Religious Hate Crime Act
Today, I find myself in the curious position of agreeing with Polly Toynbee .... again.
The UK government is making another attempt to pass the religious hatred law.
This time the debate is being made in the context of the media starting to report the events relating to the Danish newspaper Jyllands Posten, which printed 12 cartoons of Mohammad. There has been conjecture that the law, if passed, would make it an offence to publish these cartoons in the UK. If you don't know this story, let me recap:
The newspaper learnt that publishers of a book on Islam could not find illustrators because the artists feared the reaction of Muslims. To test this they solicited cartoons of Mohammad and received 12 responses which they published. A few link Islam with terrorism, but most do not - a couple poke fun at the newspaper for instigating the whole process.
Muslims do not allow representational art full stop, so there is no doubt that Mohammad should not be pictured in even a positive sense. Not surprisingly throughout the World many Muslims reported being offended. There have been demonstrations, letters between governments and boycotts of Danish goods. Death threats have been issued. During the same time, the pictures have been reprinted in Norway and Belgium. In some Muslim countries a further three very offensive cartoons have been published falsely purporting to be part of the original twelve. The Danish government declined to intervene in matter of "free speech", which seems to have upset people even more. The UK Spectator didn't publish the cartoons but in a Rod Liddle comment on the affair he proved he can't draw to save his life.
I have linked to the cartoons so that people can draw their own conclusion but in doing so I recognise that I am taking sides. I do so for several reasons:
1. (To quote George Orwell via Harry's Place) "If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear."
2. Race and gender are fixed attributes of a person. It is not acceptable to discriminate on the basis of these. On contrary religion is an acquired attribute. Since people can choose to acquire the attitudes and manner of a religion it is fair comment to debate whether such acquisition is good or bad. It's difficult to see why Cartoons should not be a legitimate part of such a discussion.
The government in presenting this act assert two things that seem to me false or contradictory.
1. Legitimate debate will not be stifled because only people who intend to cause trouble will be affected
2. Passing this law will protect a vulnerable group from hate crime.
I'm not sure why a comment against religion made by Polly Toynbee or Richard Dawkins should be regarded as legitimate when the exact same words uttered by someone else might be regarded as stirring religious hatred. We surely don't need this law to "get" Nick Griffin. The leadership of the British Movement is already littered with people with criminal convictions for various offences, showing that they aren't getting away scot-free.
More significantly, the main Muslim groups seem to believe that the law is needed to protect them from such people as Salmon Rushdie and Polly Toynbee. It is clear that some people are going to be disappointed. Either Polly will be convicted, indicating that Labour lied or are foolish, or she will not be convicted, in which case the Muslims demanding special protection will feel they have been betrayed. Neither outcome is desirable. Raising false hope of conviction amongst Muslims who feel they are already victimised will inevitably exacerbate their sense of alienation.
I also dislike the fact that such an act is being passed at this time.
We still recall the threats made against Salman Rushdie: threats of deaths vs the right to publish a work of fiction. One of his translators was stabbed. Van Gogh was murdered in Holland for producing Submission. Leaving Islam, a theatre was closed in Birmingham for offending Sikhs and there are reports about threats made against the producers of Jerry Springer. It seems as if we are giving in to intimidation. That is hardly likely to discourage the militants, who claim the act doesn't go far enough.
Last year a hate crime occurred in which 50+ people were killed in one attack and narrowly failed in a second. Yet in the months following, the media worked overtime to explain why it was wrong to blame all Muslims and to warn us about the rising tide of Islamophobia. There is at least a debate about the extent of Islamophobia - is it as bad as it was in the 1970s - is it right to talk about Islamophobia when, (I would safely assert), the average National Front member can't tell a Hindu from a Muslim? The ridiculousness of the claim is surely revealed when we learn who is one of the leading lights of Islamophobia: it's none other than Polly Toynbee????
It is asserted by defenders of the act that far right figures are able to generate hate by speaking about religion.
It is equally plausible to argue that certain figures are exaggerating the extent of Islamophobia to bolster their own power base. We might ask ourselves whether bogus claims will lead to community harmony or widen divisions risking more civil disturbance. At this point we might ask ourselves whether demonising all society with the charge of Islamophobia is a hate crime in itself. If asking questions about the validity of religion are offensive then so too is making generalised accusations of Islamophobia.
Update
via Norm I see that Jyllands Posten has now apologised for the offense caused by the cartoons. I think it instructive that 12 pictures were deemed so offensive that death threats had to be taken seriously.
Update 2
zombietime has published dozens of images of Mohammed that predate the recent pictures, many of them from Arab countries. None of these seem to have caused a similar outrage.
Plus, I noted in the original a further three pictures had appeared which were falsely claimed to be part of the twelve. It seems these originated from Danish Muslim protestors, who toured the middle east with them. One depicts a pig's head. The obvious question: if the original cartoons were so bad, then why fake three more? I note that the BBC has falsely repeated the story that the pigs head cartoon is one of the original 12. I wonder if they will apologise for inciting race hatred.
posted by JohnM @ 8:34 pm
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