Month: December 2004

  • Return of the Repressed

    It’s back, as the saying goes. The incitement to religious hatred law.

    The bill extends the offence of incitement to racial hatred, under the Public Order Act 1988, to religious hatred, so that multi-ethnic faith groups are covered, as Sikhs and Jews are at the moment. Sadiq Khan, a spokesman for the Muslim Council of Britain, said the bill closed a loophole which meant those who incite hatred against Christians and Muslims could not be prosecuted. “The law will not mean that comedians like Rowan Atkinson cannot take the piss out of religion,” he added.

    Well why not? How do you know? How do I know? How do comedians like Rowan Atkinson, and bloggers like OB and journalists like Christopher Hitchens and science popularisers like Richard Dawkins and philosophy popularisers like A C Grayling and secularism popularisers like Ibn Warraq and Maryam Namazie and Azam Kamguian – how do any of us know? We don’t. That’s just it. We don’t know at all, and some spokesman just saying so doesn’t help. Sadiq Khan doesn’t know what sort of prosecutions would be brought under such a law, does he. How could he know? So where does he get the calm assurance of that assertion? Who knows.

    And that word ‘loophole’ is deceptive, too. Loophole shmoophole. One might as well say a new law against incitement to political hatred ‘closes a loophole’ which means that those who incite hatred against socialists and libertarians cannot be prosecuted. It’s not a ‘loophole,’ it’s the essence of the thing. Just as it’s not a ‘technicality’ to say that the police can’t extort confessions by torture, so it’s not a ‘loophole’ to say that ideas must not be protected from criticism by threats of prosecution and imprisonment. In fact this new law would not so much close a loophole as create an absurdity, as Rowan Atkinson points out:

    And a law that attempts to say you can criticise or ridicule ideas, as long as they are not religious ideas, is a very peculiar law indeed.

    There is nothing very reassuring in the explanatory notes that accompany the bill:

    Explanatory notes accompanying the Bill say the offence would apply ”to the use of words or behaviour or display of written material, publishing or distributing written material, the public performance of a play, distributing, showing or playing a recording, broadcasting or including a programme in a programme service and the possession of written materials or recordings with a view to display, publication, distribution or inclusion in a programme service”. They add: ”For each offence the words, behaviour, written material, recordings or programmes must be threatening, abusive or insulting and intended or likely to stir up racial hatred.”

    Must be threatening, abusive or insulting. Oh well that’s all right then! Because it’s well-known how calm and equable religious believers always are when non-believers challenge their beliefs. Believers will never see an ‘insult’ where other observers might see simply a difference of opinion. Oh hell no. And all those corpses littering the landscape, all those death threats, all those politicians under police protection, all those novelists and journalists who have gone into hiding – that’s just – um – a misunderstanding, which will never happen once this splendid law is in place and nobody is allowed to insult religion any more. Excellent.

  • Homa Arjomand Interview

    For those of you who can get Ontario TV – Homa Arjomand of the campaign against Sharia courts in Canada is going to be on the interview show Person2Person today at 8:30 p.m. (20:30) Ontario time. The show repeats at midnight, then again tomorrow Wednesday at 3 p.m. (15:00).

  • Well Done, Bladders

    Rowan Atkinson and others criticise religious hatred clause.

  • Wot’s Proactive Translatology?

    Discoursal practice implies social commitment. Etc. [link fixed]

  • Were Enlightenment Deists Paper Tigers?

    Was deism a mere bogey invented by bishops to frighten waverers?

  • New Offense of ‘Inciting Religious Hatred’

    Via words that are abusive, insulting, likely to stir up racial hatred.

  • When Diversity Meets Islamism

    And when tolerance meets violence against women.

  • Yet More Words

    I’ve been thinking about one particular idea in the argument over that recurring (or ‘really tedious’) subject of the conflation of race and religion and how that conflation works to head off and prevent criticism. This idea:

    whilst attacks on religions can be merely the stuff of enlightenment rationalism, they can also be the cover for nasty attempts to marginalise whole groups of people.

    Well, yes, they can be, but then ‘attacks on’ or criticisms of pretty much anything can be that. Including, for example, attacks on atheism and secularism. I would in fact say that there is a concerted effort under way in the US right now to do just exactly that – to criticise or attack atheism and secularism in an attempt to marginalise atheists and secularists. And I would also say that it’s having considerable success.

    In fact, surely one could argue that that’s one of the things religions have historically been most concerned to do: to marginalise people who don’t buy what they’re selling. Some religions and a lot of religious people have over time become much less keen to do that, but it’s obvious enough that in some parts of the world (including the US) that trend has been halted and turned around. That’s not a big secret, is it? Isn’t it pretty familar stuff, that that’s what religions do? Create ingroups and outgroups, Us and Them, Our Team and Other? The outgroup may be atheists, but it may just as well be other religions. (No! Really?) Sunnis and Shi’ites, Protestants and Catholics, Greek Orthodox and Catholic and Muslim, Hindu and Muslim – and on and on. They don’t always just calmly agree to differ and go their separate ways, do they. It would be nice if they did but they don’t. So where is the force in making some special claim that attacks on/criticism of religion or religions are peculiar that way?Surely that idea is in fact part of what inspired and motivated ‘enlightenment rationalism.’ Isn’t it? Enlightement rationalism isn’t just some whim, a hobby, something to do of an evening, a ‘lifestyle’ choice. There are compelling reasons for preferring rational thought to the certainties of faith, and the marginalisation of ‘whole groups of people’ is emphatically one of them.

    And then, religions also marginalise whole groups of people internally, within the religion. That’s one thing religions are: codified systems for marginalising and subordinating large groups of people. For instance, half of the people in question: all the women and girls.

    Which is not to deny the point. Yes, criticising religion does run the risk of diminishing the general respect for followers of that religion. But then, again, that’s true of any system of ideas. But the problem is more obvious in the case of Islam, because Muslims are the targets of hatred now, they are being marginalised. True. And therefore criticism should be carefully stated. But it shouldn’t be discouraged or, well, marginalised.

  • ‘The Delusional is no Longer Marginal’

    Bill Moyers on the environment and the ‘rapture index.’

  • Death Threats Against Mimount Bousakla

    Socialist senator Mimount Bousakla in Belgium under police protection after death threats.

  • Between Right-wing Extremists and Islamic Fundamentalists

    ‘If you are a girl…It is always fear and fear and fear.’

  • Forthright Editorial on Prevention of Female Sport

    Bangladesh Independent rebukes ‘a few bigoted elements.’ [scroll down]

  • Women Kept Out of Sport by Islamic Group

    Another victory for the confinement and frustration of women.

  • Critical Whiteness Studies – the Introduction

    High ratio of words to anything said. Repetition augments word count.

  • Researcher Removes Name From Prayer Study

    Specialist takes name off controversial study of prayer’s effect on fertility.

  • George Kateb on Courage as Virtue

    War, fear, shame; delight in seeing, comradeship, destruction.

  • Alan Ryan on Intellectual Courage

    Aristotle, self-reliance, Hobbes, the problem of certainty.

  • High redefinition

    “I am not a drink driver: it just happened to be a one-off.”
    Celebrity chef Keith Floyd, Daily Telegraph, 24 November 2004

    Marion had never sung before in her life. Then one day at a pub karaoke, she bravely took to the stage, belted her lungs out and received an enthusiastic response from a crowd numbed from endless bad Celine Dion impressions. “You’re a great singer,” said one of the punters. Marion replied, “I’m not a singer; it just happened to be a one-off.”

    Geoff was one of the impressed drinkers. When he got home to the wife he hated, he found her dunk and singing “My Heart Will Go On” in precisely the kind of way that makes you actually admire Dion’s vocal artistry. For him it was the final straw. He grabbed a kitchen knife and killed her. In court, he said, “I’m not a murderer; it just happened to be a one-off.”

    How many times do you need to do something to be classified as a doer of it? Too be a singer, writer, painter or actor, for example, you need to have done more than once sung, written, painted or acted. But if you murder, conquer, discover or visit just once, you are a murderer, conqueror, discoverer or visitor.

    The rules vary from activity to activity and cannot be completely formalised. Consider what it means to be a winner. Sometimes, one win is enough. The England football team is a world cup winner, in virtue of a sole victory back in 1966. In other contexts, however, we use the term winner to describe someone who has a capacity to repeatedly win. Often, which context applies will be unclear.

    Of course, so much of language is like this. The precise meanings of words can vary. Sometimes we exploit this in order to put a more favourable gloss on events. This is surely what happened in the case of Keith Floyd. Floyd was convicted for driving three and half times over the legal alcohol limit. The result was a head-on collision in a narrow country lane. Luckily, no one suffered more than minor injuries.

    Does that make Floyd a drink-driver? That depends on whether the sobriquet is more like “murderer” or “singer”. Context does mean that there is some latitude of usage here, but surely, in general, “drink-driver” is more like “murderer” (linguistically, not morally, of course). If someone if found guilty of drink-driving only once, they are described as a “convicted drunk-driver”.

    However, despite confessing he felt “ashamed” and “mortified”, Floyd did not seem willing to accept this. He didn’t want to be known as a drunk-driver. Thus he shifted the meaning of the term so that it becomes narrower. So narrow, in fact, that it no longer applied to him.

    This move is called high redefinition and it’s a common way of making credible denial possible. Perhaps the most common example is when people deny that they have deceived anyone. Normally, this works by focusing on the requirement that deception requires intent. Then intent is defined so narrowly that even in a case where it could easily be foreseen that a misunderstanding would arise and the person did nothing to prevent it, deception is denied because that was not the clear, sole and specific aim of the person accused.

    High redefinition is the sibling bad move to low redefinition, the subject of a previous column. In our karaoke case, if Marion had come out of the pub claiming to be a singer, she would have been guilty of that move: broadening, rather than narrowing, the scope of a term so that it applies to the case you want it to.

    The point about both high and low redefinition is that they exploit the genuine elasticity and imprecision of language for self-serving purposes. Often, a case could be made for using the words in the broadened or narrow sense. What is always objectionable and sometimes sly is when this change of scope is accompanied by the pretence is that the terms are being used in their ordinary senses. We are free to stretch the meanings of words if we have good reason. But we should not do so covertly and without good reason.

  • Only Be Sure Always to Call it Please ‘Research’

    Ever read any books about angels? No? No, I hadn’t either, but I’ve read bits of one now, and I must say, if you’re looking for a good laugh, books about angels (if this one is anything to go by, at least) are pretty damn funny. Books about Wicca are quite mirth-inducing, too.

    With the angel book, I keep opening it at random, and the first thing I read is so absurd I find myself cackling before I’ve read ten words. I’m beginning to think that every single line of the book is packed full of unintentional humour. Shall I give you a taste? These are just random, mind – I haven’t actually searched out the most risible stuff.

    The first one actually isn’t entirely funny, but the basic failure to connect the dots that underlies it, is.

    At the time of 9/11, there were many stories of people seeing angels, which of course shows that God sent his legions of blessed angels to escort those dearest of souls to the Other Side and to bring the rest of us a message of hope.

    Oh dear kind sweet thoughtful God, sending his blessed angels. Um – why didn’t he just send his blessed angels to stop the God-lovers in the airplanes? Or stop them himself? Because he has a Purpose, which is Inscrutable to us mere mortals. Okay, but in that case, we don’t know anything about it, do we, so why make factual statements of that kind? Because it’s fun, obviously. But the idea behind it – well really. So – little Kevin likes to torture small animals to death, and then when he’s done it he sends blessed angels to escort the souls of his victims to the Other Side. Do we think well of little Kevin? Dear Violet likes to set fire to people’s houses in the middle of the night and watch while the residents are immolated, then in the morning she sends her blessed angels to smooth their way to the Other Side (where, who knows, what greets them may be serried ranks of Kevins and Violets, all grinning fiendishly). In other words, how people can unite the idea of a kind helpful deity sending angels with one who just got through allowing a slow-motion mass murder to happen in the first place, is simply…beyond my humble understanding.

    The very next bit:

    The Archangels can heal, and they can carry messages, and they can do one more thing as well. They can take us out of our bodies and take us away on an astral trip. To go on an astral trip…we can call on the Archangels to help us, because these messengers can be the ones who come forward and whisk us right up.

    Oh! I didn’t know that. Dang, silly me, I just wasted all that money on a plane ticket. I didn’t know one could just call on an Archangel instead. Okay, I see – so if one wants to take a plane one visits Expedia or some such, and if one wants to take an astral trip, one calls an Archangel. Got it. Next time I’ll know.

    Another bit, under the heading Angels: Fact and Fiction:

    Before we go any further, let’s clear up a few myths about angels. Since we’ve spent so much time talking about what angels are, it’s equally important to go over what they are not.

    First of all, contrary to belief, there are no dark angels.

    Oh. You know, you’ll hardly believe me, but there’s no footnote for that statement. In fact there are no footnotes in the whole book. Nor is there an index, nor a bibliography. So one’s strong curiosity to know exactly how Sylvia Browne (for it is she) knows this, is doomed to remain unsatisfied. No doubt she has stacks of scholarly references, or perhaps notes of her extensive experimentation and research, but her citation method is a little primitive. Which is to say she left it out entirely. Odd that an angel didn’t remind her. Well, I say ‘entirely’ – but to be fair there is a kind of blanket citation at the beginning, in the ‘Author’s Note.’ She has a guide named Raheim, ‘from India’ (well of course – where would he be from, Trenton N.J.?), and another named Iena, an Aztec-Inca woman (another no-show for the Trentonians), and the two of them have ‘conveyed countless hours of information’ to her. So consider that one big mega-meta-footnote for all factual statements. Astral trips, no dark angels[1]

    [1] Iena, Raheim

    Kind of pedantic, isn’t it.

  • Mbeki Lashes Out at Tutu

    Personal attack on Tutu, an icon second only to Mandela, showed how hostile to criticism Mbeki has become.