Christmas Message

FreeBornJohn the organiser of 2005's Free Speech rally has picked up on the issue with Channel 4 and writes:-

"Who needs to self-censor when the channels into living rooms are dominated by an unrepresentative, illiberal elite of fascist sympathisers?"

"...there's nothing liberal about supporting fascists. This past March, I organised a rally in Trafalgar square in support of freedom of expression, in direct response to the Danish cartoons controversy. Maybe 600 people attended. The best turnout elsewhere in the world for a similar rally was, so far as I know, 180, so this was good. It wasn't the thousands the fascists get, though. Not many people really support freedom of expression, and to some people at least, I don't either. This is because I asked people not to bring the cartoons to the rally. I did this because I was trying to make the event as friendly to supportive Muslims as possible, and I did manage to make the British National Party disappear, attracting instead a mixture of democrats from the left to the right, but excluding the violent fascistic elements of all camps. I'm very glad of that, and I stand by what I did.

He updates:

We have very little censorship today, but increasingly, we have self-censorship, mainly out of fear of violent Muslim extremism. And then we have Channel 4. Who needs to self-censor when the channels into living rooms are dominated by an unrepresentative, illiberal elite of fascist sympathisers? We don't need the advocacy of free expression, we need the expression itself. And we need channels through which this can reach more than just the converted who seek out blogs.

So that's what I have been working on for the past six months. That's how it comes to be that tomorrow I am going to film an alternative, alternative Christmas Message. I hope to be able to join with Muslims in Egypt, Saudi, Iraq and every other part of the world - democrats who hate the extremism that is crippling their beloved countries. I hope to be able to join with democrats in Africa, Europe, America, Australia. I hope they will take this project over and make it their own. Perhaps they won't. But it would be wrong not to try.

And I have already joined with a group of UK based bloggers and activists who embrace this idea. The mainstream media has tried to colonise the blogosphere. Now, my friends, we're going to return the compliment...

Keep an eye out for updates.