From tomorrow morning I will be away at a Christian conference, so alas no updates this week.
Thanks to everyone who has commented so far, I really do appreciate all your contributions, no matter how angry.
I will leave you with Daniel Hannan’s destruction of Gordon Brown in the European Parliament. Whether or not you agree with him, it is well worth watching.
Best,
Peter
Tens of thousands are marching through
One mass-produced sign handed out to people said “Jobs not bombs.” Forgive me if I am misunderstanding this, but in what way is that not utterly ludicrous? For a start, the two are not opposite ends of the same scale. No bombs does not, and has never, equated to more jobs. In fact, ironically, the two often go hand in hand. A while ago I wrote a piece saying that the BAE, with whom the University of York have now cut funding ties, are economically beneficial for those who associate with them, and provide thousands of jobs for families in all areas of employment. This fact remains.
In what way, therefore, will cutting bombs increase jobs, (and vice versa)? The sign is ridiculous and incoherent. It will probably fit right in with the thronged masses who are marching, as I type, through
Last November, the UN passed a resolution against the defamation of religion. While it might appear on the surface that this would create tolerance, many fear that it will encroach on free speech. The resolution, led by Pakistan supported by Afghanistan, Iran, North Korea, and Saudi Arabia, but opposed by the UK, US, and Israel, could become binding on all UN member states if passed later this year.
What this will mean is that the states will have to pass legislation outlawing anything that could be classified as ‘religious defamation’. Many fear that this legislation will principally apply to Islam, who have a higher track record of taking offence at criticism than most. As put by CNN, this will make “any mention of terrorism linked to Islam a criminal offence.”
Christopher Hitchens, well known for his contempt of all religions, called the measure “totalitarianism defined” and “a rape and butchery of our [America’s] First Amendment.” His argument runs that, if they feel insulted by anything, Muslims will go straight to violence. On the other hand, you can’t call them violent, because that will hurt their feelings. While this is obviously a little bit of a one sided-analysis from a close friend of Salman Rushdie, it holds some alarming truths within it.
This appears to be the UN reaching well outside of its mandate on an issue over which it has already made a stance – the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (which just happens to include freedom of both expression and religion). What it is doing now would run the risk of fundamentally contravening these values, whether or not the countries signed up to the Declaration – I’m looking at you, Saudi Arabia.
What would actually happen if this passed and the UK was bound to create such legislation? The desired outcome – tolerance and peacefulness, would be completely reversed. Intolerance and suspicion would be nurtured under the surface, and it wouldn’t take a very large event to spark off race riots, hate campaigns, and anti-Islamic protests, which would sink to the levels of the radical Islamists of today.
The UN should back off, and keep to restoring member border disputes by peaceful means – that’s why it was created.
News tonight that Hillary Clinton is attempting to win the favour of moderate Palestinian group Fatah and to sideline Hamas to the tune of almost $1bn is interesting.
Since being appointed Secretary of State by the new US President Barack Obama, Clinton has not yet strayed into the minefield of the Middle-East. The money is in the form of aid to Gaza for the purpose of re-building, and is conditional on the grounds that Hamas have no involvement in the spending of the money. Gaza saw a serious amount of infrastructural damage in the recent conflict, and the money is no doubt needed, but is essentially trying to bribe your will onto the Middle East either possible or wise?
Washington wants the money to bolster Western-backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and the Fatah-run Palestinian Authority, which Hamas evicted from the Gaza Strip in 2007. In this sense, it is possible that the money may well enable Fatah to take control of the region’s reconstruction, but only if Hamas let it.
Who is to say that Hamas, who showed massive disregard for the lives of its citizens, continuing to shell Israel when the Israeli tanks were sitting at their gates, will suddenly undergo a change of heart and will have the best interests of its citizens in mind? Hamas will be perfectly happy to sit there in spite and let other, neutral aid organisations clear up the mess.
While the humanitarian groups will tend to focus on the humanitarian crisis in Gaza more than the reconstruction, with the amount of coverage that the region has had, it is impossible to think that no-one will consider investing in its redevelopment unconditionally. Essentially, if Hamas can function without having to ask for money to rebuild itself in Gaza (we have no idea whether Hezbollah are able to help them out), then the people in Gaza have no chance of seeing the money.
Secondly, is it wise? On the surface, winning the favour of one group of people by helping instil them in power can only be a good thing. But will helping any Palestinians go down well with Israel, especially following the recent election results?
What is potentially more damaging is that this action will send the message to other potential allies of the US in the Middle East that, if they can successfully have a more-evil alternative, then they are likely to get funding to aid them to success. This sets an unhelpful precedent.
Clinton’s first serious move on the international stage is both an unprompted and a reckless one, and runs the risk of being totally ineffectual. Only time will tell whether her boldness pays off.
This morning's episode of Big Questions is available to watch again on I-player (Thanks to those who pointed this out to me)
Of the three questions raised this morning (see my previous post for the details of the speakers and topics), the most interesting was without a doubt the question of whether or not Islam is intolerant. Despite sitting with my hand up for a large part of the debate, Nicky Campbell chose to ask the relatively attractive girl next to me for her input instead (which, as it turns out, was a very valid and salient point – that she felt welcomed in a Muslim country when she stayed there, so why don’t Muslims feel welcomed here?).
The point I would have made was that I would not have personally thought Islam intolerant until two weeks ago, when I saw an example before my eyes that was hard to believe.
It occurred at a debate on Radical Islam in Britain, at which Douglas Murray (seen on the programme this morning), Guffar Hussein (the other head of the Quilliam Foundation) and Haleh Afshar (Iranian born feminist in the House of Lords) all made their case very well an articulately.
What followed was extraordinary. The Muslim Councillor for Students, Mohamed El-Gomati, stood up to say a few words of response before the question session. In the following moments, all potential for consensus was shattered as he turned to Douglas Murray, and an accusation echoed around the room: “racist”.
Maybe this is a one off. Nevertheless, for the man who many people see as representing Muslim students on campus to stand up and revert to such playground-ish accusations in the face of a considered and professional debate is utterly derogating for the image of Muslims everywhere.
Are they tolerant? I certainly hope, for their sake, that Professor El-Gomati is the exception, not the rule.
Apologies for not uploading anything in the last few days.
Tomorrow morning I'm going to the BBC show The Big Questions. It should throw up some interesting discussions. This week’s panel members are Ann Cryer, Labour MP for Keighley; Douglas Murray, Director of the Centre for Social Cohesion; Majid Nawaz, Director of the Quilliam Foundation; and paralympic athlete Dame Tanni Grey-Thompson.
The three ‘big questions’ are:
Is Islam an intolerant religion?
Are men's sins worse than women's?
Do benefits encourage sponging?
It’s in BBC One at 10.00, or in I-player afterwards. I will no doubt be posting something coming out of it later on.
Thanks to everyone who has commented or emailed me, your contributions are much appreciated.
Keep reading!
You may or may not have heard of the Westboro Baptist Church. If I said they are the group who proclaim that “God hates gays” and were involved in picketing funerals of soldiers who died in Iraq, then your memory may be jogged.
It seems that their brand of Christianity has made a transatlantic voyage, and they will begin their campaigns and pickets over here. This comes in response to a school theatre in Basingstoke hosting a production of The Laramie Project, a play that is perceived to have anti-homophobic connotations. The language of their group is frightening.
What is fundamentally damaging about the group is not, surprisingly, their opinions. They are, by all means, entitled to them. What is concerning is that they portray themselves in a light that is to Christianity what radical jihadist preachers are to Islam.
If the group gets lots of publicity, it would become very easy to take random verses of the Bible and create a video similar to Geert Wilders’ Fitna, shown in my previous post. The God they refer to hates people, and who commands his followers by a set of strict rules. Who, given the constraints put on the believer in such a God, would ever choose to become what these people understand to be a ‘Christian’?
Taking the Bible in context (something that is very often not done when considering these contentious issues), the God that is portrayed within is a God of immense power and holiness, but primarily is a God of love. What the Westboro Baptists seem to forget (or conveniently ignore) is that God, rather than being a tyrant bent on the destruction of evil humanity, is a God who reached out to us by His son Jesus.
Such is the love of God in the Bible that He sent His son to die so that we might be able to be in a relationship with God – no matter what we have done, God will accept us due to the totally sufficient sacrifice made by Jesus on the cross.
That, in a nutshell, is the message of Christianity. What the Westboro Baptists seem to ignore is the love that covers all evil deeds of man. If they focused a little more on this and a little less on the apocalyptic, then people might start to pay the right kind of attention to them.
The Daily Telegraph this morning leads with an interview with Dame Stella Rimington, ex-head of MI5, who warns that the Government have used the fear of terrorism as an excuse to erode civil liberties. What is more concerning is the she believes that “It has achieved the opposite effect: There are more and more suicide terrorists finding a greater justification.” Several other right-wing papers publish the story with the words ‘police state’ in the title.
Thirdly, the interview comes at a time when some potentially embarrassing reports have come out, including those of local councils using anti-terrorism laws of 2002 to catch people fly-tipping.
Finally, BBC’s Panorama programme last night was on the radicalisation of Muslims due to their lack of trust in British people. The investigation more alarmingly unveils concerns that centrally-funded community projects are being used to gather intelligence about potential radicals to ease MI5’s process of following every extremist in the UK.
All these come at a time when the Home Office is preparing to publish plans to further surveillance in a new series of counter-terrorism ideas. Furthermore, a new level of authorities is to be authorised, with powers above police officers, by the Home Office. This measure was slipped into the Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Bill. Lack of trust? Who can blame them?
So where does the fault lie? Potentially with several parties.
It is easy to blame the government, as they are the ones in direct control of the increase in surveillance and data control. Regardless of whether or not you support them in the policies, New Labour have presided over the greatest rolling back of basic civil liberties in peace-time Britain, and that’s still with some of the most serious policies – ID cards and 90 day detention – having fallen short.
Similarly, it is easy to blame the neo-conservatives. What do they have to do with anything? Well, the neocons were in power in the American administration that dealt directly with the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. The US, following a rally-round-the-flag syndrome, created the Department of Homeland Security and passed the Patriot Act. Britain, still seeking to be very much in line with the US, followed suit with a set of policy proposals that increased governmental observation over the lives of its citizens.
You could also try and pin it on the Islamic fundamentalists. If they hadn’t perpetrated the attacks on 9/11, the Madrid bombings, 7/7, and several failed operations including 21/7, Glasgow airport, and the nightclub bombings, then we would not be on the lookout for terrorist potential everywhere.
While all of these are plausible, and do in fact have some truth to them, the main problem is not with the government, or the US neocons who led the world in government control, or even the fundamentalists themselves. The problem is, as with so many things, the state of the media coverage.
The media, particularly the widely-read and little-questioned right wing tabloid media, would lay all of the blame at the feet of Islamists themselves, and actively seeks to make divisions between communities.
The root of the problem then, is what is causing the lack of trust that so alienates young Muslims and leaves a window open for radicalisation. This cannot be the governmental policies alone, and to try and blame America or fundamentalists themselves is ludicrous. The media, who wield their great power often so irresponsibly, are to blame for the greater part of the distrust that has been created.
Maybe a little more tolerance and a little less scare-mongering wouldn’t go amiss.
Last Thursday the Dutch MP Geert Wilders was barred from entering the UK due to his radical views on Islam. He was on his way to present a film documenting the roots of radical Islam in the Koran to the House of Lords when he was held at Heathrow amidst fears that his visit would result in a security threat.
Here is the video, in two parts. It contains very shocking images:
On the surface this may appear a reasonable response to a man who is already facing trial in his own country for inciting hatred. However, there are several things that render the incident completely ridiculous.
The film, while well put together and very resounding, is ludicrously one-sided and verging on propaganda. Showing it in public would not cause outbreaks of violence – it would throw up discussion and ridicule.
If the government want to combat the message of Wilders, the best way is not to cover it up and send it back – it is to invite it in and open it up to debate.
This bares stark similarities to the episode that occurred over a year ago when Nick Griffin was invited to speak at the Oxford Union. Outrage occurred, tempers were roused, and rallies were attended. Griffin spoke, and was intellectually destroyed during the ensuing debate. The end result was that, by allowing the event to go ahead and the highly controversial view to be aired, that view was itself rubbished. This is exactly how a debate should work.
The most ludicrous aspect of the whole Wilders affair is that the film was still shown in the House of Lords, irrespective of the absence of Wilders himself. Furthermore, Wilders was in the country two weeks ago – he said so himself when interviewed by the BBC about it! It seems that the only reason that Wilders was this time prevented from entering (he was actually banned from the UK, but only this time was it enforced) was due to the nature of his visit, and even then the showing went ahead without him.
How many people had heard of Geert Wilders before last week? Substantially less than now do. How many had seen his film? Again, far less than have now seen it as a result of the incident, myself included. The only thing that the government have achieved by this action is free publicity for a biased propaganda film, and emphasising the inconsistency of British policy over free speech.
Maybe now sufficient debate will follow to change this.
Posts
All Comments
