Daniel J. Flynn What Oxford Union’s Ousted President-Elect Could Learn from Frank Meyer George Abaraonye was removed for celebrating Charlie Kirk’s death. He might yet come to question his beliefs.
Earlier this month, the Oxford Union held a no-confidence vote in its president-elect George Abaraonye, based on his celebration of Charlie Kirk’s murder. “Charlie Kirk got shot,” Abaraonye wrote in a group chat last month, “let’s fing go.” On Instagram, he announced: “Charlie Kirk got shot loool.” Bizarrely, Abaraonye depicted the campaign to remove him from office as one of “harassment, censorship, and abuse.” Without a hint of self-irony, the young man who indecently cheered Kirk’s murder wrote: “We will not be silenced.” This past May, Kirk and Abaraonye had met in the Oxford Union. They debated the question of toxic masculinity. Kirk looked and sounded like the Oxford product and Abaraonye looked-in sweatpants, a t-shirt, and what resembled slippers-and sounded like the guy who had never gone to college, rather than the reverse. Though both men were respectful, Kirk clearly won the exchange. One needn’t even watch the 12-minute, 25-second discussion (it starts at 1: 06: 36) to know this. No one winning a fight bites the other man’s ear, and no one who triumphed in a debate celebrates the murder of his opponent. It would seem impossible to express confidence in the head of a campus debating society who welcomed the execution of a human being for the crime of debating on campus. The Oxford Union members certainly regarded it as a disqualifier. Seventy percent voted for removal.
