Another thing about the archbishop. He suggests, you remember, that we should ‘exercise a little imagination’ about the Muslims in West Yorkshire who were angry about Salman Rushdie’s book – who “know only that one of their most overpoweringly significant sources of identity is being held up to public scorn.” Well I think it’s the archbishop who needs to exercise some imagination here, or perhaps rather some rational thought along with some knowledge. He phrases that as if all West Yorks Muslims or at least West Yorks Muslims in general knew only that, but in fact 1) he doesn’t know that and 2) in fact it isn’t true, because the anger was political: it was Islamist anger, not Muslim … Read the rest

One or two thoughts on the Archbisop of Canterbury’s speech. One thought is that he’s a sly bastard. If you read the speech slowly and carefully, it’s clear enough what sinister nonsense he is talking, but he embeds it so deeply and thoroughly in layer upon layer upon layer of episcopally dignified verbiage that it’s very difficult to convey how nonsensical and sinister it is by for instance quoting passages. In this he is very unlike the many other people I get so much innocent pleasure from teasing. He’s just as wrong-headed they are, but he makes it much less obvious. That’s not fair! If he’s going to talk obsequious churchy bullshit, he ought to be obvious about it.… Read the rest

Gee…that there Archbishop of Canterbury really doesn’t grasp the principle of free speech, does he. Or he does but he doesn’t agree with it and is surprisingly unbashful about saying so.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, has called for new laws to protect religious sensibilities that would punish “thoughtless and cruel” styles of speaking…The Archbishop…said it should not just be a few forms of extreme behaviour that were deemed unacceptable, leaving everything else as fair game. “The legal provision should keep before our eyes the general risks of debasing public controversy by thoughtless and, even if unintentionally, cruel styles of speaking and acting,” he said.

In other words the legal provision should frighten us out of saying … Read the rest