Article 2

The arguments AGAINST giving fascists freedom of speech

This voice should not be heard
By Randeep Ramesh
Monday April 15, 2002

The cause of free speech is worth defending. But the right of fascists and racists to be heard without being filtered through the media's lens is something that cannot be supported. The reason is that one person's freedom can become another's tyranny. In the segregated cities of the north, racists have been able to convince the white majority that they are losing out to Asian minorities. So there are white-only pubs while a few streets away Asian families are afraid of leaving their homes for fear of being beaten up. The dry tinderbox of poverty, race and social deprivation was lit, with help from the far right, last summer when riots erupted between Asian and white youths.

What the BNP trades in, these days, is crude anti-Asian slogans and Islamophobia, the effects of which have been documented in the Ritchie report commissioned by the government after the disturbances. This pointed out that racism "has led to real fear, and the self imposition, particularly by Asian women of all ages, of curfews ... (this is) a deep source of division ... It is clear that the British National Party have exploited these divisions and exacerbated problems."

Champions of free speech say the best way to defeat racists would be to challenge them on their facts and arguments. This option is plainly not open to Asians who are imprisoned by the racist rhetoric.

There is also a notion that simply by taking part in elections the BNP is somehow just another political party. It is not. The BNP ran a "boycott Asian business" general election campaign in Oldham. Polls involving the BNP require a police presence and last year candidates on the night of the general election were not allowed to make speeches because mainstream politicians recognised that the BNP would use them not to further democracy but to damage it.

In this context, the Guardian's decision to print the letter from the BNP's press officer was a mistake - lending fascists a legitimacy they have long craved. We do not give Holocaust deniers a slot on the letters page, so why should other racists get one?

Edwards wants to convince you that rather than wanting to subvert democracy and break skulls, the BNP simply wants a debate on immigration and multiculturalism. This would surprise anybody with any knowledge of a party which is violently homophobic and xenophobic.

You cannot make an analogy between Sinn Fein's entry into mainstream politics and the use of violence by its supporters. Sinn Fein did not advocate repatriation of Protestants from Northern Ireland and is not a party committed to excluding one section of society. Its politics grew out of disenfranchisement, not hate.

The BNP preys on the weakest of members of society and in giving it a platform you are eroding civil rights not strengthening them. Similarly we must take into account how seductive the BNP's message of hate can be. Any comparison with Islamist fundamentalists fails to recognise that they could never change the contours of mainstream political debate. The BNP can simply by popularising racism. The last thing we want to do is draw racists and fascists into politics.

The world is rightly appalled by the rise of Jean-Marie Le Pen and Jorg Haider and Britain should be wary of being seduced by the charms of people who trade in fear.