Slavery, Fitzwilliam College & Dr. Starkey

VARSITY 3rd, July 2020*

IN an interview with Reasoned on Tuesday, the controversial historian Dr. David Starkey argued, “Slavery was not genocide, otherwise there wouldn’t be so many damn blacks in Africa or in Britain would there?”

Since then Cambridge's Fitzwilliam College has announced it will discuss Dr David Starkey’s Honorary Fellowship at a Governing Body meeting on Wednesday, following widespread condemnation of “racist” comments by the historian.

Dr. Starkey has argued:  “You cannot decolonise the curriculum because you, Black Lives Matter, are wholly and entirely a product of white colonisation. You are not culturally Black Africans. You would die in seconds if you were dumped back in black Africa.”  He went on to say, “Of course, slavery was not the same as the Holocaust.”

In response Fitzwilliam College said:  “We support and promote freedom of speech in our academic community, but we have zero tolerance of racism. Dr David Starkey’s recent comments on slavery are indefensible.”

Varsity understands that it is “almost certain” that his fellowship will be revoked.

Meanwhile Fitzwilliam College has issued the following statement:
'Fitzwilliam College does not tolerate racism.

We support and promote freedom of speech in our academic community, but we have zero tolerance of racism. Dr David Starkey’s recent comments on slavery are indefensible.
Fitzwilliam was founded upon values of fairness and mutual respect and we are proud of the College’s inclusive and diverse membership.
The matter of Dr Starkey’s Honorary Fellowship will be considered by the Governing Body at its meeting next Wednesday.'

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Many thanks, all of us here at Varsity would like to wish you, your friends, families and all of your loved ones a safe and healthy few months ahead.

Will They Never Learn?

by Les May

SPEAKING at the Jewish Labour Movement (JLM) hustings last Thursday Lisa Nandy is reported as describing anti-semitism as ‘a particular sort of racism’ and went on to say, ‘It’s a sort of racism that punches up not down, that argues that Jewish people are privileged and powerful, and because there are people on the left who believe that their job is to challenge privilege and power, therefore wrongly and disgracefully they argue that Jewish people are a legitimate target for racism’.

I doubt that Nandy can provide a single instance of what she claims. Is she saying that Labour supporter should not challenge privilege and power when it is exercised by people who happen to be Jewish?

She went on to say that if she became leader she would try to go further than accepting the IHRA definition of anti-Jewish hatred. This is some of what the Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) has to say about that definition;

The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, which is increasingly being adopted or considered by western governments, is worded in such a way as to be easily adopted or considered by western governments to intentionally equate legitimate criticisms of Israel and advocacy for Palestinian rights with antisemitism, as a means to suppress the former.

This conflation undermines both the Palestinian struggle for freedom, justice and equality and the global struggle against antisemitism. It also serves to shield Israel from being held accountable to universal standards of human rights and international law.

You can find the full text at the link below.

https://jewishvoiceforpeace.org/first-ever-40-jewish-groups-worldwide-oppose-equating-antisemitism-with-criticism-of-israel/#english

In fairness to Nandy it seems that, just as she did, Rebecca Long-Bailey and Emily Thornberry also declared themselves to be Zionists, and Keir Starmer’s comments could be so construed. What is clear is that they meant that they believe that the state of Israel has a right to exist and I don’t think many Labour supporters would disagree. But whether Nandy’s pledge to go further than the IHRA definition of anti-Jewish hatred was altogether wise remains to be seen.

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/jun/15/we-must-define-antisemitism-to-fight-it-effectively

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2019/mar/07/debunking-myth-that-anti-zionism-is-antisemitic

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Northern Zionists Score Spectacular Own Goal!

by Chris Draper

WHEN “North-West Friends of Israel” (NWFOI) and other assorted Zionists tried to provoke a city-wide boycott of an “Interfaith Conference for Palestine” they got more than they bargained for when their bigoted and abusive behaviour was exposed and denounced by Chester community leader Roderick Heather MBE.

The free entry, open-to-all conference was due to begin at St Columba’s Church, Chester on 1^st November 2019 but forty-eight hours before it convened a wolfpack spearheaded by NWFOI and led by Anthony Dennison and Raphi Bloom, bombarded Chester’s numerous church halls and community venues with telephone calls, emails and social media messaging all warning them not to host this conclave of “Anti-Semites, Holocaust Deniers and Hate-Speakers”.  Unfortunately for the bigots after they succeeded in bullying the Bishop of Shrewsbury into cancelling the church booking the Conference found an ideal alternative at Hoole Community Centre where the Chairman of the Trustees, Roderick Heather courageously withstood a barrage of intimidatory NWFOI communications.

Unlike the local Labour MP Chris Matheson who ignorantly obliged local reporters with prejudiced and ill-informed comments of the “We don’t want holocaust deniers in our town” type, Roderick Heather actually took the trouble to attend the conference as an observer and judge for himself whether this was indeed an anti-semitic event or rather, a free, open-minded conference which included criticism of Israeli State policy.

After spending a day at the Conference, Mr Heather informed those attending that he was very impressed by the content of speeches, quality of discussion and conduct of the meeting and assured everyone present that they would always be welcome to return to the Hoole Centre.  This contrasted with his conclusions about the behaviour of the NWFOI and to them he addressed the following message;

“Your intervention (and the various other coordinated extreme ones we received today) did nothing to help foster good community relations here in Chester or to improve the understanding and sympathy for the Jewish cause nationally in the UK.  The ill-informed and bigoted telephone and social media campaign that we have witnessed today is a disgrace.  It was unfounded and unnecessary and has done your cause much harm. Be aware that I am ensuring that as many people as possible (locally and nationally) are made aware of the vitriolic, verbal bullying we have been subjected to today.”

Roderick Heather MBE

Chairman Hoole Community Trust

The North’s Zionist lobby is demonstrably determined to intimidate anyone who sticks their head above the parapet and criticises Israel.  The tactic is to conflate criticism of Israel with anti-semitism. Jews who criticise Israel (like those who attended the Chester conference) are branded “self-hating Jews” and dismissed. Archbishop Tutu describes Israel as an apartheid state but merely to agree with him is sufficient grounds for anyone to be expelled from the Labour Party.  Free speech is a precious commodity that’s found a friend in Mr Heather and sinister enemies in NWFOI.  Perhaps Mr Dennison, Mr Bloom,  Mr Matheson or the Bishop of Shrewsbury would care to reply and offer a justification for their appalling behaviour but I rather think not for they evidently fear quiet, honest, open, reasoned debate.

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Who Will Defend Free Speech?

By Les May

AS a Labour supporter I ought to be pleased that Boris Johnson has got different sections of the Tory party at each others throats and embroiled in a row about ‘islamo-phobia’.  I’m not!

This row is following an all too familiar pattern.  Increasingly we have people trying to grab the moral high ground by claiming that something they read or hear, and do not like, is, racist, anti-semitic, islamo-phobic, mysoginistic, trans-phobic, homo-phobic, patriarchal or in the latest catch all phrase, ‘hate speech’, and should not be said.

This is the ploy Matthew Offord,Tory MP for Hendon, used to try to persuade the government to shut down the Israel Apartheid Week (IAW) events at British universities when he said in March this year, ‘This isn’t about preventing free speech, it’s about stopping hate speech, in this instance anti-Semitic hate-speech’.  He wants the UK government to enshrine into UK law both the definition of anti-semitism, which is not controversial, and the examples which are.  Some of these would effectively prevent any criticism of the behaviour of the state of Israel towards the Palestinians.

If free speech means anything it means having the right to tell people what they do not want to hear. Some people don’t like what Johnson has had to say so they have called it ‘islamophobic’ and are using it as an excuse to demand an inquiry into ‘islamophobia’.  Some people don’t like what some of us have to say about the behaviour of Israel towards the Palestinians and want to label it ‘antisemitic’ so as to shut us up.

Essentially all these people expect their views to be privileged, and the rest of us to sing from their hymn sheet or not sing at all. The Labour party readily accepted the 38 word long working definition of anti-semitism to which I do not think anyone can reasonably take exception.

'Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.'

The sticking point is some of the eleven examples which follow this definition.

This is what the ‘Jewish Voice for Peace’ has to say:

The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, which is increasingly being adopted or considered by western governments, is worded in such a way as to be easily adopted or considered by western governments to intentionally equate legitimate criticisms of Israel and advocacy for Palestinian rights with antisemitism, as a means to suppress the former.
This conflation undermines both the Palestinian struggle for freedom, justice and equality and the global struggle against antisemitism.  It also serves to shield Israel from being held accountable to universal standards of human rights and international law.

Some of the complaints about ‘antisemitism’ in the Labour party seem to start from the presumption that the eleven examples somehow define antisemitism.  This would include ‘tweets’ which are thought to cast doubt upon or belittle what is commonly known as The Holocaust.  Given the overwhelming evidence in the form of documents, books, court records, films, and interviews with victims and perpetrators, is that Hitler’s Nazi regime did murder 6 million Jews, nearly 8 million Russians, 2-3 million Poles and more than a million others, I find it difficult to believe that such a ‘tweet’ could have the slightest impact on anyone’s belief.  The only people who will take it seriously are those looking for something to be offended at. In other words anyone being kicked out of Labour for doing this is being punished for being a fool not for making a serious political comment.

My figures come from:

But see also:

If anyone in the Labour party thinks that meekly acquiescing to the demands of some sections of the press and the party that both the uncontroversial definition of antisemitism and the examples be adopted will end the ongoing row,  I think they are mistaken. Corbyn’s efforts so far have merely been greeted with further demands.  The sole effect of acquiescing would be that the Labour party would be tied in knots by disciplinary hearings following complaints of antisemitism and that could include legitimate criticism of Israel.  The Tory press would love it!

The problem is that the examples following the IHRA definition are prefaced by the words ‘Contemporary examples of antisemitism in public life, the media, schools, the workplace, and in the religious sphere could, taking into account the overall context, include, but are not limited to:’  What the last five words mean is that the list of ‘antisemitic’ behaviour is infinitely extensible and in the eyes of the beholder.

If you look at the IHRA web pages you will see that they take exception to my deliberately hyphenated ‘anti-semitic’ in the second paragraph, which was done to draw attention to the regularity with which some people use words as a weapon to halt discussion of anything they do not like.  I really don’t want people who think like this policing what I say or think.

The word ‘antisemitic’ has strong pejorative connotations.  In some cases labelling someone in this way could lead to them being shunned, disciplined or losing their job.  It should not be tossed around like confetti such as Margaret Hodge seems to have done after not getting her own way.  Any respect I had for this woman is gone.

In the meantime you might like to ponder what Matthew Offord, who seems to want the world to ignore Israel’s policies towards the Palestinians, might have to say about these.

https://news.un.org/en/story/2004/07/108912-international-court-justice-finds-israeli-barrier-palestinian-territory-illegalhttps://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/israel-jewish-nation-state-law-passed-arabs-segregation-protests-benjamin-netanyahu-a8454196.html

As a politician I think Margaret Hodge could reasonably be asked to comment on both of these things.  Or would even asking her fall foul of one of the examples tagged onto the definition of antisemitism?

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