A deja-vu of closed debate

Last Thursday the Dutch MP Geert Wilders was barred from entering the UK due to his radical views on Islam. He was on his way to present a film documenting the roots of radical Islam in the Koran to the House of Lords when he was held at Heathrow amidst fears that his visit would result in a security threat.

Here is the video, in two parts. It contains very shocking images:

On the surface this may appear a reasonable response to a man who is already facing trial in his own country for inciting hatred. However, there are several things that render the incident completely ridiculous.

The film, while well put together and very resounding, is ludicrously one-sided and verging on propaganda. Showing it in public would not cause outbreaks of violence – it would throw up discussion and ridicule.

If the government want to combat the message of Wilders, the best way is not to cover it up and send it back – it is to invite it in and open it up to debate.

This bares stark similarities to the episode that occurred over a year ago when Nick Griffin was invited to speak at the Oxford Union. Outrage occurred, tempers were roused, and rallies were attended. Griffin spoke, and was intellectually destroyed during the ensuing debate. The end result was that, by allowing the event to go ahead and the highly controversial view to be aired, that view was itself rubbished. This is exactly how a debate should work.

The most ludicrous aspect of the whole Wilders affair is that the film was still shown in the House of Lords, irrespective of the absence of Wilders himself. Furthermore, Wilders was in the country two weeks ago – he said so himself when interviewed by the BBC about it! It seems that the only reason that Wilders was this time prevented from entering (he was actually banned from the UK, but only this time was it enforced) was due to the nature of his visit, and even then the showing went ahead without him.

How many people had heard of Geert Wilders before last week? Substantially less than now do. How many had seen his film? Again, far less than have now seen it as a result of the incident, myself included. The only thing that the government have achieved by this action is free publicity for a biased propaganda film, and emphasising the inconsistency of British policy over free speech.

Maybe now sufficient debate will follow to change this.