Letters to the Editor
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‘Narcissism on Stilts’
Harold Evans’ report of me is inaccurate on several counts [Oped, “Narcissism on Stilts,” November 16, 2006]. I was chairing the panel, not a panelist. If I put my “hand over the microphone,” how did he come to know what I then said? Someone sitting on the platform must have relayed it to him. I did not say the words attributed to me by Mr. Evans. The panel was in danger of disintegrating into an abusive slanging match between Messrs. Julius and Sardar. I intervened, as any chair would, to try to move the debate onto more constructive territory.
MADELINE BUNTING
Columnist
The Guardian
Great Britain
Sir Harold’s reply:
I have only just received Ms. Bunting’s letter. I cannot accept that my commentary was inaccurate. Ms. Bunting is correct that she was on the panel as chairwoman, but that simply underlines the point. It was with her authority as chairwoman that she intervened to cut off Anthony Julius. This was observed by everyone in the tent. My description of her action was indeed vouchsafed by someone on the panel — Mr. Julius himself.
Whatever the reason given, it is ironic that on a panel about free speech Mr. Julius was not allowed to complete his argument that there are offensive references to Jews in both the Bible and the Koran (“apes” and “monkeys” in English translations), but Jews did not respond to such offenses with violence as some Muslims have been prone to do.
Mr. Julius in an e-mail to me writes: “I spoke first, but more briefly than the others. Then Ms. Bunting asked me a question, and I responded making or beginning to make my point as you described it. Ms. Bunting then intervened and wouldn’t let me finish The interruptions were abusive and sustained. I said ‘I have one more sentence,’ but she wouldn’t let me go on. I then said, ‘I’m being censored.’ She now says that it was because she wanted to move the debate on, but I don’t think anyone in the tent at the time doubted that it was because she simply did not approve of what I was saying and was intervening to rebuke me and in defence of the hecklers’ position.”
In my view, Ms. Bunting conducted the panel well to this point. But readers can judge the fairness or otherwise of my reference to her stopping Mr. Julius by downloading the audio recording of the May 28 discussion entitled “Free to Offend?” on the Guardian Hay Festival Web site, hayfestival.com. The chairwoman’s intervention is about 30 minutes into the recording.
HAROLD EVANS
New York, N.Y.
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