Ruth Dudley Edwards: Care about free speech now - or anything other than Gaza - and you’re on the wrong side of history
I made a brief visit back to Belfast last week with the Free Speech Union, whose HQ staff were introducing themselves to the regions.
I’m a member of their Northern Ireland Advisory Board: though I was born and brought up in Dublin and have spent most of my adult life in London, I became so horrified by what were called the Troubles that I switched from being primarily an historian to being a political journalist.
I still pursue the Holy Grail of objectivity in what I write, but I was so appalled by the success of republican propagandists that ultimately I would nail my colours to the mast and declare myself a unionist.
I still believe in telling the truth. And the FSU is brilliantly successful at defending those who tell it.
I would have loved the event in Belfast to have included people of all opinions, but we are talking about Northern Ireland so that's increasingly impossible.
And that is also true of the Republic.
At least Robin Livingstone (elevated from editor of the Andersonstown News to group editor of Belfast Media) attended.
Until he walked out.
“It's like a unionist reunion,” he tweeted.
"Summary of first half concerns for the @SpeechUnion crowd: Trans. Migrants. Trans. The Ra. Trans. Universities. Trans. Terrorists. Trans. Integration and lack thereof. Trans. The police. Trans. Oh, and Trans.".
Had he wanted a free and frank debate about these subjects, or a hundred and one other issues opponents might usefully chew over, he might have learned something.
But these days anyone who cares about free speech or anything other than Gaza is on the wrong side of history and therefore a fascist.
In olden days, all that Irish republicans wanted to talk about was their latest grievance, but since they went into government and, anyway, are trying to appeal in the south, they’ve had to import one.
Israelophobia is rampant. Nothing else matters.
Like every republican these days, Livingstone sticks to the playlist.
"What I learned... People can say anything they like about Trans Muslim university student climate weirdos. But when they won’t tell me if 250-plus journalists murdered in Gaza is an attack on free speech, me shouting ‘Shame!’ is beyond the pale."
He left in high dudgeon because of the ban on filming.
The journalist Brendan O’Neill - an Irish republican who is also a supporter of Israel - has summed up the annihilation of debate in Irish nationalist circles.
Writing of the Ireland versus Qatar match in Dublin, where screaming spectators were throwing tennis balls on the pitch with the message ‘STOP THE GAME’, he said: “They weren't referring to this match, this game against a despotic, misogynistic, homophobic regime whose hyper-exploitation of migrant workers has caused thousands to perish in the Arabian sun.
“No, they were referring to a future fixture against - you guessed it - the Jewish nation.”
For Israel “is the all-consuming devil that stalks the fever dreams of Ireland's pious. It is a substitute Satan in a post-Catholic land”.
At least so far unionists seem mostly too sane to succumb.
I urge them to join the FSU before the thought police come after them.
l Ruth Dudley Edwards’ books include The Faithful Tribe: An Intimate Portrait of the Loyal Institutions and The Omagh Bombing and the Families’ Pursuit of Justice