Settle it with a sacking

Thursday December 15, 2011

The penalty for exercising your freedom of speech could be the sack, says Dennis Hayes

1. Sack Coleman

The latest form of attack on free speech started when, in spring 2007, a student group called for the sacking of Professor David Coleman, an Oxford Don, for his views about immigration and involvement with the think tank MigrationWatch, which he co-founded in 2001. The students, condemned all round by academics for their actions, became a little shamefaced with one nineteen-year-old arguing that they just ‘want to open a debate.’

As Roy Harris, emeritus professor of general linguistics at Oxford, said at the time, “Demanding Professor Coleman’s dismissal forecloses the debate that the student witch-hunters claim to be seeking. They seem to have learnt nothing from their Oxford education so far.”

But what started out as a one-off piece of duplicity by stupid students seems to becoming the norm.

2. Sack Blatter

The furore over Sepp Blatter’s comment that unpleasant incidents on the football pitch could be settled with a handshake led to calls for him to be sacked for not accepting the reality of racism on the football pitch.

It is worth putting this into the context of some figures about how Britain has changed in recent decades. The 2001 census revealed that we had one of the highest rates of mixed race relationships in the world. By 2011 over 661,000, or 1 in 10 of the population, are in such relationships and it is predicted that by 2020 the numbers in mixed race relationship will rise to 1.3 million.

Those that argue that racism is an ever-present feature of British society should take note of these facts. They put the lie to the ‘Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner’ illusion about prejudiced Britain. It is only professional ‘anti-racists’ and academic ‘critical race theorists’ who perpetrate this nonsense. There’s money in it for both.

In the real world thousands of mixed race babies overturn such professional patter. The world has changed largely as a result of many people’s commitment to fighting racism, something that these professional parasites now feed off, even though most of them have never fought racism in their lives.

The reaction to Sepp Blatter’s comment that racism on the football pitch can be resolved with a handshake wasn’t unreasonable even if you disagreed with him. Yet it brought about endless condemnation and calls for him to resign.

The issue came on the back of the police investigation of John Terry’s allegedly calling QPR defender Anton Ferdinand a ‘f…...black c….’ in a heated exchange during a match, after a member of the public complained having seen it on video.

That this furore began with a ‘member of the public’ complaining shows just what the culture of complaint is now like, and how the authorities are geared up to police any speech from the nursery classroom to the football pitch. But Terry’s comments are not the point here. It was Blatter’s comments that caused the second furore, led this time by the media, professional anti-racists and those opportunists who hate Blatter for other reasons irrelevant to the case – either his alleged corruption or his poor leadership of FIFA.

What Blatter did was to make a point about what is said both in the heat of a game and in football. Winding people up or expressing annoyance or anger often leads to the unfortunate exchange of insults that might link to all sorts of personal, social and political contexts. Blatter is obviously a hate figure and many feel he is incompetent. But incompetent old fools are still entitled to free speech.

3. Sack Clarkson

The ‘Sack Blatter’ hysteria was followed by a faux furore to ‘Sack Clarkson’ over Jeremy Clarkson’s poor joke about how striking public sector workers should be ‘taken out and shot in front of their families.’ Trade union leaders, socialist groups and motley Clarkson and car haters have roundly condemned him, with Unison taking the lead in calling for him to be sacked.

What he’d actually made was a joke about the BBC’s ‘balance policy.’ He first said about the public sector strikes on 30 November: “I think they have been fantastic. Absolutely. London today has just been empty. Everyone stayed at home, you can whizz about, restaurants are empty.” Later he added “But we have to balance this, though, because this is the BBC….Frankly, I’d have them all shot. I would take them outside and execute them in front of their families. I mean, how dare they go on strike when they have these guilt edged pensions that are going to be guaranteed while the rest of us have to work for a living?”

Ironic, sarcastic, silly and hardly worth bothering about, these comments have become the focus of media attention and the real irony is that the issue that led to the strikes has been forgotten.

4. Sack Everyone

Calls to sack Coleman, sack Blatter and sack Clarkson reveal the depth of the contemporary abandonment of argument and its displacement into disciplinary action over any disagreement. What was the duplicity of stupid students has now become a social duplicity. Rather than argue their case, today’s moral guardians would send out a bleak message. Agree with the majority or your P45 will be in the post!

Dennis Hayes is the director of Academics for Academic Freedom