GEORGE Abaraonye, the president-elect of the Oxford Union who celebrated the shooting of Charlie Kirk, has apparently been ousted by a majority of members. Sounds like a triumph for majoritarian common sense, but hold your horses: it is not as straightforward as it seems.
First, let’s look at Abaraonye, who is studying politics, philosophy and economics at University College. His own behaviour compels our awareness that he has exploited his race and fashionable intersectionality to get ahead, to justify his hatefulness, and to shield himself from the backlash.
In May, he debated with Charlie Kirk in the Oxford Union. He stood slumped, drumming the fingers of one hand on the dispatch box, fidgeting with the other in a pocket, looking around aimlessly. He was silent or inarticulate. Towards the end, Kirk engaged him with direct questions that he couldn’t answer, except to mumble what ‘I think’, which Kirk batted down with facts. Abaraonye’s final position was opposition to ‘the institution of marriage’. Their debate ran out quietly. Kirk clearly won.
Abaraonye could feel humiliated. He could have admitted so. He could have admitted what he learned. He could have articulated a factual rebuttal after deliberation. He did not. He resorted to prejudicial and ad hominem arguments, mostly about Kirk’s politics. He resorted to the left-wing claim that the ‘far-right’ is so ignorant and prejudicial that it is undebatable.
He admits, in leaked posts from a private WhatsApp group, that he ran for the Union presidency in June out of ‘hate’. His particular hate is clear from coincident posts accusing the Queen of representing centuries of British genocide.
When Kirk was shot dead in September, Abaraonye posted on his own Instagram account: ‘Charlie Kirk got shot loool.’ In a WhatsApp group, he wrote: ‘Charlie Kirk got shot, let’s f*cking go’.
Abaraonye could have admitted he went too far. He could have claimed to have been entrapped by his fellows. Instead, he blamed the victim of his hate. Abaraonye said his reaction was ‘shaped by the context of Mr Kirk’s own rhetoric’ and that his ‘words were no less insensitive than his – arguably less so’. Later, he claimed to have been ‘misrepresented’. He added that the comments in the WhatsApp group were supposed to be private, as if that makes any difference. He admits to have ‘reacted poorly,’ but claims he didn’t know that Kirk was dead, as if that makes any difference.
Then he claimed that criticisms of him are racist. I bet some are, the sort of knee-jerk prejudices of which he himself is guilty.
Abaraonye could have proven his merits by eschewing racism, and to acknowledge that most criticisms of his under-performance in the debate, ridiculous posturing, vile reaction to Kirk’s death, and his own racism, are not racist.
Instead, he responded to calls for him to give up his claim to the Presidency of the Oxford Union by motioning a ballot on whether he should be removed. This was not a genuine consideration of his merits. Rather, he moved ‘to stand against the racism of the far right, and to stand up for the principles the Union has championed for 200 years. Two centuries later, the same people who claim to believe in the Union are now acting in stark opposition to the Union’s founding principles, by supporting a campaign of harassment, censorship and abuse. We will not be silenced’.
Now let’s turn to the context for even the Oxford Union turning against him. Abaraonye thought that he could mobilise current student members, in a thoroughly woke institution, to win the vote. Instead, the current president, Moosa Harraj, allowed alumni to vote. Abaraonye mobilised a motion of no confidence in the current president, which went nowhere. Then his supporters intimidated the returning officer, such that voting was temporarily suspended.
Before you wonder whether the current president and officers are bastions of free speech for allowing alumni to vote – or even far right or racists, as Abaraonye would say – consider the extreme context, from their perspective. Some alumni had suspended six-figure donations in opposition to Abaraonye taking the presidency. Dozens of speakers had cancelled their scheduled appearances. The Oxford Union would have been fiscally and operationally unsustainable under President Abaraonye.
Nevertheless, the current officers did not move for no confidence in Abaraonye (although the current President signed a petition to reprimand him for his comments on Kirk). He was defended by the Master of his college, Valerie Amos, the first black woman to lead an Oxford college. More than a month had passed since Abaraonye’s vile comments before he himself forced the vote. Alumni (and Abaraonye’s over-confidence) provoked this belated vote, not any other student.
The same alumni swung the vote: 1,228 in favour of the no confidence motion; 501 against; 17 ballots spoilt. This met the constitutionally required threshold of a two-thirds majority – a super majority in politics, and a rare event anywhere. Many alumni who showed up to vote were turned away for lack of photo identification.
Yet Abaraonye proves he’s undemocratic too. Having tried to interrupt the vote as constituted, he alleges procedural irregularities orchestrated by the ‘far right’.
I celebrate Abaraonye’s democratic de-selection as President of the Oxford Union. But I’m not reading more into this. It’s not a turn against wokeness in academia. It’s not evidence for a turn even in the Oxford Union. This is the same Oxford Union that selected Abaraonye in the first place, and the same Oxford University that admitted him.
The Oxford Union and Oxford University have a long way to go before I would trust them to respect my lectures or educate my kids.
