Steve Bannon Should Be Allowed To Speak

There were strong reactions when it became known this week that Donald Trump’s former adviser, Steve Bannon, has been invited to the Nordic Media Festival in Bergen this May. Some think he never should have been invited. Others think the invitation should be withdrawn.

“To interview Steve Bannon is not an endorsement of his political agenda. The Media Festival is founded on a broad understanding of the value of the freedom of speech. To uphold this, we should value the idea that one must talk with people, including those with whom one disagrees,” festival chief Guri Heftye told Klassekampen.

Not all interpret freedom of speech the same way.

“We should not give his opinions a platform,” journalist Vegard Tenold Aase wrote in Bergens Tidende this week, urging others to boycott the event because it legitimizes Bannon’s worldview.

This is a good example of an attempt at that which has been termed “no-platforming.” Unpleasant voices should be shut out from the media, festivals and conferences. If they nevertheless slip in, the event should be boycotted. Society will thus be shielded from those ideologies.

But no-platforming, regardless of whom it affects, does not benefit society.

In an interview with Journalisten, Lars Gule, a researcher who studies extremism, reminds us that the Norwegian Supreme Court has pointed to the importance of also allowing fringe voices, as when the Norwegian Police Security Service was barred from using the footage they confiscated from Ulrik Imtiaz Rolfsen’s documentary film on the Islamist Ubaydullah Hussain.

Hussain had been convicted of hate speech against Jews, threats against journalists, association with the Islamic State, and two instances of recruiting others to commit terrorist acts. In Norway, very few would back his beliefs and actions. But the documentary film does not give “his opinions a platform.” It challenges Hussain with critical questions and gives valuable insights into the mechanisms underlying the religious and ideological currents that to a great degree have influenced world politics in the last years.

Allowing extremist voices is not something worth criticizing. Doing it the wrong way is.

It is not difficult to draw parallels between Hussain and Bannon. Both are extremists, even though they stand for starkly different ideologies. But two important things separate them: Bannon has not been convicted of anything at all, and is a far more significant figure.

Bannon has been an important adviser and has been central in the development of that which has become the Trump phenomenon and the new Republican Party. He now works to spread his way of working and thinking in Europe.

Therefore, Bannon should get a platform and a microphone at the Media Festival — and should be asked critical, ongoing questions.