TIMES are changing. Two of my great heroes have recently been banned from speaking on university campuses. Twenty years ago they were firebrand radicals, alarming the establishment with their fervour and campaigning. No one silenced them then. Now they have been silenced. Not by the establishment, but by the new cultural bullies.
They are Germaine Greer and Peter Tatchell. Continue reading “In Defence of Freedom of Speech. ©Gavin Ashenden.”
I had never heard of the Armenian genocide until I met Greg. He was an Armenian living in Toronto, and we were both part of a chamber group of musicians playing concerts to ‘lifers’ in Canadian jails. He told me how the determination of the Muslim Turks to eradicate all Armenian Christians had continued decades after the genocide. A Muslim threw a grenade into his family kitchen when he was 4. His mother screamed, overturned the kitchen table and dragged him behind it. It shielded them from the shrapnel. They survived. They left the Middle East for Canada. Continue reading “What if Islamophobia were to become a hate crime? © Gavin Ashenden”