Oxford Union, Islam and the Debate Britain Can No Longer Avoid

The Oxford Union is one of the world’s oldest debating societies. Recently it needed police lines, road closures, boarded-up shops and a major security operation just to hold a debate. Just look at the scene outside. All this...for a debate.

The motion before the Oxford Union was simple enough:

“This House Believes the West is Right to Be Suspicious of Islam.”

Now many of you might agree with it. Or you might completely reject it.

Like me you might even think it didn’t go far enough.

But surely the thing is that we should still be able to debate it.

For me that was the real story of the evening.

It wasn’t just what was said inside the chamber, but also what was happening outside it.

We saw hundreds of protesters gather. Police kept rival groups apart. Businesses boarded up windows. One of the world’s oldest debating societies needed extraordinary protection simply to allow people to argue with one another.

I think that really should concern every one of us.

The Oxford Union itself has built its reputation by inviting controversial people to speak. Prime ministers, revolutionaries, dictators, extremists and political outcasts have all stood at its dispatch box. In more recent years it has hosted David Irving, Nick Griffin, Malcolm X, Gerry Adams, Yasser Arafat, Muammar Gaddafi, Katie Hopkins, Jordan Peterson, Kathleen Stock and Steve Bannon.

I like the fact that the principle couldn’t be simpler.

Let people speak, then challenge them and see if you can beat them in argument.

Somewhere along the way we’ve started to forget that.

“You Would Be Quite Literally Cooked”

There was one moment that summed up the evening better than anything else.

Student speaker Aisha Khan Aziz addressed Tommy Robinson and said:

“Stephen, there is a crowd outside rioting against you tonight, and without the protection and generosity of a Muslim Palestinian president and a largely South Asian executive committee, you would be quite literally cooked.”

Maybe she thought it was funny. Maybe she simply didn’t think about how it would sound. Either way, telling a speaker he would have been “quite literally cooked” without the protection of the organisers was an extraordinary thing to say. A debate asking whether the West has reason to be suspicious of Islam opened with a reminder that there was an angry crowd protesting against the debate outside and a suggestion of what might have happened without heavy security. It didn’t settle the argument.

But it certainly added another layer to it.

Let’s Stop Pretending These Are The Same Thing

Here’s the bit where too many people deliberately muddy the waters.

Islam is a religion. Islamism is a political ideology. However Muslims are people.

Those are not all the same thing.

We have to understand that criticising Islam is not the same as attacking Muslims and questioning Islamism is not the same as hating your Muslim neighbour.

That distinction really matters and conflating the elements is disingenuous!

We see that Christianity is criticised every day. The Church of England is mocked relentlessly. Judaism, atheism and every political ideology imaginable are challenged, ridiculed and picked apart.

So why should Islam be treated any differently? Not every criticism may be fair. But every criticism should be capable of being heard and answered. Islam, like every other belief system, has to remain open to scrutiny. Once any ideology becomes immune from criticism, it has already gained too much power.

The Protesters Made The Case

The protesters wanted to stop the debate but instead they strengthened the case for holding it. If the motion was wrong, defeat it. If Tommy Robinson was wrong, then expose his arguments. If Laurence Fox was wrong, show everyone why.

That’s how actual debate works.

Trying to stop people entering the building sends a very different message. It says to me that some ideas are simply too dangerous to hear. That isn’t confidence.

It’s fear.

Britain Is Becoming Afraid Of Difficult Conversations

People aren’t stupid, they notice what’s happening. They learn which subjects can be discussed openly and which ones attract instant outrage. So they stop saying what they really think. They keep those conversations for the pub, the kitchen table or WhatsApp groups.

That’s no way for a healthy democracy to work and that is why this debate mattered.

It asked a question that millions of people discuss privately but very few public institutions are prepared to examine openly. Whether the motion passed or failed almost doesn’t matter.

The fact it had to be surrounded by police does.

The Verdict

The reality is that Free speech isn’t tested when everyone agrees. It’s tested when people are offended. That’s exactly what the Oxford Debate was supposed to be about.

The good news is that the debate happened and that the audience listened politely for most of it.

But let’s not pretend everything is fine.

When it takes police lines, road closures and a major security operation simply to debate a religion, Britain should realise it has a problem.

The hard truth is that we’re losing the ability to separate criticism of ideas from hatred of people.

You can question Islam without hating Muslims, just as you can criticise Christianity without hating Christians. Without that distinction, honest debate dies.

The way I see it, the answer isn't fewer difficult conversations. It's more of them.

When a country becomes frightened of debating ideas, that is the moment those ideas stop being challenged. And history tells us that this has never ended well.

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