THE scourge of Political Correctness has been with us now since the 1980s, a distinctively curious modern syndrome of angst marked by critical examination of language and custom. Something of this brouhaha has been with us over longer tracts of history if we care to survey cultural innovation and evolution across the centuries. However the present discomfiture visited upon the heads of our chattering classes, whereby seemingly innocuous linguistic chatter has recently become problematic and in many cases deemed reactionary, speaks to a novel juncture of intellectual frenzy and insecurity.
Our distinctive period of ferment has been variously labelled the late modern, the post-modern and the Anthropocene. Characterised in part by a waning optimism from the European Enlightenment and the giddy new world of neoliberal globalisation, our gilded benevolent post war progress has given way to precarity and anxiety as we attempt to grapple with the complexities of our new multi-spectrum information age.
Friedrich Nietzsche (1844 – 1900) is arguably the first modern philosopher and progenitor to articulate the ‘post-modern’ conundrum. Nietzsche’s arresting idea of the ‘Death of God’ is the lynchpin to his unrelenting ‘anti-foundationalism’. As Terry Eagleton has persuasively reasoned, Nietzsche seems to have been the first ‘real deal’ atheist, as all the other atheists up to this point had surreptitiously smuggled in the old Judeo Christian metaphysics and teleology amidst their loud affirmations of the secular. God had now become Reason or Humanism or some other such spurious unfounded belief in progress.
Nietzsche is seen by many as the singular uncompromising figure who primed a metaphorical slow reaction colossus of a nuclear bomb under the rickety infrastructure of Western philosophy. Pushing atheist Enlightenment thought to its apotheosis, Nietzsche spelled out in theatrical bravura the cataclysmic implications of the way ahead. The masses could no longer recoil and refuse to understand the stupendous shift in our world view.
God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it?
Nietzsche’s dethronement of the Almighty was also the shattering of Western philosophy and its epistemological and ontological foundations. He would spell out the radical new existential realities for the multitude up till this point largely oblivious to the anti-foundational revolution that had upended the cosmos. A terrifying paradigm shift and cultural shock, vertiginous and exhilarating, would have to be digested by the post-modern.
With the prime mover dethroned along with all the attendant metaphysical ballast, society’s loss of its elaborate meaning system in placating our existential fears and buttressing our sense of selves, our identity and our moralities, Nietzsche had foregrounded the nihilistic conundrum at the centre of modernity. Without recourse to transcendental authority and legitimacy, uncompromising contingency would issue in an intense anomic turbulence.
The realm of normalcy destroyed, regarded as oppressive and socially constructed. Scientific knowledge is now suspect, provisional and relativised. What was once taken as God given and natural is now arbitrary and suitable for deconstruction by suitably qualified post modern scholars well versed in the radical new indeterminism. All traditional ‘centrics’ of language and culture must be prised apart accordingly.
God is dead alongside the Enlightenment belief in Reason. Patriarchy is dead, the family is dead, heterosexuality is dead, the novel is dead, the symphony is dead, the author is dead. Political Correctness is the manifestation of this modern discomfiture played out in our daily lives, an incessant Nietzschean comedy of manners as we scramble to find an acceptable form of parlance stripped of any perceived historical provocations.
Our nomenclatures betray certain socially conservative proclivities and a Christian lineage which a majority of the populace had no alternative but to acquiesce to and defer to a level of fitting observance. This may now have given way to little more than functionality, devoid of the metaphysical fervour of the devoted. Yet as cultural conservatives, the new Political Correctness is seen as an idiotic and unnecessary intrusion into a shared domain of vocabulary considered innocuous.
Nietzsche’s politics defy easy pigeonholing. Clearly not of the left himself although certainly not a textbook conservative or libertarian either. How far his heroic and affirmative existentialism stands as a viable solution and corrective against the bleak nihilist terminus remains questionable, not least because of his hostility to the universal and to the masses at large. It is also doubtful whether Richard Dawkins and the New Atheists have charted a convincing path ahead to steer us beyond the anarchy of the wasteland.
References –
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_is_dead
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Nietzsche
Terry Eagleton – Culture and the Death of God (2014) – especially relevant is Chapter 5 :
The Death of God.
Also very useful is the related Terry Eagleton lecture uploaded to Youtube
VOTERS and politicians who value social cohesion and basic democratic principles should reject the trend of pandering to religious tribalism, says Chris Sloggett.
The recent events at Batley Grammar School are well-documented, but still shocking to recount. A loud group of intolerant Muslims gathered at the gates of a school demanding a teacher's dismissal because they objected to a resource he used in class. The school suspended the teacher and issued a grovelling apology. The teacher faced threats, and soon afterwards two of his colleagues were also suspended.
A local investigation has found that the resource which the teacher showed - a cartoon of Islam's prophet Muhammad - was not used with any ill intent. The teacher was nominally reinstated. But he and his colleagues can't return to work because they fear they could be attacked. Meanwhile the investigation has effectively enforced a blasphemy taboo on the school by saying the cartoon, or similar ones, shouldn't be used again.
The teacher at the centre of the row has been driven out of the area and into hiding. The mob that hounded him has got what it wanted. Other schools around the country will have taken note.
And the politicians have moved on. The Department for Education has called on parents to accept the outcome of the local investigation. The department and others have presented this as if it's some kind of reasonable compromise. But anyone who cares about teachers' freedom to do their jobs without facing intimidation and threats - on this issue or any other - should say what this is: a meek surrender to demands for censorship.
When the protests first broke out many politicians and commentators wrung their hands. Some called for calm, but the message was often that the main concern lay in the minutiae of a handful of teachers' decisions about how to present a particular lesson in one school.
The grubby Batley and Spen by-election, which limped to a close...., helped to highlight the price to be paid for this. When the issue came up during the campaign, mainstream candidates' responses smacked of fear, self-interest and short-termist thinking. They either doggedly avoided it or offered responses which were weak to the point of meaninglessness, as a piece from Batley by Dan Hodges in The Mail on Sunday highlighted this weekend. Meanwhile George Galloway spotted an opportunity to weaponise the issue to try to win over some reactionary Muslim voters, saying the school had "absolutely no right" to use the cartoon.
Did the politicians think their positions were right, or did they just not want to upset a perceived bloc vote? Either way, this collective wall of silence was alarmingly predictable. It's now a standard tactic to treat large swathes of voters primarily as members of various religious 'communities', and to appeal to them through the gatekeepers who claim to speak for them.
But this approach sends the message that religious identity groups can make increasingly unreasonable demands and nobody will dare to say no to them. In Batley, there seems to have been a widespread unspoken agreement that freedom of expression - the most important freedom which citizens in a democracy enjoy - could be treated as a commodity and signed away for electoral convenience.
Politicians should beware where the multi-communal game leads. If they rely on religious identity politics to shore up their support, they'll come under pressure to extend more privileges to particular religious groups. Others will organise along competing identitarian lines, or grow bewildered that politicians appear uninterested in them. The principle that we all enjoy equal citizenship and that politicians should seek to serve all of our interests will be further frayed.
There will also be fertile ground for bad actors of various stripes. The Batley and Spen campaign was marred by inter-communal tensions and intimidatory tactics, including homophobic intimidation aimed at Labour candidate Kim Leadbeater. More moderate and reasonable voices, such as a group of Muslim women who rejected the authority of a "loud minority" of Muslim men this week, faced an uphill battle to make themselves heard. Several far right candidates also spotted an opportunity to advance their agendas.
This ugly campaign should be a prompt to pause and reconsider. Indulging religious tribalism is risky and unsustainable. Voters and politicians who value social cohesion and basic democratic principles should unite against it.
“KATE SHARPLEY LIBRARY (KSL)” is an institution “dedicated to researching and restoring the history of the anarchist movement”. Its name commemorates a young woman who “under the influence of anarchist propaganda” in 1917 reacted to the carnage of WWI by flinging her family’s war medals back into the face of Queen Mary - a defiant gesture that earned her a severe beating from the boys in blue. In his book “I Couldn’t Paint Golden Angels”, Albert Meltzer recorded extensive details of the incident after meeting Kate shortly before her death in 1978. This dramatic protest was cited by Nigel McCrery in his book recording professional footballers killed in WWI, which linked it to the death on the Somme of Kate’s brother, William. It’s an extraordinary tale but is it true?
THE FOOTBALLER’s TALE
IN April 1912 Sgt William Sharpley of the Essex Regiment made a trial appearance for the Leicester Fosse reserves football team playing against Worksop Town. After winning this match 4-0 he was picked to play left back, for Leicester’s first team the following month, in a second division game against Leeds City. Although Leicester won that game 4-1 William made no further appearances for the club and returned to his unit to serve as a regular soldier. With the outbreak of war he was immediately sent with his regiment to the Western Front where “he served with honour” and was decorated before being killed on 1st July, 1916.
This story has recently been told by Nigel McCrery in his book “The Final Season”(Random House) where the author goes on to reveal that this early casualty of the Somme offensive was none other than the brother of impassioned anarchist protester, Kate Sharpley.
ALBERTS’s ACCOUNT
KATE SHARPLEY LIBRARY acknowledges that, “One of our frequently asked questions is who was Kate Sharpley?” In response KSL publishes two overlapping accounts, both written by Albert Meltzer. The first, originally penned in 1978 was printed in “KSL Bulletin 6, Sept 1996” while the second appears in Meltzer’s “I Couldn’t Paint Golden Angels” - both accounts are freely available online. Meltzer, and hence KSL, makes several very specific claims, including:
·
“Sixty-five years ago Queen Mary was handing out medals in Greenwich, most of them for fallen heroes being presented to their womenfolk.”
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“One 22-year old girl, said by the local press to be under the influence of anarchist propaganda having collected medals for her dead father, brother and boyfriend then threw them in the Queen’s face”
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“The Queen’s face was scratched and so was that of her attendant ladies.”
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“The girl was Kate Sharpley.”
CURIOUS and CURIOUSER
MELTZER’s first reference to “sixty-five years ago”, made in 1978, dates Sharpley’s medal protest to 1913. Was it not remarkably prescient of Queen Mary to present commemorative medals for a war and its consequent casualties yet to occur? Is it not curious that such careless inattention to detail was not spotted by either Meltzer or KATE SHARPLEY LIBRARY corrected over the four decades since publication?
Is it not more curious still that despite extensive research there appears to be no report or record of this most dramatic incident in any contemporary newspaper or other documentary archive? No reference to this incident of any kind has been recorded that does not derive from Meltzer’s entirely unreferenced account. Meltzer specifically states that “the local press” claimed she acted under anarchist influence yet there appears to be no reference of any sort to “Kate Sharpley” in the local press for this or any political action. Even if the authorities conspired to effect total censorship of the mainstream press it would certainly have been reported in anarchist, socialist or pacifist papers. As a fearless activist surely Kate would have afterwards informed the radical press of her action and the police’s violent reaction.
Confirmation?
MELTZER’s account might appear to derive a degree of substantiation from McCrery’s description of the death of Kate Sharpley’s brother on the Somme were it not for the fact that Sgt William Sharpley (Reg. No. 9214) of the 2nd Battalion Essex Regiment had no sister called Kate, Kath, Catherine or any other variant. Like Mr Meltzer, who he references and relies upon, McCrery doesn’t seem to have done his homework by insisting on primary evidence. Although I emailed my detailed criticism of this invalid claim to a familial relationship to McCrery’s agent on 7th April 2021, requesting evidence for his assertion, answer was there none.
Dodgy Dogma
I DON'T DOUBT Meltzer met Kate Sharpley sometime in the late 1970’s and she recollected fragmentary tales of a half-remembered anarchist past. There’s usually a germ of truth in every story and it’s not clear who was the more guilty of over egging this particular pudding but Meltzer’s subsequent account is certainly more akin to anecdote than history. Through extensive research into primary evidence I believe I have identified the Kate Sharpley that Meltzer met and whose life he purports to describe but I’ve learned from experience that KSL prefers convenient myth to inconvenient truth.
It’s ironic that Meltzer’s autobiography claims “I Couldn’t Paint Golden Angels” for much of what now passes for “anarchist history” is little more than gilding applied to plaster saints. In claiming to chronicle anarchist history “FREEDOM"“Lib Com” and “KSL” all enforce ideological censorship with an absence of self-critical rigour.
ON 15th May 2006“Lib Com” published Meltzer’s account on its own website. Eleven years later it finally dawned on editor “Steven” that the account lacked evidence if not credibility. On 15th May 2017 “Steven” belatedly, and unsuccessfully, asked “Does anyone know any dates in her life, either when she was born, when she died, or the date of the medal-throwing incident?”
In conventional journalism, which is after all the first draft of history, it’s generally considered good practice to test the evidence before publishing the story but at Lib Com it’s apparently an afterthought and at KSL a revisionist tendency to be defiantly resisted.
Anarchist History or Jesuitical Dogma?
SO dear reader, KSL - “dedicated to researching and restoring the history of the anarchist movement” has had 43 years to come up with evidence to substantiate this tale it began promulgating in 1978. I challenge KSL and its acolytes to now stand this story up with independent evidence or otherwise accept their founding myth is as false and dishonourable as that of the Catholic Church.
WHY has it taken a Tory MP, Brendan Clarke-Smith to point out that the primary function of a union, in this case the National Education Union, is to defend its members? He was referring to the incident at Batley Grammar School where a teacher was suspended, then the school's headmaster seems to have made a grovelling apology and protesters are demanding his sacking of the teacher who it seems has offended their delicate sensibilities.
It should not be a problem to condemn it and say it is wrong. I would assume there is some political sensitivity and perhaps [the NEU] is reluctant to stick its neck out. Given that its primary function is to defend teachers, you would have thought it would be prepared to say that 'threats are unacceptable.'
The Daily Telegraph reports that the MP, a former religious studies teacher, also said "political sensitivity" should not stop the NEU from speaking out to defend one of its own members, adding: I think you should immediately condemn threats and intimidation and violence, wherever you are across the political divide.
The Evening Standard reports the Archbishop of Canterbury as saying; In other words, exercise your freedom of speech, but don’t prevent other people exercising their freedom of speech. How nice it would be to hear that from all our MPs.
Teachers must be wondering why they have bothered to pay their union subscriptions all these years.
I do not ask for the right to offend anyone, I do assert my right to ignore the claims of anyone who says they are offended.
Posted on National Secular Society website: Thu, 08 Apr 2021 by Bob Forder
Religious leaders have long feared irreverent drawings that could challenge their authority. We should remember that amid the latest effort to prevent the use of Muhammad cartoons, says Bob Forder.
In recent weeks there's been another furious response to the use of Muhammad cartoons – this time in an educational setting, at Batley Grammar School in Yorkshire.
There is nothing new about cartoons being used as a device to poke fun at the religious. They have been a contentious source of blasphemy prosecutions and allegations ever since technical developments enabled their mass print production.
An early example is Leo Taxil's 'La Bible Amusante', which satirised what Taxil regarded as biblical inconsistencies and absurdities. G.W. Foote latched onto the cartoons in this book when he founded The Freethinker in 1881. He would undoubtedly have been encouraged by efforts to have Taxil's book banned in this country. From the outset Foote republished some of the cartoons as 'Comic Bible Sketches', although they were supplemented by others. More than anything else it was cartoons that made The Freethinker notorious and the reason the newspaper was such an immediate success in terms of its circulation.
At the same time, the leading US freethought newspaper The Truthseeker was publishing Watson Heston's cartoons (example below), which satirised biblical passages and celebrated US secularism and secular heroes like Thomas Paine. These were later collected together in books such as 'The Bible Comically Illustrated' and 'The Freethinkers' Pictorial Textbook'. These caused quite a rumpus, although little is known about Watson Heston.
Both D.M. Bennett (who founded The Truthseeker) and Foote were clear about the purpose of their cartoons. They reasoned that if you laugh at priests or ministers you can't take them seriously and they therefore lose authority. He had a point – and the same could be said for imams as for priests. I think this accounts in large part for the furious response in Batley.
Foote was eventually prosecuted for blasphemy (partly for the special 1882 Christmas number of The Freethinker, which was a cartoonists' feast). I include a copy of the cartoon from the front page (see main image). Other contents included a cartoon strip "A new life of Christ" and a particularly contentious cartoon "Moses getting a back view" with a quotation from Exodus "And it shall come to pass that I will put thee in a clift of the rock, and I shall take away my hand, and thou shalt see my back parts". The cartoon features a rather startled Moses staring at a pair of well-filled check trousers with a tear in the rear. None of this has me rolling around with laughter, but I can understand the furious response provoked in 1882 – and Foote's courage in publishing them.
Foote got a year in Holloway Gaol and was widely regarded as a hero and martyr in National Secular Society circles. It was this that ensured he became president when Charles Bradlaugh – the NSS's founder – resigned in 1890.
The Charlie Hebdo cartoons were published for similar reasons and are part of the same tradition.
There is, however, a significant difference between now and then. Those who objected in the 19th century were largely part of an elite which held a privileged position in society as a whole, embodied and supported by the established church. In some ways those demanding retribution in Batley can be considered amongst the least privileged in society and, for them, this is an issue tightly linked to their ethnicity and sense of identity.
This makes the issue far more complex and helps explain the disappointing woolly thinking, platitudes and fudge about the need to engage and listen that has crept in amongst what might loosely be termed the liberal left. But those condoning the dangerous and over-hasty behaviour of the Batley Grammar School governors and management really need to think again.
Secularism is a fundamental liberal democratic principle. The strength and success of liberal democracy rests not only on principles such as fair elections but also on the assumption that the political system accommodates all religions and beliefs with equal respect and access, apart from those intent on its overthrow.
A failure to understand this, and the freedom of speech it entails, is the real threat to us all, particularly the less privileged. Freedom of speech must entail a right to offend, however regrettable this might seem.
Sadly, the array of religious and community leaders (some self-appointed) assembled outside Batley Grammar School purport to represent a less privileged community. But giving in will simply enhance and protect these leaders' own status and position within their community, at others' expense, and run the risk of that community becoming further isolated from society at large.
ON the first Easter Sunday we were together my wife rushed into the garden to tell me that the Pope was just about to give his address ‘Urbi et Orbi’, to the city and the world. I was baffled at her enthusiasm. Our mutual lack of understanding was because she had been brought up in the Roman Catholic tradition and I in the Anglican. It has not stopped us living in peace and harmony for 46 years. Nor has it meant that our ideas have remained fossilised in the past. But it’s a difference that had people imprisoned, tortured or burned at the stake 500 years ago.
The Reformation*, when Henry VIII broke with Rome and established himself as the head of the Anglican church, is seen by some as one of the most significant events in English history. But at this distance a more realistic appraisal is that it merely exchanged one form of intolerance for another; an insistence that one set of beliefs was the one true way, for another.
For the next 150 years the insistence that they, and they alone, knew the truth about how to worship their God drove those who happened to be in power at the time to impose their beliefs on the populace. Burning at the stake was in vogue during the reign of ‘Bloody Mary’, as she was called in my history book, but not that of my wife. During the heyday of Puritanism in the mid 17th century dancing and Christmas celebrations were forbidden, a bit like Jehovah’s Witnesses refusal to celebrate today, or the Taliban’s ban on pigeon flying.
And then it stopped; not all at once, not everywhere in the world, not even everywhere in Europe, but slowly this thing we call ‘The Enlightenment’ came into being. It wasn’t a single thing, but included a range of ideas centred on, sovereignty of reason, empirical investigation and the evidence of the senses as the primary sources of knowledge. It advanced ideals such as individual liberty, constitutional government, separation of religion and state, and toleration, including religious toleration. The countries where these conditions still do not exist are too well known for me to need to enumerate all of them; three will suffice, China, Iran and Saudi Arabia.
Although The Enlightenment has dethroned religion as the sole arbiter of truth and knowledge its ideals of individual liberty and of religious tolerance has ensured that those so inclined can hold and practice their beliefs without persecution by the state, and the state will act to ensure that they are able to do so. It is no coincidence that the Archbishop of Canterbury has said; ‘We have to speak freely, I’m much more towards the US end of the spectrum on freedom of speech than I am elsewhere towards the other end. I think we have to be open to hearing things we really dislike’.
Even if many of a religious persuasion do not, Welby is aware that his Anglican faith benefits from that ideal of tolerance which those of us who do not share his beliefs attempt to give meaning to. Tolerance of other peoples’ beliefs and their practice of them does not mean that they should be immune to critical analysis or criticism. I believe that any claims about the existence or non-existence of transcendental beings or deities have no meaning in the absence of any empirical test to determine their veracity. But it does not stop me defending the rights of Christians to express their views on God’s opinion on homosexuality, even though I think they are nonsense, or defending Asia Bibi against persecution in Pakistan.
In other words the freedom that the followers of Islam, including those who reside in Batley and are demanding that the teacher who did something they dislike should be sacked, have to practice their beliefs in this country rests firmly upon ideals of The Enlightenment. Insisting that we in the UK abandon those ideals and adopt their own stance of intolerance towards those whose views we disapprove of will not serve them well. Anyone for banning Halal slaughter?
Historians usually date the start of the Protestant Reformation to the 1517 publication of Martin Luther’s “95 Theses.” Its ending can be placed anywhere from the 1555 Peace of Augsburg, which allowed for the coexistence of Catholicism and Lutheranism in Germany, to the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia, which ended the Thirty Years’ War. The key ideas of the Reformation—a call to purify the church and a belief that the Bible, not tradition, should be the sole source of spiritual authority—were not themselves novel. However, Luther and the other reformers became the first to skillfully use the power of the printing press to give their ideas a wide audience.
A RECENT article in The Telegraph claimed that the Kirklees branch of the National Education Union (NEU) gave £3,000 to Purpose of Life, a charity based in West Yorkshire, which later published online the name of the teacher at the centre of the row at Batley Grammar School.
As well as accusing the teacher of 'terrorism' and 'insulting Islam', the group's chief executive, Mohammad Sajad Hussain, said that the charity would not work with the school again until the Religous Studies teacher is 'permanently removed'.
The Kirklees branch is, of course, the one ‘supporting’ the teacher through the disciplinary process initiated by the school. Quite why this NEU branch thought that this donation was an appropriate use of its members’ union fees is unclear.
IN Great Britain the common law offence of blasphemy was abolished in May 2008. Which suggest that the recent BBC News headline ‘Batley Grammar School: Blasphemy debate leaves town at crossroads’ is not simply misleading but mischievous. For more than 150 years before that it had been restricted to protecting the "tenets and beliefs of the Church of England". It has not been missed as the last case in which anyone went to jail was in 1922 when John William Gott was sentenced to nine months hard labour for comparing Jesus with a circus clown. There is no record of whether God thought this was necessary.
A late amendment to the Racial and Religious Hatred Act 2006 contained a clause which reads "Nothing in this Part shall be read or given effect in a way which prohibits or restricts discussion, criticism or expressions of antipathy, dislike, ridicule, insult or abuse of particular religions or the beliefs or practices of their adherents, or of any other belief system or the beliefs or practices of its adherents, or proselytising or urging adherents of a different religion or belief system to cease practising their religion or belief system."
The legislation has been attacked by a number of Muslims on the basis that it is too rigidly drawn, and that the scope of the offence of incitement to religious hatred is too narrow. The amendment noted above was inserted after campaigns by religious and secular groups, and comedians and satirists who were concerned that as originally drafted the act to hinder free speech.
In an Australian case brought by the Islamic Council of Victoria citing the Racial and Religious Tolerance Act 2001, which applies to public behaviour not personal beliefs, the outcome was a statement agreed to by both parties which affirmed everyone's rights to "robustly debate religion including the right to criticise the religious belief of another, in a free, open and democratic society".
In a nutshell the actions of the teacher in the Batley Grammar School case were not unlawful in the UK. Had the intension been to vilify Muslims rather than to discuss blasphemy it would have fallen within the scope of the act.
The protests outside Batley Grammar School are an attempt to introduce a new blasphemy law by stealth.
Editorial comment: Mark Birkett has responded with the comment below and has tried to spell out the problems with regard to the Batley Grammar School dispute over the teacher who displayed the cartoon of the Muslim Prophet in his class on religous studies. Some of the Muslim parents took exception to this and are calling for the teacher's dismissal by gathering outside the school to protest.
*******************
Mark Birkett's view on the question of 'Blasphemy' & Islam:
'Yes, that's right. I'm curious as to the genuine motives of those parents who have called for the sacking of the teacher. I think that was clear in my comment below. But if not I'm happy to clarify it.
'I've been an anti-racist all my life. But the problem we seem to have, with this sort of reaction by some Muslim parents living in Britain, or indeed the murderous persecution of so-called 'blasphemers' in places like Pakistan or Saudi Arabia - is that challenging the Islamic faith gets conflated with racism. The two are not even remotely one and the same thing. Providing the intellectual space and the intellectual tools for all children to discuss these issues meaningfully is a major challenge for our society. We cannot keep pretending otherwise.
'The reasons for it being a challenge are many. For instance, we all know very well that there are many on the far right who delight in provoking Asians simply because it suits their racist beliefs. And many in such racist groups cynically use wider revulsion at some of the worst aspects of Islam (including its appalling attitude to women, homosexuals and apostates) to further that sort of racist agenda.
'Unfortunately, there are just as many within the Muslim community who completely fail to see how bigoted their religion is. Islam is by no means the only bigoted religion of course (if in doubt, read the Old Testament and / or the more blood-curdling threats in 'Revelations') but it is (in my view) the most murderous of all three Abrahamic faiths. It's certainly the only one that calls for murder in the case of apostasy (thou shalt believe in Allah .. or else).
'The other oft-confused element in this quagmire is the false notion that there is such a thing as a 'Muslim' child. No child is 'born' a Muslim, nor Christian, nor Satanist. nor voodoo-ist ... nor any other religion or cult for that matter. They are just children, each of whom needs to be taught how to think, not what. Every child subjected to any religion presented to them as factually true is by definition being brainwashed. And teachers in our schools have an absolute duty to call a dead halt to that. They need to encourage children to question all such evidence-free thinking. To discenr the welcome aspects of religion (Thou Shalt Not Kill etc) from the wholly unwelcome (women are second to men etc). They need to be taught how to question and value satire too. And they need to be able to do so without fear that some idiot will decide that they need to be sacked for doing so (or far worse).
'Imagine if a teacher was suspended for discussing the impact Monty Python's 'Life of Brian' in a classroom? We'd see it as utterly absurd. Yet far too many seem to think Islam should have a free card here. It absolutely shouldn't. Satire is a vital part of a free democracy. It doesn't mean I think showing the (so-called) 'Prophet' with a bomb under his turban is in good taste. Nor am I blind to the fear that such cartoons might even encourage some children to grow up seeing all Muslims as terrorists. But that's the point. Discussion of these ideas, and the reactions that flow from them, is an essential part of every child's education. Far too many Muslim parents refuse to see that point.
'Muslims who think it's OK to threaten teachers who try to encourage pupils to think clearly about religions - including (I'd hope) getting to children to discuss the bigotry inherent in all of them - cannot claim sanctuary behind terms such as 'Islamophobia' - a term without the slightest moral or intellectual currency. All who live in this country - a nominally 'free democracy' - need to accept that satire (esp. in the form of cartoons) does not automatically equate to racism. Nor do they have the right to claim that 'blasphemy' has any place in a modern democracy either.
'It's very difficult to get these things right of course, and I'd never want to give the slightest succour or comfort to racists, but teachers being suspended for openly discussing the satirising of religion need to be protected and defended at all costs. If parents wish to silence such teachings, let alone perhaps pretend that the Charlie Hebdo murders were even remotely justified, then they truly don't belong in our free democracy. Those of us who can see the difference between these two approaches to discussing the role of religions need to be ultra-clear whose side we're on.'
THE petition in support of a suspended teacher who showed students a caricature of the Prophet Mohammed has passed more than 50,000 signatures.
The Batley Grammar School teacher had apologised after showing the cartoon, widely reported as taken from the French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo, during a religious studies lesson earlier this week.
He was suspended on Thursday pending an investigation.
The school, in Batley, near Bradford West Yorkshire is facing calls to reinstate the teacher after a petition in support of him reached more than 50,000 signatures in two days, hitting the figure just after 2.00am on Sunday.
Protesters gathered outside the school gates on Thursday and Friday, claiming the school has not taken the issue seriously.
AFZAL KHAN, MP for Gorton recently wrote, amongst other things, ‘Islamophobia is rooted in racism and is a type of racism that targets expressions of Muslimness or perceived Muslimness’ and ‘We have seen during this Covid 19 pandemic that people of Muslim heritage have been disproportionately affected.’
The latter statement is complete bunkum because there is no evidence to support it. Kahn’s use of the term ‘Muslim heritage’ is an attempt to give credence to his claim that the followers of Islam form a distinct racial group and should be treated as such. This claim will no doubt come as something of a surprise to all the people who would identify as being Muslims in Africa and China and the Middle East.
The latest research, published only today, indicates that Black people are about twice as likely to become infected as White people and Asian people about one a half times more likely. It provides no statistics and makes no comment about ‘Muslim Heritage’, and no doubt Black and Asian people whose heritage is that of Buddhism, Christianity or Judaism, share an increased susceptibility to infection.
It has been speculated, and it is only speculation not an established fact, that this increased susceptibility results from multi-generational family structures, the nature of their employment and higher prevalence of co-morbidities in these two groups. Equally plausible are that it results from genetic differences or differences in behaviour.
What Kahn is trying to do is claim exceptionalism for Muslims, something which no other religious group in this country has. Roman Catholicism is frequently subject to criticism due to its views on homosexuality, divorce, contraception and abortion. What would your reaction be if Roman Catholics insisted that such criticism is a form of ‘racism’?
IN November 2018, I wrote an article for Northern Voices with the title ‘The Silent Sisterhood’. It raised the question of why feminist politicians and journalists had so little to say about the plight of Asia Bibi, a poor Christian woman who had fallen foul of Pakistan’s draconian blasphemy laws, had spent eight years in jail, had finally been declared innocent by the Supreme Court, and was still being held in custody so that the court’s decision could be ‘reviewed’ as a sop to the mobs demanding that she be hanged.
As I pointed out at the time there has never been any shortage of white, affluent, western feminists ready to discover examples of ‘misogyny’. Just another case of selective outrage it would seem. Is it going to happen all over again with the Black Lives Matter supporters displaying their own unique brand of selective outrage?
On Tuesday a 22-year-old woman died of severe injuries in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh after being gang raped. The same day another 19-year-old woman died two weeks after she was gang-raped and strangled by upper caste men. Both were Dalits and in India's caste-based hierarchy Dalits are ranked the lowest and have been referred to as ‘untouchables’ in the past. Last month, a 13 year old Dalit girl was raped and murdered in the same state. Last year, two Dalit children were allegedly beaten to death after defecating in the open.
As with religious minorities in Pakistan where Christians like Asia Bibi are persecuted and young Hindu women forcibly converted to Islam before being married to older men, India’s caste system is structural discrimination because although in both cases technically illegal, it is built into the fabric of those societies.
Concern is expressed about Facebook, Instagram and Twitter becoming echo chambers reinforcing the existing attitudes and prejudices of their users. We hear nothing about how the choice of issues by the mainstream media determines what is ‘news’ and what is not; what causes outrage and what does not. We all know and can remember the name of George Floyd because his murder has been extensively covered in the press and on television. Unlike the USA, India and Pakistan are not part of the affluent West where ‘people are just like us’ and those of us who happen to have been born with a white skin can be made to feel guilty about events which happened a long time ago and in which we played no part.
Will anyone be asked if they will ‘take a knee’ in memory of these two young Dalit women; will some ‘Royal’ chip in his four penn’orth? I doubt it; selective outrage is the order of the day!
BIRCHFIELDindependent girls school in the Aston area of Birmingham is about to
mount a legal challenge against Ofsted. The school was rated
‘inadequate’ after the inspectors found a 1994 leaflet relating
to an Islamic conference in the library. According to the inspectors
the leaflet read ‘Today we find that the sons and daughters of
Islam are under continuous attack by the forces of non-Islam’.
It also promoted the khaleefah which the inspectors seemed to
believe is defined as ‘the total rulership of Muslims
over the world’.
This
definition is rather strange and does no correspond with my
understanding of its meaning, which I take to be leader of the
Caliphate.Used in this way it seems to me
purely descriptive.
However
in the not too distant past a related word was used as the title of a
pernicious monthly magazine ‘Khilafah’which itself seems to mean
‘Caliphate’. For a
couple of years around 2001-2002
I bought it regularly in a
local ‘asian’
supermarket in Rochdale
and I still have some copies.
I describe it as pernicious because of its content. What
has always puzzled me is why if
magazines like this were busy
promoting an alienation of
Muslims from institutions like democracy,
the attacks in September 2001 seemed to come as a surprise to
everyone. Hidden in plain
sight perhaps?
LAST
Evening a lady I’ll call ‘Dot’, who is
approaching the age of 70 and my wife’s oldest friend, sent a text
to tell her that she, Dot, would no longer be able to take communion
at her church.
You
see Dot is a Roman Catholic who is divorced and not wishing to spend
the rest of her life alone has remarried. Someone snitched to the
priest, who passed it up the management hierarchy and was given the
answer that Dot could no longer take communion. This may not be a big
deal for most NV readers, but for Dot it is devastating.
Taking
a dim view of what some people get up to in the privacy of their
bedroom is not confined to to the Roman Catholic church. The parsons
at the two Anglican churches nearest to where I live differed in the
views about re-marrying divorced people. One would, the other would
not. No doubt there are individual Christians who also take a dim
view of remarriage.
There’s
a lesson to be learned here by those who self identify with the LGBT
‘community’ and it’s ever expanding label set, and who are
tempted to wrap themselves in the robes of victimhood whenever some
prelate or zealot expresses a dim view of their lifestyle. They
might like to take note that they are not special at all. It happens
to so called ‘straight’ people too. I estimate that the number of
divorced people who have ended up feeling like second class humans by
the rules about remarriage exceeds by several orders of magnitude the
number of LGBT (etc) who have suffered more than hurt feelings at the
hands of Christians.
One
thing I think we can say with some certainty is that people like Dot
are never going to maliciously approach a cake making company run by
people who think remarriage is wrong and insist that they make a
wedding cake.
IN
a former life I was responsible for the science programme taught in
the first two years of secondary school. At the end of the first
year, when the children were already or almost twelve years old,
there was a module on sexual reproduction which dealt with plants,
fish, frogs, birds and mammals, which of course included humans. In
other words it was ‘sex education’ and not ‘relationship
education’, or as some might prefer to say, about procreation
not recreation.
More
than 3000 youngsters followed this programme and to the best of my
knowledge there were no complaints from parents. At least some of
the parents were of a religious persuasion, including Jehovah’s
Witnesses, Baptists, URC and Anglican. I
cannot be sure of course, but I think the reason was that the topic
was considered entirely appropriate for children of that age.
Esther
McVey, who sees herself as Tory Prime Minister material, has
suggested that parents should have full control to determine what is
‘age appropriate’and
be allowed to remove children from relationship and sex education
classes until they are 16 years old. This
is against a background of months of protest by parents at a
Birmingham primary
school which teacheswhat it calls LGBT-inclusive
relationship lessons. Predictably McVey
has been accused of being ‘homophobic’.
This
is just another example of the ‘alphabet
soup’
tail trying to wag the dog. What McVey
is suggesting would apply equally well to lessons about heterosexual
activities.
Words
like transphobic and homophobic are thrown around with the same gay
abandon as the words racist, fascist and nazi. In
both cases it
is
a form of intellectual laziness used by those determined
to avoid having to engage
in rational
discussion.
Are
relationship lessons, LGBT-inclusive or not, age
appropriate
for primary school children? Discuss!
A WEEK or so ago Imran Khan, Prime Minister of Pakistan said that his
government was spearheading
efforts to get countries to sign upto
an‘International
Convention on Preventing the Defamation of Religions’.
Given
that
he is the head of a country which has perhaps the vaguest and most
draconian blasphemy laws in the world, this is not good news.
The
depth of Pakistan’s
commitment to religions other than Islam can perhaps best be judged
from the fact that in May the Punjab assembly passed legislation with
the title Compulsory
Teaching of the Holy Qur’an Bill,
which makes it mandatory for children to learn the Muslim religious
text in schools. The
bill incudes the passage ‘Being
an Islamic country, the free and the compulsory teaching of Holy
Qur’an will definitely be a source of the establishment of a
society based on the teachings of Islam’.
No
alternative programme has been announced for non-Muslim students of
Punjab.
Khan’s
real intention seems to be to protect
both religious and political Islam from criticism
in an effort to maintain peace in his country where rioters have
taken to the streets to demand that a Christian
woman, Asia
Bibi,
be hanged for blasphemy.
The
notion that his words ‘There
were prophets of Allah other [than Muhammad], but there is no mention
of them in human history. There is negligible mention of them. Moses
is mentioned, but there is no mention of Jesus in history. But the
entire life of Muhammad, who was Allah's last prophet, is part of
history.’might
be offensive to Christians and
indeed to anyone who, to
paraphrase Tom Paine, ‘refuses
to have their lives willed away by the manuscript authority of the
dead’,
does not seem to have occurred to him. (If
you are
offended you’ll
just have to do
as I have had to do, ‘get
over it’.)
Modern
scholarship has a different view of the origins of Islam which throws
doubt on Khan’s claim that Muhammad is ‘part of history’. This
is what Amazon has to say about the book The
Hidden Origins of Islam: New Research into Its Early History;
Despite
Muhammad's exalted place in Islam, even today there is still
surprisingly
little actually known about this shadowy figure and the origins of
the Qur'an because of an astounding lack of verifiable biographical
material. Furthermore, most of the existing biographical traditions
that can be used to substantiate the life of Muhammad date to nearly
two centuries after his death, a time when a powerful, expansive, and
idealized empire had become synonymous with his name and vision -
thus resulting in an exaggerated and often artificial
characterization of the prophetic figure coupled with many
questionable interpretations of the holy book of Islam.
On
the basis of datable and localizable artifacts from the seventh and
eighth centuries of the Christian era, many of the historical
developments, misconceptions, and fallacies of Islam can now be seen
in a different light. Excavated coins that predate Islam and the old
inscription in the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem utilize symbols used
in a documented Syrian Arabic theology - a theology with Christian
roots.
Interpreting traditional contexts of historical
evidence and rereading passages of the Qur'an, the researchers in
this thought-provoking volume unveil a surprising - and highly
unconventional - picture of the very foundations of Islamic religious
history.
This
book would undoubtedly fall foul of any international convention
which enacted what Imran Khan is proposing, because
it strikes at the beliefs of many Muslims, by
questioning the
origin of their faith.
That
would mean that the authors and the publishers would be liable to
prosecution. The
answer is not to ban it, but to provide the evidence that it’s
conclusions are wrong.
Sadly
Khan is only takIng to its logical conclusion a trend which is
already well established in the West. Increasingly we have people
trying to grab the moral high ground by claiming that something they
read or hear, and do not like, is racist, anti-semitic,
islamo-phobic, mysoginistic, trans-phobic, homo-phobic, patriarchal
or in the latest catch all phrase, ‘hate speech’, and should not
be said.
These
terms have become the first response of people who seem to think they
have the right never to be offended, but are seemingly unwilling to
engage in any kind of debate which might change their perceptions.
It
is not just ‘activist’ groups which behave like this, it is the
default position of many columnists in the mainstream press.
ACCORDING
to 'Pakistan Today(PT)',Imran Khan, the
Prime Minister of Pakistan, said at a
conference a few days
ago, “Moses got
some mention, but Jesus Christ has no mention in history”,
which may not be the most
tactful thing to say in a
country where mobs wander the streets demanding that Asia
Bibi, who is a
Christian, should be hanged for blasphemy even though the countrie’s
Supreme Court has declared her innocent.
Perhaps
a little ‘tongue in cheek’PT
went on to say:
‘It
merits a mention here that the two-day conference titled, "Finality
of Prophethood and responsibilities of Muslims in light of the
teachings of the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH)", is the 43rd conference
aimed at promoting religious harmony, tolerance, brotherhood and
equality, respect for humanity, non-violence, unity, reconciliation
and culture of dialogue’
What
PT
did not mention was that according
to the 'Times of Israel', ImranKhan has also
called for an
international convention banning speech deemed insulting to Muslims.
What
Khan is saying here is
that the price for civil peace in Pakistan is our
freedom of speech. The
people who have rioted and are demanding that Asia
Bibi be hanged are by
any reasonable measure on the extreme right wing politically. They
make Tommy Robinson and his ilk look like babes in arms. Yet
the Asia Bibi
case has been largely ignored by the Left which seems more interested
in building up Robinson’s profile.
One
blog which claims to be ‘of
liberal stance and independent mind’has
had a story about Robinson ever day this week, but has not found time
to campaign on behalf of a woman who spent eight years in a cell with
a death sentence hanging over her.
So
far Robinson has not spotted the political capital to be made out of
the Bibi case. If he ever does he’ll find that the Left has been
too busy burnishing its anti-racist credentials to make any credible
response to why it has not taken up the case for Asia
Bibi and her family
being offered asylum in the UK.
There
is an alternative perspective on the Bibi story here;
A
panel of five judges sitting as the Supreme Court
yesterday gave a ruling which reinforces our right to free speech and
ensures that we cannot be forced to express views that we disagree
with.
The
case revolved around a case where a Gareth Lee had placed an order
for a cake decorated with the words ‘Support Gay Marriage’.
The owners of the bakery, Daniel and Amy McArthur declined the order
because as Christians they were being expected to express a view that
they disagreed with.
Lee
argued that they were discriminating against him because he is a
homosexual. Two lower courts accepted this argument but the Supreme
Court did not.
The
president of the Court Lady Hale said:
‘It
is deeply humiliating to deny someone a service because of that
person’s race, gender, disability, sexual orientation, religion or
belief’.
‘But
that is not what happened in this case. As to Mr Lee’s claim based
on sexual discrimination, the bakers did not refuse to fulfil his
order because of his sexual orientation’.
The
court accepted the argument of the McArthur’s lawyer that forcing
them to bake the cake would be forcing them to go against their
religious beliefs.
Commenting
on this ruling the chairman of the Equality and Human Rights
Commission said:
‘Freedom
of expression – including the right not to express a view – and
freedom of belief are rightfully protected in a democratic society
and this case demonstrates the need for a more nuanced debate about
how we balance competing rights’.
Lee was trying to use the Courts
to force the McArthur’s to accept his view of the world. It was
the action of a bully. His mistake was to argue that the couple were
being ‘homophobic’ when they simply had a different view about
the world. A view to which he took exception.
But as I have argued in another
publication Lee’s approach is far from uncommon.
Increasingly we see people who
express a view which the listener or reader does not like being
labelled as antisemitic, homophobic, islamophobic, mysoginistic or
some similar pejorative epithet.
The courts ruling means that
provided we do not discriminate against someone because of what they
ARE, we will not find ourselves in court for expressing our dissent
from the views they hold. Mr Lee should be happy about this. He can
criticise the views about homosexuality held by some Christians to
his heart’s content safe in the knowledge that he will not find
himself in court for being Christianophobic.
I should say that I have always
been a bit puzzled how some Christians know what God
thinks about homosexuals as to the best of my knowledge he has never
written an autobiography. Perhaps they have just read the wrong sort
of biographies..
JACOB Reese-Mogg sprang to the defence of the Class War anarchists around the ancient activist Ian Bone, who were busy querying the wages and working conditions of Reese-Mogg's kid's Nanny.
Others súch as the Archbishop of Canterbury, strongly criticised the stunt tweeting:
'This is appalling. There are plenty of ways you can tell MPs you disagree
with them. But targeting their children is shameful and disgraceful. We
are – and must be – better than this. We'll be praying for @Jacob_Rees_Mogg’s family at @lambethpalace chapel this evening.'
Yet Mr Rees-Mogg* told LBC: 'I wouldn't get too excited about it.'
He added: 'It was a few anarchists who turned up and it wasn't very well organised. It wasn't terribly serious. 'We
are a free country. They weren't violent. They aren't admirers of mine.
I am in public life and not everybody is going to like me. That is a
reality of public life. 'I'd have preferred it if it hadn't
happened but I don't want to get it out of perspective. I think much
worse things happen to many other people.'
What is ironic about this noble defence of the right to protest and free speech by the Tory MP Mr. Reese-Mogg, is that the Left has been much less tolerant. For example in 2012 at the London Anarchist Bookfair, a number of members of the then Anarchist Federation led bizarrely by the former Oldham teacher, Sally Hyman, raided the Northern Anarchist Network bookstall and stole some books *, a month later a man with Jewish ancestors was accused of being an anti-semite and pushed out of another anarchist bookfair in Manchester, and more recently at last year's London Anarchist bookfair a woman famous for her part in a campaign against McDonald's burger chain was attacked by a so called tribe of transsexuals for defending free speech, since then the bookfair organisers have cancelled future bookfairs.
* Jacob Rees-Mogg is the son of William Rees-Mogg, who edited the London Times in the 1960s, when the anarchists were very active and influential in the peace movement. In his editorials at that time he had many thoughtful things to say about the anarchists.
Manchester & Moscow Monuments: From Engels to Lt. Gen. Mikhail T. Kalashnikov, designer of the AK-47
WITHIN two months of each other two statues have been unveiled,; one in Manchester of Fredrich Engels, and the other in Moscow of General Mikhail Timofeyevich Kalashnikov.
At the unveiling of the Engels statue event on the 16th, July, at the NCP Bridgewater Hall Car Park, with the statue being placed in Tony Wilson Place near HOME in Manchester, Salford Trades Council ended up walking out when they found they were confronted by Showsec Security, an 'anti-trade union body'.
The statue originally situated in Maryanivka, Ukraine, 12 feet tall, had been cut in half and dumped. But on May
15, the halves were hauled onto a truck and sent on their way to
Manchester. On its travels through Europe, captured on film, the truck
stopped in Engels’s birthplace, Barmen, now part of the city of
Wuppertal in northwestern Germany.
The Engels resurrection in Manchester, where he conducted research on the
working class in the 1840s, is thanks to Phil Collins — the acclaimed
artist who has made Engels the centrepiece of his most recent project, 'Ceremony'.
Meanwhile, less than two months later on the towering monument to Lt. Gen. Mikhail T. Kalashnikov, designer of the AK-47, the Soviet rifle that has become the world’s most widespread assault weapon, was unveiled on Tuesday in the middle of one of central Moscow’s busiest thoroughfares.
The
ceremony took place to the sounds of Russian military folk music, the
Soviet anthem, Orthodox prayers and words about how his creation had
ensured Russia’s safety and peace in the world.
While the Manchester monument was financed in part by Manchester City Council controlled by the Labour Party,the
Moscow monument to Kalashnikov was financed in part by Rostec, the Russian state-owned
corporation that owns the Kalashnikov Concern, the weapons manufacturer
in Izhevsk where General Kalashnikov worked for decades (and which was
renamed for him in 2013).
Sergey
V. Chemezov, the chief executive of Rostec, who reportedly became close
to Mr. Putin in Germany in the 1980s when Mr. Putin worked for the
K.G.B., praised General Kalashnikov as an “example of unwavering
devotion to one’s profession and one’s motherland” that should serve as
“an example to our younger generation.”
The 'New York Times' reported that the General Kalashnikov’s legacy at the event was also cast in religious terms, in line with the Russian government’s depiction of itself as a protector of the Orthodox Church and of Christianity more broadly.
General Kalashnikov in 2007 with a prototype of his AK-47.Credit
Misha Japaridze/Associated Press
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