30 Nov 2010 | Uncategorized
When somebody used the word “class” I cringed and thought to myself: “I wish they wouldn’t do that.”
The speaker was one of the students occupying a hall at University College London, and we were talking about why they were doing it. My reaction, I can see on reflection, was entirely misguided — a symptom of a problem the students are complaining about.
Why shouldn’t they talk about class? It may not play well with the mainstream press, who will mock the idea of students identifying with working people, but what does the mainstream press know? What century are they in? Far, far more of today’s students actually have something in common with working people than when Paul Dacre (Daily Mail) or Tony Gallagher (Daily Telegraph) or Alan Rusbridger (Guardian) were undergraduates.
When a student from a working-class background penetrates third level education it is no longer the exciting, laudable, affirming exception. It hasn’t been for years and years and years. But you wouldn’t know that from the national papers, which for the most part continue to exist in a ludicrous Brideshead timewarp.
Which makes you wonder about the question the students are asking; how can they get their message across in the mainstream press? How can they persuade reporters to take them seriously, and to drop all that drivel about spoiled brats and window breakers?
Then there is the problem of protest. In the modern mode, there is no such thing as legitimate protest, unless it is so dainty and polite that it qualifies more as an exercise in collective etiquette than an expression of anger. Go ahead and protest, we say, but don’t get in anybody’s way for as much as a minute, and on no account give offence.
These students are angry, and I’m happy to say, on the basis of a couple of hours’ observation, they are well aware that being polite is not an end in itself. They are serious and thoughtful and there are things they want, and they appear to know that conforming to the mainstream rulebook will get them nowhere.
They have tried that. A whole lot of them politely voted Liberal Democrat last May, very often on the strength of that notorious pledge about tuition fees. Are they now supposed to wait five years for the opportunity to put that right by not voting Lib Dem?
No. Because it won’t put it right. It would mean the Liberal Democrats had five years in power based on a lie, and were free to use it to mock and damage the people who voted for them. Remember, no party fought the last election on a programme of cuts, not even the Conservatives.
I know British people are supposed to be polite, but it is taking good manners a little too far to suggest that the first-time voters of 2010 have to sit back and watch a government that lied to them slowly dismember their university system.
The Dacre-Rusbridger-me-Blair-Cameron generation is the sub-prime, casino, PFI, never-never generation. It has no right to heap its debts and failures on its children, and it will only get away with it if those children fall for its outdated ideas of class and good behaviour. I hope they don’t.
The occupiers are tweeting at @UCLOccupation, emailing at ucloccupation[at]gmail[dot]com and blogging at http://ucloccupation.wordpress.com/
Brian Cathcart teaches journalism at Kingston University London. Follow him on twitter at @BrianCathcart
29 Nov 2010 | Digital Freedom, Index Index, minipost, News and features
The Emirates Local News website (http://localnewsuae.com), which translates and posts all news about the UAE from around the world, has been blocked within the UAE. The ban came 10 days before the site’s first anniversary and the government have offered no reason for the decision. Visitors to the site will find only an announcement that the site has been “banned as per the regulations of the Internet access department in the UAE”. This follows the closing of the alHewar alEmirati forum at the start of the year.
29 Nov 2010 | Uncategorized
You should never shout “fire” in a crowded theatre. Once you have accepted this old adage, you accept that there are limits to free expression. The important word in the first sentence is not “fire”, but “crowded”. A crowded theatre would lead to a stampede. Where there is a real and identifiable danger, restraint should be shown. Context is everything in the free-speech debate; risk to life is an undeniable caveat. Most other caveats are, however, mere ruses by the powerful to prevent information from reaching the public domain.
It is within these parameters that the furore over Wikileaks and its exposures should be seen. The latest document dump is larger than the Iraq files and potentially more embarrassing, with its State Department assessments of governments and statesmen – from Hamid Karzai to Silvio Berlusconi to Nicolas Sarkozy. Diplomats have launched a frantic round of damage limitation. Oh to have been a fly on the wall during the excruciating conversation between the US ambassador and Downing Street. The Americans are entitled to put their side of the story, to seek to assuage any inconvenience caused.
The founder of Wikileaks, Julian Assange, believes the Americans are going much further than that, carrying out a concerted campaign to undermine and discredit him. I have no information on the cases that have led two Swedish women to press charges of rape and sexual harassment against him. Only those involved do. Mr Assange’s legal representatives in the UK suspect that the Swedish authorities are playing the Americans’ game, cutting corners in terms of correct legal procedures. So highly charged is the environment that it is extremely difficult to separate information from disinformation
Mr Assange is an unconventional figure, a man who lives in the shadows and enjoys doing so. He is difficult to deal with and holds himself in high regard. When he contacted me through an intermediary two months ago, suggesting that Index on Censorship host him in a London event, I was happy to accept but made clear that I did not want to give him an open forum. I would engage him in debate with a detractor.
He accepted; then he disappeared for five days, not answering phone calls or emails. When he finally surfaced, he stipulated no cameras or photographers, and that we should sneak him in through the back door. I argued that this would not look great for a free-expression organisation. In the end we compromised, and the television crews were allowed in halfway through what turned out to be a fascinating debate with the columnist David Aaronovitch. The sell-out crowd did not give Mr Assange an easy ride. But there was a virtually unanimous presumption towards free speech, something that is woefully lacking in so much of British public life.
This must surely be the starting point. In the US, with its First Amendment, restrictions are seen as an exception to the rule. In the UK, free speech is regarded as a negotiable commodity. An interest group’s right to be offended is seen as just as important as the right to air an opinion. A government’s right to secrecy is seen as more important than the public’s right to know.
The mainstream media in the UK are serial offenders. Newspapers that have no compunction about invasions of privacy or about shrill comment devote precious little time or energy to challenging authority through rigorous investigative journalism. Most political “scoops” are merely stories planted by politicians on pliant lobby hacks. Editors and senior journalists are habitually invited into MI5 and MI6 for briefings. These are affable occasions, often over lunch. There is no harm in that. What tends to happen, however, is that journalists are tickled pink by the attention. They love being invited to the “D-notice” committee to discuss how they can all behave “responsibly”. It makes them feel important. Many suspend their critical faculties as a result.
Far from being “feral beasts”, to use Tony Blair’s phrase, the British media are overly respectful of authority. Newspapers and broadcasters tend to be suspicious of those who do not play the game, people like Mr Assange who are awkward outsiders. Some editors are quite happy to help the authorities in their denunciations of him, partly out of revenge for not being in his inner circle.
All governments have a legitimate right to protect national security. This should be a specific, and closely scrutinised, area of policy. Most of our secrecy rules are designed merely to protect politicians and officials from embarrassment. Documents are habitually over-classified for this purpose. The previous government made desperate attempts to stop legal evidence of its collusion in torture from reaching the public. Ministers argued, speciously, that this was to protect the “special intelligence relationship” with Washington. It will be intriguing to see how much information is allowed to be published when Sir Peter Gibson begins his official inquiry. Precedent suggests little grounds for optimism.
As with all free speech, as with Wikileaks, context is key. It is vital to know when governments collude in torture or other illegal acts. It is important to know when they say one thing in private (about a particular world leader) and do quite another in public. It is perturbing to know that aid agencies may have been used by the military, particularly in Afghanistan, to help Nato forces to “win hearts and minds”.
These questions, and more, are vital for the democratic debate. The answers inevitably cause embarrassment. That too is essential for a healthy civil society. Good journalists and editors should be capable of separating the awkward from the damaging. Information that could endanger life, either in the short term or as part of a longer-term operation, should remain secret.
Once this latest flurry is over, prepare for the backlash. Mr Assange’s industrial-scale leaking may lead to legislation in a number of countries that makes whistle-blowing harder than it already is. Perhaps the most curious aspect of the Wikileaks revelations is not that they have happened, but it took someone as mercurial as Mr Assange to be the conduit. Rather than throwing stones, newspapers should be asking themselves why they did not have the wherewithal to hold truth to power.
John Kampfner is the chief executive of Index on Censorship
