Speakers’ Corner is a proverbially British institution. For generations, people have gathered in Hyde Park to argue about politics, religion and the world around them. You arrive, make your case and face whoever disagrees.
Established through an act of Parliament in the nineteenth century, it became associated with figures as different as Karl Marx, Vladimir Lenin, George Orwell and Marcus Garvey. Great luminaries and less impressive speakers alike could find an audience. The point was that they could speak.
I went there with the Visegrad24 team and sat down with Ridvan Aydemir, known as the Apostate Prophet, and David, a Christian who regularly debates at the Corner. We discussed what they describe as its growing domination by Islamist speakers and examined clips of preaching, confrontations and attacks.
The question running through our conversation was straightforward: what happens when people use the freedoms of a society to promote a political order that would deny those freedoms to others?
Freedom for the Preacher, Punishment for the Dissenter
David describes a substantial change after 9/11. In his experience, the Corner increasingly attracted Muslim speakers promoting a political vision of Islam. Christians such as himself return to challenge their moral claims and their arguments about what would be best for British society.
Sometimes, he says, those encounters become dangerous.
One of the first clips we discussed features Ali Dawah, a preacher associated with Speakers’ Corner. As Aydemir explains, the clip comes from a response to him rather than an exchange filmed at the Corner itself.
Dawah defends capital punishment under Islamic law for people who leave their religion and publicly spread what he calls corruption. He specifies that this would take place under an Islamic state and its authority, rather than through individuals acting on their own.
That distinction matters to understanding what he says. It does not answer the objection. Aydemir has left Islam and publicly explains his reasons. He understands Dawah’s position as a defence of a system under which people like him would be executed.
Here is someone exercising freedom of expression while defending punishment for another person’s religious dissent. If the political system being advocated would extinguish the freedom used to promote it, we should be willing to say so plainly.
When the Crowd Joins In
Another clip shows a confrontation involving a Christian speaker called Bob. David explains that Bob had criticised Allah, provoking an angry response from a man carrying a walking stick. The argument escalates into pushing and a wider physical confrontation.
What struck me most was the group joining in. An argument becoming heated is one thing. People who were not originally involved suddenly entering the violence is something more frightening.
Aydemir describes people waiting for an opportunity to intervene when a confrontation escalates. David identifies a cameraman caught up in the incident. Their account is of an atmosphere in which the danger extends beyond the original participants.
Our discussion then turned to Hatun Tash, a Christian preacher and critic of Islam whom Aydemir knows. We watched a segment presented by David Wood describing repeated attacks against her, including a knife attack at Speakers’ Corner.
In the footage discussed, Tash is wearing a Charlie Hebdo shirt. The attack is caught in the background of another conversation. Wood describes wounds to her face and arm and says she subsequently resumed preaching.
I would not personally choose to walk around displaying caricatures of Muhammad. But the ability of someone else to do so is a test of whether freedom of expression exists in practice. A freedom that nobody dares exercise becomes increasingly difficult to distinguish from a prohibition.
The willingness to offend religious sensibilities cannot become permission for violence. Otherwise, the person most prepared to threaten or attack acquires the power to decide what everyone else may say.
What the Arguments Reveal
The clips about marriage raise another disturbing question: what standards are being defended before these audiences?
In one exchange, Dawah says that a daughter aged nine could be ready for marriage if she met the conditions he describes as sexual, mental and physical readiness.
Aydemir explains that the argument rests on a conception of maturity rather than a fixed minimum age. But how is that maturity supposed to be measured? What test could establish that a nine-year-old is mentally or spiritually ready for marriage?
Anyone familiar with children of that age should recognise the problem. Calling a child “ready” does not settle the question.
We also discussed a clip of Mohammed Hijab arguing with Muslims who accept the Quran while rejecting other religious traditions. Aydemir explains that this context is essential: Hijab is challenging their Quran-only approach by arguing that it cannot supply the restrictions they claim to uphold.
That should not be presented as though it were an isolated statement made without that argumentative context. Nevertheless, the discussion exposes interpretations of religious texts concerning children and marriage that deserve direct scrutiny.
Religious authority cannot place such arguments beyond challenge. If they are being advanced publicly, critics must be free to question them publicly.
Domination Is Not Debate
Another exchange concerns the ambition to dominate others and impose the jizya, the tax discussed in the clip in connection with non-Muslim subordination. A speaker tells his opponent that Muslims will conquer again and that he will pay.
Aydemir connects that rhetoric to the desire among some Islamists to restore a caliphate. These ambitions matter because the argument has moved beyond persuading someone to adopt a faith. It concerns the political position of people who refuse.
David adds a revealing detail about the man in the clip. He says the speaker, then known as Belal, later returned to the Corner as Billy, having left Islam. According to David, he subsequently helped expose ideas he had previously accepted.
That account is a reason to keep debating. People can reconsider even strongly held convictions. It is also a reminder that the freedom to leave a religion must belong to the person whose beliefs have changed.
In another clip, a man declares hatred of Jews and Christians “for the sake of Allah”. Asked whether he would kill his Christian interlocutor, he says that he would cut off his head if they were at war.
The qualification about war is part of what he says. So is the declaration of religious hatred. Both deserve to be heard accurately, rather than allowing the surrounding noise to obscure the substance.
Faith Requires Courage
Towards the end of our conversation, we discussed Bob’s call for a return to “muscular Christianity”. His argument rejects the idea that Christianity requires believers to be weak or passive.
That struck me as an important point. Christianity has a message of love, but that love requires courage. In our discussion, I pointed to Christians facing persecution, including those threatened by Boko Haram in Nigeria, and to the bravery involved in continuing to practise their faith.
I also questioned what happens when spirituality is displaced by consumption and a society loses confidence in its own inheritance. A culture unsure of what it believes will struggle to defend the freedoms it has received.
David describes coming to the Corner to support Bob when, in his account, only a handful of Christians were regularly present. For him, defending the faith requires people willing to appear, speak and withstand opposition.
None of that requires abandoning debate. Debate is precisely what needs defending.
Speakers’ Corner should be a place where a Christian can challenge Islam, a Muslim can challenge Christianity and an ex-Muslim can explain why he no longer believes. The arguments may be uncomfortable. The disagreement may be fierce.
What cannot be accepted is the belief that a crowd, a threat or a weapon confers the right to end the conversation.
