Danish cartoons

Telegraph Online: “The worrying rise of attacks fuelled by hatred”

New comment piece published today on the Telegraph Online’s ‘Comment’ section. To view the article, click here.

The text of the piece is also reproduced below:

The worrying rise of attacks fuelled by hatred

Both anti-Semitic and Islamophobic incidents have risen recently as British society becomes more sharply divided, says Chris Allen.

Published: 12:27PM GMT 12 Feb 2010

Last year saw the highest number of anti-Semitic incidents in the UK since recording began in 1984. In a report by the Community Security Trust (CST), a total of 924 incidents including extreme violence, threats to human life and abusive behaviour were recorded, an increase of 69 per cent from the previous year.

The true picture is much worse, as many victims of anti-Semitic attacks are either unable or unwilling to report such crimes. Perhaps the most worrying aspect of this is that attacks of this nature are even more prevalent when you consider the strong similarities between anti-Semitism and Islamophobia, which is also on the rise along with its associated incidents.

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The Satanic Verses and the Ayatollah’s Fatwa: 20 Years On

Saturday 14th February 2009 marks the 20th anniversary of the Ayatollah Khomeini’s fatwa against the British author Salman Rushdie and the publication of his novel, ‘The Satanic Verses’. Based upon stories about the life of the Prophet Muhammad, the novel caused controversy due to it being interpreted by some Muslims as blasphemous and offensive. Not only against the Prophet himself but also against some of the central tenets of Islam.

Following India’s lead in banning the book in January 1989, the Ayatollah took the matter into his own hands – and to an unprecedented level – by issuing a fatwa that called for the death of Rushdie, claiming that it was the duty of every Muslim worldwide to obey his pronouncement. Reports suggest that despite the fatwa, Khomeini hadn’t read the book.

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No Offence…??? Why not…??? (Birmingham Post, Thursday 16th October 2008)

This month’s chunk for the Birmingham Post:

Should we have the right to offend?

I ask this not because I was personally offended by Joe Kinnear’s swear-a-thon. Nor even because I offended my partner by licking my knife in a restaurant. I ask because there just seems to be a lot of people getting easily offended.

Being almost twenty years since Rushdie’s ‘The Satanic Verses’ was published could it just be ‘déjà vu’? No, but there are some similarities.

I was at an event for fifty ‘leaders’ – I was included in this so use the term loosely – last week in Whitehall that sought to consider ‘security and community cohesion’ (a euphemism for extremism and terrorism, natch). Whilst many clearly focused on this, a few were voicing their plans to protest against the publication of ‘The Jewel of Medina’, a Mills and Boon-lite account of one of the Prophet Muhammad’s wives, Aisha. Possibly because of their ‘offence’ at this, they seemed to have forgotten the clear lessons learned from some of the protests that followed the Satanic Verses and Danish cartoons debacles.

A few days ago, I also read how others were ‘offended’ by a London exhibition by the artist Sarah Maples. Described as the next Tracey Emin, Maples – who was raised as a Muslim – has caused ‘offence’ by using one of her paintings – depicting a Muslim woman cradling a pig – as the advertisement for the exhibition. Maples has categorically stated that she does not want to offend arguing that her work actually explores the confusion that many young Muslims face in contemporary western society, not least about what it means to be a ‘good’ Muslim.

Given that the offices of the publishers in London of ‘The Jewel of Medina’ have already been firebombed, it seems that some of those protesting – whether against ‘The Jewel’ or Maples – have missed the irony in that their actions are also quite ‘offensive’…!!!

Which highlights the point: whilst some are ‘offended’ by knife licking, others are ‘offended’ by paintings they dislike. In this column last Christmas, I even offered help to those ‘offended’ by Christmas lights, Eid celebrations and so on. And that was because offence is entirely subjective thus rendering it entirely un-manageable.

Is being ‘offended’ therefore legitimate enough to curb freedom of speech and expression?

In the past, free speech was seen as something that was inherently good. Because of this, restrictions and limitations on free speech were viewed as the exception rather than the rule, to be wielded carefully and only in those cases where speech might cause direct harm. In fact, legislation that affords protection against those trying to harm are rightly in place.

Yet nowadays, we seem to believe that speech and activities that ‘offend’ are in some way socially damaging and so require necessary curtailment. In an increasingly diverse society, this becomes increasingly difficult to manage, balancing one view against another. If we are therefore edging perilously closer to a situation where ‘if I don’t like what you say, you can’t say it’ becomes the rule rather than the exception, whose ‘offence’ will be given most importance?

Expanding upon the Maple ‘offence’ and the fact that pork is seen to be unclean, if vegetarians say that they are ‘offended’ by the sight of ALL meat in supermarkets because it is ‘unclean’, should we immediately oblige and remove it from the shelves? Is this the same or does it merely highlight how we treat people depending upon who they are? If so, we’re not as a society moving forward in a fair and equitable way.

Freedom of expression – including the right to offend – is therefore not just an important liberty; it is the very foundation of liberty. It is everybody’s business to ensure that no one is deprived of their right to say what they wish, even if what they say is seen as offensive by one or indeed many more.

This work by Chris Allen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 2.0 UK: England & Wales License. Based on a work at www.chris-allen.co.uk.

The Satanic Verses: a 20th anniversary retrospective

Last Friday marked the 20th anniversary of the publication of Salman Rushdie’s novel, The Satanic Verses. The ‘affair’ that ensued was, as the Commission on British Muslims and Islamophobia stated some years later, “one of the formative, defining events” in shaping how Muslims and Islam are understood in British society today. As such, I thought that I’d (belatedly) mark this anniversary with a short retrospective.

As Rushdie’s fourth novel, ‘The Satanic Verses’ was understood to be constructed around stories from the life of the Prophet Muhammad, the title referencing Ibn Ishaq’s biography of him. Causing some controversy at the time of its publication, it was interpreted by many Muslims as blasphemous with many of its analogous storylines allegedly denigrating Muhammad and his prophethood as well as his wives. Similar denigrations were also alleged against some of the theological tenets and beliefs of Islam. Following India’s lead in banning the book, in early 1989 the Ayatollah Khomeini took the matter to an unprecedented level at the time by issuing a fatwa in Iran that called for the death of Rushdie, claiming that it was the duty of every Muslim to obey his pronouncement. Despite this, at no time in his life did Khomeini read the book.

In Britain, the response to the book was overwhelming. On the 14 January 1989, a large number of Muslims took to the streets of Bradford and publicly burnt copies of it. Whilst the local and national press initially showed little interest, a small group of protesters videotaped the proceedings, later distributing it to various news agencies. Despite being poorly produced, shortly afterwards images of Muslims burning books on the streets of England were broadcast around the world. Evoking comparisons to the Reconquista, the Inquisition and the Reformation, the most damning comparisons were those that recalled Hitler’s Nazis less than a century beforehand. In what was an attempt to gain publicity, the images evolved into little more than a PR catastrophe that inadvertently signaled the beginning of much wider processes: of the widespread condemnation of Muslims and their indiscriminate vilification.

The presence of Muslims in Britain (and by default Islam too) was brought sharply under the public and political gazed, framed and informed by history and its various legacies about Islam and Muslims. More importantly, it was also informed by what had gone before and what was yet to come. Given that Muslims and their presence in Britain had previously been somewhat unacknowledged – most had previously been collectively defined within the homogenous marker of ‘Asian’ – so the first formal recognition of British Muslims and the presence of Islam in Britain was a highly politicised one and through the association with Khomeini, one that was largely indistinguishable from the ‘fundamentalist’– to employ the terminology of the day – forms of Islam that had initiated revolution in Iran.

The protests went global and within a month of the events in Bradford, similar protests had taken place in Bombay, Kashmir, Dacca and Islamabad, the latter seeing five protesters killed and hundreds more injured. Unsurprisingly, these protests were also broadcast around the world and were uncannily similar to those associated with the protests that followed the second publication of the Prophet Muhammad cartoons in the Danish newspaper, the Jyllands-Posten in early 2006. Both events were highly mediatised and to a great degree, hyper-real.

As with the Danish cartoons furore, so the Satanic Verses affair was seen to present a direct challenge to many of the deeply held values of Britain and ‘the West’ per se: freedom of expression, disagreement, equality, democracy and tolerance. As Elizabeth Poole has since wrote, the Satanic Verses affair was represented by the media as posing a serious threat to liberal and progressive British and Western values: threatened by archaic, retrogressive and irrational Muslims, adherents to an outdated and outmoded religious belief system that history had shown us was inherently violent, barbaric and intolerant.

Despite twenty years having passed, some Muslims, some Muslim organisations and some parts of the media appear to have learned nothing. In February this year I wrote how I was increasingly distressed by knee-jerk reactions by some Muslims and their organisations that afford the media far too many opportunities to show pictures of Muslim men or angry niqabis with placards shouting abuse whilst commentators warn of the impending clash of civilisations at the same time as opinion polls pit sharia law against democracy. Those same Muslims and their organisations then turn on the media and denounce them for further vilifying and stereotyping them. It’s a vicious, self-perpetuating cycle that neither ‘side’ seem to want to break and for whom all are equally to blame.

And it is this, for me, that perpetuates and reinforces the legacy of the Satanic Verses Affair and why this legacy continues to inform much of how all Muslims and the entirety of Islam continues to be indiscriminately presented and perceived.

Next month will see the publication of a new novel, ‘Jewel of Medina’ and the potential for a whole new’ Satanic Verses affair’ to unfold in front of our very eyes. The book is said to be about the Prophet Muhammad’s relationship with his youngest wife, Aisha, and has been described as a “soft-porn” novel. Already it is believed that emails are being circulated calling on British Muslim organisations to act now to stop its publication.

If the necessary lessons have been learned from the Satanic Verses affair, neither individual Muslims nor Muslim organisations will take the bait. If the lessons haven’t been learned, then we will see history repeat itself and the legacy of the Satanic Verses affair will likely continue for at least another twenty years also.

If however the lessons have been learnt, then we will see the beginnings of a far more mature and confident approach that may will contribute to the right to freedom of expression, the right to disagreement, the right to equality and the right to democracy that all of us have.

This work by Chris Allen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 2.0 UK: England & Wales License. Based on a work at www.chris-allen.co.uk.

“If people don’t like it, it’s their tough luck…”: tolerating the intolerable redux

After posting ‘”It’s part of our religion…our identity…our culture”: tolerating the intolerable’, a regular to this blog commented:

“If you are not breaking the law, you should be able to do what you want. And if people don’t like it, it’s their tough luck”

My full response to this can be read here but as I put it, I do think that approaches such as ‘if people don’t like it, it’s their tough luck’ are very dangerous and a somewhat unworkable premise from which to begin discussing how an increasingly diverse and rapidly changing society moves forward. Because of this, I feel that it is necessary to explore my thinking further.

First off, such laissez faire arguments completely bypass any recognition of respect, something that in effect diminishes the rights of the individual, the group and the society as a whole. Here the individual, the collective, and the communal are indeterminably reduced and – dare I say it – rendered somewhat unnecessary. I would even go as far as suggesting that it verges on being ‘Social Darwinism’ albeit in a different guise.

Don’t agree…? Then what about the rhetoric employed by racists and bigots over the decades. Isn’t the sentiment underpinning the old adage, “if they don’t like it here, then they can go back home” pretty much the same?

Criminal or illegal…? No.

The reason why I ask whether it is ‘criminal or illegal’ is because as the comment put it, “If you are not breaking the law, you should be able to do what you want”. Again, I believe that this is as equally misguided. If not, then as long as something is neither criminal nor illegal, then neither can it be wrong whether morally, ethically, socially or whatever. In this way, the publication of the cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad in the British newspapers would have been fine (incidentally, none of the British national newspapers printed them).

So too would the BNP being cleared of inciting racial hatred in 2006. “If you are not breaking the law, you should be able to do what you want” therefore means that along with many other things, it should be completely acceptable and legitimate to describe Islam as a “wicked, vicious faith”; to state that Muslims are turning Britain into a “multi-racial hell hole”; and that as a society, we should “show these ethnics the door in 2004″. These are not my words I hasten to add, but the words of Nick Griffin and Mark Collett from the BNP: words that were deemed not to have broken the law. And when I use the term ‘we’, I use this as being a British citizen that is comfortable with being a part of a wider (multicultural) British society rather than a jingoistic, racist bigot.

To develop this line of thinking, I came up with the following list of things and activities that did not involve breaking the law. At the same time however, I would suggest that a vast few numbers of people – in some cases the majority – would prefer them either to not happen or at least have some boundaries/ limitations placed upon them (NB: the list is NOT a list of things that I personally find offensive or inoffensive, right or wrong. Merely an indicative list of activities to illustrate a point):

Bullying
Breastfeeding in public
Wearing the niqab
Swearing in public
BNP/ NF marches
Binge drinking
Satanic, pagan, cult and heretical religions being practised openly and/ or recruiting
Animal sacrifice
Embryo experimentation
Cloning
Abortion
Smoking
Smacking
Over-eating
Public drinking
Overt sexual advertising
Sale of Mein Kampf in bookshops
Sale of Satanic Verses in bookshops
Direct targeting of children with advertising of junk food
Free speech
Pole dancing

None of these things necessarily break the law. But does this mean that they are all right and proper…? And if you don’t think that they are right and proper, should we as a society collectively respond by saying ‘tough’…?

Which of course brings me back to my initial point in the first post: whether we need to have societal ‘boundaries’ or whether the demarcation between the criminal and non is enough?

In Britain, discussions about multiculturalism are marked by a stark paradox. Many welcome the fact that Britain is a multicultural society and delight in its diversity. Yet some of these people also reject multiculturalism. How is it possible to do this and how can those who recognise the value of cultural diversity take such a diametrically opposed standpoint on multiculturalism?

There are several explanations available. However, the most important is the two different ways in which the term ‘multiculturalism’ is employed.

For some, multiculturalism stands for cultural isolationism or ghettoisation, based on the view that every community is in some way self-contained and self-authenticating, unquestionably having the right to live by its own social and cultural norms. ‘Outsiders’ cannot therefore judge or criticise and should respect each communities autonomy (the ‘if they don’t like it, tough’ approach?).

Multiculturalism in this sense would seem to undermine attempts to have a shared life, existence, and experience. More importantly, it works against the whole notion of a multicultural society. Because different cultures do not passively coexist but instead interact and influence each other, multiculturalism defined in this way immediately puts a halt to such processes. Advocates of a multicultural society can therefore see multiculturalism as a barrier or obstacle to their societal aspiration or ideal. Such an approach might be described as isolationist or relativist multiculturalism.

Those who welcome multiculturalism and see no problems with the notion of a multicultural society define things very differently. Here the view is that every culture has limitations and benefits from a dialogue with others. Such dialogues accentuate new visions of life, exposes new world-views, looks at itself from the standpoint of others, increases its self-knowledge, and creates the conditions for human freedom and – allegedly – rationality.

This view therefore engenders the belief that different cultures should be respected but at the same time, brought into a process of interaction and engagement. It challenges the hegemonic dominant culture, exposes its biases and limitations, and helps create a composite culture in which ‘others’ can see something of themselves and their culture, and through which they can claim some ownership of. This model of multiculturalism is one where different cultures and communities feel valued and respected.

It is also necessary in this model – the one that I wholeheartedly prefer – for all of this to take place within an agreed system of rights and obligations: the boundaries from both ‘inside’ and ‘outside’ that I mentioned in my original post. This model might therefore be called a dialogical or pluralist view of multiculturalism: the type of multiculturalism my earlier post was suggesting.

“If people don’t like it, it’s their tough luck…”? Well maybe for some, but not in the multiculturalism that I prefer or in the multicultural society that I would like to see develop. Having said that though, where and how we begin to negotiate the necessary boundaries and who decides what these are is the real challenge facing us all.

This work by Chris Allen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 2.0 UK: England & Wales License. Based on a work at www.chris-allen.co.uk.

“Faith Off” or “F*** Off”…? Islam Channel Launches ‘Interfaith Quiz’

Thought that Channel 4′s ‘Make me a Muslim’ was a bad idea…??? (read my previous entry on the show here)

Thought that Muslim ‘Wife Swap’ was a terrible experiment that was even worse than expected…???

Well now – and I admit, it’s a little late in reaching the blog – but the Islam Channel is launching a new interfaith quiz entitled, “Faith Off” (if the press release is correct, it should be on air now…!!!). Here’s how the Channel describes the show:

A new TV game show seeks to broaden the public’s knowledge of religion, and to foster understanding between different faiths.

Faith Off is to be broadcast weekly on the Islam Channel from mid-June.

It will be hosted by Muslim comedian Jeff Mirza, and will involve contestants from six major faith groups, including Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, and Sikhism.

Contestants will be divided into two teams of four, and will be tested on both general and religious knowledge.

Specialist rounds, in a nod to popular sports quiz show ‘A Question of Sport’, include ‘home or away’, where contestants can choose to answer questions on their own religion or a different religion, and ‘guess the religious personality’, with contestants having to identify high profile religious figures such as the Pope and the Dalai Lama based on blurred or difficult to see pictures.

The show aims to be great fun with a serious purpose.

On the fun side, it will include all the traditional elements of a TV quiz show – loud push buzzers, flashing lights, contestants from the general public.

On a more serious note, the show aims to educate the general public about different religious traditions, and to promote understanding between diverse groups of people.

Before each programme is filmed, contestants spend two hours together getting to know each other.

So why is it such a bad idea…??? Well it ‘nods’ to A Question of Sport for a start, but even going beyond that, the idea of a ‘guess the religious personality’ round seems desperately flawed from the start. I mean, apart from the Dalai Lama and the Pope (both of whom the press release identifies as examples), who else is there that fits this billing – Cliff Richard, Osama Bin Laden…???

And what about Buddhist and Sikh ‘religious personalities’ – do they even exist ???

Maybe the show will go for A Question of Sport’s picture board round where pictures of different religious figures are shown. Then again, if the show offers a picture of the Prophet Muhammad it could be that angry mobs taking to the street will conjure a whole new Satanic Verses affair/ Danish cartoons furore, something the show obviously doesn’t want to achieve.

What really irritates me about this show however is the fact that it states that the show has a ‘serious side’. Why…? Why does it need to…?? Does A Question of Sport feel the need to do have a ‘serious side’ or is a quiz show just about having ‘fun’…???

The problem with many ‘Muslim’ initiatives is that they limit themselves and their creativity – not wanting to push the ‘norms’ that a few impose on the rest in the communities or not wanting to go against the increasingly farcical Government agenda, namely that ‘interfaith’ is good and that people from different faiths/ backgrounds need to come together (click here to read the Government’s latest interfaith strategy).

Believing that a ‘fun’ quiz show that includes “loud push buzzers, flashing lights, contestants from the general public” (I’m almost wetting myself in anticipation) has a value in being able to do this is as misguided as it was for those individual Muslims that entered either ‘Wife Swap’ or ‘Make me a Muslim’.

Why do I say that this is misguided…am I being a bit harsh?

Well no because what seems to have been overlooked by the organisers of the show is that it is only going to be shown on the Islam channel: a channel that I would suggest has viewers from ONE community, i.e. the MUSLIM community. How then, despite the press release suggesting otherwise, is the show to bring people together…???

Maybe – just maybe – it is about time that Muslims step out from underneath the comfort and relative safety of the ‘interfaith blanket’ and begin to be ‘normal’, ‘fun’ and ‘serious’ with the wider public and not just an isolated few within their own community.

“Faith Off”…? Maybe that’s just mis-spelt…!!!