The truest test of liberalism is what liberals do when faced with what they regard as flagrant illiberalism. Typically, the response is liberal illiberalism, the use of coercion to compel adherence to the liberal tenets. We should be deeply grateful to Paul McGarrity, President of the Queen's University Students' Union, for favouring us with a particularly delicious example of coercively illiberal liberalism.
"As President of the Students' Union, I will not tolerate exclusion and discrimination against any group within Queen's," he modestly declared in this newspaper last Saturday. We can, if we like, rephrase that. "I will not tolerate intolerance." Or even: "Ve haff vays off making you tolerant, vether you vant to be or not."
Recognised societies
The issue involved in Queen's is ostensibly whether or not the Progressive Unionist Party and Sinn Fein should become recognised societies in the university, a proposal blocked by the Ulster Unionists and the Democratic Unionists, apparently by perfectly constitutional means. Paul I Will Not Tolerate Intolerance McGarrity says that their attitude to Sinn Fein (the political wing of the still-armed people who brought you Bloody Friday, the Mountbatten murders, Whitecross, proxy suicide bombings, etc., etc.) and the Progressive Unionist Party (political voice of the still-armed lads who gave us McGlades, the Shankill Butchers, Loughinisland, etc., etc.) showed that "the politics of exclusion was central to their belief".
Right in one; as apparently the politics of exclusion is clearly central to Paul I Will Not Tolerate Intolerance McGarrity. He wishes to exclude constitutionally made decisions which do not meet his own criteria of what should be inclusivity or accord with the motto in the Students' Union building: "It is the policy of this union not to discriminate on the grounds of gender, sexual preference, political belief, religious affiliation, physical ability or race."
Good. A noble policy. So what if the sexual preference is for little girls? Can I enrol as a mature student in Queen's and start a cosy little paederasts' society, open to people of like mind and appetite? Or what if I decide to re-open the temporarily suspended but once glorious chapter of National Socialism with a snug little Nazi Club in QUB? What about those misunderstood lads in Ku Klux Klan? They know all about bonfires (quite the thing at times in Northern Ireland) and hoods (popular with both victims and perpetrators up North) and they feel passionately about identity. So, okay! Let's hear it for a KKK Klub! Any objections?
Discrimination
What? Can I hear Paul I Will Not Tolerate Intolerance McGarrity saying that, ah, that bit about not tolerating discrimination on grounds of political belief, well, it doesn't actually confer the freedom to discriminate or victimise. Good. So then, as a mature student who finds that his application to start a Paederasts' Club has been turned down, and my request for permission to form the Sean Russell/Horst Wessel National Socialist Society has been rejected, might I seek consolation in membership of the Feminist Society? Or Lesbian Sisterhood? Or even Sinn Fein, God bless its little green socks?
The lesbians are doing what? Turning me down? But why? If fancying women's a qualification, why, I love `em! Give me more! No? Okay, so what about the Feminist Society? After all, I believe in equal pay for equal work, et cetera. What's that? You mean I can't join because I'm a man? Well, dear me. Isn't that discrimination?
Well, there's always Sinn Fein. Admittedly, I don't believe in a single thing the Shinners believe in, but if you believe that there should be no discrimination on grounds of political belief, my beliefs should not disqualify me from Shinner membership. (My first act as a Sinn Fein member will be to propose that as an act of ecumenical inclusivity, Sinn Fein meetings should begin with everyone standing for God Save the Queen, while the Union Jack is raised, followed by a little talk from a minister of the reformed faith on the evils of Romishness, followed by a slideshow about the glories of the Raj.)
What? My application to join Sinn Fein will be turned down on political grounds? Excuse me. Am I hearing things here? Is not that discrimination of the grossest kind? What about the QUB motto of tolerance? What about the declarations of Paul I Will Not Tolerate Intolerance McGarrity: is this discrimination not intolerable?
Constitutional victories
It is not. We spend our lives discriminating, and making judgments others do not. Even Paul I Will Not Tolerate Intolerance McGarrity is probably proud of his intolerance of racists or child-abusers, just as he appears to be intolerant of the constitutionally-won political victories of the Unionists and the DUP in QUB.
I think the UUP and the DUP are wrong to use the constitution of the Students' Union to veto recognition of Sinn Fein and PUP societies. However, those are the rules, and sticking to the rules is the basis of democracy. When Paul I Won't Tolerate Intolerance McGarrity declares that "measures are currently being enacted which will in practical turns overturn this petty and tribal insult", we may conclude that not merely does he not tolerate the opinions of people he adjudges to be intolerant, but he also does not tolerate inconvenient constitutions or laws either.
You can call that liberalism. A better word is hypocrisy.