Opinion: Criticising Snowflake Generation Criticism #dayforfreedom

Please note that this is an anonymous opinion piece and does not reflect the opinion of the party.

I was watching a video covering the #dayforfreedom march through to Whitehall that happened recently, interested in seeing the coverage of free speech activists and a few points made by some of the speakers struck a chord or two with me. However, I was surprised by the amount of anti-Islamic rhetoric that was used, and the language that was used by some of the speakers. Now, this being a freedom of speech march and myself, a freedom of speech advocate, the right to offend being paramount to my right to voice openly an opinion and express freely my thoughts, I have the ability to use whatever stage is granted to me to openly criticize these people in the opposite way. That’s how this works, and that’s why the support of free speech and a political dialogue works to foster a pool of ideas openly, that allow society to see which best when pitted against each other.

Now, I sort of get why right-wing free speech activists want to go against and criticize Islam. The problem exists in that the protection of the citizens who believe in Islam has regressed British law into resurrecting blasphemy laws of old, protecting the religion from being criticized and mocked by comedians etc. It is this identity politics that has brought about who can and can’t criticize religions, behaviors or groups of people based on their own identity and belonging to a group. I get that.

What I struggle to get is that speakers choose to focus their energy against Islam specifically — some were anecdotes about those punished for criticizing it, unfairly of course — but one speaker chose to focus on child sex abuse and genital mutilation crimes, without it being a secular thing, but an anti-Muslim thing. That doesn’t sit too well with me, in that freedom of speech invites right-wing activists to protect the Christian and Catholic churches, but advancing their own agenda against other religions. I believe that while we should be encouraging marriage and the societal good of religion, we should be evenly advocating for an equally secular society across the board.

But this brings me onto my second point. While I respect the right of the speaker to express his opinion, I feel the following is antithetical to the purpose of the event:

So we were free to say what we wanted to say back in the day, without offending people, and then we had this generation of snowflakes come on board. The easily offended. The top notch skinny jeans, tampon wearing … that pull the victim card to keep you quiet every single time the debate doesn’t go their way! And as it stands, we are allowing it.

Now, yes I’m offended by this. But I respect the speakers right to say it. But I still think it’s wrong.

This sort of rhetoric doesn’t sit well with me because it’s not a logical one. It’s not a rational one, it’s an excuse to simplify something that requires a little more thought, and the lack of thought is part of the problem. It’s a contribution to the generational friction that I personally thought had started to disappear, that we’d started to fix. It sort of says that the post-millennial generation aren’t masculine and aren’t able to debate fairly. When they feel things aren’t going their way they run home to their parents.

Now, I’m a 20-something individual and I’ve fought with my parents a lot, and I’ve begun to understand how they were probably right all along, but went the wrong way about many things. Instead of resenting them, I’ve come to understand them for why they did something, instead of focusing on what they actually did, and found comfort in that. The problem is that when you make a generalisation like the “snowflake” generation, you create the very thing that you’re trying to “fix”, if indeed that is what you’re trying to do. Instead of trying to attack us and removing the masculinity and femininity of our marginalized generation and fostering the belief that we aren’t capable of functioning in the society that you created, well, you created us. You taught us, you are the generation that brought socialism into the education system and allowed feminism to foster in the first place. Recognize that we are the generation now waking up to the turmoil that the world is in, and that the opinion we see in the news is the opinion that most of us adopt. That’s on you.

So instead of continuing to attack us as a generation, to remove the masculinity from the boys and the femininity from the girls, work with us, support us. You are our parents, go out for a drink and debate with us rationally, logically. Yes you’ve got the right to express yourself however you want, but learn the art of the debate to *persuade* someone, instead of making them defensive by attacking their core beliefs. It’s this opinion that causes the youth to resent you and when the opposition of your opinion is calling for you to shut up, are you surprised that a generation that you never gave a chance are advocating for that same thing? It’s not a generational thing, it’s a socialist and fascist problem, recognize the real enemy.

You can watch footage from the #dayforfreedom below: