Speaking of [I’d better not say what, it will spoil the joke] – Richard Chappell of Philosophy Etcetera has sent me a link to a good cartoon.
Author: Ophelia Benson
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Bulletin on Women’s Rights in Middle East
Unequal divorce law in Egypt, law on honour killing in Pakistan, and more.
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V a n t r ú
For our many, many readers who read Icelandic (hey, maybe we do have a lot, I don’t know: we have one more than I was aware of), here is a little treat – you can read one entry from the B&W version of the Fashionable Dictionary in Icelandic every day at Vantrú. Vantrú is, the editor tells me, a skeptical/atheist magazine, so all the more reason for our Icelandic-reading readers to hasten right over there and start reading.
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A Law Against Incitement to Religious Hatred
Home Secretary David Blunkett wants to make incitement to religious hatred a crime. A good many people are queuing up to express doubts, as they did last July, when Blunkett was flogging the idea on ‘Today’ by saying that people would still be allowed to express opinions about religion – as long as they were sensible. Johann Hari said many good (even sensible) things then:
One of the unfortunate side-effects of multiculturalism is that it has made even the left reluctant to criticise religion. Any attack on other belief systems is seen as tantamount to racism – a trend that David Blunkett seeks to reinforce with his proposals to criminalise ‘incitement to religious hatred’. This is a false link: we each choose our faith; nobody chooses the colour of their skin…The equality of human beings is integral to the Enlightenment rationalist tradition; the way to defend equality is by defending that tradition and seeking to extend it, not by adopting some fake and disingenuous notion that all ‘cultures’ – including slave-owning theocratic belief systems – are somehow equal.
But sadly, the sensible things a lot of people said had no effect, so they are simply having to say them all over again. Rowan Atkinson, who has taken part in the odd anti-clerical joke from time to time, did his bit:
Unfortunately, what is very arguable is the definition of the terms – the definition of a tolerant society. Is a tolerant society one in which you tolerate absurdities, iniquities and injustices simply because they are being perpetrated by or in the name of a religion and out of a desire not to rock the boat you pass no comment or criticism. So as not to cause discomfort to anyone, not to cause embarrassment. A society with a veneer of tolerance concealing a snake pit of un-aired and of course unchallenged views…In the draft of legislation, it is suggested that we simply substitute the words ‘racial hatred’ for ‘racial or religious hatred’, as if race and religion are basically the same thing and we no longer need to distinguish between them. Race and religion are fundamentally different concepts, even if for many individuals, the two are inextricably linked. To criticise a person for their race is manifestly irrational and ridiculous but to criticise their religion, that is a right. That is a freedom. The freedom to criticise ideas – any ideas – even if they are sincerely held beliefs – is one of the fundamental freedoms of society and a law which attempts to say you can criticise or ridicule ideas as long as they are not religious ideas is a very peculiar law indeed.
What the supporters of the idea say to allay worries of that kind is not as reassuring as it might be:
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.
Easily said, but how does Mr Khan know that? And what about comedians unlike Rowan Atkinson? And journalists, writers, streetcorner skeptics, village atheists, the man on the Clapham omnibus – what about any and all of us who have our quarrels with religion and don’t want to be told to keep them to ourselves on pain of imprisonment? Is Mr Khan going to tell us the law will not mean that we will have to talk about other things from now on? It’s hard to see how he can say that, when that seems to be exactly the point of such a law: to forbid people to criticise religion in any but the most anodyne inoffensive ways.
Internal Resources
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Rowan Atkinson at Index on Censorship
Is a tolerant society one which tolerates injustices simply because they are perpetrated in the name of religion?
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Blunkett Faces Revolt Over Religious Hatred Law
MPs, legal experts, comedians and others point out obvious flaws in idea.
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He Sounded White Over the Phone
BNP hires black DJ for party; revellers feel unable to speak views openly; party a dud.
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And Don’t Mention the Deity
Hollywood adaptation of Philip Pullman’s trilogy will omit anti-religious sentiments.
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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).