Who Are We Bowing Down To?

by Les May

'THAT’s not my question.'   It’s what Tom Tugendhat, chairman of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee said when he told the BBC that there was concern among MPs that the Government appeared scared of the reaction of Pakistani mobs, adding that it must ask itself ‘very serious questions about who it was bowing down to’

Tugendhat has said that Asia Bibi was eligible for asylum in the UK ‘on every possible metric’.  He pointed out that the Government had willingly helped persecuted Muslims in the Balkans and defended the rights of homosexuals in countries where they are not tolerated, and added;  ’The idea that we shouldn’t change our policy in Pakistan simply because she is a Christian and simply because we are afraid of the mob strikes me as extremely odd’.

When the judge who freed her, Chief Justice Mian Saqib Nisar, visited London last week he told MPs that she was not on an exit control list and was free to leave Pakistan with her family at any time.

Earlier this month Rehman Chishti the Conservative MP for Gillingham and Rainham, who is the son of an imam, quit as Party vice-chairman and trade envoy to Pakistan because of the Government’s refusal to offer refuge to Mrs Bibi and her family.

He has since said:  ‘She is free to leave but she needs a country to come forward, to morally and ethically do the right thing. I say this as clearly as I can – for the United Kingdom to say which other country would Asia Bibi like to go to is completely and utterly unacceptable, irrespective of what any other country may offer.  We have a moral obligation.  Why have we, in God’s name, not done the right thing to say – irrespective of what anyone else offers – we, the UK, will do the right thing in line with our great British values?  It was right for me to step down last week, when you try to get the Government to do the right thing and it would not do the right thing.'

He followed this up by pointing out that the Government willingly gave asylum to Malala Yousafzai, a Pakistani Muslim shot by the Taliban for her work in campaigning for the education of girls, in spite of threats of reprisals.

When Asia Bibi’s husband, Ashiq Mashi, and her youngest daughter, Eisham Ashiq, who is 18, visited London in October, not a single British minister would meet the pair even in private.  To his great credit Rehman Chishti did meet them and has said that Eisham had tears in her eyes when he had to tell her that no one was interested in hearing her story.

The response of Theresa May and her government shames Britain.  It presents it as a weak nation unable to determine what happens within its own borders. Although I am happy to say I had a ‘good Sunday school education’, I am not a Christian, so in supporting Asia Bibi, I have no religious axe to grind.   But as an atheist I think I have something to fear from the feeble response from Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon, the Prime Minister’s special envoy on freedom of religion and belief, who, speaking in the House of Lords during the launch of a report on global religious persecution defended the government in relation to the Asia Bibi case by saying ’It is entirely appropriate that maybe less is more’.  It was this which prompted Rehman Chishti to make the remarks I have quoted above.   It appears that some religions and (dis)beliefs are more equal than others to Lord Ahmed.

It’s not just this weak kneed government that deserves our censure.   The Labour party has been equally silent on this matter, as have the usually gobby women MPs, women journalists and professional feminists, who never miss any opportunity to parade their stance against ‘male oppression’.  Nor have we heard anything from those preening ‘activists’ who are always so ready to shout loudly about anything they can condemn as ‘Islamophobia’. 

 

How odd that apart from that by Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, all the articles that I have read about the Bibi case seem to have been penned by men.

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Richard Dawkins & 'Gut Methodology'

LAST week, Professor Richard Dawkins, formerly the University of Oxford's Professor for Public Understanding of Science, argued on Radio Four's Today program that humans should apply rational thought when trying to solve the world's problems to which the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby responded on Monday that acting out of love and through emotion is an important part of what makes us humans.

Speaking on the on the TODAY program last week, Dawkins had said people should avoid voting with their gut and adopt a more scientific approach.  'Of course, we all think with our gut a lot of the time.  But when we’re making important decisions, like when we’re voting [or] when we’re taking important business decisions, don’t think with your gut, think rationally.  Look for the evidence one way or the other; weigh it up.'

Dawkins said the scientific method should be applied beyond the lab, adding that 'evidence is the only reason to believe anything about the real world'.

However, responding to the good Professor Dawkins, the Archbishop of Canterbury, JustinWelby has said that the scientific method alone could not answer all of the big questions:
'The world is not entirely materialism.  It’s not entirely made up of what you can experiment with. There are things we deal with every day – emotions around love, around the value of people, around how we treat those who are weaker and stronger – where mere rationality, even evidence-based rationality, which I hold to as a really important thing, does not answer the whole question adequately.'

The archbishop of Canterbury has spoken of his deep sympathy for the family of Charlie Gard, the 11-month-old boy who died last week after a long legal battle, as well as the medics who treated him and the judges who presided over his case.

Justin Welby evoked the memory of his own daughter, Johanna, who died when she was less than a year old as he said the world could not be explained by rationality alone.

Welby was commenting on Prof Richard Dawkins' insistence last week on the primacy of evidence and reason, not emotion, when making big decisions.

'It’s quite well known that one of our own children died and we had to stand by the bed and they died when the life support was withdrawn. And I think that, in a case like that, I’m not going to say anything except that my heart breaks for the parents,' Welby told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Monday.

While he said evidence-based decision-making was important to him, he cited the Gard case as an example of where it could only be a part of the right approach.

Speaking on the same programme last week, Dawkins said people should avoid voting with their gut and adopt a more scientific approach.  'Of course, we all think with our gut a lot of the time. But when we’re making important decisions, like when we’re voting [or] when we’re taking important business decisions, don’t think with your gut, think rationally.  Look for the evidence one way or the other; weigh it up.'

Dawkins said the scientific method should be applied beyond the lab, adding that 'evidence is the only reason to believe anything about the real world'.

However, Welby has said it alone could not answer all of the big questions.
'The world is not entirely materialism. It’s not entirely made up of what you can experiment with. There are things we deal with every day – emotions around love, around the value of people, around how we treat those who are weaker and stronger – where mere rationality, even evidence-based rationality, which I hold to as a really important thing, does not answer the whole question adequately.'

Referring to the Gard case, which was at the centre of a long-running legal battle over the child’s care, Welby said any parent would 'fight for the life of their child as long as they could', adding: 'We know what that’s like.'

The judges and doctors who were treating Charlie at Great Ormond Street hospital came in for abuse as the case progressed through the courts, but the archbishop said that each person involved was worthy of sympathy because they wanted the best for Charlie.
'I’m sure they cared to the depth of their being about doing the right thing and it’s a very good example of where sometimes rational, evidence-based thinking is not the whole story.  The medics weren’t operating on that. They grieve when they lose a patient and particularly a child.
'I just feel deeply sorrowed by the whole thing and feel deeply, deeply, deeply for Charlie Gard’s parents and for all the rest of the people involved in the most tragic case. Sometimes, we want to come to clean, quick conclusions and it’s right just to pause and grieve.'

It must be extremely irritating for a passionate rationalist Professor like Professor Dawkins to cope with current political developments and the nature of human behaviour as it is being played out in the real world.  The scientific method of decision making is clearly not uppermost in most people's minds. 

In a study published today on the 2017 General election by Prof Ed Fieldhouse & Dr Chris Prosser of the University of Manchester, found:
'Despite Mrs May's claim that her reason for calling an early election was to get a mandate for the Brexit negotiations, the issue of Brexit itself had a relatively low profile during campaigning.
For much of the campaign, both the Conservatives and Labour focused on other issues.
But in the minds of the voters at least, the 2017 election was - as it promised to be ever since the referendum of June 2016 - the Brexit election'

The report says 'in the minds of the voters' but in the answer to the question:  'As far as you're concerned, what is the single most important issue facing the country at the present time?'
This research shows that more than one in three people chose Brexit or the EU, compared with fewer than one in 10 who mentioned the NHS or one in 20 who suggested the economy.

 It would seem that the driving force here as so often elsewhere in political decision-making is gut reactions rather than the ponderings of the scientific method as recommended by Prof. Dawkins.