Should This Broadcast Be Banned?

[anotheoldgit]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5609325/BBC-urges-viewers-wait-hear-Enoch-Powell-programme-judging-it.html

/// 'If a contemporary politician made such a speech they would almost certainly be arrested and charged with serious offences.' ///

Proof of how much our freedom of speech has been curtailed over 50 years.

[Hopkirk]

It's a historical piece.

Should be ban all speeches we don't agree with?

Are we not allowed to hear Neville Chamberlain encouraging appeasement of the Nazis?

[jim360]

It's not really a curtailment of "freedom of speech" if (a) you're dead, and (b) you're not allowed to air your views on BBC radio. Most people don't get to air their views on BBC radio.

Freedom of speech is not a freedom to have whichever platform you so desire. People don't have to let you speak in their house -- and they aren't obliged to listen, either.

All that said, it seems to me that it's the BBC's choice to broadcast the speech or not.

[naomi24]

//People don't have to let you speak in their house -- and they aren't obliged to listen, either. //

That's the answer to anyone who objects then. Don't listen.

No, it shouldn't be banned.

[jim360]

I don't think it should be banned either -- all I'm saying is that not repeating the speech is not, in any way, an attack on freedom of speech.

[Prudie]

Definitely not banned - it's a historical piece but also is referred to so often it would be educational. I was of an age when I didn't take any notice when he made it so not fully aware of what he really said that was so dreadful. I'd like to form my own adult opinion.

[dannyk13]

No

[naomi24]

That’s debatable, Jim. A proposal to ban it can only be perceived as attempted censorship.

[Mamyalynne]

No it shouldn't be banned - it's never gone away.

Quoted regularly on here and elsewhere often , be better for some to watch rather than hear snippets quoted.

[Lie-in King]

No, it shouldn't be banned.

[Voltage]

No

[Baldric]

No way.

[jackthehat]

I was going to cut and paste the speech but at 3014 words it may be a bit verbose for consumption on here.
This link takes you to the full transcript....

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/3643823/Enoch-Powells-Rivers-of-Blood-speech.html

[rowanwitch]

Hopefully it will give context to something often misquoted from someone who at the time was considered a major voice on the political scene.

[mccfluff]

No, it's history and we shouldn't erase the nastier sides but learn from them and grow as a society, although some days reading the forum, doesn't feel like we're come that far.

[andres]

Definitely not banned. When I read the word'viewers' however I thought it was going to be televised. How many people will tune into the radio on a Saturday night ? Should have been televised.

[goodgoalie]

It's very interesting that one of the most contentious and controversial parts of the speech - often quoted - that in 15 or 20 years' time the black man will have the whip hand over the white man is actually Powell quoting one of his constituents. I didn't know that, and, I suspect, a lot of other people will not know that either. Here is that section of the speech:

A week or two ago I fell into conversation with a constituent, a middle-aged, quite ordinary working man employed in one of our nationalised industries.
After a sentence or two about the weather, he suddenly said: "If I had the money to go, I wouldn't stay in this country." I made some deprecatory reply to the effect that even this government wouldn't last for ever; but he took no notice, and continued: "I have three children, all of them been through grammar school and two of them married now, with family. I shan't be satisfied till I have seen them all settled overseas. In this country in 15 or 20 years' time the black man will have the whip hand over the white man."

[jackthehat]

It's an erudite piece and contains much which is quoted out of context.
It was quite prescient in some of its' contentions......less so in other areas.

But if you are going to use it as a weapon to club either 'us' or 'them' you really need to have read it fully first.

[Peter Pedant]

I am not keen on - "I dont agree with what you say so let's ban it!"

/// 'If a contemporary politician made such a speech they would almost certainly be arrested and charged with serious offences.' /// sez who? - a sub ed on the daily mule ? Journos' opinions on law are notoriously bad

[anotheoldgit]

Jackthehat

I have read it Jack and it makes interesting reading and cannot see why over the years Enoch Powell has been so heavily criticised over it.

I think he was a little out with his figures though:

/// In 15 or 20 years, on present trends, there will be in this country three and a half million Commonwealth immigrants and their descendants. That is not my figure. That is the official figure given to parliament by the spokesman of the Registrar General's Office. ///

/// There is no comparable official figure for the year 2000, but it must be in the region of five to seven million, approximately one-tenth of the whole population, ///

Between 1993 and 2015 the foreign-born population in the UK more than doubled from 3.8 million to around 8.7

[Peter Pedant]

//It was quite prescient in some of its' contentions......less so in other areas. //

bear in mind that he was the one that let them in in the first place to do the menial jobs the anglos wouldnt

he was a classicist for chrissakes so his Latin was gonna be OK - not much good at Labour, Health or Economics - he was one of the Treasury team that resigned over Mac's economic policies and 'achievements'

are we gonna ban cinefilm of Hitlers speeches referrin to "these creatures that were wrecking the German economy"