Not Again
I said I wanted to make a noise about the Fallaci matter – but perhaps there’s no point. You know perfectly well what I’m going to say. And what else is there to say? But – well, but tiny water drops can wear away a stone, or something, so we might as well keep making a noise even if it is a predictable noise.
Controversial Italian journalist Oriana Fallaci is to face trial for allegedly insulting the Muslim faith in her latest book, a court in Italy says…Italian preliminary investigative judge Armando Grasso ordered the formulation of charges against the author, saying the book had expressions which were “unequivocally offensive to Islam”.
Okay. It’s all too obvious, but I’ll say it anyway. So what? So what if the book does have expressions which are ‘offensive to Islam’? What does that even mean anyway? Is Islam a person, can Islam be offended? And even if it did mean something, so what. Substitute a wide variety of other abstract nouns for ‘Islam’ in that sentence and see how absurd it sounds. The book has expressions which are offensive to: Socialism, libertarianism, psychology, stamp-collecting, bird-watching, football, sculpture, hairdressing, fashion, advertising, public relations, political science, marketing, philosophy, science fiction. If some blank-eyed buttonholer on the street offered you that sentence you would shrug and walk on; if a judge offered it you would assume you were sound asleep and having a surrealistic dream.
Expressions that are offensive to someone or other are what books have. That’s just how it is. Unless they’re books of train timetables, or telephone numbers, or possibly recipes (though that’s tricky), then they will inevitably have expressions that not everyone will agree with, and therefore can be construed by the chronically indignant as ‘offensive.’ What’s the alternative? That all books should contain nothing but sentences of the formula ‘___ is good’? Would you want to read such a book? Would you want to live in such a mind, would you want to talk to anyone in such a world? No. Not unless you’re a pod you wouldn’t.
Stefania Prestigiacomo, Italy’s Minister for Equal Opportunity, has it right.
Our country is becoming a disquieting one if freedom of speech can be condemned or punished. Reading that someone wants to try Oriana Fallaci because of her ideas makes me think of a sort of lay ‘fatwa’, such as the one which has been forcing Salman Rushdie to hide for years now. Are we really reaching the stage where Ms Fallaci’s ideas are to be considered illegal?
Let’s hope not. Let’s really earnestly hope that we’re all not reaching the stage where criticism of Islam or any religion is to be considered illegal and hauled into court. But who knows. I’m not a bit sure some people who ought to mind the idea, would mind the idea. I heard Lisa Jardine on Start the Week last week rebuke Andrew Marr – ‘there was a note in your voice,’ she told him sharply – for suggesting that there could be anything about Islam in particular that was in tension with democracy. It is Forbidden to say that, Jardine told the world. It is simply Not Permissable to criticise Islam specifically, to say that Islam has its own particular faults that are different from the faults of the other monotheisms. Well – that’s an incredibly stupid thing to say. Lisa Jardine isn’t stupid, but that’s a stupid thing to say. Why is it ruled out in advance that Islam has no faults of its own? For political reasons, obviously. Well-meaning ones, no doubt – to try to shield Muslims from hatred – but epistemically absurd. And the Jardine move is pretty much the same as the Grasso move, and it all amounts to: It is Strictly Forbidden to Criticise Islam. Period.
Can we have a referendum on that first? The AUT got to vote, the American Anthropological Association voted on the Darkness at El Dorado referendum; can we vote on this No Criticism Allowed rule before it goes into effect? Mind you, maybe it would pass. If so, whole libraries are for the bonfire.
Expressions that are offensive to someone or other are what books have. That’s just how it is. Unless they’re books of train timetables, or telephone numbers, or possibly recipes (though that’s tricky),
Oh, you betcha recipes are tricky! Food excites some people almost as much as religion, or politics. If you want to see some perfectly nice people get riled beyond all reasonable bounds, walk into a room full of foodies and say something like, say, “Semolina, schmemolina. Pasta is pasta.”
(Snippet from a former food critic…)
:-)
Ha! Yeah – I knew as I typed the words that I was going to have to qualify that one.
Well hey! Fine! Let’s just start suing cookbook writers who offend us. I’d be quite happy to sue people who put sugar in everything (everything meaning chili, pasta sauce, salad dressing – everything). Where do I sign up? I’m offended! I want my rights! No peace, no justice.
G – Haven’t you got that arse-upwards?
Shouldn’t it be “Pasta, schmasta –
semolina is semolina.”?
http://www.nostalgiacentral.com/pop/schooldinners.htm
Adam Tjaavk
Ophelia
its nice to see that there is a little bit of reason in the world. Keep up the great work.
Dermot
I thought the same about the ‘Koran down the toilet’ debacle. If it had been ‘The Origin of Species’ that got flushed would you and I have been demonstrating in the streets and burning down embassies? If it had been the Bible? That bunch of weirdos who moaned about the Jerry Springer opera would have probably waved a placard or two but mass riots? murders?
There seems to be a certain lack of a sense of proportion….
“that’s an incredibly stupid thing to say. Lisa Jardine isn’t stupid, but that’s a stupid thing to say.”
I must point out that ‘isn’t’ is a weasel word in this context.
Having thought about this for all of thirty seconds, I can see that there are time when someone might say a stupid thing for a wise, or sensible, or at least seemingly wise or sensible, reason. For example: to amuse, or to provoke discussion or to indicate the stupidity of some analogous matter.
In the case in point, the stupid admonition was meant to be taken literally; ergo, the person uttering it was stupid and, barring some evidence of a cure, is likely to so be again. So, lets rephrase “Lisa Jardine isn’t stupid,” as “Lisa Jardine isn’t always stupid,” or better still “Lisa Jardine isn’t always stupid, but in this instance is incredibly stupid”. Lest anybody should think they detect the tiniest bit of arrogance in this ‘diatribe’, I freely confess to being stupid on occasion. I expect to be held to account for stupidity and I would not thank my friends for fostering my ignorance. In case this seems to be wandering off-topic, my point is that not only is it wrong to hold beliefs inviolate, it is equally wrong to hold that speakers should not be accountable for their speech acts.
Thanks Dermot.
Lack of sense of proportion; just so. And that’s one reason Jardine is wrong. See Ibn Warraq’s speech to the UN: Muslims are not allowed to leave Islam, and the penalty for apostasy is death. That is a very real difference, and it’s just inane of her or anyone to announce flatly that there are no differences.
Mike
I don’t think it is a weasel word! (Well I wouldn’t, would I – except I might; I might say yeah, I went fuzzy there.) Actually I think the problem it indicates is a real one, and an interesting one – why do non-stupid people allow themselves to say stupid things? We all do it, of course, as you say. But then it’s always worth asking why. What Jardine said is so obviously silly – and she is so obviously not thick (one can tell that just by listening) – that there is an interesting dissonance there.
That dissonance is kind of B&W’s basic subject matter, really. What’s going on when reasonably clever, reasonably educated people believe and say silly things?
food is a tricky one. but chicken isnt so controversial.
http://www.theonion.com/index.php?issue=4120