A prominent human rights campaigner
I guess it’s only the right-wing press that can manage to report on Maryam and the bullies who try to shut down her talks without first labeling her “controversial.” Such as, the Telegraph:
The headline: Human rights campaigner heckled at blasphemy lecture
The subhead: A prominent human rights campaigner who was heckled during a lecture on blasphemy at Goldsmith University has said universities should be “unsafe places” where ideas and beliefs are openly challenged
See there? They call her a human rights campaigner, which she is, and skip the bit where they prejudice us against her, and excuse the people who bully her, by calling her “controversial.”
The Telegraph is better on this subject than the BBC. What a fucked-up world.
Javier Espinoza goes on:
A prominent human rights campaigner who was heckled during a lecture on blasphemy at Goldsmith University has said universities should be “unsafe places” where ideas and beliefs are openly challenged.
He calls her “prominent” rather than “controversial.”
Ms Namazie, who was banned from speaking at Warwick University for being considered “too inflammatory”, was giving a talk on Monday following an invitation from the Atheist, Secularist and Humanist Society (ASH).
Members of the Islamic Society had expressed their opposition to her talk entitled “Apostasy, blasphemy and free expression in the age of ISIS” – arguing Ms Namazie should not be allowed to speak given her “bigoted views”.
He puts the attribution of bigotry squarely on the Isoc, rather than voicing it himself. Makes a change, doesn’t it!
He quotes from Isoc’s complaint to ASH, then goes on:
However, she went ahead with the talk but “brothers” of the university’s Islamic Society started coming into the auditorium and repeatedly banged the door, heckled he[r] and shouted at her.
Ms Namazie, who fled her native Iran’s repressive government and now is a fierce campaigner against Islamic extremism, said: “They shut my projector, shouted over me, threw themselves on the floor. They created a climate of fear and intimidation. I spoke as loud as I could.”
Do better, BBC.
Great job dissecting this nonsense. ‘Controversial’. Apparently grounded, rational concepts like freedom of conscience and gender equality have suddenly become controversial…like the paranormal or the belief in ghosts
Is it me or is it the case that over the past 5ish years we are seeing an increasing intolerance to women speaking against any issue whatsoever? If we wish to be good, supportive handmaidens to the men of the Left we are praised and honoured as “allies”. If we dare to express an opinion contrary to… well, anything, we are “controversial” and must be no-platformed.
Women have always been the victims of silencing but over the last few years I see traditionally more tolerant ranks closing against us, echoed by the big media groups.
Backlash?
Why in the first quarter of the 21st century, is ‘blasphemy’ considered a serious topic for discussion on college campuses?
I wonder if those ‘brothers’ who tried to silence Namazie were moderate Muslims.
Perhaps the Brothers were moderately studying the golden science of blasphemy and apostasy? If so, the traditional experiments apparently involve threatening gestures, banging doors and falling on the floor.
How can anyone ever know? Let’s ask the Prphessor!
Why do you think being labelled controversial is prejudicial? Controversy just means that there’s more than a few crackpots who disagree with whatever position. The fact they’re wrong doesn’t make the position uncontroversial.
Do we assume that readers are so unsophisticated as to interpret “controversial” as “bad”? Is this some form of dog-whistle I’m unfamiliar with?
I totally agree that human rights campaigner is a more positive description, but “controversial” seems both factually correct and value-neutral.
@5: Yes, it is absolutely a dog-whistle; it means “Outsider. Shun them forthwith.” You’ll notice that the Islamists are not described as “controversial”, but Maryam is, even though the Islamist position (women must live in a sack, apostates must die) is far more extreme than Maryam’s position.
Banichi – nonsense. There are “more than a few crackpots who disagree with” … evolution by natural selection, to name but one. Doesn’t mean it’s legitimate to call that “controversial”!
To people like the Pearls and their followers it would be “controversial” to say it’s wrong to assault infants.
opposablethumbs – I don’t know. I’d say it’s literally true that common descent is controversial, much as we may wish it wasn’t. As far as I’m concerned “controversial” isn’t the same as “reasonable people may disagree”.
I’ll take it as given from here on out that some consider that word imbued with additional meaning, but it’s not
obvious, (or un-controversial :-P), that all users intend that.
Banichi, true enough, but I think it pays to be alert for its use as a subtle and deniable way to signal “this is a dubious person.” The BBC does it all the time, and yes I think it’s deliberate – as well as being by now so customary that some uses may be automatic more than deliberate. But absolutely, the fact that they call Maryam “controversial” while encouraging their two male Muslim guests to trash her in her absence…yes, that’s a pretty unmistakable dog whistle.
The thing you point out is the very thing that makes it a useful dog whistle – the fact that all it literally means is that some people disagree with it.
Also…frankly, if you’ve never noticed how mass media deploy the word that way, you really haven’t been paying attention.
Indeed, controversial at best means “prick up your ears and see if *you* disagree with what they are saying. But more often it’s beyond that, a suggestion that they should be disregarded henceforth, as we’re social animals and many people go with the herd judgement. For instance, the mainstream news prefers not to say “Donald Trump says racist things about Mexicans”, instead, they say, “Donald Trump’s controversial remarks on immigrants have made him unpopular among Latinos”.
Ah, yes, “controversial”…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=asUyK6JWt9U&feature=youtu.be