In Timothy Garton Ash’s new book Free Speech: Ten Principles for a Connected World, the historian examines present challenges and threats to free speech. However, it’s the book’s final chapter — titled ‘Courage’ — which is of the most intrigue to Mr S. In the May issue of the Literary Review, Douglas Murray reviews the book. Murray recalls an incident that occurred ten years ago when Ayaan Hirsi Ali — a vocal critic of misogyny in the Muslim world — appeared alongside Garton Ash at an event — after he had ‘written a decidedly sniffy article about Hirsi Ali, dismissing her as, among other things, a “slightly simplistic Enlightenment fundamentalist”‘.
In the end, Garton Ash backed down and declared that he ‘had not meant to compare Hirsi Ali to the Islamists’. As the discussion went on, he said ‘a couple of things – by way of demonstration – that left his audience, not to mention him, rather stunned’. While the tape of the event was later wiped for ‘the crucial seconds’, a number of attendees pondered how funny it would be were Garton Ash forced to live ‘under even a fraction of the threat that hung over Hirsi Ali’ in light of his comments that night.
They then joked about what might happen if the Sun or the Daily Mirror were notified of the outburst. Unfortunately Garton Ash found this idea somewhat less amusing:
‘”Oxford Prof in Proph Mo Shocker” may have been the headline. I thought no more of it until a couple of days later, when a confidant of the Garton Ashes phoned me asking for assurance that I was not planning to get Oxford University’s professor of European studies killed.
I confirmed that I knew of no such plan, and when the origins of the fear were explained to me, I also confirmed that no tabloid had ever been contacted. In the meantime, I was informed, the Garton Ashes had left the country.’
Mr S is pleased to see that despite this incident, Garton Ash feels able to offer expert insight on the topic of courage and free speech.
Comments