countries and the dictorships which are called monarchy's, or the fascist dictorships of hitler, franco, pinochet etc the difference is people such as myself and others on this site view china, north korea etc as bad, whereas the BNP think hitlers regime was good. Simple

marxist?


Redwatch

27.11.2007 20:16

Shame you have no understanding of of who's who on the left....idiot! Not suprising you prats keep getting slapped.

Lucky Yin


Wrong again Redwatch

28.11.2007 00:16

Claiming to have pictures of "AFA" on your site shows how up to date you are. Once again you missed out on pictures of Antifa. Better luck next time. NO PASARAN!

Antifa


Bad tactics

29.11.2007 21:51

Apart from anything else, it seems a bit of a short-sighted idea to try and prevent debate going ahead. The 'no platform' concept is frankly a load of bollocks. You either believe in free speech, or you don't. To me a better scenario would have been this: The debate goes ahead, Griffin, Irving etc. get the verbal and factual whipping they deserve in front of a large number of people and then when they get out, anarchists beat the living shit out of them. Apart from being quite OBVIOUSLY directly contradictory to belief in free speech, preventing people from airing their views is shite from a tactical point of view. If the debate is prevented then the fash can play the 'free speech martyr' card as they have done in the past, and if not, then we look a bit crap. Far more effective to beat them in every way possible, both verbally and physically and in the end, far more satisfying... Belief in free speech goes hand in hand with freedom of expression and if we happen to express ourselves with violence against the fash, then that's their problem. Let them say what they want, discredit it, and then make them pay the consequences of what they say.

Sevastopol


Publish your news
-->

Kollektives

Birmingham
Cambridge
Liverpool
London
Oxford
Sheffield
South Coast
Wales
World

Other UK IMCs
Bristol/South West
London
Northern Indymedia
Scotland

Oxford Topics

Afghanistan
Analysis
Animal Liberation
Anti-Nuclear
Anti-militarism
Anti-racism
Bio-technology
Climate Chaos
Culture
Ecology
Education
Energy Crisis
Fracking
Free Spaces
Gender
Globalisation
Health
History
Indymedia
Iraq
Migration
Ocean Defence
Other Press
Palestine
Policing
Public sector cuts
Repression
Social Struggles
Technology
Terror War
Workers' Movements
Zapatista

IMCs


www.indymedia.org

Projects
print
radio
satellite tv
video

Africa

Europe
antwerpen
armenia
athens
austria
barcelona
belarus
belgium
belgrade
brussels
bulgaria
calabria
croatia
cyprus
emilia-romagna
estrecho / madiaq
galiza
germany
grenoble
hungary
ireland
istanbul
italy
la plana
liege
liguria
lille
linksunten
lombardia
madrid
malta
marseille
nantes
napoli
netherlands
northern england
nottingham imc
paris/île-de-france
patras
piemonte
poland
portugal
roma
romania
russia
sardegna
scotland
sverige
switzerland
torun
toscana
ukraine
united kingdom
valencia

Latin America
argentina
bolivia
chiapas
chile
chile sur
cmi brasil
cmi sucre
colombia
ecuador
mexico
peru
puerto rico
qollasuyu
rosario
santiago
tijuana
uruguay
valparaiso
venezuela

Oceania
aotearoa
brisbane
burma
darwin
jakarta
manila
melbourne
perth
qc
sydney

South Asia
india


United States
arizona
arkansas
asheville
atlanta
Austin
binghamton
boston
buffalo
chicago
cleveland
colorado
columbus
dc
hawaii
houston
hudson mohawk
kansas city
la
madison
maine
miami
michigan
milwaukee
minneapolis/st. paul
new hampshire
new jersey
new mexico
new orleans
north carolina
north texas
nyc
oklahoma
philadelphia
pittsburgh
portland
richmond
rochester
rogue valley
saint louis
san diego
san francisco
san francisco bay area
santa barbara
santa cruz, ca
sarasota
seattle
tampa bay
united states
urbana-champaign
vermont
western mass
worcester

West Asia
Armenia
Beirut
Israel
Palestine

Topics
biotech

Process
fbi/legal updates
mailing lists
process & imc docs
tech