There may be more than two ways of protesting about something you do not like or disagree with. However it seems that protest is either of a violent character or it is by gentle persuasion and rational argument. Sometimes a protest falls between these two. Such was the recent performance of the protesting classes at the Oxford Union debate. Much of the rhetoric, however, seems to have been to reject the gentle persuasion and rational argument in favour of more direct action. How sad, that the violent right should be opposed by a threat of unreasoning belligerence from its opponents.

As they demand that the Leader of the British National Party and the Historian who denies the Holocaust be prevented from using the debate as a platform for their views they also lower themselves to that same nonsensical level. Is it that student protest still sees itself through romantic spectacles as they perceive themselves to be manning the barricades of rebellion against the forces of tyranny and of repression? Do they see themselves as the defenders of freedom when in fact they are the real fascists who deny that freedom to others?

Such protests serve to open the way for the real hard men of violence to take over what could be a peaceful protest. Such protests show both the ignorance and the arrogance of those who organise and support them.

In a few years time, many of the students who support such protests, will become leading members of the political classes. Many of them will find well-paid middle class jobs as lawyers, teachers, or top-level civil servants. There is some arrogance with which members of the present political classes today look back on their own youthful protesting. They view it with complacency as if it were somehow meritorious or some sort of slightly misguided though understandable youthful enthusiasm. Where, one wonders, are the real intellectuals who consider their possible actions to decide the likely outcomes and whether they are desirable?

The suspicion arises that it is, not the cause that matters, but the opportunity to join a crowd. Any cause would do as long as it engenders a feeling of being part of a movement and of doing something in the name of freedom, or justice, or right. No one asks whether what they are doing is just, or right, or free, it just has to feel that way. Being part of a crowd one is easily susceptible towards doing something foolish, as long as everyone else is doing it.

There really is very little difference between the protests of the sons and daughters of the middle classes and the rioting gangs or working class jobs and the violent disorder of football hooligans. It is only the middle class aspirations of the one which make any difference. The motives are the same and the results are the same.

Freedom of speech and a cultural regime of tolerance of the antics of the young is, rightly, something we have enjoyed for many years. However attitudes are hardening and those in authority often lose no opportunity of becoming authoritarian. We already, some years ago, had the ridiculous situation where Jerry Adams could not speak his own words on television but had them read for him. Adams and his friends may be Sinn Fein thugs but we ought not to have stopped them speaking their thuggery for all to hear and for all to judge. The same applies to Nick Griffin and David Irving. If their views are wrong, then let them air them for all to hoot at with amusement and mock their ridiculous nature. Let their ill-conceived ideas be expressed and let them be seen for the clowns they are.

The issue, however, is far more serious. Free speech is a two-edged blade. It allows the fool to make a fool of himself. It allows the bigot to publicize his bigotry and it allows the ignorant to display his ignorance. It also allows the public to judge these things and lacking opportunity to do so it deprives the public of an active part in serious debate.

Deny the bigot, the chauvinist and the violent a platform and they will be forced underground where they gain a hearing from the ignorant, the romantic driven by emotion and the failure who wants to present himself as a martyr or simply as misunderstood Deny them the right to freedom of speech and you deny it to all. The still small voice of rationality and common sense soon gets drowned out by the noise of the crowd.

J.S. Mill defended the right to free speech in two ways. “We can never be sure,” he writes, “that the opinion we are endeavouring to stifle is a false opinion.” He then goes on to point out, “and if we were sure, stifling it would be an evil still”.

It may be that the thing we want to stifle could be true. If we prevent it being expressed we may do a disservice, not only to those who hold it but to ourselves and to others. Take it that it is true and that we are in the wrong. We do well, then to listen since we may learn and receive correction. To refuse the holder of the opinion we disagree with, a platform is then to refuse rationality and to be guilty of injustice.

It must be the character of rationality that one listens to those who disagree so that one may learn. One may also be able to correct the speaker. On the other hand, in most cases where people hold varying views, it is not one or the other who is right but that both might be in the wrong, in the whole or in part. Discussion therefore is essential to learning and one who wants to stop the expression of his opponent’s views is guilty of bigotry at worse, or of keeping himself and others in ignorance at best.

Mill also argues, not without reason, that to prevent the expression of others is to assume to oneself infallibility. To err is human and therefore it is likely that we can never know fully all about the situation where we are in conflict with others. Indeed, since humility is a virtue, it becomes us to listen with profound attention to the other and not to judge, trusting that he, if he has the same humility, will also listen to us. So together we may both progress a little way towards a clearer knowledge of the matter and to an understanding of one another.

It is worth quoting the much used famous sentence from On Liberty to end this discussion in the hope that we all can work together toward a more tolerant attitude to each other and to the race as a whole. He says: “If all mankind minus one were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind.”

Of course it will be argued by those who disagree with me, (and they may be right) that we ought not to allow Hitlers, Stalins and assorted rabid demagogues to have their say. One agrees that such people are offensive in the extreme. However no one really listened to them until there was a breakdown in society due to extreme human folly in allowing wars and such to break out. Where rationality and the rule of law hold sway we have nothing to fear from such madmen since they will only be laughed at. It is only in a sick and emotionally diseased society that people in despair listen to such rabid burblings. The cure for the ills of societies lies, not in repression, but in free speech and in open debate and rational argument.