One evening a couple of weeks ago, I happened with my wife to be walking past the Queen Elizabeth II Centre in Westminster, in London, while there was a small but noisy demonstration going on. We were on our way to a dinner party nearby.
The demonstrators, many of whom were masked, were shouting, “Trans rights are human rights!” again and again, as if repetition (which Napoleon thought the only really effective rhetorical technique) were a guarantee of truth. Apparently, they were protesting the presence of Helen Joyce, who was talking at a meeting in the Centre. She has written a best-selling book against the current transgender orthodoxies. It so happened that she was also a guest at the dinner, and told me that, but for the police presence, she would have felt in danger of physical assault.
Anyhow, as my wife and I walked past the protesters as if we had hardly noticed them, somebody called out “Fascist!” I looked round to see who it might be, but saw no one, and then realized that the person referred to was me. There was no one else to whom it could have referred since, apart from the demonstrators and us, the street was empty.
Me a fascist! When I look in the glass, I do not see a hard and vicious person looking back, though admittedly I wish I could see someone better-looking. What was so obviously fascist about me as I walked past the Centre with my wife?
Then I realized: I was wearing a tweed jacket and a woolen tie to match. This very threatening costume was what caused the demonstrator to call me a fascist. I suppose the reasoning went something like this: Fascism is a movement of the petty bourgeois, the way I was dressed was petty bourgeois (a teacher, perhaps), therefore I was a fascist. I did not stay to point out the logical error of this.
Helen Joyce spoke again at Caius College, Cambridge, and by all accounts had to turn the public address system up to full volume because about a hundred demonstrators outside—again, many of them masked—made so much noise. The speaker had been invited to the college by Professor Arif Ahmed, a philosopher, who said that people who found her views so offensive that they could not bear to listen to them were welcome not to attend. He also pointed out that the aim of the invitation was to discuss and debate her views, not to promote them. Some students who wanted to attend the talk reportedly had to be sneaked into it surreptitiously, so afraid of social ostracism by their peers were they if they were seen to be attending.
The Master of the College, an academic lawyer called Pippa Rogerson, emailed all the students of the college, calling Helen Joyce’s views “offensive, insulting, and hateful to members of our community,” adding that “we will continue to strive to make Caius an inclusive, diverse and welcoming home for our students, staff and fellows.” It seems that her notion of diversity and hospitality in a university does not include diversity of opinion and the welcoming of discussion, though to be strictly fair to her she did not seek actually to forbid or cancel the talk. Nevertheless, one has the distinct impression that if ever there were an Occupation such as that suffered by France during the Second World War, she would be the first to join the ranks of the Collaborators. In fact, she can hardly wait to do so.
Far worse, however, was what a professor of sociology, Professor Manali Desai, wrote to students: “We are very sorry for the distress caused to you by the circulation of an email promoting the Helen Joyce event. We have looked at our processes and realised we need an authorisation route for circulation of events to ensure that administrative staff do not inadvertently promote potentially harmful material, as happened in this case.”
