Bunglawala tells us where he stands
A couple of days ago I asked what if there had been (quoting Bunglawala) ‘apparent intention to offend Islamic sensibilities or defame the honour and name of the Prophet Muhammad’ – would that make the arrest of Gibbons okay?
Should ‘defaming the honour and name of the Prophet Muhammad’ or ‘offending Islamic sensibilities’ be a criminal offense under the law? It’s good that Bunglawala said Gibbons shouldn’t have been arrested, but his reason for saying so is not so good, and the fact that the BBC is still automatically phoning the MCB for the obligatory comment is also not good. The BBC still needs to expand its Rolodex.
Bunglawala obliged us by answering the question*, and what do you know, he answered it as I thought he would; he answered it as a theocrat would answer it.
Muslim majority countries have their own laws and customs. If you set out to deliberately insult the Prophet Muhammad in a country where such behaviour is regarded as unacceptable and against the law then I would have little sympathy for you.
And that’s the man the BBC still thinks is the first person they should phone for a comment on these issues – that’s the man who is still often the only Muslim quoted in its Muslim-relevant reporting – that’s the man who is still considered and treated as some kind of establishment, obvious, central, representative, sane, reasonable, non-extremist non-wacky spokesperson for all British Muslims. It’s astonishing.
*Thanks to mirax for alerting me.
I’d love to think he gets the call because the Beeb are secretly trying to say “Beware! Listen to this man speaking theocratic nonsense! Don’t let it happen here!”…
…but, alas, I sadly doubt they’re that cunning.
ho hum
In a way it’s bizarre that he and the MCB don’t realize that themselves – that they don’t now and then pause and think ‘Gee, this kind of thing doesn’t seem to go down all that well, maybe we’re actually causing people to, you know, not like Islam all that much, which wasn’t quite what we meant…’
But they don’t.
ho hum
Frankly, though, what I find most worrying is that Bunglawala and the MCB *are* in fact the “establishment, obvious, central, representative” (although objectively not, I think, either sane or reasonable) voice of Muslims. As far as I can tell, mainstream Muslim thought in the world – where “mainstream” means nothing more than “widely agreed-upon beliefs held by a solid majority of self-described adherents to Islam” – is in fact just as oppressive and authoritarian and patriarchal and repellent and anti-Enlightenment as quotes from Bunglawala and other MCB types reveal.
Mind you, I don’t think that British Muslims in particular are well-represented by the MCB in this regard, which makes both the government’s and the Beeb’s kowtowing to the MCB ludicrous. But I do think that the views expressed by the MCB patriarchs are reasonably consistent with and representative of the majority of the world’s Muslims.
Maybe there’s some ultra-subtle double bait-and-switch of “offending Muslim sensibilities” and “Islamophobia” at work here. Think about it. The Muslim Council of Britain claims to speak for British Muslims (it’s right there in the name after all), and what they say is very much in line with Muslim views in general around the world. People naturally find those views repellent, what with the dogmatic authoritarianism and patriarchal oppression and all that. But the MCB can disingenuously claim that British Muslims aren’t really all dogmatic and patriarchal and such – and correctly so, since among British Muslims such views are probably minority – and therefore anyone who accuses them of such things is wrongly maligning British Muslims (whom they claim to represent) based on stereotypes of all Muslims. Then, and this is the especially tricky bit, they can use the claim of stereotyping and maligning British Muslims as extremists to level the over-hyped charge Islamophobia against anyone who speaks out against views that the MCB itself actually does advance (even though actual British Muslims, if polled would probably reject the MCB views wholeheartedly).
It’s a plan so cunning you could stick a tail on it and call it a weasel!
Or maybe the Labour government (and the Beeb) are just fucking stupid about this whole failed multiculturalism paradigm because they backed it and can’t acknowledge it’s fundamental stupidity and evident failings.
I’m gonna shave with Occam’s razor here and say that the latter is much more plausible.
Bunglawala’s reference to ‘Muslim majority countries’ is interesting. Would he agree that it’s okay to insult Muhammad in a country where Muslims are a minority? Probably not. Would he think it acceptable if a Christian majority country made it illegal to deny the divinity of Christ or if a secular country decided to close down all churches, synagogues and mosques? Again probably not. Almost certainly he is not appealing to any generally applicable principles. He is just demanding special treatment for his religion.
And the final twist in the cunning plan described by G is to get the British Government to introduce legislation that prevents us from accurately portraying this pile of dung…
Well spotted, G – and Bunglawala does do exactly that: he starts off the reply I quoted by saying he generally ignores ‘the Islamophobes’ – meaning (presumably) the kind of people who ask the kind of question he goes on to answer. But the joke about that is that the vast majority of the commenters on that thread fit the description – and this is at the Guardian! So he’s labeling an all-but-universal opinion as belonging to ‘Islamophobes’.
The only good news here is that Guardian readers seem to be less fucking stupid than the Labour govt and the Beeb.
Ophelia writes:
>The only good news here is that Guardian readers seem to be less fucking stupid than the Labour govt and the Beeb.< If we’re talking about the issue in general, and not just the teddy bear incident, I’m not sure how you’ve arrived at that view, Ophelia. You can’t go by comments in response to “Comment is Free” articles, as these are, obviously, open for anyone to respond to, not just your traditional Guardian reader (i.e., someone who buys the Guardian regularly). For your amusement, here is an extract from a published letter from a Guardian reader: “Our encouragement to our children to anthropomorphise wild animals is a baffling feature of our culture. The children’s sections of bookshops offer little more than a choice between stories of white children or talking animals… Many Muslims find our relationships with dogs particularly distasteful, not least in loving them for their companionship… No wonder we are muddled enough to think calling a stuffed bear Muhammad is OK on the grounds that so many Muslims name their sons after him.
Tom Snow
London
http://tinyurl.com/27t2pk
Amusingly, Mr. Snow is a tiny bit right, in that the overwhelming pile of “cutesy animals in clothes sitting on sofas drinking tea”-style children’s books makes it hard (but rewarding!) to find better material for the mini-primates…
(I speak from experience as a stay-at-home dad of 2)
I reckon half the authors are secretly funded by such groups as PETA, so that when the kids are confronted with the notion of eating rabbit, say, they’ll respond with revulsion – “but you can’t EAT Mr. Flopsy-lopsy-flufflekins!!”
It’s a vegan conspiracy!!
;-))
There again, you might be surprised to find how ignorant most people are nowadays of the damage to food crops done by the lovely ikkle-wikkle bunny-wuns…so maybe it’s working…??
:-)
Fair point, Allen. I should have said readers of Comment is Free. I suppose I was assuming that most of them are somewhat Guardian-leaning or they wouldn’t bother…but of course they could be reading it rather to find new explosions of lunacy.
But still…you would think that if lots of real Guardian readers agreed with Bunglawala, more would turn up at C is F to say so. So perhaps the responses are still moderately encouraging in a negative sense. Possibly.