When will only violence do?
Nasser Amin should be more reflective about the resistance of the oppressed.Should we advocate violence against minorities at SOAS? Is this justified? Nassir Amin, in the last issue of the Spirit, argued that he thought so, in the case of Jews, and effectively did just that. Thankfully no-one has taken him too literally yet, and there have been no shootings or bombings in the JCR, no checkpoints set up in the halls of SOAS, and we have not yet erected a wall between Jewish and Palestinian students, at least not a physical one.‘People who are in a wretched state, being deprived of basic moral justice, because of the ongoing deliberate actions of others, have a right to violence against them [‘them’ presumably meaning those doing the injustice, not the oppressed themselves, although admittedly the difference is hard to see in the Palestinian case], if no other course of action is as likely to meet their objective of improving their predicament.’ (Nasser Amin, When only violence will do, SOAS Spirit, Issue 3, 2005, my emphasis)Actually I agree with this starting position, if a people are being systematically, severely and violently downtrodden, they have a right to resist this, if there is no realistic non-violent alternative (I take issue with violence having equal weight as non-violence, but the overall point remains as I have expressed it above.) But the if is a very big if, especially in the Palestinian case. Peace talks have been tantalisingly close before, and are on the menu again. Should we assume there is no chance for peace, and continue advocating a cycle of violence and counter violence? This seems an unfortunate position for Nasser Amin to choose to put the Palestinian people in, considering how much greater the rate death for Palestinians is, than for Israelis, in the current conflict.
What is the aim of the violence that Amin is advocating? Surely it is to bring the Israelis to the negotiating table. Surely it is to highlight the issue in the Media, to bring international pressure to bear. Amin cannot be seriously proposing that the Palestinians are to drive one of the world’s most advanced armies, equipped with nuclear weapons, into the sea, through the use of sticks, stones and the odd suicide bomb? I prefer living on this planet, however shitty it may be, to inhabiting that sort of violent fantasy. So really, only violence really won’t do in this case. Ultimately, the only thing that will really do it is negotiation. Perhaps violence is part of the background to the negotiation, but it certainly, on it’s own, won’t do what almost everyone wants, which is to achieve peace.
Read the rest of this entry »
Tagged with freedom of speech, Justice, Middle East, Philosophy, Polity, violence
Motion to the Students’ Union clearly defining the limits to freedom of speech at SOAS.This Union notes:1.The motion “opposing all racist manifestations” passed on the 14th of November 2003, has been used to ban speakers invited by minority groups at SOAS, on the basis that these speakers are representatives of racist social groupings. However this motion does not define racism carefully:
Tagged with freedom of speech, Justice, Media, Middle East, Polity
There has been a big debate on Freedom of Speech at SOAS, which I participated in. It revolved partly around an article by Nasser Amin. You can find more detail on Wikipedia:
I actually disagreed very strongly with Amin’s article in the SOAS magazine New Spirit. I got an article accepted as a refutation of what he said, but that issue of the Spirit never got published. I reproduced the article above.
However, I do think Amin had the right to air his opinons and have them debated, and the subsequant censure of him shows how people don’t really think about consequences properly.
I actually drafted a motion with some colleagues at SOAS, one also in the Media Department, another in the Law Department, about the limits of free speech. we put a lot of work into it, but never managed to get it to a union meeting to get it debated. I published that above also.
In the motion I held the position that one limit to free speech is when advocating violence against others. I had the issue of collective violence advocated or condoned by states in mind here. I think it is objectionable to let what Israel is doing in the occupied territories go unchallenged in public, and that representatives of Israel should at the very least be required to explain themsleves, and to be called to account for violence: Ignoring the situation is akin to condoning the violence, my Palestinian fellow students managed to convince me of this.
Amin’s original article in the spirit did call violence against Israeli citizens legitimate, since he sees them as complicit in the violence against the Palestinians. I disagree with this totally, and that is why I wrote the article objecting.However I think it is more important to allow an individual like Amin a voice in such matters, because their opinions are less likely to lead to violence. A representative of a state, when they speak, is more likely to influence events, and so should have greater moral responibility, scrutiny and limits placed on them.
Currently the framing of freedom of speech lets representatives of states condone or ignore violent policies. At the same time it comes down hard on individuals who express their anger at such violence. I do not think calling for violence is a good idea, but I think the balance should be the other way around: Indivuduals should be freer to speak, becuase they tend to have less voice in public anyway, their voice is crucial for democracy and because their words are less likely to lead to violent outcomes.
Anyway, I support Amin’s freedom to speak his views, even if I think he is foolish. I also think that representatives, even from student societies, but especially from states, should be forced to explain the violence in the policies that they advocate, and should be restricted in public life where it becomes clear that their position constitutes a consistent advocacy of collective violence and thus oppression.
Tagged with freedom of speech, Media, Philosophy, Polity, SOAS
