Union debate prompts US backlash
An Oxford Union debate about the future of America has prompted anger on both sides of the Atlantic this week. The motion, “This house regrets the founding of the United States”, has attracted fierce opposition from The Economist, the BBC and The Los Angeles Times.
A reporter writing in The Economist described the debate as “a silly motion supported by unrepresentative people”, while BBC journalist Matt Frei condemned “those who regret America’s very existence in a fit of collective selfannihilation.” Alex Just, Union President, said, “I’m still getting two or three emails a day about it.
In one email to Just, obtained by The Oxford Student, an American wrote, “If you’re constantly going to hide in our skirt, you’re going to catch a whiff from our ass from time to time.” Just said, “I wish no ill to the American people. I’m going on a debating tour of the US for three months from this October, and I’m looking to meet some of the people who have sent emails.
“They have said some quite revealing stuff about the University and the Union, as well as the ‘special relationship’ between Britain and the US.” Jonah Goldburg, who spoke in opposition to the motion, published transcripts of what he intended to say during the debate in an online column for the conservative National Review.
In the column, Goldburg called the motion “shameful” and described Alex Just as a “very sharp young man who looks like a cross between Harry Potter and Elvis Costello”. Goldburg compared the bond between Britain and America to the relationship between a mother and a child. “No decent mother questions whether her daughter should ever have been born, lest she already has an answer in mind.
The column also compared Robert Griffiths, the leader of the UK Communist Party who was meant to be proposing the motion, to Dr. Doom and Lex Luthor. The motion was decisively defeated, with two-thirds of the chamber voting in favour of America’s continued existence. The Union has received further press attention in the wake of its controversial decision to host Colonel Gaddafi, the de facto Libyan head of state.
Gaddafi, whose appearance had been anticipated by the Union for more than a year, finally addressed the chamber on Wednesday via a live video link.
10th May 2007