{"id":57503,"date":"2014-05-15T09:16:47","date_gmt":"2014-05-15T08:16:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/?p=57503"},"modified":"2017-04-05T11:25:37","modified_gmt":"2017-04-05T10:25:37","slug":"padraig-reidy-censorship-ukip-bnp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/?p=57503","title":{"rendered":"Padraig Reidy: Why does everyone want to be censored?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Nick

Nick Griffin, leader of the British National Party, arrives at a protest in June 2013 in Westminster. (Photo: Paul Smyth \/ Demotix)<\/p><\/div>\n

BBC Radio Five Live\u2019s Breakfast yesterday dutifully carried out its public service remit by interviewing Nick Griffin, the world\u2019s most tedious Nazi demagogue, ahead of the European elections. Griffin\u2019s British National Party does have some seats in the European Parliament, so is entitled to some airtime.<\/p>\n

It was a dull interview. They always are. The BBC interviewers–in this case, Nicky Campbell–want to pick away at the BNP facade, but always somehow miss out on the really strange stuff. Long ago, I vowed that I would never write about Griffin without pointing out that he had written a pamphlet called \u201cWho Are The Mindbenders?\u201d, which is a catalogue of Jewish and Jewish people who work in the media. Griffin believes that these evil Jews (sorry, \u201cZionists\u201d) are involved in an enormous plot to keep him–the saviour of the white race–out of the press and off the airwaves.<\/p>\n

The conspiracist aspect of BNP policies is often overlooked, with the straightforward racism critiqued more heavily. So it was here. Campbell asked Griffin if he had a problem with black and mixed-race players representing England in the upcoming World Cup. Griffin, barely missing a beat, started complaining about BBC liberals smearing him and worse, denying him airtime.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe BBC owes me 12 Question Times,\u201d he declared, bemoaning his lack of invitations to appear on the BBC\u2019s Thursday night festival of shouting from and at the telly.<\/p>\n

It might have been interesting to delve into why Griffin felt he was being kept off Question Time, to see how long he would be able to maintain a line before going full Doctor Strangelove. As it was, we got only the superficial whine. The whine of the martyr-bully.<\/p>\n

It is the background sound of our time. There is absolutely no one engaged in modern public life at any level at all who has not complained that they\u2019ve been silenced, denied a platform, bullied into submission by a cruel cabal of agents of reaction or \u201cthe liberal agenda\u201d, take your pick.<\/p>\n

That is not to say people are not censored, even in the lovely modern 21st Century. It happens, quite a bit. People get locked up for saying stupid things on the internet that affront public sentiment. For years the libel laws restrained reporters, reviewers and the man on the Clapham Omnibus from saying what they really knew, or thought, or thought they knew. And no reader of this site needs to be told what happens in the less than democratic countries all over the world.<\/p>\n

But there is actual censorship, and there is the claim to being censored, which are often two separate things. The BNP\u2019s Griffin, UKIP\u2019s Nigel Farage, and every Blimp all the way to Westminster delights in telling us, at length, the things that nobody, least of all them, is allowed to talk about anymore.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, on the left and the pseudo-left, there is an obsession with \u201cplatforms\u201d; who has one, who deserves one, who is denied one. Editors and writers who do their best to represent as many diverse views as possible are denounced routinely for the articles they haven\u2019t published rather than the ones they have. Every oversight is evidence of a conspiracy rather than a cock-up. The right people are always being excluded by the wrong people. If only, if only everyone shut up and let me speak, we think, then I could sort everything out.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s ironic that many of those who argue most vehemently that they are being censored are the exact ones who demand everyone else shut up. Intersectional feminists who insist they are being excluded from debate demand that radical feminists be \u201cno platformed\u201d. Ukipers who claim they\u2019re not allowed talk about immigration want the police to arrest their opponents in anti-racist movements. All of them, simultaneously, noisily, will end up invoking Niermoller\u2019s \u201cFirst they came for…\u201d (with the possible exception of the BNP, who, stopping short of displaying sympathy with Communists or Jews, instead content themselves with calling their opponents \u201cthe real fascists\u201d, as I once heard Griffin do at Oxford Union).<\/p>\n

Why is this? Why does everyone want to be censored?<\/p>\n

It\u2019s possible that the simple reason is that we are constantly improving as a society. Triumphalism and privilege are pretty much taboo for many. On the face of it, most of the people reading this, and certainly the person writing it, are probably the luckiest sons of bitches to ever have walked the earth. But a combination of our still-relevant horror at the great wars of the last century, plus a greater ability to learn about the ideas and experiences of others, make most of us wary of revelling in our role as the victor. Instead, we prefer to be the underdog, because underdogs are more virtuous–victims rather than perpetrators. Martyrs, even.<\/p>\n

The Nazis and Communists of the 20th century also believed they were more sinned against than sinning, but the difference was that they were certain they would show the world who was really boss. Now, no one outside the most extreme movements – Al Qaeda; or North Korean Juche – really wants to state that aim openly. We want to remain oppressed. Censorship is considered almost universally as a bad thing, so people on whom it is inflicted are good.<\/p>\n

The background whine of censorship, emanating even from the powerful may just be the tiny price we pay for a world that is generally better and kinder.<\/p>\n

I think we can live with that.<\/p>\n

This article was posted on May 15, 2014 at indexoncensorship.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There is absolutely no one engaged in modern public life at any level at all who has not complained that they\u2019ve been silenced, denied a platform, bullied into submission by a cruel cabal of agents of reaction or \u201cthe liberal agenda\u201d, take your pick. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":57504,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[581,5644,21],"tags":[6452,103,29,6451,590,5962,2469],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57503"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=57503"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57503\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":87568,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57503\/revisions\/87568"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/57504"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=57503"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=57503"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=57503"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}