The Trial That Is Tryl
November 27, 2007 by VM
Dear Diary,
The juvenile who is President of the Oxford Union - that home of lost causes - has achieved his 15 minutes of fame. Luke Tryl (a name that sounds very like a pseudonym) has invited one criminal racist and one criminal holocaust-denier to speak. Dear diary, it would be nice if some of Oxford’s students could get over themselves sufficiently to think of others every now and then. I doubt young Tryl is capable of sufficient empathy, but I am trying to imagine how a young Jewish first-year at Oxford, who lost a grandparent in the Holocaust would feel on hearing Dave “Auschwitz is a lie an exaggeration (no, please, please don’t lock me up)” Irvine talk on free speech. Or indeed how a young Asian first-year whose parents fled Uganda in 1968 would feel on hearing Nick “they’re different from us because their religion is like evil cos uuuhhh I say so” Griffin posture on the same subject.
Of course, it may be that likkle Luke believes that he can control what these people talk about. Perhaps he should try a history course and take advantage of the education he is offered by his alma mater. Lots of people have previously believed they can control those like Nicky and Dave; but none have actually succeeded in doing so.
Ridiculously, the debate is put in terms of free speech, thus compelling allowing people to grandstand and proclaim whether they are for or against our basic rights. It is about nothing of the sort. It is about what one callow 21 year-old has done to promote himself: namely to make a spectacularly poor choice of person to debate a substantive issue, but a spectacularly good choice to ensure his own publicity. Luke is neither for nor against free speech. The very idea is simply irrelevant compared to whether it is good or not good for Luke. Almost unbelievably, those who really should have the ability to think past the freak-show are joining in. Then again, Mr Harris is a Liberal Democrat and so has a prima facie defence on the basis of mental incapacity. But why anyone else should want to engage with morons like this I cannot fathom.
The way to protest this piece of immature self-indulgence is to celebrate free speech by going to the Union, settling down in one’s seat and promptly engaging all one’s neighbours in a loud, long and (doubtless) tedious account of one’s dreams for the last month. If 200 people did this it might be that Doive and Nicky simply went unheard, thus triumphantly proving that free speech has a purely abstract value if no one listens.
It may be that Nick Irving and David Griffin have a right to say whatever they like. But why pukey Lukey offered them a place to say it from, instead of suggesting that they ranted at passers-by whilst clutching a ragged tract and wearing a dirty raincoat, like all the other poor deluded souls who have nowhere to go now that care in the community is with us, is simply beyond me. Just because Nick and Dave hear silly voices, there is no reason for anyone else to listen to them.
Ruthie Says:
I do believe it was Oscar Wilde who said that youth was wasted on the young. Mr. Tryl has proved himself just about competent to manage the Little Ichamton village hall debating contest. It is somewhat terrifying that someone so spectacularly self-seeking and clueless could have risen to wield such a position of power at the Union. But then again one can think of some recent European Governments where the self-seeking and clueless rose to positions of great power on the back of popular support, to then cause great misery. One can speculate that media studies is Mr. Tryls undergraduate subject of choice. For sure it is almost certainly not modern history.
I am all in favour of free speech, but whilst the holding and expressing of views which many consider abhorrent should not be criminalised, there is not a concommitent requirement to provide a prestigious venue in which the views can be aired. It is the invitation to speak that gives the views legitimacy; the notion that these views are of such significance and relevance to the undergraduate population that the Union should be made available to hear them.
As a relevant aside it appears that a proposed new law to criminalise the stirring up of hatred on grounds of sexuality is likely to fail. Ruthie thinks this is a good thing: not because people should endure abuse on the grounds of their sexuality, but that education, rather than criminalisation is likely to be more effective at preventing abuse and discrimination. Criminalisation of speech simply stops people saying what they think. Education makes them think differently.
Update:
Ruthie and VM have been invited to address the Oxford Union on freedom of speech… Actually only in Mr. Tryl’s worst nightmare. But one does wonder whether his commitment to free speech extends to inviting some people who are liable to give him a kicking?
I couldn’t disagree more. Max Hastings’ view on this happily coincides with mine, so no need to add to it:
“It seems good for Oxford students to be exposed to the views of Griffin and his BNP, rather than spend their educational lives in a warm bath of Guardian decency. Members of the Union Society must be a sorry lot indeed if they are likely to catch the plague of intolerance and racism from a single evening’s exposure to Griffin.”
See http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,2217014,00.html
[...] Victorian Maiden of Ruthie’s Law has an acerbic take on this. [...]
I’m not sure that’s the point Martin. If the students aren’t going to catch racism from Griffin then he isn’t needed as a vaccine either. So why do they need to hear him? And if they want to hear him they need only go to a BNP meeting.
That last paragraph excatly represents my view on the matter. Once the invitations had been issued, I would’t have voted ‘no’ to hosting them because that would have made them free speech martyrs; but the inviting them in the first place was, as VM rightly points out, motivated by naked self-interest.
I concurred with Tryl when he spoke of the power of rational debate; but the fact is that in the eyes of the far right, to invite them to speak on the Oxford Union platform is to give their views a degree of legitimacy.
I don’t have a comment about the OU debate but wondered where the photograph at the top of the page of all the barristers was taken. It’s most impressive.
Best wishes,
Richard
Richard,
It is an average Monday morning at any magistrates court: one where legions of legal-aid defence barristers on hundreds of pounds an hour each overwhelm a single Solicitor-inadequate acting for the prosecution. So much for the rights of the victim.
At least, I think that’s what Tony Blair would have said.
Whoa Geeky, interesting how your recent foray on dark side has engendered your sympathies…
I find myself discomforted by having to say hear hear to yet a second post on this blog.
Whilst believing in free speech might mean defending someone’s right to say the indefensible, it does not in any way obligate one to give these odious scum a public platform from which to say it. Managing to conjure up a situation that would inevitably allow these shits to portray themselves as the brave defenders of free speech in the face of the protesting hordes that wish to silence them is a stroke of genius that only an Oxford chap could create.
That the protesters were primarily incensed by the legitimacy donated to the racists by the posturing buffoon of a President of the Union of course escapes the preprogrammed oppositions of the media response, as any fule would kno in advance, thereby making this a marvellous martyrdom opportunity at the heart of the establishment for Irving and Griffin.
Well played, young Tryl. I’m sure your media career beckons. Perhaps as assistant producer on Wifeswap. On the other hand, if we do have to give Tryl the benefit of the doubt, what the hell is this twit doing at Oxford? I thought they were supposed to be bright?
Dear Geek,
Mags, I think not, but only ‘cos they’re wearing wigs. As to young barrister making hundreds of pounds off Legal Aid, I can only say that when you next identify yourself in front of a cageful of young barristers doing criminal work in the mags, that you throw in a large piece of meat before going into the cage yourself. At least, that’s what they tell me — that they’re on about £37 a day — before speeding off in the Porsches. Of course, I’m an umble academic and I couldn’t afford to practise but the Bar’s great hobby for those who need to occupy their time with something profitable while living off their inheritances.
So, where the hell are these guys (can’t see any women, surprise, surprise)? An ideal opportunity to get at a load of lawyers en masse.
Best wishes,
Richard
I have to confess that this photo was sourced by VM from I don’t know where…and given that she generates so many other pressing curiosities for me, I hadn’t pressed her as to the origins of this photo. No doubt she will be able to tell us when she gets out of court today.
I believe it to be a photograph of Aussies or New Zealanders. Photography is not allowed in English Courts, and no English court is as palatial as this one.
Given that I cannot detect anyone in the act of self-abuse it seems more likely to be New Zealand than Australia.
Well, this is, as you say, Palatial!
The bench must be huge if this is what they look at — some sort of appellate court? I see wigged and non-wigged banded lawyers - solicitor advocates?
Best wishes,
Richard
[...] Maiden has an uncharacteristicly wrong take on the Oxford Union debate, in this blogger’s opinion. She is, unfortunately, in good [...]
As to Harry,
Certainly I agree that banning the guesome twosome would be wrong. But they are not banned - anywhere. That is not the issue. The issue is not whether they can speak, but where.
300 people heard one of them. Millions and millions of people know they were invited to speak by the Oxford Union. The risk/benefit analysis produces only one result.
Also entirely missing from this analysis is any attempt to empathise with those who feel threatened and upset. Is providing a platform (which is what has actually happened) really more important than thinking about those who do not want these morons banned but do not want to hear them either?
On the one hand we have:
“Also entirely missing from this analysis is any attempt to empathise with those who feel threatened and upset.”
While on the other hand we have, elsewhere in the blogosphere, the eerily similar:
“This may be a good time to ask whether people have a right not to be offended.”
I shall go away and wonder how to respond empathetically with those upset while simultaneously ignoring the fact they are offended.
Ooh, look, a tightrope.
Feeling threatened and upset by what someone says, or is, can hardly be sufficient to inhibit them from speaking. If you look at Lord Devlin’s Essay on the Enforement of Morals, he would argue for a good deal more than that. Lots of art disturbs us and if it goes too far can be prosecuted like Gibson and Silveire’s freeze dried foetus earrings. There are laws that inhibit unbridled freedom of expression, quite rightly, but if people want to avoid being upset, then they should never leave the nursery.
Richard
There is a difference between the right not to be offended (which is non-existent) and not exercising your own right to offend.
The former potentially results in an inhibition to free speech and must thus be resisted. The latter is about behaving like a human being and is to be encouraged.
Too much of this debate ignores the fact that one can have a right to say something and yet properly fail to exercise it in particular circumstances and particular venues. I know what Grirvine is going to say. How does hearing it (again) make the world a better place?
There is a real difference between being upset because some fancied slight has been done to ones beliefs and because some fool says that the Nazis did not exterminate enough people to amount to one death a day until the year 38445. I very much hope that is obvious.
I agree that self-restraint is a virtue, although not at the behest of `political correcteness’.
The speciousness of David Irving’s claim to be a serious historian was thoroughly exploded by Mr Justice Gray in IRVING v PENGUIN BOOKS LIMITED and DEBORAH E. LIPSTADT. The transcript is at http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/QB/2000/115.html. His foolish attempt to sue them shows his ill-judgment and his over-confidence.
I notice that a number of Irving’s books are still available through Blackwell’s Online Bookshop.
Richard