Matt T

Hay on Wye

Norman Geras quotes former Sunday Times editor Harold Evans on a incident at the Hay-on-Wye festival earlier this year.

Something similar happened at this year's Hay-on-Wye festival, sponsored by the Guardian, where a five-person panel discussed "Are there are any limits to free speech?" One of the Muslim panelists said if anyone offended his religion, he would strike him. A lawyer, Anthony Julius, responded that Jews had lived as minorities under two powerful hegemonies, Christian and Muslim, and had been obliged to learn how to deal nonviolently with offense caused to them by the sacred scriptures of both. He started by referring to an anti-Semitic passage in the New Testament - which passed without comment. But when he began to list the passages in the Koran that denigrate Jews, describing them as monkeys and pigs, the panelists went ballistic. One of them, Madeline Bunting of the Guardian, put her hand over the microphone and said words to the effect "I am not going to sit here and listen to any criticisms of Muslims." She was cheered, and not one of the journalists in the audience from right or left uttered a word about free speech - not hate speech, mind you, but free speech of a moderate nature.

He adds himself:

I've excised the words [He did, I've put them back in - Matt] Evans attributes to Madeleine Bunting, since he doesn't claim to know precisely what she said, and neither do I. But Bunting wasn't simply a panellist, she was in the chair; and I have heard from others who were there that she intervened in broadly the way described - that is, in a not very balanced or even-handed chairperson-like manner. What a surprise

There's a few things that don't quite have the ring of truth in the Evans' version. It is said that Bunting put her hand over the microphone, presumably so the audience could not hear what she was saying, but then it is implied (it is possible he means the panel) that the same audience cheered those comments they couldn't hear, and then Evans expresses surprise that the journalists in the audience who couldn't hear those comments didn't make any comment in response to it.

The issue is not fully resolved by actually listening to the debate (or at least the most relevant bit), but it helps. You can find the mp3 linked to in the opening paragraph here and (at least according to ITunes' timer) the bit to listen to begins when Ziaudin Sardar says he would give someone a black eye if they caused him offence - which is at 25:06. Anthony Julius begins speaking at 30:13, he doesn't make the point Evans says he does (at least here; I don't doubt he believes it) but he does talk of the Old Testament being anti-semitic and of the Koran calling Jews 'apes' and 'monkeys' (at 31:47). Then he is interrupted loudly by Sardar saying that is 'absolutely absurd' and I think Phillip Henser, if he is American, who say that is not the case. Bunting then interrupts the argument to say that 'we're going to have to leave that there' and then she says, 'Anthony, I'm really sorry, I'm going to chair this'. Julius then says, I think as it is really faint, that 'I'm feeling censored', though (and here I cannot be sure if that is what is said or that this interpretation is correct) it might have been said at least slightly jokingly, as the audience laugh.

What can we conclude from listening to it? As one can hear no audience cheering in that section, it strongly suggests that there was not cheering, as it is alleged, in response to what Bunting said. So I think that bit is wrong. This gives credibility to the idea that Bunting didn't actually say anything like what is alleged, but of course as it's said to have been aired off-microphone we cannot be sure. The only thing that suggests it might have been is Julius's comment about being 'censored', though I think that is open to alternative explanations, such as Bunting's wish to move the debate on even before the argument blew up.

posted by Matthew @ 11/19/2006 09:13:00 PM Comments: 0