A Televisual Feast
If you listen to the most recent Start the Week – well you have to listen to a good bit of Ann Widdicombe, which I think is fairly unpleasant – but you could always fast forward. The last ten minutes or so you get Kenan Malik talking about Islamophobia and the religious hatred law. It’s good stuff. He thinks the idea of ‘Islamophobia’ is badly overblown and works to silence criticism of Islam and that that’s a bad thing. As you will have surmised, he also thinks the religious hatred law is a bad thing for the same sort of reason. He asks exactly the question I’ve been bleating and whining and braying for several months – why is it okay to say hard things about other ideas but not about religion?
And those of you in the UK will get to see his documentary on the subject on channel 4 at the end of the week. Wish I could.
“Everyone from anti-racist activists to government ministers wants to convince us that Britain is in the grip of Islamophobia.” But is this the reality or is hatred and abuse of Muslims being exaggerated to suit politicians’ ends and to silence critics of Islam, he asks. Malik, who grew up in the 80s – an era of real racist violence – shows how today there is very little statistical evidence to support the claims that Muslims are subject to either more physical assaults or to being targeted by the police.
See, silencing critics of immensely powerful institutions like religions is just not a very good idea. On Start the Week Malik talks about self-censorship, and he’s too right. There’s a lot of that around, along with a lot of other-censorship and attempted other-censorship. All of it unfortunate.
“well you have to listen to a good bit of Ann Widdicombe, which I think is fairly unpleasant”
Isn’t she absolutely dreadful!! They have her on the Today Programme far too often. That shrill sqawk is bad enough at any time of the day, but to hear it just after waking up is not the way to start the day.
Personally I can never forgive her for happily – nay righteously – being the public mouthpiece for the UK Government when they deported Ken Saro-Wiwa to his certain death in Nigeria. Any luvvies who’ve more recently taken to her apparent whacky charm or are impressed by her most publicaly professed conversion to RC from CofE are missing how seriously – toxically – vile that person can be. Sorry, but it’s been a hard morning.
“silencing critics of immensely powerful institutions like religions is just not a very good idea”
It isn’t – however, nobody is silencing anybody (unless you count extremists as the arm of law), & only catholicism can as an immensely powerful institution of religious nature.
Continuous complaining about not being heard do not constitute an argument.
JoB – I’m lost. Please do me a favour, and explain then, what you feel to be the thrust of what Malik is talking about… thanks.
Perhaps that’s it then, we’re on different tacs. Where I’m from – the UK – a small but important section of the civil service and other government organisations are rather naively throwing out the baby with the bathwater, through either through robotic risk assesment or political correctness, the real root of which lies in ‘governance by ticking boxes’ (it’s cheaper than relying on expertice). I’ll attempt to describe the root of this rather than lean on rather lazy phrasiology suchs as that however: You need only look at the various reports published after a West African baby got brutally murdered in East London four years ago (Victoria Climbie) to see that part – I will repeat that word – part – of the problem within social services and other caring institutions is that they are scared of or uncertain how to deal with immigrant populations who have brought with them codes, practices and lore perhaps alien or counter to our hard-won concepts of freedom. Senior people within official, local government and caring professions have been known to indicate to their staff that it is best to err on the side of ‘cultural sensitivity’. This leads to an atmosphere of unclear best practice, and this still happens in the UK. There is evidence that the poice in certain boroughs / counties in the UK are also very wary of intervening in forced imprisonment where the victims are female and muslim. Part of the reason for this over-sensitivity is the desire to counter and compensate for a history of racism within the police. But a part of the wider problem is related to the vested interest groups of influence that Malik cites, who, however well-meaning make it hard for people to do their job properly, and I’m talking police, social workers, doctors, etc. So let’s not believe the hype from any quarter, eh ?
I do think that the problems in the UK are different from those on the continent. But the specific problem you address is rather similar in all of Europe, it’s the problem of failed integration policies (not one of silencing or of powerful institutions). It is a difficult problem since it’s prone to being tackled too softly (as it was, still is) as well as too harshly (horrible words like “assimilation” spring to mind).
The remaining problem with integration is, I think, that it is primarily seen as a duty for the immigrant & a defense for the aboriginal. When push comes to shove it’s neither. Integration is mere common sense on both parts. Shock & awe will not work.
UK politicians maybe too soft whilst it may well be the case that a continental politician is erring on the harsh side. To try to make clear why I´m being the odd one out here: the way things go in Flanders – with a main party proposing to fly any Moroccan woman wearing head scarfs linea recta to Morocco – such a non-starting debate may well start the sequence of events most feared by some of us that really believe in “the open society”. Islamophobia’s risk does not after all consist in its current appeal but in the proven ability of x-phobia’s to spread like wild-fire in Europe.
Nick – I think I agree there; the French too for example can be quite militant in enforcing their democracy and freedom ;-)
There is a complacent flavour to much of our country’s senior governance (that’s not just our government), specifically in the UK, where it publicly takes what it knows to be the cynical, easy line, while handing down unworkable dictates to hard-working front-line staff and middle management.
Take a typical ‘intellectual’, BBC Radio 4 political slot where guests are on discussing a current race-related or religious-related issue. You can bet your bottom dollar one will be a rep from Whitehall or the House of Commons, (or affiliated lofty institution), and the other will be from a pressure group that Malik cites. You are left with a no-win situation as the listener: the government guy/woman will spin their hearts out, even (if they are actually quietly achieving something useful in office and Whitehall), and the opposite number will be left with a halo. The chattering, liberal elite will then applaud it, no matter what complete unworkable garbage the complainants come out with. Everyone is satisfied – the govt, ngo, pressure group, broadcaster, etc, – everyone except the ordinary citizens of this country who would rather just get on with life, getting their hands dirty and managing as we always have, to just rub along together.
JoB “I also objected to her implying that religions – in general – are powerful institutions”. Why ?
Yes and JoB,
“& only catholicism can as an immensely powerful institution of religious nature.”
Are you serious?
Sorry, Nick S, my mind was absent when I signed the post of 2005-01-05 – 15:33:56
I used to follow UK politics but I don’t now. The anti-establishment feeling is – that much I know – is something that has all of Europe in its grip. Being offered the choice between 2 quasi-alternatives, adding something fuzzy in between, isn’t quite attractive. The more if they go on and on right over most heads – bothering only with what appears to be continueing in office (or at least that those of the same upbringing continue in office).
Why I objected? Catholicism is the only major religion represented over here by a powerful institution. A major issue I see with Islam is the absence of a kind of powerful institution that would find a way of excommunicating those infidels blowing their way to power or otherwise engaged in physical or mental torture.
Ophelia, deadly serious.
Well, JoB, I think you’re mistaken then. The Southern Baptist Convention has a lot of power, as does Islam in many places, as does Hinduism in India, just to name a few. Perhaps you’re using some special definition of ‘power.’
Not an expert on Baptists, but quite sure they don’t come close to the Pope.
There are some states with state religions but in those cases (Saudi-Arabia) power is state power & religion is just the cover.
Hinduism, Buddhism like Islam, as well as Protestantism, don’t have central power by definition. Any institutional power as they may have derives from states or from the sheer number of people of such faiths (we may not like the numbers but, hey, they are factual & empirical).
“Islam” is not an entity that exists. To construe it as such is misleading – even ayatollah Al-Sistani knows how limited his worldly power is.
But I didn’t say the Baptists did come close to the Pope. The fact remains that they do have power – way more than they ought to in a secular state, for one thing.
And I didn’t say central power either. I said powerful, not centrally powerful. Nor did I say institutional power – though I did say powerful institutions. But mosques are institutions, and so are madrassas – and both have a lot of power in many places. And religion itself is an institution, and in many places it is the religion itself – Islam, Christianity, Hinduism, Judaism, whatever – that has power. Power over people’s minds and bodies. Far more power than the state, in some ways – because more pervasive and more willingly obeyed.
But I didn’t say you said they came close to the Pope (& so on & so forth).
“way more than they ought to in a secular state, for one thing”
Maybe so but what is the measure? Many of us believe unions, political parties, and even ngo’s wield too much power. I’d much prefer to remain objective & only specify no organization should have powers enough to challenge continuously the monopoly of power that should be held secularly.
I’m reading a certain Mr. Grice at the moment. He held most information would be exchanged in any conversation not by what is said but by what is implied, in context. However that may be, the power in the original sentence quoted and the power of your last sentence don’t seem to me to convey the same sense.
Whether or not a religion has too much power over people’s minds doesn’t seem to me to imply risk of silencing (as a public act of “not speaking”). Central power would seem to have such kinds of connections to the risk of silencing – where religion co-incides with state a risk like that is heavy. But it is not so in the West.
Which is why the main problem is not in Eurabia but in Arabia.
JoB – thanks for your reply. I might point out that the prosecutors of Sharia law in the UK are aware of the illegality of their acts, but as far as they are concerned, that is ‘only’ under UK secular law. The law they obey is Allah’s word, and therefore from a higher authority. The Muslim Council of Britain openly condemns this practice, yet it continues. I would like to therefore convey a point lost in these discussions: most Muslims, Sikhs, etc. living here are a bit like most Christians – they are not fundamentalist, they are pragmatic, and they are intelligent and even flexible with their faiths. We are therefore talking about hard-line bigmouths with clout, not religious groupings, let alone races.
My additional comment would be that a country similar in political economy such as Canada, meantime is being bullied into accepting Sharia Courts, by people who are aware of the civil liberties issues but feel them to be of secondary or tertiary importance. Or no importance. The subjects (victims) of these extralegal courts, if progressed to fruition, will be then victimised legitimately, even while the very legal precedents, and / or the constitution – which the peoples of that country has fought hard and died for – are denigrated. I can only think of the term ‘cultural imperialism’ behind much of this fundamentalist land-grab – creeping from the outside of modernity into democracies, and it is unrepresentative, rigid, medieval in its construct and deleterious to individual freedoms. And I don’t care if that’s only ten people, it’s a very dodgy precedent.
To address the point squarely then: Just one black guy beaten to death in Bristol or Brixton or Birmingham because of his colour in the 1960s would have been regarded as unacceptable the trades unions, civil liberties and other groups who campaigned against racism, got their butts kicked by the police and violent thugs, but ultimately won some justice in Acts of Parliament a decade later. Why should we put up with this now ? Why should Canada accept complete reversals of the spirit of this legislation, e.g. against the rights of Islamic women, just because an unrepresentative and unpleasant militant pressure group says so and they have the wits to use some of the sillier woolly liberal elite as advocates ? If just one girl from Leicester refuses an arranged marriage and gets deported to Pakistan and killed by her father’s family…
“Barring that, the only way to stop it is for the state to get a grip on religious symbols itself, & make laws against courts with such name”
Er quite, but it’s not!
See recent posts on Canada/Sharia Courts, B&W Passim (OB do you have those recent links about this – sorry, got to do some work!)
Nick, I don’t get it. Is there another way (& did you agree with me up to that point) or didn’t you agree with me up to there, & want me to read something clarifying error in my ways?
I do have the links, Nick, but they’re scattered throughout 2004 News. I guess I’ll have to do another In Focus to gather them all in one place.
JoB, I think Nick’s point (and if it’s not Nick’s point it is mine) is that you’re talking about a factual matter as if you can decide it by pure guesswork. It’s not a matter of what you think ought to be happening in Canada, it’s a matter of what is in fact happening in Canada, which B&W has been covering for some months now. Sharia law in Ontario is not some vague far-off possibility.
Meanwhile, until I do that In Focus, just type sharia into B&W’s search – you’ll find a fair amount.
Also articles. Read articles by Homa Arjomand in our Articles section if you’re interested, JoB. If you’re not interested, fine, but take on board that you seem to be unaware of some facts.
JoB – I am not arguing on any particular philisophic level here, just using exisitng scenarios to point out the danger of allowing certain groups to abuse other people, using their own minority status as an excuse. It’s going on. I’m intolerant to intolerance, now matter how it’s dressed up, and that’s not currently the fashion.
Nick, Ophelia,
I never made out to know the facts. I did not challenge the fact some bozo’s try to install aSharia courts in Canada – I even pleaded zero-tolerance.
This being as it is, philosophical points are sometimes pertinent irrespective of a set of partcular facts. I guess that that is one of the reasons people engage in it continuously.
What should I do in face of these facts: cry hysterically “me not want” & “you an arsehole”? I guess it makes more sense – in case Nick S is right which I think he is – to see how one could deal with it a bit more constructively then calling the religion names & the religions dumb or – as the case may be – criminal.
On top of which, if this problem is such a specific problem that “intimate knowledge” of the facts is required to use it, it is more consistent not to generalize it into a pretext for a general strategy.
JoB, you were making an argument about an empirical subject, full of conditionals and speculations. Nobody said anything about intimate knowledge – but you keep upbraiding me and flinging the word ‘hysterical’ about (which I wish you would stop doing) and insisting that I am exaggerating and making a big fuss about a small problem. Well, how big or small the problem is surely bears some relation to the facts about what is going on. Here’s a good idea – why don’t you stop reading me and start reading other people instead? Never mind what I say here, this is just a blog thing; read the articles by Homa Arjomand, Maryam Namazie, Azam Kamguian, and Azar Majedi in our articles section, then browse for more in our Flashback and in 2004 News. See if you think they’re being ‘hysterical.’
Ophelia,
I was not referring to you but to me – in an irrealis kind of mode. I wasn’t saying this was a small problem either. I didn’t say you were exaggerating this, I did, at the outset say you were incorrect in some specified quote of your post.
I was indeed speculating what could be as far as legality is concerned the case (it is by far the only interesting thing here as everybody sensible will agree that the thing is a no-go) made for this matter. Unless any of the texts treat it as such I fear it will not add much for me to read things I will agree with (as per the brackets higher).
As far as what I´ll do, I´ll figure that out by myself. Blogs are public places – and I like your style (even if I have at times difficulty with your content). So, if I’m going to disagree with such types of content it’d be rational to disagree in an enjoyable way.
OB “I think Nick’s point (and if it’s not Nick’s point it is mine) is that you’re talking about a factual matter as if you can decide it by pure guesswork.” Quite.
you have to listen to a good bit of Ann Widdicombe, which I think is fairly unpleasant
I’m a bit surprised at this. The PC left regularly likes to talk as if counter-evidence and argument are somehow unhygienic and unsavoury, and certainly not worth listening to, but surely someone on the rational left should not find it unpleasant to hear reasons for disagreement?