Within a week police intervened to shut down two conferences in Europe: a pro-Palestine conference in Berlin and, yesterday, the National Conservatism conference in Brussels. Not only does this signal the EU’s inexorable slide from soft to hard fascism. But it should make it clear once and for all that free speech is not a left-right issue. The establishment will attempt to silence any threat to the status quo — whether it comes from the left or from the right. And they will win so long as they can find people in each camp willing to support censorship of the other camp. Let’s be smarter than that.
@battleforeurope This has nothing to do with the EU though?
Profound and audacious to suggest, even it should be a no brainer, a tolerance for the expression of views coming from all sides, no matter how extreme they might seem. A genuine capacity for identification with the Other creates a (tolerance) space within whereas alternative views ands lifestyles can be tolerated because they do not have to be experienced as an attack on one's own identity.
@battleforeurope Meanwhile, this decision has been overturned. The right always gets their way, not so with the left-wing conference. Though it may say more about the divisions within Europe than with the left, right political spectrums.
@battleforeurope Doubtless the denizens of the right-wing Brussels conference like Braverman & Farage would consider the Pro-Palestinian gathering in Berln to be a "Hate Conference" that deserved to be shut down.
@battleforeurope This is why it’s so depressing that right leaning news outlets in the U.K. like @GBNEWS haven’t covered the Berlin conference shut down (2000 German police officers!!) apart from the odd commentator mentioning it. Everyone must defend free speech even when they disagree with it!