Debating in mysterious ways
The old slogan, "no bans and proscriptions", is making some headway on the left today. On the whole and on average, debate between different viewpoints on the left is more open, more civilised. Last week, however, a meeting in Leeds saw a plunge back into the old habits, one that would be alarming were it not so bizarre. It was a debate on "Marxism and Religion". A safe subject, you would think. Yet the speaker invited to represent the "militant atheist" point of view, Sean Matgamna, a writer for Solidarity, was excluded, and for strange reasons. The meeting, on Friday 20 September, was...