Author: Ophelia Benson

Kenan Malik on the fatwa twenty years on.

It has now become widely accepted that we live in a multicultural world, and that in such a world it is important not to cause offence to other peoples and cultures. As the sociologist Tariq Modood has put it: ‘If people are to occupy the same political space without conflict, they mutually have to limit the extent to which they subject each others’ fundamental beliefs to criticism.’…Today, we have come to accept that books do indeed cause riots and that therefore we must be careful what books we write – or what cartoons we draw, or jokes we tell, or art we create.

Which creates an interesting and alarming closed circle of repression. We ‘must’ be careful what books we write and what things we say – therefore we become critical of the people and institutions who demand that we be careful what books we write and what things we say – but we must be careful what books we write and what things we say – so we can’t write books or say things about our criticisms of the people and institutions who demand that we be careful what books we write and what things we say – and so on. We’re caught in a sinister spiral in which liberals want to resist repression and repressors want to shut the liberals up, which makes the liberals want to resist even more, which makes the repressors want to shut them up even more…

I don’t see this working out well.

Today, all it takes for a publisher to run for cover is a letter from an outraged academic. In the 20 years between the publication of The Satanic Verses and the withdrawal of The Jewel of Medina, the fatwa has in effect become internalised.

See Sherry Spellberg went in the wrong direction here – she hooked up her outrage to the repressors instead of to the resistors. Bad move.

Today, many argue that whatever may appear to be right in principle, in practice one must appease religious and cultural sensibilities because such sensibilities are so deeply felt. The avoidance of ‘cultural pain’ is seen as more important than what is regarded as an abstract right to freedom of expression…The lesson of the Rushdie Affair that has never been learnt is that liberals have made their own monsters. It is the liberal fear of giving offence that has helped create a culture in which people take offence so easily.

Yeah. Let’s turn that around.

Another cleric lets us know there is ‘a lively and important discussion to be had…on the whole idea of the engagement between science and faith; then he gives a demonstration of the way ‘faith’ plays havoc with the ability to think clearly – or the ability to write forthrightly. One of those.

Contrary to popular understanding, the Christian community is not fundamentally anti- science…..[T]hrough the ages and still today, many significant scientists have been and are people of faith, and vice versa.

But that’s beside the point – unless the reverend is making a claim purely about hostility. But that’s where the lack of forthrightness comes in. When he says ‘engagement between science and faith’ does he mean likes and dislikes, friendship versus enmity, or does he mean something about validity as a form of inquiry or knowledge? If he’s just saying ‘some Christians like science,’ he may be right but that’s not really the issue; if he’s saying ‘some Christians like science therefore there is no tension between “faith” and science’ he’s perpetrating a non sequitur.

Richard Dawkins’s resurrected conflict theory, pitting faith and science as irreconcilable mortal enemies, is as offensive to atheist colleagues as it is to those of us who call ourselves people of faith.

But again, that’s beside the point. Never mind how ‘offensive’ it is; is it true?

Taking, as Dawkins and others do, such a dogmatic, fundamentalist view of other people’s opinions and then arguing the absolute correctness of their own view, which is that because a monkey shares 99.99 per cent of our genetic code evolution is proven and therefore there is no God, is not dissimilar to the aggressive and unreconstructed fundamentalist rejection of Galileo those years ago.

Very neat illustration of doing the very thing one is attacking someone else for doing – but I suspect that’s not what the rev intended. That ‘and therefore there is no God’ is just silly. It’s not just a dogmatic, fundamentalist view of other people’s opinions, it’s an outright misrepresentation of them; it’s something too silly to bother saying.

We believe that engaging with views that we do not agree with can be constructive.

Ah – but do you? Because that’s not doing it. Offering a fatuous parody of such views is not ‘engaging with’ them, it’s engaging with a fatuous parody of them.

Among the problems with reducing humans to no more than simple gene-propagating machines is the sense of hopelessness that this engenders. What’s the point in love, in beauty, in compassion, in poetry, in self-sacrifice, if all that we see around us is simply a “momentary cosmic accident”, as Stephen Jay Gould puts it[?]

Once again – beside the point. The issue is, or should be, the truth of the matter, not what sort of sense it may engender. Many defenders of ‘faith’ seem to have a really hard time grasping that very basic distinction.

And the debates remain. Why are humans here? Are we fundamentally anything more than just our genes, and the molecules that compose them? Why does anything exist at all? As the president of the Royal Society, Sir Martin Rees, concedes, “such questions lie beyond science … they are the province of philosophers and theologians”.

No they’re not; not of theologians they’re not; theologians have nothing to offer on the subject. Neither does anyone else, really – no one can offer a definitive answer to those why questions; but theologians actually muddy the water by offering pseudo-answers based on fantasies and wishes.

Yesssssssssss – Humayra Abedin is free. She’s out, she’s safe, she’s in the hands of the British High Commission, she’s expected to return to the UK tomorrow.

I haven’t felt this lachrymose since 8 pm Pacific Time on November 4th. She’s out. She’s safe. She has her own life back.

London’s High Court had ordered her return to the UK under the new Forced Marriage Act and the High Court in Dhaka has now ruled she must be freed…Lawyer Sara Hossain, representing Dr Abedin, said her client wanted to return to the UK and her family had been ordered to return her passport…She was later released into the custody of the court and handed over to the British High Commission. Dr Abedin is expected to return to the UK on Monday. Judge Syed Mahmud Hossain said her parents’ actions were “not acceptable”.

No they weren’t. Thank you Judge Hossain.

Judge Hossain was shocked.

Yesterday, Judge Syed Mahmod Hossain ordered Dr Abedin’s parents to return her passport, driver’s licence and credit card. “It perplexes me as to why the parents kept her confined and interfered with her personal life. I am shocked,” he said.

Good. A useful lesson.

Dr Abedin’s lawyer, Sara Hossain, said: “Our courts have shown that we can guarantee the liberty of our citizens. This is quite a precedent.”

Damn right.

Now if only we could hear that Jestina Mukoko is free – alive, and free; and that all her colleagues are alive and free too; and that Mugabe has fled to an undisclosed location never to be heard from again – then we could all have a really good sniff.