Under four eyes

The dangers of wearing glasses: intellectual opposition to liberalism in contemporary Britain

by Edward Dutton

'There's no doubt he's an educated man: a former university lecturer in Sociology and Economics, which makes him dangerously articulate'. Kirsty Lang, BBC News Correspondent, on Pim Fortuyn, May 2002.

ONE of the most extreme actions of Cambodia's late Communist dictator Pol Pot was to purge the country of anybody who wore glasses. Superficially inexplicable, there was a twisted logic to this policy. Those who wore glasses were more likely to be educated and more likely, therefore, to have the mental and verbal faculties to challenge his regime. As such, in order to ensure that the majority of such people would be eliminated, all those wearing glasses were purged. Indeed, one of the most politically expedient acts of any authoritarian regime is to remove the educated members of society who oppose them. These, after all, have the necessary abilities to persuade and mobilise less articulate opposition and consequently pose a clear danger to the regime itself.

When we think of such policies we think of Pol Pot, Stalin or Hitler, all of whom employed such methods. We think of regimes that are historically or geographically relatively distant from our own. We tend not to think of Britain at the beginning of the twenty-first century and even if we are able to note similarities we are likely to dismiss such observations as 'extreme' or 'going too far'. We might associate them with something we find unpalatable: Neo-Nazi Groups, perhaps, or Conspiracy Theorists. However, I would like to suggest that apparently liberally inclined people currently running many sectors of British life do indeed follow policies which attempt to ostracise, discredit and ultimately, and as a consequence, silence educated people who dare to oppose their ideology in a manner which they do not with those who are not educated. Indeed, we might further argue that they attempt to prevent those who already oppose them becoming educated at all. The liberal's policy is to suppress its most eloquent opponents and prevent others becoming so. And once that occurs liberalism can run amok, entirely unchallenged.

Dangerous Leaders

Who cares if the British National Party win a handful of seats on Burnley Council or perhaps eventually its Parliamentary seat? As long as the BNP only win seats in deprived areas their vote can be dismissed as a result of ignorance. As long as they remain in these areas, their elected representatives are likely to be, in the main, neither highly educated nor eloquent. Who cares if a builder, a former toilet-cleaner and a convicted football hooligan, amongst others elected as councillors in 2003, articulate the voice of illiberal dissent in Britain? In fact, it is probably in the interests of liberals to ensure that such people compose the tangible voice of opposition to them. They can be dismissed as 'thugs' as the Conservative leader, Michael Howard, has termed them. Mainstream politicians start to care, however, when their actions or policies are condemned by doctors, lawyers, academics and journalists. They start to become concerned when those who fundamentally oppose them are educated. This would tend to ensure that opposition was not only rendered more 'respectable' but that it was expressed in an articulate and persuasive manner. Perhaps for this reason BBC journalist Kirsty Lang commented with regard to Pim Fortuyn, the subsequently assassinated 'far right' Dutch leader, that he was a former university lecturer which made him 'dangerously articulate'. Indeed, the possession of an educated leader is not uncommon in the European 'far right'. Nick Griffin of the BNP studied Law at Cambridge, Jean-Marie Le Pen studied Law in Paris, Austria's Jorg Haider has a PhD.

In relation to the above politicians, their political opponents do all that they can to discredit them on a personal level. It is emphasised that Nick Griffin was once chairman of the National Front and has a conviction of inciting racial hatred, Jean-Marie Le Pen has convictions for violent behaviour and Jorg Haider praised Hitler's economic policies. Naturally, these points are raised by opponents, such as Labour in Britain whose Health Secretary was once a Communist Party member and whose Deputy Prime Minister assaulted a protester in the 2001 election campaign, or by the Socialists whose leader in Scotland, Tommy Sheridan, has criminal convictions for public disorder. Of course such facts are not emphasised in the British press because those who run much which composes it do not find these politicians as objectionable. But articulate opponents need, instead, to be discredited at a national level. (This has not occurred, it might be countered, in the case of the UK Freedom Party in the form of barrister Adrian Davies and his deputy Sharron Edwards, who has commented that the party is aimed at 'respectable' people.) I would submit that this is because the BNP, who are seemingly to their political right, are of far greater significance in terms of numbers and the perceived unacceptability of their views. Indeed, when Mrs. Edwards was deputy leader of the BNP, in April 2000, an attempt was made to discredit her in relation to her 'middle-class' image in a Daily Express article entitled 'The Fair Face of Fascism'. By contrast, the convictions and backgrounds of the BNP councillors tend not be emphasised outside of the magazine Searchlight and other somewhat socialist organs. The dismissal of Burnley councillor Luke Smith, for brawling, was reported on the BBC Website but ostensibly because the BNP publicly sacked him and went to the press about it.

'Merrie England 2000'

Yet, in many ways, those who lead openly far right parties, even if they are highly articulate, are not the most dangerous for the current British Establishment. Whether rightly or wrongly, the mainstream politicians can dismiss them as extremists and can emphasise that, with the exception of their leaders, they are an 'uneducated' movement and a wasted vote. Perhaps of greater danger, then, to liberalism is writing which, in some way, eloquently and persuasively challenges the foundations of the current paradigm. A germane example of the consequences of publishing such writing can be found in the reaction by anti-racists to the relatively recent republication of Colin Jordan's satire of multiculturalism, Merrie England 2000.

As the laws stand in Britain, if one publishes material 'likely to incite racial hatred' then one can be prosecuted. Generally, it is perfectly obvious what kind of language or imagery incites racial hatred. Clearly, if you portray an entire race, even by implication, as threatening or evil you are guilty of this. To portray all Jews as rats or poisonous mushrooms, as the Nazis did, is inciting racial hatred. (I refer here to a well known propaganda film by Joseph Goebbels and the children's book The Poisoned Mushroom originally used in Third Reich Schools.)

The problem with Merrie England 2000 is that it is far too subtle for such allegations to be successful. I am not suggesting this particular novella is a masterpiece of English-language satire such as Gulliver's Travels or 1984 of which it is a pastiche. But I would submit, however, that it is a very good piece of satirical literature and is worth reading in the manner other very good satires, which do not become classics, are still worth reading. Here Jordan lampoons the over-representation of ethnic minorities in the British media: it was with this secret purpose fully understood that the Ministry's controllers of programmes pursued 'adjustment' and 'familiarisation' to rectify racial prejudice and achieve racial integration ... Thus when the legions of Julius Caesar were portrayed it was obligatory for those legions to be at least 50 per cent coloured. Similarly, the Battle of Trafalgar had to be portrayed with ships, half of every crew of which were black. Nelson himself by a generous concession was allowed to remain half white ... All such enterprising alteration was justified, the official argument ran, because things would have been like that if rank racism had not prevailed, so that it was only right and proper that by 'adjustment' they should be shown as they ought to have been instead of as they happened to have been.

Like any quality satire, Merrie England 2000 holds up a fair-ground mirror to society's vices. It exaggerates and lampoons them with humour but in so doing emphasises such vice with frightening accuracy. Hence the most Jordan can be accused of is being a good satirist. One could not ban his work without asserting that certain things are 'beyond satire' as was argued in relation to the coverage of child abuse in the British media after Chris Morris's Channel 4 programme Brass Eye lampooned the issue in summer 2001. To gag Jordan would be to suggest that the basis of society is beyond satire. Of course, this did not stop the Commission for Racial Equality unsuccessfully attempting to prosecute the publisher which ironically is something examined in the same book. The publisher's crime? Publishing a book which is 'dangerous' because it eloquently and forcefully criticises multiculturalism and demonstrates its intellectual vulnerability.

The historian David Irving was suppressed in a not dissimilar manner. It was accepted, even by the judge at the libel trial where he sued over being termed a 'Holocaust Denier' in 2000 that he had made a valuable contribution to the history of World War II, particularly in the form of his book Hitler's War. But the difficulty for Irving was the way in which he was attempting to challenge the historicity of the accepted understanding of the Holocaust. There exist numerous websites that deny the Holocaust and do so, often, in crude and insensitive terms. Irving, even if he could not persuade the academic community of the veracity of his arguments, was using measured and eloquent language not to deny the Holocaust but to question the use of gas chambers and to question the statistics of mortality. It was argued at the trial and accepted by the judge that his methodology, with regard to the Holocaust, was suspect and his use of evidence tendentious and manipulative. But I am not suggesting that Irving's arguments necessarily stood up to academic scrutiny. Rather they appeared, even if only superficially, to be 'academic' and thus respectable, rendering Irving something of a difficulty for his opponents.

The problem with such an activity is that the Holocaust has become so paradigmatic to the liberal understanding of the post-War world that it is, to a certain degree at least, something of a Doctrine of Faith. The attitude to writers such as Irving is essentially the feeling that, even if there were no gas chambers and the numbers were exaggerated, why would you want to reveal that? The only possible reason is anti-Semitism or Neo-Nazi sympathies. Thus while historians are permitted to challenge any other aspect of accepted historical truth, as this is surely their profession, they and anybody else would be prosecuted, in certain European countries, for challenging this one. Of course, Irving did not help his own case by virtue of his alleged previous connections with European Neo-Nazi groups. But even so it was important for his opponents to discredit Irving as he was criticising something central to post-War political discourse in an articulate and seemingly logical manner. Hence rather than accepting that he was merely casting doubt on aspects of the accepted historical 'Holocaust' he was instead, quite illogically, branded a 'Holocaust Denier' and this was upheld by the English courts. This term, in such a context, is one of the most personally damaging that can be levelled and Irving's opponents were surely aware of this.

British Academics and Challenging Multiculturalism

Irving's advantage in his ability to express his views, however, was that he was not a practising academic. He was not in the employ of a British University. For those who are, the pressure not to express opinions which challenge the liberal attitudes is somewhat daunting and perhaps sufficient to persuade one to resign oneself solely to academic papers. A number of recent examples can be noted in Britain. Frank Ellis, a lecturer in Slavonic Studies at the University of Leeds was reported to have been put under a certain degree of pressure by his employers with regard to his attendance and speaking at a conference in America. According to The Guardian (2 March 2000, 'Leeds Don to Attack Lawrence Findings'), Leeds University were under pressure to prevent Ellis from attending an 'extreme right conference in the United States' at which he intended to criticise, perhaps not without justification, the conduct of The Stephen Lawrence Enquiry into the murder of a black teenager in London in the early 1990s. The magazine Searchlight emphasised that Ellis attended 'against the wishes of the university' (November 2001) who, as the employer of any lecturer, can exert a certain degree of understandable pressure in such a regard.

Perhaps even greater pressure was exerted on Geoffrey Sampson, a lecturer at the University of Sussex who had suggested that it was 'natural' for people to wish to associate mainly with those of their own racial background. According to the Education Guardian, students called for him to be fired ('Students Call for Resignation of Racist Professor', 17 May 2002) and there were also calls for him to be thrown out of the Conservative Party for whom he was a councillor. Indeed, this kind of policy was brought to its extreme by Sir Stuart Sutherland of the University of Edinburgh. A psychology lecturer, Chris Brand, expressed the view, in an academic book, that there existed innate differences between races. He had to deal with a sustained attack from the Anti-Nazi League and a student boycott of his lectures. Eventually, in 1997, Brand was fired for the views he expressed in an academic context. Hence Brand was ultimately sacked for expressing illiberal views as an academic.

British Universities and 'BNP Students'

The situation is perhaps even more difficult for those who already hold opinions contrary to multiculturalism and wish, themselves, to attend university or indeed enter academia. Such students may themselves be articulate which makes them, in many ways, as dangerous as the lecturers and researchers. At Greenwich University there have been calls, since 2002, to expel a BNP activist who is known to be studying there after one of his lecturers bravely submitted an anonymous complaint in this regard. The Anti-Nazi League has run a campaign, ultimately without success, to have Young BNP Leader Tony Wentworth expelled from Salford University. This involved organising boycotts of the lectures that he attended, for example. More shockingly, the University and College Lecturers' Union (NATFHE) have passed a resolution claiming that they will support any of their members who refuse to teach BNP members.

Perhaps even more worryingly the Association of University Teachers (AUT), which tends to represent lecturers from the more respectable universities, has attempted to pass a resolution which would give universities the right to expel anybody who advocated an 'all-white Britain'. Hence they go even further than persecuting people for open membership of a legal political party. They wish to expel students simply for expressing, even in a measured manner, certain political opinions that might contradict their own. Robert Segal asks where this might stop. Should lecturers be allowed to refuse to teach Socialist students, Islamic fundamentalists or even Conservatives? (2 June 2003, 'Indecent Proposals' in The Guardian).

This is justified because such views stand in contrast to the university's policy of 'Equal Opportunities'. I do not see how holding an opinion can be paralleled with breaking the rules. But even so this policy puts ideology ahead of academic freedom and demands assent to an ideology to have the benefits of university education as was the case with the historic English Universities until the mid-nineteenth century. It is perhaps obvious what the consequences would be for a lecturer who dared to use his democratic rights and stand for election for the BNP, the National Front and possibly even the UK Freedom Party. Those who are able to express opinions which challenge the system eloquently and intelligently, and moreover with a degree of 'respectability' must be silenced. There is no clearer example of this than contemporary Higher Education in Britain.

Like an authoritarian regime, those advocating multiculturalism move to suppress and silence any articulate and eloquent criticism of them. As such, as we have previously noted, they attempt to ban satire if it is perceived as too cutting and smear, as much as possible, the articulate people who tend to compose the leadership of their opponents as we note with both Nick Griffin and formerly Sharron Edwards. Academics who express such opinions must at best be pressured not to do so and at worst fired as we noted with Chris Brand. Intelligent young people who hold such opinions must be denied further education so that they are unable to further develop their eloquence and academic rigour in contemplating them as we have seen regarding BNP students such as Tony Wentworth.

It is vital that a regime's opponents remain the builders and former toilet cleaners of Burnley, Blackburn and other such deprived towns. If anything, this should motivate those of us who can see the manifold difficulties with the current multicultural ideology to critique it with even greater vigour and clear thought and to refuse to be silenced. To do otherwise would be to allow such ideologues to take us even further away from democracy and freedom. Despite the potential difficulties, we have a duty to wear glasses and to think about and analytically criticise all that we see.

Edward Dutton holds a Theology Degree from the University of Durham and was formerly a Researcher at the University of Leiden (Netherlands). He is a PhD Student, University of Aberdeen (Divinity Department).

COPYRIGHT 2004 Contemporary Review Company Ltd.

COPYRIGHT 2005 Gale Group