We all need to take a step back and see what kind of society we have become; in particular the Stalinist silencing of voices of dissent – even within our universities.
I have seen my past server host pull this website and my publisher pull my book, in attempts to silence my dissenting opinions. We overcame those, but they should never have happened. Now I have been telephoned by the University of Cambridge to be told that security staff will physically prevent me from entering the University of Cambridge to give a talk there.
What have we become? I have responded thus and am now off to Cambridge.
Dear Dr Elliott,
As I told you on the telephone, I was invited some weeks ago to speak this evening in a debate on the merits of the Afghan War. I learnt this morning that plans had changed due to a student occupation of a university building over University policy towards Gaza, and as the organisers of my debate were involved in the occupation, I was requested to switch my talk to the Law Faculty. I agreed to do so.
I then heard from you that the authorities had decided to exclude non-University members from the law faculty, and should I arrive to give my talk I will not be admitted; and indeed be physically prevented from entering.
I have given this some thought, and I have decided that the threat not to admit me to the University building is unwarranted.
As you may realise, I am Rector of the University of Dundee (and an Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Lancaster School of Law). I am not personally intending to occupy your building for longer than it takes to give a talk, and certainly intend to cause no damage. I am not a health and safety risk.
I am invited to lecture at Universities and other prestigious institutions worldwide; normally universities are urging me to come, not seeking to turn me away! I understand that a number of people are looking forward to hearing me this evening. To threaten to exclude me is a denial of freedom of speech which I find very peculiar behaviour for the University of Cambridge.
Student occupations are hardly a new phenomenon, and normally can easily be resolved through amicable negotiation. I was quite astonished to learn that Cambridge University had responded by attempting to starve the students out. To try also to ban a guest speaker seems to me likely to inflame and prolong, rather than resolve, the dispute.
It seems to me that the easiest way out of the current difficulty of my visit is for you to extend to me an invitation to speak this evening on behalf of the Faculty.
With all best wishes,
Craig Murray
Craig
Just received books…Rest assured they will soon be adorning the bookshelves of the main branch library…Many thanks.
Reason (poor name by the way in your case)
I have pointed out above that the comparisons between Douglas Murray and Craig are spurious. I suggest you read those points before attacking me. They are completely different scenarios. I don’t justify any wrongs nor do I suggest that two wrongs make a right. I suggest that the West or global capitalism may have committed crimes but that far greater crimes have been committed by other regimes that are not part of the West or part of “global capitalism” (whatever that is) – yet you and yours refuse to acknowledge them. Your obsessive anti-Americanism clouds your judgement. In my opinion.
George – yes I do know the views of ordinary people, because there are these amazing things called opinion polls. They ask a sample of people for their opinions and publish the results. Perhaps you have heard of them? See the quote and link below.
Incidentally, I note your friend Mr Sheridan hjas now been charged with perjury. Still a supporter?
http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/blog/
“Finally – though these are just my selection, there is some other stuff in the poll if you follow the link – YouGov asked about the conflict in Gaza and who was to blame. 18% said Israel, 24% said Hamas, 39% thought they were equally to blame.”
John
I don’t get your point. I am not making a comparison between the two. I am saying that Douglas Murray represents a denial of free speech and Craig does not – for the reasons I have outlined above. To deny Douglas Murray a platform is wrong. To deny Craig access to an illegally occupied building is right. Can I be any clearer?
eddie
You’ve made it clear you’re a hypocrite.
Craig
Incidentally, I hope you will accept that the students at Cambridge are trespassing on university property and denying other students and staff the right to carry on their studies? If you know anything about the law you will know that trespass is a civil offence under the law – i.e it is illegal. This is above and beyond any University rules they may have broken and any criminal damage or other criminal offences that may have been perpetrated. I am using precise language here. Do you accept that trespass is illegal?
Your comment, “I am not claiming the university authorities killed millions of people.” is just crass. Why do you even say it? Did I suggest such a thing? I am saying the very opposite – that the use of inflammatory and crass comparisons devalues your case entirely.
eddie, please stop being so very, very silly.
Freedoms and progress have never been handed down by authority they have been taken by people. If laws had always been followed in the way you seem to suggest then your opinion polls would count for nought as you wouldn’t even have a vote (unless of course you’re an aristocrat).
There are such things as ‘good laws’ and ‘bad laws’ and your failure to spot the difference is, frankly, ludicrous and more than a little worrying.
eddie
“Given some enough rope and they will hang themselves”.
This sums you up.
The more you say.
The more you expose your position as flawed.
My advice: Don’t waste time focussing on pointless, circular discourse with those who are there solely to disrupt the effectiveness of the information exchange, awareness-raising, solidarity-building and activism modes of progressive/ dissident websites. This ‘sinking into the well’ technique is is achieved in part by ‘cascading’ confused arguments which one has heard for many decades now, constructed always in support of the powerful, every time there has been any kind of protest about anything that is not right-wing. It works when people respond to every nuance and every posting and it is aimed at inducing people to use up mental and political energy and at demoralising those who would seek to question the operations of power within society and the world. Ignore such manipulative tactics and instead, write, e-mail or ‘phone Cambridge University to protest!!!
Chris
I’m sorry but you are the silly one here pal.
You think the laws of trespass are silly do you? So if I come and squat in your house you wouldn’t use the law to evict me? Tell me where you live and I will send someone round. Idiot.
People go to Cambridge University to receive an education. The occupiers of the law building are denying other students the right to that education. Is that simple enough for you? If they want to protest they can do so elsewhere without shitting on other students. I support the right to protest but not in this childish way.
As for your comment that freedoms and progress have never been handed down by authority blah blah. Really? Do you think the progressive laws of the last few decades were “taken by people” or were they made in Parliaments? Diversity legislation, human rights leigislation, workplace protection. Assuming you live in this society I am pretty certain that you benefit from these laws. I could go on, but I think I have proved that your point is utterly worthless.
“You have not answered my substantive point about your inappropriate use of language.” This from someone who finds it necessary to repeat “I am a Cambridge resident.” as though it justifies his argument, but adds the crowning glory, “food in the building is a health and safety problem.”
So there you have it. The end of humanity as we know it. Food, one of those substances without which the human race cannot exist, is now a Health and Safety Problem! And eddie seems to be completely at ease with living not only in a Police State, but also exhorts us to support the founding of The Health And Safety Police State. There’s no answer to that.
By the way, eddie, please don’t say that the use of one word or some other word will turn MY mind from this argument or to that argument. You, for sure, do not know what is in my mind. But perhaps your support for the Health And Safety Police is soon to be followed by your support for the Mind Police. That’s something that I don’t know. And I’m gobsmacked at, “I do know the views of ordinary people, because there are these amazing things called opinion polls. They ask a sample of people for their opinions and publish the results.”
I’ve yet to see an opinion poll asking “a sample of people” what they think of the word “Stalinist”, and the only opinion poll result that I’ve ever seen that turned out to be accurate was the one that concluded that “Eighty seven percent of all statistics are made up.”
Lastly, you ask if hurryupharry should be seen on a platform in this country. Well, I, and anyone else, of any age or persuasion, can go to my local library, sit in front of a screen and read and see everything that hurryupharry has to say, at any time the library is open. If that isn’t being “seen on a platform in this country” I don’t know what is.
Eddie is such an unconscious comedian.
“I am quite willing to address the issues. But unless people use language correctly debate is impossible.”
Let me translate : “if you don’t use a word in a way I find helpful I will not allow you to use it”
Lovely.
Even better was : “I’m sorry but you are the silly one here pal.
You think the laws of trespass are silly do you? So if I come and squat in your house you wouldn’t use the law to evict me? Tell me where you live and I will send someone round. Idiot.”
Let me translate : “If I come and steal your land and you try and argue against it I will send the IDF round to flatten your home”.
Ken
It is the University authorities who are saying that food is a health and safety problem. Perhaps you may not have noticed that I raised that point in a slightly tongue in cheek way above? Perhaps not. As a rule I think hat some health and safety rules are pernicious but I admire the chutzpah of the University authorities in using them as an excuse? Irony, do you see?
Your comment that we live in a police state tells me more about you than I need to know. Don’t. Be. Stupid.
The link I referred to, is not about Harry’s Place but the truly shocking video from Al Rahma TV from the
Egyptian cleric Amin Al-Ansari. I suggest that you watch it. I think I prefer David Irving – at least he accepts that the Holocaust (had it happened) would be a BAD thing. This guy thinks it was great.
Merkin
Don’t give up the day job. Your translation skills are very, very bad.
Firstly, thank you Craig for an interesting and stimulating talk. I could only have enjoyed it more if I had been seated and in the warm.
It is a pity that the University Authorities, in denying access to yourself and part of your audience, could have come up with no better reason than non-possession of University ID cards. No doubt at that very time many non-University individuals were attending other events being held on University premises.
No doubt the Laws of Trespass and Health and Safety Regulations are a useful and necessary component of contemporary society. One would hope, however, that they were not originally framed, or developed, as a means of stifling free speech or legitimate protest. That they – and much other recent legislation, are used to this end very much supports your point.
Eddie
Just to say that the students in the occupation have been very careful not to disrupt anyone’s studies, and access both to the library and to lectures in the building have been uninterrupted. There is nothing so terrible about a studnet occupation, and the authorities have over-reacted sillily. The central demand of a couple of bursaries for deprived Palestinian students could and should have been easily granted.
You really don’t have a clue do you, Eddie?
“Diversity legislation, human rights leigislation, workplace protection.”
So none of these were ever fought for by members of our society? What planet do you live on?
Have you never heard of trade unions or human rights groups? It’s funny but I thought they fought for exactly these things.
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” – Margaret Mead (Anthropologist)
If you can explain why you wish to use my house as your target for trespass and give a suitable reason as to why this might progress our society for the good of all then you’d be very welcome.
Craig
But that gives in to mob rule and sidelines democratic procedures within the University. Surely you don’t support that? The issuing of bursaries may be a worthy end, but what if it was not? What if the protestors were Jewish and were demanding, for example, that bursaries should be given to poor Israeli students? What if they were far right students who wanted the expulsion of Muslim students? Would you still support their tactics? It is not for you to decide that the demands “should have been easily granted”. That is your own opinion, it may not be shared by the University or the mass of the student body. I support the right to protest, but I also support the right of the University authorities to uphold the rule of law. I’m not sure sillily is a word by the way.
Eddie
I was interested to see you championing the case of Douglas Murray, of whom I had not heard. Now I’ve researched him, I rather wish I hadn’t.
For the benefit of others who may not know about him, Murray’s latest book is called “Neoconservatism: Why We Need It”
In it he strongly strongly recommends that the West takes actions that kill and maim innocent civilians – in and out of the womb – as well as encouraging the use of torture and nuclear weapons.
What was your point about the holocaust Eddie? Do you mean that, like Douglas Murray, you’re in favour, provided that only Muslims are the victims?
By the way Eddie, I don’t think you’ll find that Craig has ever sought to deny anyone the right to free speech, whatever their views.
Your example of ‘far right students who wanted the expulsion of Muslim students’ might however be difficult to sustain because such a cause would itself be illegal.
A peaceful occupation is hardly ‘mob rule’ by the way. A stickler for language such as yourself should really be more careful.
eddie
I see what you are driving at now, for a minute I thought you were employing that jaded rhetorical trick of hijacking a discussion on one issue by raising a similar but unrelated issue.
What you are implying is the students had forgone their right to invite guest speakers because they had engaged in a form of protest you deem illegal. I think the point of this discussion is that our right to hear and be heard is being limited by the application of crowd control laws. In your own way you appear to have proved Craig’s point.
Civil disobedience is at times a duty, laws are based on concepts of control, at best we can hope that they are also based on morality. Since it is the nature of the state to veer towards the element of control, it is the duty of the citizen to stand up for morality.
As for your person who was denied the right to speak wherever, s/he just learnt a lesson in power. If you feel this was an abuse of power perhaps you should stage a sit in to protest it.
Language ‘n’ words. Law ‘n’ order. Rules ‘n’ regulations. In my ideal arnarchist society the ‘mob’ would rule the streets, the factories and the fields. Laws are fine, in their place, but not match for Power, and we live in a society where Power means almost everything. Who has it and who doesn’t, especially who doesn’t. The millions who don’t even realise they might have it.
The mob, armed with torches and pitchforks would have all the power. The aristocracy would be on the run. I think we may be moving towards a new 1789 ‘n’ all that. The Virtual Versailles of the last few decades is about to be surrounded, the New Bastille is ready to fall. Revoluions don’t follow the rules or the laws, they make up there own on the way.
The Thacherite counter-revolution had precious little to do with anything other than the abuse and use of Power, pure class-warfare, and now the entire corrupt edifice of market fascism is falling like a house of cards.
Now it’s our turn again. Time to use the power of the mob once more. I’m sharpening my sickle as we speak!
Chris
In your earlier post you stated “Freedoms and progress have never been handed down by authority they have been taken by people.” But we live in a paliamentary democracy where laws are indeed “handed down by authority”. Yes, trade unions and other campaigners may fight for new legislation but ultimately it is parliament that makes these laws. I hope that you are bright enough to understand this. Your Mead quote sounds like Leninism – “we know better than the masses” etc. I trust you are not a Leninist because he was also an evil mass murderer. As for your house, no I do not want to come round, I was making the point that if someone squatted in your house you would presumably use the law to get rid of them. You may advocate protest against unjust laws but I hope that you are not suggesting that the civil laws of trespass are unjust?
MJ your post is illiterate. Show me where Douglas Murray adviocates the things you say he does and I will bother to reply to you. At no point have I suggested that I support the views of Douglas Murray. You should also have a look at the video I posted as you clearly don’t understand the point I was making about the Holocaust. The Muslim cleric in that clip is gloating over images of the Holocaust in the most repulsive way imaginable.
John your point is nonsensical. The students at Cambridge are clearly in breach of both the law and university regulations, as I have stated repeatedly. I don’t deem it illegal, it is illegal. The students had not foregone their right to invite guest speakers. Craig could have spoken anywhere in the University, just not in the building that was illegally occupied. So his comment in the second paragraph of his post that he was being prevented from entering the University of Cambridge is simply untrue. He was prevented from entering the law faculty building which is a tiny part of the University. There is therefore no limitation on the right to hear and be heard. He is just grandstanding for effect. Douglas Murray, on the other hand, has been prevented from entering the whole of the LSE. As for your comments about the state and morality – well, your suggestion that the state is generally controlling and citizens generally moral is highly questionable – I could provide you with dozens of examples where the reverse is true.
Eddie,
I trust you aren’t suggesting that because we live in a democracy (now there’s an argument in itself) that we should all just stand by and be grateful for the crumbs that may, or may not, fall from the parliamentary table. If so, as pointed out above (unless you are an aristocrat) you would have no voice at all. This country did not become a democracy on its own.
The emancipation of women did not come about without considerable breaking of the kind of laws you seem to view as sacrosanct. Would you prefer a return to those times, perhaps?
I am afraid that it is a great danger to ever entertain the idea of “my country right or wrong”.
And I must have missed the bit about “we know better than the masses” in the quote I offered above. And I thought I said ‘Anthropologist’ not ‘Leninist’ in my attribution. You’re not seeing reds under the bed are you? That’s so 1970’s. Haven’t you twigged that it’s supposed to be Muslims that you’re frightened of now…. Communism is yesterday… that’s why we needed a new bogeyman to keep the arms companies in gold plated taps.
I also object – just a tad – to the pejorative use of the word ‘idiot’ above. As a response to the word ‘silly’ it was both disproportionate and lacking in imagination.
In this case the ‘silly’ referred to a personal stance on my part in relation to my view of your comments (it may have been right or it may have been wrong but it was merely an opinion of your position here not you as a person.)
However, ‘idiot’ makes assumptions about the person, not the opinion and that’s just silly.
Eddie, my apologies for my illiterate post. I’m astonished you were able to decipher it. My comments about Douglas Murray came from reviews of his book. Look them up at your leisure.
You’re right, I probably didn’t understand your point about the holocaust. I thought you were inviting us to share your disgust at a Muslim cleric gloating over images of the holocaust. Of course I do, but unfortunately you didn’t go on to state the underlying point you were making, which probably gave rise to my misunderstanding. As a result I simply pointed out that the chap whose freedom of speech you were so keen to protect seems to advocate the mass extermination of Muslims, which I find disgusting.
Chris, For Christ’s sake, please STOP putting words into my mouth. I did not say we should sit and wait for the crumbs to fall from on high. Similarly, the Suffragettes fought, quite rightly, against laws that did not allow them to vote. I clearly do not view such laws as sacrosanct and have never said so and to make any comparsion between those unjust laws and sensible property laws just shows how moronic you are. To repeat, it is generally accepted that the laws of property are sensible and just and no sane person would EVER compare them to unjust laws of enfranchsiement that applied in the ealry years of the last century. It is this kind of moral equivalence that makes you look stupid. Really it does.
You probably don’t understand my allusion to Lenin and democratic centralism. Never mind. Read John Carey on the intellectuals and the masses. It may enlighten you. I would class “idiot” as fair comment under the circumstances. People who make idiotic comments are idiots.
Eddie,
calm down….. I pointed out that the laws that people like the suffragettes broke were the sort of laws that you think are sacrosanct. They trespassed for example.
At least I, albeit briefly, raised my status with you from ‘idiot’ to ‘moronic’ which in the original designation given to such labels is a small, but significant jump. Unfortunately you confuse my particular disagreement with your point of view with the need to apply a pejorative label. Perhaps you need to take a few deep breaths and a cup of camomile tea and realise that we’re both just people and our entitlement to differing views is one of the great virtues of our, supposed, democratic system.
As are pompous twits such as yourself.
Sorry Chris, referring to Eddie the Eagle
Thanks alex!!!!
but I probably qualify as well 🙁
MJ
I’m not aware that DOuglas Murray (if that is who are referring to) advocates the “mass extermination of Muslims”. As I say, I don’t condone or support his views but would be interested if you can point me to a location where he makes such an assertion.