There was a time when Lego knew how to market to girls without treating them like idiots or aspiring princesses.
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Too much conflation of being offended and being intimidated
Jan 23rd, 2012 12:27 pm | By Ophelia BensonThe LSE Student Union Atheist, Secularist and Humanist Society has told the LSE Student Union to take a flying jump. I should think so too.
There are no reasonable grounds for the LSESU’s instruction because we are in no way violating their policies or byelaws. The cartoons on our Facebook page criticise religion in a satirical way and we totally reject any claim that their publications could constitute any sort of harassment or intimidation of Muslims or Christians.
That there was no deliberate intention to offend is illustrated by the fact that the cartoons were posted only on the LSESU ASH page and not in other spaces. But even if some people are offended, offence is not a sufficient reason for certain artistic and satirical forms of expression to be prohibited. A university should hold no idea sacred and be open to the critiquing of all ideas and ideologies.
We want to engage with LSESU and work with them further to resolve the situation, but not in a way that jeopardises the legitimate criticism or satirising of religious and other beliefs. That is a freedom which is indispensable.
And the fact that the LSE Student Union thinks otherwise is appalling.
Andrew Copson of the BHA commented:
The officers of LSESU ASH have clearly been reasonable in their dealings with their union and it is clearly unreasonable for a simple satirical depiction of religious figures to be deemed tantamount to intimidation of religious students. The freedom to criticise all sorts of beliefs and hold them open to satire as well as intellectual critique is a vital generator of intellectual progress – something which universities should safeguard.
Safeguard. Not discourage, not frown on, not scold, not try to terminate; safeguard.
The AHS and BHA also announced that they were beginning an investigation of how Student Unions were approaching issues of free speech and offence in relation to religious and non-religious beliefs with a view to providing guidance to institutions. [Jenny] Bartle [president of the National Federation of ASH] commented, ‘There has been too much conflation recently of being offended and being intimidated, with the implication being that they are equivalent. Such an assumption is a potential threat to free speech and free debate, and we are concerned to address this underlying problem in the long term.’
Good. Exactly so, and good.
Go to Free Expression Day. Sign the statement – along with Jessica Ahlquist, AC Grayling, Richard Dawkins, Jesus and Mo Creator, Taslima Nasrin, Salman Rushdie, Southall Black Sisters, Peter Tatchell, Alom Shaha, Deeya, Farzana Hassan, Gita Sahgal and many many more. Good company.
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
And there are more other critics of the word “Islamophobia”
Jan 22nd, 2012 12:56 pm | By Ophelia BensonThere’s Kenan Malik. I trust there won’t be too much sensitive frowning over the possibility that Kenan Malik is being obtuse about bigotry toward Muslims or immigrants or other races.
Ten years ago no one had heard of Islamophobia. Now everyone from Muslim leaders to anti-racist activists to government ministers want to convince us that Britain is in the grip of an irrational hatred of Islam – a hatred that, they claim, leads to institutionalised harassment, physical attacks, social discrimination and political alienation…
But does Islamophobia really exist? Or is the hatred and abuse of Muslims being exaggerated to suit politicians’ needs and silence the critics of Islam? The trouble with Islamophobia is that it is an irrational concept. It confuses hatred of, and discrimination against, Muslims on the one hand with criticism of Islam on the other. The charge of ‘Islamophobia’ is all too often used not to highlight racism but to stifle criticism. And in reality discrimination against Muslims is not as great as is often perceived – but criticism of Islam should be greater.
I hope there won’t be too many irritable accusations that Kenan Malik is being “too literal” in saying that, or indeed that nobody thinks of the word that way except people who are being too literal.
If statistics for racist attacks are difficult to compile, it is even more difficult to define what is an Islamophobic attack. Should we treat every attack on a Muslim as Islamophobic? If an Afghan taxi driver is assaulted, is this a racist attack, an Islamophobic incident or simply a case of random violence? Such uncertainty gives licence to peddle all sorts of claims about Islamophobia.
And that’s where things go wrong.
‘Islamophobia’ has become not just a description of anti-Muslim prejudice but also a prescription for what may or may not be said about Islam. Every year, the Islamic Human Rights Commission organises a mock awards ceremony for its ‘Islamophobe of the Year’. Last year there were two British winners. One was the BNP’s Nick Griffin. The other? Guardian columnist Polly Toynbee. Toynbee’s defence of secularism and women’s rights, and criticism of Islam, was, it declared, unacceptable. Isn’t it absurd, I asked the IHRC’s Massoud Shadjareh, to equate a liberal anti-racist like Polly Toynbee with the leader of a neo-fascist party. Not at all, he suggested. ‘There is a difference between disagreeing and actually dismissing certain ideologies and certain principles. We need to engage and discuss. But there’s a limit to that.’ It is difficult to know what engagement and discussion could mean when leading Muslim figures seem unable to distinguish between liberal criticism and neo-fascist attacks.
…
In fact, we already live in a culture of growing self-censorship. A decade ago, the Independent asked me to write an essay on Tom Paine, the eighteenth century English revolutionary and freethinker. It was the 200th anniversary of his great polemic, The Age of Reason. I began the article with a quote from Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses to show the continuing relevance of Paine’s battle against religious authority. The quote was cut out because it was deemed too offensive to Muslims. The irony of censoring an essay in celebration of freethinking seemed to elude the editor.
These days it is becoming increasingly common for liberals to proclaim free speech is necessary in principle – but also to argue that in practice we should give up that right. Ruminating in the Guardian about the fallout from the Behzti affair, Ian Jack, editor of Granta magazine, suggested that whatever liberals believe in principle, in practice we need to appease religious sensibilities. ‘The state has no law forbidding a pictorial representation of the Prophet’, he pointed out, ‘But I never expect to see such a picture. On the one hand, there is the individual’s right to exhibit or publish one; on the other hand, the immeasurable insult and damage to life and property that the exercise of such a right would cause.’ He added that ‘In this case, we understand that the price is too high – even though we, the faithless, don’t understand the offence.’
There’s Pascal Bruckner:
At the end of the 1970s, Iranian fundamentalists invented the term “Islamophobia” formed in analogy to “xenophobia”. The aim of this word was to declare Islam inviolate. Whoever crosses this border is deemed a racist. This term, which is worthy of totalitarian propaganda, is deliberately unspecific about whether it refers to a religion, a belief system or its faithful adherents around the world.
But confession has no more in common with race than it has with secular ideology. Muslims, like Christians, come from the Arab world, Africa, Asia and Europe, just as Marxists, liberals and anarchists come or came from all over. In a democracy, no one is obliged to like religion, and until proved otherwise, they have the right to regard it as retrograde and deceptive. Whether you find it legitimate or absurd that some people regard Islam with suspicion – as they once did Catholicism – and reject its aggressive proselytism and claim to total truth – this has nothing to do with racism.
Do we talk about ‘liberalophobia‘ or ‘socialistophobia’ if someone speaks out against the distribution of wealth or market domination. Or should we reintroduce blasphemy, abolished by the revolution in 1791, as a statutory offence, in line with the annual demands of the “Organisation of the Islamic Conference”. Or indeed the French politician Jean-Marc Roubaud, who wants to see due punishment for anyone who “disparages the religious feelings of a community or a state”. Open societies depend on the peaceful coexistence of the principle belief systems and the right to freedom of opinion. Freedom of religion is guaranteed, as is the freedom to criticise religions. The French, having freed themselves from centuries of ecclesiastical rule, prefer discretion when it comes to religion. To demand separate rights for one community or another, imposing restrictions on the right to question dogma is a return to the Ancien Regime.
Voilà.
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
There are other critics of the word “Islamophobia”
Jan 21st, 2012 4:44 pm | By Ophelia BensonThere was that statement by 12 writers in Charlie Hebdo in 2006 for instance. It includes this:
Islamism is a reactionary ideology that kills equality, freedom and secularism wherever it is present.
Its victory can only lead to a world of injustice and domination: men over women, fundamentalists over others.
On the contrary, we must ensure access to universal rights for the oppressed or those discriminated against.
We reject the “cultural relativism” which implies an acceptance that men and women of Muslim culture are deprived of the right to equality, freedom and secularism in the name of the respect for certain cultures and traditions.
We refuse to renounce our critical spirit out of fear of being accused of “Islamophobia”, a wretched concept that confuses criticism of Islam as a religion and stigmatisation of those who believe in it.
We defend the universality of the freedom of expression, so that a critical spirit can exist in every continent, towards each and every maltreatment and dogma.
The signatories are:
Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Chahla Chafiq
Caroline Fourest
Bernard-Henri Levy
Irshad Manji
Mehdi Mozaffari
Maryam Namazie
Taslima Nasreen
Salman Rushdie
Antoine Sfeir
Philippe Val
Ibn Warraq
There’s also Piers Benn in the New Humanist in 2002, a whole article on the subject.
‘Islamophobia’ is a negatively loaded word. Not many people would admit to being Islamophobic, any more than they would admit to being homophobic. [Indeed, there is an interesting parallel between the two concepts. Although 'homophobia' really means fear of homosexuals, it is now widely used to refer to any criticism of homosexuality. Many who use the word appear oblivious to the distinction between the fear (or hatred) of homosexual individuals, and disapproval of homosexual behaviour. Of course, one might argue that language evolves and words change their meaning. But this misses the point. There is a real distinction to be made here, which needs to be reflected in language. With Islamophobia, the same applies.]* It is essential to distinguish criticism of Islam both from fear of Islam, and from fear, hatred or contempt for Muslims. But all too often, moral criticism of Muslim practices, or scepticism about doctrines, is dismissed as Islamophobic.
This is what I’m saying. What I’m saying is not particularly crazy.
*An unfortunate side point which I strongly doubt Benn meant the way a number of readers are taking it – but which certainly can be read that way, so it was indeed an unfortunate side point – and which has led to a tedious side dispute along with irritating demands for confession and prostration. I should have replaced it with an elipse. I didn’t, because that would have made his argument a little too abrupt, in the sense that he wouldn’t have written it that way. Mea culpa. Take the brackets as a disavowal. I do not, as some ungracious pastors do, love teh gayz but hate the behavior. I don’t think Benn does either and I don’t think that’s what he meant to say – but I know it reads that way, which is why I thought about replacing it with an elipse when I posted. I do hope that clears things up.
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Hank Fox’s book
Jan 21st, 2012 10:06 am | By Ophelia BensonI’m reading Hank Fox’s book Blue Collar Atheist - and it’s fantastic.
He has me choking up on one page, then giggling on the next, then shrieking with laughter on the next. He’s a genius with metaphors. I love love love this book.
Some good lines -
…we live in a society so permeated by goddiness that the idea that there might not be a God seems perversely even more mystical. [p 5]
On the emancipation of escaping the entanglement of religion and the peace that goes with it:
It was the peace of understanding that, while there might be quite a lot of the world unknown to me, there was nothing purposely concealed. [p 14]
I love that. It’s exactly what I think: the hiding cheating lying tricking aspect of the putative god is one of the things that I hate the most.
There’s an absolutely brilliant bit about candy bars and explanation, that culiminates with the mystery of M&Ms – that was the bit that got a window-rattling shriek of laughter from me this morning.
Tell all your friends. Seriously.
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
The UN plans to make everybody gay!!11!
Jan 21st, 2012 9:35 am | By Ophelia BensonAnd then there are those zany Spanish bishops.
During his Boxing Day sermon, the Bishop of Córdoba, Demetrio Fernández, said there was a conspiracy by the United Nations. “The Minister for Family of the Papal Government, Cardinal Antonelli, told me a few days ago in Zaragoza that UNESCO has a program for the next 20 years to make half the world population homosexual. To do this they have distinct programs, and will continue to implant the ideology that is already present in our schools.”
Wheeeeeee! Demetrio Fernández must have a whole wardrobe full of tinfoil hats.
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
A big win for theocracy
Jan 21st, 2012 9:26 am | By Ophelia BensonSo Egypt is doomed. Islamists control two thirds of the seats in the People’s Assembly. In other words, the Assembly is in the hands of avowed theocrats.
The final results in Egypt’s first post-Mubarak parliamentary elections confirm an overwhelming victory for Islamist parties.
The Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) won the largest number of seats under Egypt’s complex electoral system.
The hardline Salafist Nour party came second.
…
The overall results mean that Islamist parties control around two-thirds of the seats in the assembly, though the final share out of seats is not yet known.
It’s a disaster.
Check out some Islamists in Derby.
Ihjaz Ali, 42, Kabir Ahmed, 28, and Razwan Javed, 27, were found guilty of stirring up hatred on the grounds of sexual orientation.
They distributed a leaflet entitled Death Penalty? at a mosque and through letterboxes, Derby Crown Court heard.
…
The court heard the leaflets showed an image of a wooden mannequin hanging from a noose and quoted Islamic texts. The leaflets said capital punishment was the only way to rid society of homosexuality. They were handed out near the Jaima Mosque on Rosehill Street, Derby, and put through the letterboxes of people’s homes in surrounding streets. The court heard the leaflets were made and used as part of a campaign to publicise a protest in response to the Gay Pride festival held on 10 July 2010 in Derby.
By saying that gay people should be executed.
The men admitted distributing the leaflet but said they were simply following and quoting what their religion taught them about homosexuality and did not intend to threaten anyone.
Yes see that’s completely incoherent. “Simply” following and quoting what their religion taught them about homosexuality is indeed to threaten “anyone” when what their religion teaches them about homosexuality is that people should be executed for it. It’s not an escape clause or an “oh that’s all right then” or a decency stipulation to say “oh that’s just my religion.” Egypt’s Islamists can say exactly the same thing only now they have their hands on the power of the state so they can put the threat into practice. We don’t get to say “Oh well but they won’t do that” – not with the example of Iran to look at.
One gay man, who gave evidence but cannot be identified for legal reasons, said he received the Turn Or Burn and Death Penalty? leaflets through the door of his home on two occasions.
He said the first leaflet, Turn Or Burn, made him feel “quite horrified” and it was after he received Death Penalty? that he called the police.
“They made me feel terrorised in my own home,” he said.
“Sometimes I wondered whether I would be getting a burning rag through the letterbox or if I would be attacked in the street.”
The unfortunate people of Egypt won’t have the option of calling the police when the Islamists start to close in on them.
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
These crimes happen everywhere in the world
Jan 20th, 2012 10:26 am | By Ophelia BensonSpeaking of “Islamophobia,” as we were, we can always count on the Guardian for lashings of Islamophilia. David Shariatmadari tells us the University of East Anglia is going to set everyone straight on women, Islam, and the media. I bet you can figure out what’s coming.
Women, Islam and the media are topics often found in close conjunction, and not always in the happiest of circumstances. So in a canny move, the University of East Anglia (UEA), which often gives better-known institutions a run for their money in terms of column inches, has developed a course entitled exactly that.
The 12-week module, which the university claims is the first of its kind in the UK, will cover the often inflammatory topics of veil wearing, arranged marriage and “honour” crimes – looking at how they are portrayed in contemporary film, TV and other media, and how this reflects cultural biases in both the east and west.
Ahhhh yes, those pesky cultural biases in “the west,” the ones that think systematic subordination of women is a bad thing.
The course was developed by Dr Eylem Atakav, a graduate of Ankara University and lecturer at UEA. “Lots of people have written about women and Islam, lots of people have written about Islam and media or women and media, but they haven’t been brought together before,” she said.
Atakav said the course would be an important way of changing perceptions of Islam. Study materials include films and TV programmes from around the world, including Iran, the US, Turkey and China. “We will look at how the media talk about ‘honour’-based violence, for example. If it’s a Middle Eastern woman who happens also to be a Muslim woman it’s called an ‘honour crime’. But if it’s a British woman who was killed because her husband was jealous because she was having an affair with another man, it’s called murder.
“These crimes happen everywhere in the world, it’s not just a Muslim, or just a Middle Eastern thing.”
But if it’s a British woman who was killed because her husband was jealous because she was having an affair with another man, does the killer or anyone else talk about “honour”? Would the same woman’s father or mother or brother or son help the husband kill her in the name of protecting the family’s “honour”? Would their friends turn a blind eye or cheer them on, because a woman who has an affair is a stain on the whole “community”?
The article doesn’t say.
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
London 11 February 2012 – defend free expression
Jan 19th, 2012 11:02 am | By Ophelia BensonOne Law for All is calling for a rally in defence of free expression and the right to criticise religion on 11 February 2012 in central London from 2-4pm.
We are also calling for simultaneous events and acts in defence of free expression on 11 February in countries world-wide.
The call follows an increased number of attacks on free expression in the UK, including a 17 year old being forced to remove a Jesus and Mo cartoon or face expulsion from his Sixth Form College and demands by the UCL Union that the Atheist society remove a Jesus and Mo cartoon from its Facebook page. It also follows threats of violence, police being called, and the cancellation of a meeting at Queen Mary College where One Law for All spokesperson Anne Marie Waters was to deliver a speech on Sharia. Saying ‘Who gave these kuffar the right to speak?’, an Islamist website called for the disruption of the meeting. Two days later at the same college, though, the Islamic Society held a meeting on traditional Islam with a speaker who has called for the death of apostates, those who mock Islam, and secularist Muslims.
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Orlando
Jan 18th, 2012 3:13 pm | By Ophelia BensonOh hey, I’m excited now – Jessica Ahlquist is a speaker at the Moving Secularism Forward conference - which is exciting for Me Me Me because so am I. Yip!
The annual joint conference of CFI and the Council for Secular Humanism takes place March 1–4 at the Hyatt Regency in Orlando, FL and includes presentations from Daniel Dennett, Jamila Bey, PZ Myers, Ophelia Benson, David Silverman, Ronald A. Lindsay, and more.
New speaker announced: Jessica Ahlquist! Jessica, our volunteer high school coordinator, just won the case against her public high school’s display of a prayer banner. She’s participating in a Saturday morning session on “Outreach and Advocacy Strategies” moderated by campus organizer Debbie Goddard.
It’s fun having teenage heroes. Makes a person feel optimistic.
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
