Protest no substitute for debate

Tuesday September 20, 2011

Stuart Waiton observes the media circus around tiny far right demonstrations, and argues that the hysterical reaction to them prevents rational debate on issues such as immigration

Jean Baudrillard famously wrote articles arguing that the first Gulf War did not happen. Reading recent reports about marches organised by the English Defence League and the banned September 11th parade by the Scottish Defence League, I feel a Baudrillardian moment coming on and would like to argue that these marches do not exist in reality.

Looking at the reports about the EDL marches over the summer the first thing that strikes you is the tiny nature of these processions, sometimes being as small as 100 people strong. Another strange thing is the comparatively large number of people opposing the EDL and indeed the SDL, with sometimes as many as 2,000 people turning up to denounce these right wing groups. This is added to by the excessive, at times almost pornographic, media fascination with this pantomime. The subsequent response by the state is to deploy as many as 700 police officers to monitor proceedings.

The result is that a farcical concentric circle of reaction and over-reaction is created. Not by the few dozen blokes waving Union Jacks on an obscure side street in some town or other. But by the ripples spreading out across society, from the ring of surrounding police officers, to the even greater ring of protesting ‘radicals’ and out further through the pages of the press.

In an unsure age that lacks moral and political clarity, we often only appear to feel confident about absolutes of right and wrong over desperately degraded acts like paedophilia. So it is perhaps understandable why these pantomime villains become such big news. Unfortunately for those who want to feel cosy and secure by wrapping themselves around a fictitious fascist threat, they will soon find out, as Gordon Brown did, that simply shouting ‘bigot’ at people whose ideas you don’t like is no substitute for engaging in a debate over issues you find uncomfortable.

Serious adults should be prepared to have serious discussions about issues like immigration and national identity rather than joining this bizarre moralising pantomime.

Dr Stuart Waiton is a Sociology and Criminology Lecturer at the University of Abertay Dundee, and is co-founder of Take a Liberty (Scotland)