Free To Be Moderate

28Oct08

News comes today that Home Secretary Jacqui Smith is upscaling measures to prevent those with extreme views entering the UK.

This scheme is no doubt a vote-winning policy, intended to play on the latent fears of terrorists a large number of Brits harbour, all too often backed up by a latent mistrust of the Muslim community overall.

However, the tougher measures, which will deny Neo-Nazis, Muslim extremists and holocaust deniers, the priviledge of entering Britain raises the age-old issue of freedom of speech.

It seems that increasingly to be in this country that we are free to express our moderate views but not our extreme ones. And after all, the world is not always a moderate place and human beings are not always moderate creatures.

Earlier this year a huge furore was caused when holocaust denier and formerly revered historian David Irvine was invited to speak at the Oxford Union. As a person of Jewish descent I was not offended by this invitation, unlike many protesters. If Irvine thinks he can contest the existence of an event supported by incontrovertible historical evidence, I’d be interested to hear him try.

So, I think what the government doesn’t understand is that preachers of extreme views do not breed hate or terrorism, they prey on those who are already in a prone condition to these political ideologies.

What ministers should really be doing is looking at why certain communities are being recruited by those with extremist views and what can be done to tackle this and to integrate minorities.

Banning and gagging people in the age of digital communication will not solve the problem.

Filed under: al Qaeda, counter terrorism, labour party, politics   |  Leave a Comment
Tags: David Irvine, extremists, Jacqui Smith