Yesterday I was notified by a concerned third-year student, within my capacity as an LGBT Officer, of a rather alarming event planned for today (Wednesday 13th June). The Islamic Society has decided to hold a speaker event in which they plan to host a preacher called Yusuf Chambers.
Yusuf Chambers is a member of the Islamic Research and Education Academy (iERA). The iERA features Muslim fundamentalist preachers who advocate the criminalisation of homosexuality and even the death penalty for same-sex acts. They argue that it is necessary to execute gays to keep society pure. They defend these extreme teachings about homosexuality as a model that should be followed by contemporary societies. Indeed, you may like to know that Yusuf Chambers was one of the founders of this Academy and in addition to this, has been known to advocate the return of stoning adulteress women and is openly against Jews.
The Islamic Society has been in this situation before. It was only last year that the Society invited two infamously extremist preachers onto campus. Invited were hate preachers Hamza Tzortzis and Mohammed ibn Adam Al-Kawthari to address students. Tzortzis wants to criminalise homosexuality, and equates it with both paedophilia and cannibalism and Al-Kawthari has issued a fatwa supporting marital rape should a woman refuse sexual intercourse from her husband.
If you wondered what has been done about this situation, then you would be right in thinking very little. The Student Union at the time was well aware of the speaker events and the Union President at the time, Tim Ngwena, actually issued a VideoBlog, the day before the event, urging students to push forward with a no-platform policy which would deny speakers at the University who could potentially cause distress or offence to a certain number of students. The proposition was taken up but nothing came about of it and currently YUSU does not have a no-platform policy.
The no-platform policy may cause a long term problem and should have been recognised as a significant issue at the time. However, when looking at this short term issue, it isn’t a problem at all. The preacher has already been invited onto campus. Simply inviting someone who wishes death upon a certain number of our students poses a credible threat to us. This must be acknowledged by the relevant authorities and measures should be passed to disallow any opportunity to rise whereby an extremist speaker, regardless of faith or background, can come onto campus and potentially preach hatred to students and indoctrinate the unwilling.
One of the biggest issues, however, that restricts any possibility to stage a protest is that of free speech. I believe that the freedom of speech is one of the most fundamental rights that allows and permits us the capacity to be rational human beings and by the very nature of free speech, people will be offended some of the time. In developing a level of tolerance to others, we can manage those that which offend us.
Yet, I do not feel that this is an argument or an issue of free speech and liberty, more of safety and decency, but I do believe that we must tread carefully so as not to restrict anyone’s right to seeing a speaker that they wish to see. Regardless, I feel this is an attack the entire LGBTQ community and believe it indecent, impertinent and wrong for a student society to invite an openly extreme preacher onto the very campus that I am part of.
Yet, where do we go from here? The answer is not to picket or lobby the event unfortunately. We must collectively respect the Society’s wishes to call upon an extremist speaker for an event.
Instead, we must all attend such events and have our voices heard. I wish for the society to cancel the event but in openly protesting, we endanger those students who may feel vulnerable as a minority student. I do not denounce any student who wishes to make their voice heard but I do not accept that an open attack on the event will be of any success. I instead implore each and every one of you to turn up with a hostile question in mind and to pounce at him intellectually. In doing so, we can show the inherent problems of his views to people that may unquestioningly accept him as right.
To show the wrongness in someone’s belief, you cannot shout them down. You have to listen to their views and arguments first so you can show them, and more importantly others, why they are wrong.
I am interested in how he reaches such extreme conclusions and without a platform to hear his views I can never fully argue against his extremist ideology, something I would like to do efficiently and convincingly.
So we should let him speak, uphold the freedom of speech and then use his own words against him.
Given that the speaker and society that invited him think that God wants gays to be killed, why should they be persuaded by you? Do you have a new message for them from their God?
Also, why does the free speech principle mean that you can’t protest against them? Isn’t protest a form of protected speech? Or are all protests illegitimate?
If a speaker came to this campus demanding the death of Muslims, would you protest?
Have you thought this through?
The answer to this is very simple.
The Islamic Society is an embarrassment to the University and it’s student body. It represents only it’s own members, not the majority of the Muslim student body on campus, and consistently pushes extremist, hate filled, and potentially illegal speakers onto our campus.
This is not an issue about free speech or the rights of people to be offended. Indeed it doesn’t stretch that far; let’s face it, the views of this man and his supporters are ridiculous and hardly a serious threat to the tolerant nature of university life. It is an issue of reputation. Do we as a student body – and does the University as a tolerant, free-thinking centre of learning – want to be the hosts of a series of extremist, small minded supporters of terrorism, rape and the creation of a worldwide Caliphate? Of course not. It’s embarrassing.
Yet the Islamic Society foists these people upon us. The solution: disassociate the society from the Union and the University, and allow them their free speech somewhere that it’s not going to come into direct contact with our student body.
Let me clarify David, I am against banning him speak, not arguing against him. Freedom of speech doesn’t ban protesting.
I can see what Curtis is saying, but it may be risky disociating away from the Islamic Society. But then again, the CU isn’t part of YUSU or the university so it may be the acceptable solution.
Curtis re “It represents only it’s own members, not the majority of the Muslim student body on campus”
What statistics you have to prove that?
“, and consistently pushes extremist, hate filled, and potentially illegal speakers onto our campus.”
You should have a look at the events society arranged in the whole year.
Dear Islamic Society, stop booking nutjob speakers and do something positive/useful. There is enough hate in the world.