In the midst of all the shocking reactions from the left to Charlie Kirk’s assassination, there was this:

“Charlie Kirk got shot, let’s f***ing go,” George Abaraonye, a 20-year-old Politics, Philosophy and Economics student and the incoming president of the Oxford Union, wrote in a WhatsApp group on Wednesday. On Instagram he added: “Charlie Kirk got shot loool.” …

The Union cannot immediately sack Abaraonye. According to its constitution, unless the president-elect resigns, 150 members need to sign a petition to demand a confidence vote. And Abaraonye was already a well-known, well-liked figure in Oxford. He ranked fifth in a recent “Big Names On Campus” list and is currently vice-president of the popular African and Caribbean Society. Friends describe him as “laid-back”.

Abaraonye only decided to run for president two days before the Union election. One ex-president described Abaraonye to me as a “joke candidate”. There was some controversy over his campaign tactics. A Union insider tells me a tribunal will be held to investigate the circumstances of election and whether there was any “electoral malpractice”. (At the Oxford Union, such scandals and investigations are common.) …

A lot of the attacks on Abaraonye have been explicitly racist. After the Daily Mail drew attention to his ABB A-Level results, below the usual 3As required, he has been called online a “worthless DEI [diversity, equity and inclusion] hire” who should be “deported”.

I don’t doubt many have been racist – I’ve seen some myself that are. But calling him a diversity hire is not racist. If his grades are in fact as reported, below the usual standards, he is most likely a DEI admission. But it’s my impression he is a native-born Brit.

He must have thought the sort of things he wrote about Kirk were just fine. What strikes me is how juvenile his words were in addition to being cruel. More or less at the level of sophistication of what you might expect from Garth and Wayne of “Wayne’s World.” Of course in line with his ultra-casual clothes at the Kirk debate, which were a statement as well.

From the Oxford Union a while back, on the subject:

In a statement posted on social media on Saturday, the union reiterated that it had already condemned the president-elect’s “inappropriate remarks”. The society added: “We emphasise that these are his personal views and not those of the Union, nor do they represent the values of our institution.

“At the same time, we are deeply disturbed by and strongly condemn the racial abuse and threats that George has faced in response. No individual should ever be attacked because of the colour of their skin or the community they come from. Threats to his life are abhorrent. Such rhetoric has no place online, or anywhere in society.”

Threats to his life are abhorrent, but he mocked Kirk’s shooting. It sounds as though whoever wrote the statement was far more concerned about the things said to Abaraonye than what Abaraonye himself said. But in the interests of clarity, I’ll add that Abaraonye’s remarks were written prior to the announcement of Kirk’s death. That does not excuse him in the least. It was apparent even from the first reports that the wound was extremely serious and might even be fatal. Nor would mocking even a wound such as Trump’s ear wound be okay. None of it is okay, and especially ironic given that this is a debating society.

To me, this is another indication of the domination of a gamer/twitter/cartoonish mentality in young people even in instutitions such as Oxford. To many of them, shooting is like something in a video game, to make a joke about in order to impress your peers who think it’s oh so funny to do so.

More of his “apology”:

On Thursday, Abaraonye said he had “reacted impulsively” to the news of Kirk’s shooting, and that the comments were “quickly deleted” after news emerged of his death.

“Those words did not reflect my values,” Abaraonye added. “Nobody deserves to be the victim of political violence … I extend my condolences to his family and loved ones.

“At the same time, my reaction was shaped by the context of Mr Kirk’s own rhetoric – words that often dismissed or mocked the suffering of others. He described the deaths of American children from school shootings as an acceptable ‘cost’ of protecting gun rights. He justified the killing of civilians in Gaza, including women and children, by blaming them collectively for Hamas. He called for the retraction of the Civil Rights Act, and repeatedly spread harmful stereotypes about LGBTQ and trans communities. These were horrific and dehumanising statements.”

Of course Abaronye’s words reflect his values. No one made him write them. His values are to mock someone who got shot while debating in the public square. He can try to walk it back but even that was done in a way that reveals his “values.” The “yes, but” type of thing, the mischaracterization of Kirk’s beliefs, is unfortunately typical of leftist discourse.

This was a warning note, one Abaronye did not heed:

It can also be revealed that 200 life members of the debating society – former Oxford University students who have paid to retain their membership – have expressed their willingness to support a vote of no confidence in Mr Abaraonye’s leadership.

This surpasses the 150 signatures required to bring no-confidence proceedings. …

The campaign to oust Mr Abaraonye is being organised by Allum Bokhari, an Oxford Union life member and managing director of the Foundation for Freedom Online, a US censorship watchdog.

Explaining his decision to rally Oxford Union life members to submit signatures, Mr Bokhari told The Telegraph: “The most final act of censorship is a bullet.

“Celebrating the assassination of Charlie Kirk, whose only crime was talking to his ideological opponents, is completely antithetical to every moral and democratic principle the Oxford Union Society represents, not least free speech and the freedom to exchange ideas without the threat of violence.”

If you’re wondering – as I was – what’s the ethnic background of Bokhari, the surname is apparently Persian and the first name usually Muslim. Hail, Mr. Bokhari.

And it seems Bokhari got the last word, because more recently Abaronye himself called for the Oxford Union to have the vote. He seems to have thought he would win it:

This is a chance for us 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.

But he hadn’t counted on one particular element of the vote:

Abaraonye evidently believed that he could mobilise his supporters to win the no confidence vote, but he had not anticipated that it would be opened up to life members. The Spectator has reported that Abaraonye and his supporters then ‘moved a revenge motion of no confidence in the current president, Moosa Harraj, for allowing alumni to vote on Saturday’. Worse still, there have been allegations that the returning officer was subjected to intimidation and so the voting process was temporarily suspended.

In spite of these plot twists, the final result was conclusive. 1,228 voted in favour of the no confidence motion and 501 against (with 17 ballots spoilt). This met the required threshold of a two-thirds majority, and the motion has been carried. This amounts to an effective resignation by Abaraonye, but inevitably he is now contesting the result.

Abaraonye’s vile comments were especially ironic, of course, considering that this is a debating society, and Kirk dedicated his life to the belief that debate was the way for opponents to do battle rather than with actual literal weapons.

However, I think that if the voting had been limited to present members, it’s highly possible the results would have gone the other way.