Say YES to the BNP
9/9/09
OK. I admit it - I published that title to get your attention. But since you're a dumbass, you fell for my oh-so-cunning trap which basically puts me in the same league as British red-top tabloid newspapers i.e. one rung above dog faeces in terms of commentary on politics. It's not completely misleading, mind. I do want people to say YES to the British National Party.
I'm going to say something that, to many of you will seem amazing and completely controversial. To the rest of you, it will seem obvious. Members of the British National Party have a right to freedom of speech. STOP THE PRESS AND COME IN THE EDITOR'S MOUTH! That's right - no word of a lie. Members of the British National Party have a right to freedom of speech. Not just legally but philosophically as well.
Now, I'm big on bashing Human Rights as a concept. This is because whenever somebody is stopped by the law from doing something completely moronic (like vandalism in the name of direct action), and they're then rightly arrested, some dickhead, usually wearing something made from hemp, claims that they have a "right do what they want". This is an abuse of what the Human Rights charter was for. You could technically make the argument but it would be a crock of shit and unhelpful. If you vandalise something, you get fined or go to jail and get buggered by a large gentleman called Spike. Or you do both.
So why do members of the BNP have the right to freedom of speech? Well, because ultimately, we only limit free speech where we are sure it is going to be deleterious to society. This is not the case with BNP. For two reasons.
One is an airy-fairy philosophical point. The fact is that by taking away the BNP's right to free speech, you fail acknowledge that we as a society are willing to listen to every point of view. If you don't, it's no different than arguing with somebody by shouting increasingly louder at them until they can't be heard.
It's a tactic generally employed by people who don't know what the fuck they're talking about i.e. hippies who assert that "the corporations" are bad, people who care about Madeleine McCann's whereabouts whilst blithely ignoring all missing children in the Darfur region and Jade Goody. Oh wait - she got cancer so it's not fashionable to hate her anymore. Sorry, my mistake.
Still - the second point - many believe that the BNP are too big a threat for such "diplomacy". After all, they threaten Asians, Blacks, Poles, Muslims, Sikhs, Hindus and basically anything that's dark or speaks funny. So possibly panthers and parrots. It is nonetheless legitimate to fear those who wish to boot you out of your country. By suppressing their freedom of speech, so the logic goes, you take the platform for them to spread their message of hate, violence and general anti-browness.
Untrue. Unless you physically gag or remove the tongue from anybody who utters anything remotely racist, you fail to stop from gaining a platform. The "close-your-eyes" and "pretend-they're-not-their-until-they-go-away" approach is an effective technique in dealing with the vaunted monsters under the bed. It is less effective in dealing with far-right political parties who still gain support, merely underground, out-of-sight and out-of-mind.
What this means, is you create a bigger and more difficult-to-assess threat. Better to grow a pair of testicles, man up and face them in a debate. What? Scared you're going to lose? Too much of a pussy? The worst that happens is they convince everybody in the country that you're right and all black, brown and Eastern European people leave. But it's hardly likely, is it?
More likely, you'll convince a few people who were on the borderline that they're racists and scum and that it's perhaps not a great idea, morally and economically, to vote for the British National Party. Moreover, it reminds those who think the BNP are no longer a threat that they're still around, still going strong, and still need to people to come out and vote against them.
So...say YES to the BNP!
(But don't vote for them...please?)