TRIGGERnometry - The Lessons of Batley Grammar - Andrew Doyle

00:00:00.000 Sometimes children are not to be trusted. In Stalin's Russia, they were known to inform on

00:00:05.500 their parents, a betrayal that would sometimes result in death by firing squad. During the

00:00:10.740 Chinese Cultural Revolution, innocent mothers and fathers were executed after their children

00:00:15.220 had overheard them criticising Chairman Mao. In the 1980s, Nicolai Ceausescu blackmailed

00:00:20.940 thousands of Romanian children to spy on their families and teachers. And in March 2021,

00:00:25.940 at Batley Grammar School in West Yorkshire, school pupils attempted to film their teacher

00:00:31.160 on their phones in order to see him denounced. It had been a religious studies lesson on blasphemy

00:00:36.680 and cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad had been shown. Given that these same images had been

00:00:41.360 the catalyst for the massacre at the Charlie Hebdo offices in January 2015 and the beheading of

00:00:46.440 school teacher Samuel Paty in October 2020, they could not have been more relevant to the subject

00:00:51.420 of the lesson. But this wasn't enough to save the teacher. Some of the pupils were offended and so

00:00:57.080 his fate was sealed. One is reluctant to blame the children in such instances. Like the 13-year-old

00:01:03.040 Bryony Tallis in Ian McEwan's novel Atonement, they generally aren't capable of grasping the implications

00:01:08.240 of turning Informa on an innocent man. After the complaints, the teacher at Batley Grammar was suspended

00:01:14.380 and his name was published by a group called Muslim Action Forum, along with false accusations that he had

00:01:20.060 incited hatred against the Islamic community. Protesters gathered outside of the school demanding

00:01:25.260 that he be fired. After anonymous death threats were issued, the teacher retreated from public

00:01:29.880 life. Three years later, he's still in hiding. What does it say about our society that a man is

00:01:35.780 intimidated and threatened with murder simply for doing his job, while his employers, his union and

00:01:42.020 the police fail to adequately defend him? Why were those sending the death threats not tracked down and

00:01:47.420 arrested? Why were there no counter-demonstrations against the religious zealots who gathered outside

00:01:52.900 of the school? Why did the headmaster not issue a statement to the effect that this is a free society

00:01:58.220 and that if you're offended by a cartoon, that is very much your problem? And recently, a report by

00:02:04.160 Dame Sarah Kahn has been published by the UK government which delves into the problem of cancel culture

00:02:09.620 and censorship by the mob. The Batley Grammar School incident is specifically mentioned as an example of how

00:02:15.380 not to react in these circumstances. Kahn spoke to the teacher as part of the consultation for her report

00:02:21.040 and has revealed that the ordeal left him feeling suicidal and that he had been thrown under the bus

00:02:26.300 by school authorities. Rather than accept the criticism, the Batley Multi-Academy Trust has responded

00:02:32.180 by claiming that they have fulfilled their responsibility and that the report contains inaccuracies.

00:02:37.800 They have not specified what these inaccuracies might be. No great surprise there. It's very difficult to be

00:02:43.100 specific when one is trying to promote an imaginary narrative. Kahn's report makes for a grim reading.

00:02:49.340 According to her survey, 85% of the public are aware of the existence of freedom restricting

00:02:54.600 harassment in the United Kingdom. 76% have self-censored in order to avoid such treatment at the hands of

00:03:00.580 angry mobs, either online or in the real world. Those of us who have been paying attention will already

00:03:06.100 know that we are living in a climate of conformity and that cancel culture is very real. In spite of the

00:03:11.940 continual denials from commentators whose opinions happen to fall within the ever-narrowing Overton

00:03:17.980 window, Kahn has recommended that the government tackle the growing problem of self-censorship

00:03:22.300 and cancel culture through the establishment of an independent impartial office for social cohesion

00:03:28.880 and democratic resilience. It all sounds terribly official and one wonders whether it might not be best

00:03:35.140 simply to urge those in authority, whether they be in the police, the schools or the trade unions,

00:03:40.280 to regrow their spines and stand up for the principle of free speech. We might also ask them

00:03:46.540 to consider treating Muslims in precisely the same way as everybody else, rather than patronising them

00:03:52.040 by assuming that they require a parallel system. Is it not a soft form of bigotry to regard a particular

00:03:58.540 contingent among our citizenry to be uniquely combustible and prone to violence? I've written

00:04:03.880 previously about how our failure to take a firm collective stand at the time of the fatwa against Salman Rushdie

00:04:10.280 effectively empowered the most reactionary members of the Islamic community. This has been to the 0.99

00:04:15.300 detriment of all of our freedoms, including the demographic that has been singled out for special 1.00

00:04:20.480 treatment. A further recommendation in Kahn's report is that schools should be ring-fenced with a buffer

00:04:25.580 zone of 150 metres. This would prevent protests from occurring, with the possible exception of pickets

00:04:32.060 relating to industrial action by school staff. And although I admire this effort to tackle the problem,

00:04:37.140 I'm not convinced that further restrictions against protests are the answer. So often in history we've

00:04:43.480 seen the behaviour of unreconstructed mobs used as justification for authoritarian impositions.

00:04:49.580 But once such legislation is passed, there can be no guarantees that it won't be exploited in the

00:04:54.860 future for purposes well beyond its original scope. One obvious example of this is the Battle of Cable

00:05:00.880 Street on 4th of October 1936, the moment when demonstrators intercepted Oswald Mosley's Black

00:05:06.580 Shirts at their march in the East End of London. It was the Labour Party that campaigned most

00:05:11.520 deciduously for public order legislation to stop further uprisings by the far right. But these very

00:05:17.520 same laws have since been used mostly to crack down on left-wing activism, most notably the arrests of

00:05:23.600 striking minors during the Thatcher years. That said, I do understand that there is a compelling

00:05:28.660 argument when it comes to the protection of children and that they should not be exposed to dangerous

00:05:33.260 protests. One recalls the terrible scenes on the streets around the Holy Cross Catholic primary school

00:05:38.560 in Belfast in 2001, when loyalists picketed the school. Riot police were deployed to protect the children

00:05:45.160 from mobs who shouted sectarian abuse and threw bricks, fireworks and even urine-filled balloons. On one

00:05:52.440 particular day, a pipe bomb was hurled at the police, causing panic among the children when it exploded.

00:05:57.920 Of course, such behaviour ought to be outlawed. But assault and harassment are already criminal.

00:06:05.100 The right to peaceful protest is a fundamental aspect of living in a free society. And while I

00:06:10.280 do not agree with the cause that the groups who gathered outside Batley Grammar were espousing,

00:06:14.760 they were not breaking the law. There were no calls for violence or threats, just weak and

00:06:20.000 unconvincing appeals to the safety of the Muslim community. It should go without saying that the only 1.00

00:06:25.020 person who had experienced any authentic physical danger from the showing of the cartoon was the

00:06:29.480 teacher himself. The protests outside the school in Batley weren't the problem. It was the lily-livered

00:06:35.040 response from the authorities. In failing to side with the teacher, they were reneging on the liberal

00:06:40.080 values that underpin our way of life. But I do not take the view that the only way to combat illiberalism

00:06:45.940 is through further illiberalism. And restrictions on peaceful protest will surely only make matters

00:06:51.820 worse. The Batley Grammar debacle ought to serve as a reminder that we must be steadfast when it

00:06:57.600 comes to the application of the law and the equal treatment of all citizens. No mob should get to

00:07:03.080 decide where the limits of freedom of speech are to be drawn. Capitulation might seem like a tempting

00:07:07.860 short-term solution. But as we have seen, the long-term consequences are invariably dire.

00:07:15.140 If you enjoyed this video, please do check out my substack, where all of these articles appear

00:07:19.680 weeks in advance. There's plenty of other material there too, so do check it out.

00:07:23.600 Your full Great Outdoors Comedy Festival lineup is here on September 11th through 13th at Arendale Park.

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TRIGGERnometry - April 26, 2024

The Lessons of Batley Grammar - Andrew Doyle

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