Author: Ophelia Benson

We have this on-going discussion about rights, about what they are, what we mean by them, what they aren’t or shouldn’t be or shouldn’t be thought to be, how they are justified, and the like. We have some commenters defending the idea that Christians do have rights to refuse service to gay people in public accommodations. They’re using arguments that have a certain familiarity. The ‘right to free association’ for instance. From a comment on ‘The fundamental right to say get outta my store’: ‘the right to free association. That’s the very same right denied in apartheid south africa or in the US under segregation or by many anti-union laws.’ Well, no, actually. It was the defenders of apartheid and segregation who resorted to talk of rights to free association or to choose one’s own company or customers, not the opponents. There is this 1964 incident in the career of William Rehnquist, a recent Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court, for instance:

he opposed [Phoenix, Arizona’s] public accomodations law, defending in a letter to the Arizona Republic ‘the historic right of the owner of a drug store, lunch counter, or theater to choose his own customers.’ [Peter Irons, A People’s History of the Supreme Court, p. 443]

The churches, whether they realize it or not, are aligning themselves with intransigent segregationists of the 1950s and early ’60s. They can do that, of course, but it’s as well to be aware that the defense of ‘free association’ has particular historical resonances. It emphatically does not refer to or mean the right of black people to associate with whites, it means the right of white people not to associate with blacks, and to exclude them from public accomodations for that purpose. Not a pretty or inspiring kind of right, not one that reasonable people (frankly) ought to defend. The picture to form in your head is not a living room full of friends but a restaurant with ‘No Niggers’ or ‘No Queers’ on the door.

Blair gave a speech on multiculturalism. (Maybe if he’s very good, next week he’ll be allowed to have a debate on the subject with Madeleine Bunting.) He said some slightly odd things…

Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs and other faiths have a perfect right to their own identity and religion, to practice their faith and to conform to their culture. This is what multicultural, multi-faith Britain is about. That is what is legitimately distinctive.

But when it comes to our essential values – belief in democracy, the rule of law, tolerance, equal treatment for all, respect for this country and its shared heritage – then that is where we come together, it is what we hold in common…

But those two can be in flat contradiction. Blair surely knows that. Is the idea that people are just supposed to ignore that problem? The fact that practicing a ‘faith’ and conforming to a culture can rule out belief in and practice of equal treatment for all? He must know that, he’s not silly – so what does he mean by saying that? Is it just that anodyne but impossible formulas are required for speeches of this kind?

Actually he does admit the problem farther down. (But then why state it this way farther up? Won’t he confuse his hearers?)

[W]e stand emphatically at all times for equality of respect and treatment for all citizens. Sometimes the cultural practice of one group contradicts this. We need very clear rules for how we govern the public realm. A good example is forced marriage. There can be no defence of forced marriage on cultural or any other grounds.

Right. Good. But then it’s no good saying people have a perfect right to practice their ‘faith’ and to conform to their culture when in fact that right is (very properly) limited. That’s misleading.

Andy Armitage sent me the link to this speech and pointed out this passage:

One of the most common concerns that has been raised with me, when meeting women from the Muslim communities, is their frustration at being debarred even from entering certain mosques. Those that exclude the voice of women need to look again at their practices. I am not suggesting altering the law. But we have asked the Equal Opportunities Commission to produce a report by the spring of next year on how these concerns could be practically addressed, whilst of course recognising that in many religions the treatment of women differs from that of men.

Well, okay, but that looks like some thin ice up ahead. But good luck with it.

Bunting in a similar vein.

In the summer, the publication of Amartya Sen’s book, Identity and Violence, was greeted with delight by many reviewers and commentators…He was promptly adopted by the lobby of vociferous aggressive secularists who regard all faith in the public sphere as evidence of some sinister plot.

No, actually, that’s not what we regard all ‘faith’ in the public sphere as, we regard it as an inherently dangerous influence on politics, law, human rights and other such public influences that shape how we all get to live our lives. Get it right, Madders.

Christians continue to struggle to defend their rights.

Allies of Ms Kelly have accused Mr Hain of pandering to Labour activists…His liberal approach may derail sensitive negotiations between the Government and church leaders, who are urging ministers not to put the rights of gays above the rights of Christians.

Church leaders, who are urging ministers not to put the rights of gays above the rights of Christians to exclude and refuse to serve gays in public accomodations – those rights. You know, those ‘rights’ that don’t exist, that no one recognizes, the ones that are just asserted. Those rights.

Some wisdom and insight from Ziauddin Sardar:

The British literary landscape is dominated by three writers: Martin Amis, Salman Rushdie and Ian McEwan…In their different styles, their approach and opinions define a coherent position. They are the vanguard of British literary neoconservatives, or, if you like, the “Blitcons”…Their writing stands within a tradition, upholding ideas with deep roots in European consciousness and literature….The Blitcon project is based on three one- dimensional conceits. The first is the absolute supremacy of American culture. Blitcon fiction is orientalism for the 21st century, shifting the emphasis from the supremacy of the west in general to the supremacy of American ideas of freedom…The second Blitcon conceit is that Islam is the greatest threat to this idea of civilisation. Rushdie’s suspicion of and distaste for Islam is obvious in his novels…References to Islam in Midnight’s Children can be read as deliberately insulting.

Naughty Rushdie. Suspicion and distaste for Islam not allowed. Trust and love for Islam only permissible attitude, also only progressive attitude; other attitude places one as a conservative; Islam self-evidently the opposite of conservatism and deserving of trust and love, respect and admiration, affection and reverence; therefore Rushdie Amis and McEwan are all neocons. Besides they uphold ideas with deep roots in European consciousness and literature. Well I mean to say. How neocon and sinister can you get.

The third Blitcon conceit is that American ideas of freedom and democracy are not only right, but should be imposed on the rest of the world. The extent to which this conviction has become central to these writers’ thought can be traced by Rushdie’s surprising progression, over the past 20 years, from political left to centre right. Rushdie’s fiction is more nuanced than that of Amis or McEwan, and he was an outspoken champion of multiculturalism during the 1980s. All that, however, changed when Ayatollah Khomeini, enraged at The Satanic Verses, issued a fatwa sentencing him to death in 1989.

Oh, gee, did it? Well I can’t imagine why! I can’t imagine why a ‘fatwa’ sentencing him to death by a complete stranger in a country he had nothing to do with – a stranger who hadn’t read the book he was so ‘enraged’ about – would cause him to be any less fond of ‘multiculturalism’ – can you? What a narrow-minded spiteful conservative orientalist all-wrong guy he must be, to react that way. Dang, some people just have no tolerance. Obviously he should have been pleased at this creative manifestation of a vibrant culture displaying its difference and Otherness for the edification of all those dreary fools who uphold ideas with deep roots in European consciousness and literature. But nooooo – he had to get all offended and huffy and bitter, and even more unfriendly toward Islam. Is that crazy and neocon or what!

And, the NS tells us, ‘Ziauddin Sardar has been appointed a commissioner of the Commission for Equality and Human Rights.’ Oh dear.