Nick Griffin at The Bbc, and The Fascism of Those Who Should Know Better

After all the furore surrounding the British National Party leaders appearance on Question TIme can we say that we are all fascists now? I doubt it, and that was never going to be the case. The fact that some politicians and those self-appointed guardians of the public good believe that they have the right to decide what others should be able to hear and listen to, and decide upon, is a disgrace, and the arrogance of these people is quite breathtaking. They did, however, cause such a stink that what should have been a forensic examination of the policies of the BNP became instead a vicious and spiteful witch-hunt. Which is ironic given that it was directed at a man who is probably all in favour of vicious and spiteful witch-hunts. It was embarrassing, and it was not Mr Griffin who was embarrassed, but a presenter and a panel that played to a baying mob. What is the point of asking a man who leads an avowedly racist party about his views on immigration? Who cares if he is a holocaust denier. People know what happened in the last war, if someone wants to hold to some crackpot conspiracy theory that’s up to them. People are not going to vote at the next election on the subject of the holocaust. If you want to destroy the the BNP as a credible alternative to the mainstream political parties ask them how they would bring us out of the current recession, what is their policy regarding Afghanistan, how would they treat with with our allies in America and in Europe, what are there policies on education, the NHS, and law and order. What is the point of simply abusing someone. Why did the panel, with the exception of Bonnie Greer, who was out of her depth, refuse to directly address Nick Griffin or look him in the eye. What are they afraid of, that being human is in someway to endorse fascism? To place someone in a scenario that was close to being a Roman Amphitheatre is only going to elicit sympathy for a man who frankly doesn’t deserve it.

Also, why is it that those who oppose intolerance and fascism behave in an intolerant fashion and like fascists. What fundamentally is different between wanting to burn Nazi’s and burning Jews. I don’t like Nazi’s but I don’t want to kill one, I simply won’t vote for them. We either have a democratic society (which I don’t believe we do) or we don’t. If we are democratic then we have to listen to views we don’t necessarily agree with. Like it or not the BNP has 2 Euro MP’s and received 940,000 votes in the last Euro elections. Nick Griffin should have been given the opportunity to express his views in a civilised forum and we should have been able to make up our own minds. Maybe I am over-sensitive to being bullied having been a recipient of it myself, but Griffin was bullied and he has every right to complain about it, and that is a shame.