Play up and play the game

Jan 29th, 2012 10:03 am | By

It’s always nice to see friendly rivalry among people of similar interests. It keeps their skills honed and their energy high. The right-wing Hindutva student group in India, the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, is competing with the “activists” who shut down Salman Rushdie at Jaipur. The ABVP objected to the screening of a documentary on Kashmir, and behold, the objection achieved its aim: the showing was cancelled. “Activists” 1, ABVP 1. Next round!

Symbiosis University has cancelled the screening of documentary filmmaker Sanjay Kak’s Jashn-e-Azadion Kashmir, after the right-wing student organisation, Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), raised objections to its ‘separatist’ nature. The film was supposed to be screened at a three-day national seminar called ‘Voices of Kashmir’ at the Symbiosis College of Arts and Commerce, organised in association with the University Grants Commission (UGC) on February 3, 4 and 5.

The organisation now wants the entire seminar cancelled, ABVP Pune unit Secretary Shailendra Dalvi told The Hindu on Saturday evening. “The content of the seminar, like the film, is anti-India, and against the Indian Army. We will not stand for anything that divides the country. Symbiosis has agreed to cancel the film screening, and we are giving them three days’ time to think about the event, too,” Mr. Dalvi stated.

Spoken like a true bully. Mr Dalvi is showing good form and will put the “activists” on their mettle.

Speaking to The Hindu over telephone, Symbiosis College of Arts and Commerce principal Hrishikesh Soman stated that the ABVP had approached him on Friday, and that the college agreed to cancel the film screening “considering their [ABVP's] emotions and feelings.” “I told them that the seminar is entirely academic, apolitical and non-religious. But the film has met with criticism from all corners. So we have decided to avoid unnecessary controversies and cancel the screening,” Mr. Soman said. “If people have a very strong reason to protest the film, then we should be tolerant enough,” he stated.

Mr Soman is making things too easy for the up and coming ABVP. If he doesn’t offer even a little resistance, how will they hone their skills? It’s unsporting to surrender at once.

Asked if the college would cancel the event altogether, Mr. Soman said: “After the first meeting, the ABVP has not made such a request yet. If they do, then we will try to sort it out.” Asked if the cancellation of the film screening withheld the students’ right to experience and discuss all sides of the Kashmir conflict, Mr. Soman said: “I don’t want to get into petty issues. The seminar will be purely intellectual, and will focus on socio-cultural and educational issues in Kashmir.”

Mr. Soman said Mr. Kak had been “informed categorically” that the film screening had been cancelled.

Quite right too! How dare Mr Kak think his film would be screened as scheduled! Impertinent bastard. I’m very impressed with Mr Soman for being so sharp with him. He may have spoiled play by surrendering too fast, but his carry-through is excellent.

 

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Posted in Notes and Comment Blog
Tags: , ,


In an elevator

Jan 29th, 2012 8:57 am | By

A week ago a Canadian woman, Sheila Nabb, was found beaten and unconscious in a pool of blood in an elevator at a resort hotel in Mazatlan. Every bone in her face was broken.

According to Mexican police, the suspect has confessed. Making him repeat the confession at a press conference is horrendous legal procedure, but his account of what happened is…interesting.

Prior to the assault, Quintero said he had been drinking with a Canadian friend and “doing a line of cocaine.” He told reporters that he got into the elevator with the intention of riding to the top floor and gazing down at the lights of the resort city.

He says he encountered Nabb, who he said wasn’t wearing any clothes, at the sixth floor. When Quintero tried to prevent her from leaving he said she screamed, and he panicked.

“I didn’t try to abuse her, or I didn’t … I didn’t try to kill her or anything like … or rob her or anything. I was just afraid and I wanted to leave.”

Quintero said he covered Nabb’s mouth and asked her not to yell.

“But she continued yelling,” he said. “She got more afraid when I covered her mouth. And then I hit her … four or five times in the face with my fist. And then I left.”

The sequence of events reported is: Nabb tried to get off the elevator. He stopped her. She screamed. He covered her mouth. She got more afraid. He broke every bone in her face.

Every bone in her face.

She’s now in a medically induced coma.

 

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Posted in Notes and Comment Blog
Tags: ,


Welcome to Atheist Towers

Jan 28th, 2012 4:45 pm | By

Hmm, I don’t know. It’s very sweet of Alain de Botton, but I don’t know. A temple to atheism…

The philosopher and writer Alain de Botton is proposing to build a 46-metre (151ft) tower to celebrate a “new atheism” as an antidote to what he describes as Professor Richard Dawkins’s “aggressive” and “destructive” approach to non-belief.

One, De Botton is not a philosopher. (He writes poppy books that mention philosophers here and there. That doesn’t make him a philosopher.) Two, as we all know to the point of mind-numbing tedium, Dawkins’s approach is not destructive (destructive of what? what’s he destroyed?) and it’s usually not all that aggressive. Forthright, yes; sometimes acerbic, yes; but aggressive, no, not really.

So we don’t really need an “antidote” to Dawkins’s approach. If we did it’s not clear that we would need De Botton to do it. If it were and we did, why would we want a tower, anyway?

“Normally a temple is to Jesus, Mary or Buddha, but you can build a temple to anything that’s positive and good,” he said. “That could mean a temple to love, friendship, calm or perspective. Because of Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens atheism has become known as a destructive force. But there are lots of people who don’t believe but aren’t aggressive towards religions.”

Sigh. Same old shit. He makes the mostly-false smear true merely by repeating it. Atheism “has become known as a destructive force” because people keep recycling the boring and mostly wrong claims that it is. You would think De Botton could avoid such an obvious banality.

De Botton revealed details of a temple to evoke more than 300m years of life on earth. Each centimetre of the tapering tower’s interior has been designed to represent a million years and a narrow band of gold will illustrate the relatively tiny amount of time humans have walked the planet. The exterior would be inscribed with a binary code denoting the human genome sequence.

Well that sounds quite appealing, De Botton’s silliness aside. It sounds like the theme song for The Big Bang Theory.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ldkw1YE7J-o

Humanists said it was misplaced for non-believers to build quasi-religious buildings, because atheists did not need temples to probe the meaning of life.

“The things religious people get from religion – awe, wonder, meaning and perspective – non-religious people get them from other places like art, nature, human relationships and the narratives we give our lives in other ways,” said Andrew Copson, chief executive of the British Humanist Society.

De Botton has insisted atheists have as much right to enjoy inspiring architecture as religious believers.

Well of course we do, but then we already do that – including churches and cathedrals, not to mention mosques. Inspiring architecture?

 

 George Pitcher, on the other hand, thinks it’s a great idea.

“Building a monument acknowledges that we are more than dust. Whether we come at that through secular means or a religious narrative, it is the same game.

“This is a more constructive atheism than Dawkins, who is about the destruction of ideas rather than contributing new ones.”

See? Destruction. Dawkins is all about destruction. People keep saying so, so it must be true.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Posted in Notes and Comment Blog
Tags:


One question too many

Jan 28th, 2012 12:39 pm | By

The New York Times reports on the bullying of Jessica Ahlquist…sort of.

A federal judge ruled this month that the prayer’s presence at Cranston High School West was unconstitutional, concluding that it violated the principle of government neutrality in religion. In the weeks since, residents have crowded school board meetings to demand an appeal, Jessica has received online threats and the police have escorted her at school, and Cranston, a dense city of 80,000 just south of Providence, has throbbed with raw emotion.

State Representative Peter G. Palumbo, a Democrat from Cranston, called Jessica “an evil little thing” on a popular talk radio show. Three separate florists refused to deliver her roses sent from a national atheist group. The group, the Freedom From Religion Foundation, has filed a complaint with the Rhode Island Commission for Human Rights.

Yes but…the Times sees the other side.

In Cranston, the police said they would investigate some of the threatening comments posted on Twitter against Jessica, some of which came from students at the high school. Pat McAssey, a senior who is president of the student council, said the threats were “completely inexcusable” but added that Jessica had upset some of her classmates by mocking religion online.

“Their frustration kind of came from that,” he said.

Many alumni this week said they did not remember the prayer from their high school days but felt an attachment to it nonetheless.

“I am more of a constitutionalist but find myself strangely on the other side of this,” said Donald Fox, a 1985 graduate of Cranston West. “The prayer banner espouses nothing more than those values which we all hope for our children, no matter what school they attend or which religious background they hail from.”

But it addresses “our heavenly father” in the process, and we don’t “all” hope for that for children no matter “which religious background they hail from.” The school could have removed our daddy in the sky and kept the values, but the school refused to do that.

At the very end the Times slips in the knife.

Does she empathize in any way with members of her community who want the prayer to stay?

You know…they could have just left that out. Many “members of her community” are telling her she should be dead and calling her things like “worthless cunt”…The Times could have just skipped the part where it shifts some blame to her. It could have and probably would have if this had been a racial issue…but it’s about religion, and we just can’t treat that the way we treat other subjects. It would be impious.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Posted in Notes and Comment Blog
Tags:


The last afternoon at Jaipur

Jan 28th, 2012 11:56 am | By

William Dalrymple tells us what last Tuesday afternoon in Jaipur was like.

It was the last afternoon of the Jaipur Literature Festival, of which I am co-director, and more than 10,000 people were milling around the grounds of Diggi Palace, the festival venue, eagerly waiting to hear Salman Rushdie speak by video link from London. For three weeks we had waited anxiously for this moment, ever since Maulana Abdul Qasim Nomani of the Deoband madrasa had called for the Indian Muslim community to oppose Rushdie’s visit to our festival…

Then at about one o’clock a large number of Muslim activists appeared in the property and gravitated to the back of the lawns where a huge crowd had gathered to hear the videolink. Some of them went into the central courtyard of the palace to make their namaz (pray), and according to some reports, the maulana in charge told his followers that if anyone was killed that day they would die a martyr. Then they sought out our producer, Sanjoy Roy, and told him that they were prepared to use any amount of violence in order to stop Rushdie’s voice being heard. Others talked to the press: one told a reporter from the Times of India that “rivers of blood will flow here if they show Rushdie”, while the Muslim Manch representative Abdul Salim Sankhla was quoted as saying: “We will not allow Rushdie to speak here in any form. There will be violent protests if he speaks.” While all this was happening, some of the other activists were turfing school children out of their seats and intimidating festival guests.

Some “activists.” Bullies, theocrats, goons – censors, haters of literature, enforcers for god – fascists.

The commitment of Indian politicians to maintaining artistic and intellectual freedom seemed to be becoming ever weaker. In the past few months, Joseph Lelyveld’s distinguished book on Gandhi had been banned in the state of Gujerat, AK Ramanujan’s great study of the Ramayana had been removed from the syllabus of Delhi university, and the country’s most revered modern artist, MF Husain, had died in exile after Hindu fundamentalists had hounded him out of the country with a rash of lawsuits and attacks on him and his work. In almost all cases, the politicians had encouraged the protesters rather than protecting the writers and artists, using draconian colonial legislation intended to stop religious riots to silence the creative voice.

…

In the event, we never got to make that decision. The owner of our festival venue, Ram Pratab Singh of Diggi Palace, stepped in and, on the advice of the police commissioner, took the decision for us. He said he was unable to take responsibility for a lathi charge and possible deaths in a venue full of children and old people, and forbade the link to take place on his property. He stood on stage and announced his decision. Then it was the turn of Sanjoy to speak for us. “We have been bullied and pushed to the wall,” he said, choking up. “All of us feel hurt, disgusted and ashamed.” As Sanjoy broke down on stage, the audience clapped loudly and supportively. Minutes later I got an email from Rushdie on my BlackBerry: “Yes, an ugly day, but please don’t reproach yourself. You all worked so hard. Thank you.”

But then Barkha Dutt interviewed Rushdie and that was seen on tv by millions a few hours later.

Rushdie was as eloquent and defiant as I have ever heard him: “I will come to India many times,” he said, “and I will not allow these religious gangsters and their cronies in government to stop me … My overwhelming feeling is disappointment on behalf of India … [where] religious extremists can prevent free expression of ideas”, where politicians were “in bed with these groups … for narrow electoral reasons” and the police “unable to secure venues against demonstrators”. In a final flourish he also slammed the extremists whom, he said, “were the real enemies of Islam”. Meanwhile, on stage, we had a rousing panel discussion about freedom of expression, which was beamed live around India. There could have been worse outcomes.

We can only hope that the debate begun in Jaipur continues. Outdated colonial laws need to be repealed, violent fringe groups must be stopped from holding the nation to ransom and we need a movement to stop politicians abusing religious sentiment for political gain. Only when freedom of expression can be taken for granted can India really call itself the democracy it claims so proudly to be.

Quite. Also the UK.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Posted in Notes and Comment Blog
Tags: , ,


The real privilege

Jan 28th, 2012 10:44 am | By

Someone commenting on Scofield’s Tikkun post endorses the claim that “new atheists” are totes privileged.

The literature, social spaces, and most widely recognized voices of atheism are predominantly populated by Western, white, male, heterosexual, cis, middle class (and above) people…[T]he lopsided demography of our communities tends to draw upon otherwise privileged life experiences, and as you have illustrated, this privilege inadvertently shines through in our literature and our actions.

True up to a point, but there’s another way to view that, which Scofield seems to be not just overlooking, but perhaps self-disabled from even recognizing.

Many of those “voices of atheism” are privileged, but what is the most conspicuous kind of privilege they have? It’s actually not anything mentioned in that list, except for the hint in “middle class (and above).”

The really big privilege they have is education, and the associated ability and freedom to think critically about their culture’s myths and how those myths are related to social control.

And what they’re doing with that privilege is trying their damndest to share it.

Not hog it, not Bogart it, not put a wall around it with a sign on the gate saying Rabble Keep Out, not charge a fee for it, not demand an oath or an initiation ritual as the price of entry, but share it.

Another way to put it is that their most basic form of privilege is cultural capital, and again, what they are doing with that capital is trying to spread it around.

Hank Fox has an argument in his Red Neck Blue Collar Atheist that has to do with the privilege of education, including self-education. (Hank doesn’t have a background of privilege. On page 2 he writes, “I don’t know of a single blood relative who got a college degree. Neither of my parents even finished high school.” But Hank is saturated with the privilege of self-education. He has the privilege of valuing it, of doing it, of sharing it.) The basic idea is that without education, people come up with bad mental models for how things work, relying on luck and magical ways of trying to get some, instead of figuring out what they need to do to change their circumstances. That’s a matter of privilege, if you like, but the good news is that it’s a kind that is inherently non-zero-sum…provided there is funding for good universal education, which there so often isn’t.

The privilege of education and cultural capital has this awkward aspect – often called “elitism” – that educated people may well know more about something than uneducated people do. That’s inequality. That’s class. That’s a one-up one-down situation. There is always the potential for shame and humiliation…but there is also the potential for learning and sharing. Yes no doubt it can be shaming when some posh Oxford guy says your god gives no sign of existing…but that’s not all there is to it. Would it be shaming to hear some posh Oxford guy reading the news tell you that Robert Mugabe had decided to retire? You do the math.

 

 

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Posted in Notes and Comment Blog
Tags: ,


What did Primrose Hill do to deserve that?

Jan 27th, 2012 11:24 am | By

Primrose Hill is lovely.

But for some strange reason, it’s going to have a replica of Rio de Janeiro’s Jesus statue stuck on it to celebrate the end of the Olympics.

Blasphemy.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Posted in Notes and Comment Blog
Tags:


LSESU passes its first blasphemy law

Jan 27th, 2012 9:48 am | By

Breaking news – the LSE Student Union vote is in:  339 for, 179 against, 24 undecided.

As one of the ASH people said, they went up against a Union whose sole consistent voting bloc consisted of the far left and Islamic societies. It’s impressive that they got 179 votes against.

I would just add: it’s strange that it’s the “far left” that votes this way, because there is nothing far left about Islamism. It’s as if the far left were voting for fascism…rather as the Stalinist “left” did at the time of the Nazi-Soviet pact.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Posted in Notes and Comment Blog
Tags:


“New atheists” are privileged racist homophobic imperialists

Jan 26th, 2012 3:00 pm | By

Be Scofield tweeted me about a new article of his at Tikkun, apparently hoping I would dislike it enough to give it publicity by saying why I dislike it. Ok, sure, why not. I do dislike it. Why do I dislike it? Well because it quite unbashfully calls “the New Atheists” racist.

It also claims that “New Atheists” see everything from a privileged point of view.

Racism In the New Atheist Movement

When Greta Christina says that religious people should be actively converted to atheism or Dawkins likens religion to a virus that infects the mind they are effectively saying “we know what’s best for you.” This is the crux of the problem with the New Atheists. They’ve identified belief in God or religion as the single most oppressive factor in people’s lives and feel justified in liberating people from it because they have “reason” on their side. However, as Reinhold Niebuhr warned, reason is always tainted with the prejudices of the privileged groups in society. He called this the historicity of reason. Thus, the way the New Atheists understand the designation “harmful” or “poisonous” is largely shaped by what they view as most harmful from their own social location.

Oh yes? But who says Greta Christina (since she’s the example Scofield chose to illustrate that claim) belongs to a privileged group? Who, in particular, says she does so more than Be Scofield? He has some forms of privilege that she doesn’t have. Why does he get to italicize from their own social location by way of rebuking Greta, as if she loomed over him like the lord of the manor? Why is her reason more tainted by privilege than his? I don’t know; I suspect he’s just posturing.

He quotes Sikivu Hutchinson and then adds

If you are in a privileged position, as many of the white New Atheists are you may think that it’s easy to just give up your religion. But this of course ignores the complexities of how religion operates in the lives of people everyday. For African Americans, Christianity and Islam have played a central role in the process of humanization – both in the eyes of the dominant culture and in building up the community, personal identity and psychological resilience to resist white supremacy, slavery and segregation. “Reason” as articulated by the new atheists makes no room for marginalized populations need to resist these forms of oppression, nor recognizes the important role that religion has played in this process. Rather, the simplistic labels of harmful, poisonous or virus are carelessly used to discredit it.

Lots of typos and mistakes in there, but more to the point – Christianity and Islam also played a central role in white or Arab supremacy, slavery and segregation. Without that central role maybe African Americans wouldn’t need them now, because they wouldn’t have been so disadvantaged by racial supremacy, slavery and segregation. Does Scofield recognize the important role that religion has played in that process? No; he’s too busy telling us he’s better than the New Atheists.

As citizens of the U.S. we of course live on occupied land. Over the course of hundreds of years we systematically wiped out Native American cultures that were indigenous to the area. The arrogance of “we know what’s best for them” dominated. Their religious and cultural traditions were prohibited. It was the height of cultural imperialism. Of course Native Americans are extremely marginalized and face numerous pressing social issues today. Rest assured, their oppression has nothing to do with their beliefs in God or their traditional religious practices and ceremonies. Unfortunately, when Greta Christina says we’d be better off without religion and insists that we convert believers to atheism she is reproducing cultural imperialism against Native Americans. She knows best because she has reason on her side.

I think I’ll just leave that there on its own, for pure contemplation. Be Scofield is comparing Greta Christina to imperialists obliterating Native Americans.

If many of the New Atheists want to hold to an absolutist position that religion is harmful (despite not being based on any scientific evidence) then they inherently sweep into their critique Native Americans, the gay men who benefited so immensely from MCCSF during the Aids crisis and the Dinka tradition of Africa. Any benefit that the Nation of Islam or the Black Church had for African Americans is negated by the insistence upon religion or belief in God as the single most oppressive issue. If they make qualifications and recognize that yes, there is something wrong with waving a finger at Native Americans and scolding them for their childish ways, then they must abandon generalized sweeping notions like “religion is harmful.” They can’t have it both ways. Either they lecture every culture in the world about their religious traditions (after all you’ve discovered the TRUTH) and as a result reproduce cultural imperialism or make room for a more complex analysis.

Many of these New Atheists claim that holding onto the belief in supernatural entities is absurd or irrational. However, there is nothing more absurd than whiteness, class oppression and patriarchy.

There’s really nothing they won’t stoop to, is there.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Posted in Notes and Comment Blog
Tags: , ,


Not “a safe space” for women

Jan 26th, 2012 12:11 pm | By

How dare women be in Tahrir Square? Especially filthy foreign women?

According to Heather, an Arab-American living in the Egyptian capital, she and her Swedish and Spanish roommates took to Tahrir as thousands were converging there to mark one-year since the ousting of former President Hosni Mubarak.

“They started fighting over who was going to do what,” Heather told Bikyamasr.com in an exclusive interview. She came forward after seeing the report on a foreign woman who was stripped naked and assaulted only hours after her own incident.

“My roommates and I fell to the ground when they attacked us. The people pulled our pants off even as we yelled and tried to fight,” she continued.

…

She said that after the men pulled their pants off, they continued to grab and grobe the women’s bodies. “It is disgusting. They put fingers up my ass,” she revealed.

…

Later in the night, the issue of sexual violence toward women was sparked after an eyewitness reported on the micro-blogging site Twitter that a foreign woman was stripped, groped and assaulted by another mob of men in the square.

The woman, whose identity has not been revealed, was taken away in an ambulance after being assaulted for 10 minutes. Her husband reportedly was unable to intervene and witnessed the incident.

“I saw the woman and then dozens of men surrounded her and started grabbing her, when she screamed for help some people came, but they were hit in the face,” wrote one witness.

What happened next was “appalling,” said the trusted witness, who asked for anonymity. “The men just started tearing at her clothes and grabbing her body all over. When she fought back, they pushed her. It was chaos.”

There were unconfirmed reports that the men “violated” her with their hands.

…

Throughout the day, sexual harassment towards women has been increasing and more and more reports of women being grabbed and groped began being reported.

I find this so depressing I can’t think of anything else to say about it.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Posted in Notes and Comment Blog
Tags: ,


Garzón on trial for investigating crimes against humanity

Jan 26th, 2012 10:41 am | By

The trial of Baltasar Garzón is very sinister.

Observers from the world’s main human rights groups are in Madrid to monitor the second trial of the Spanish magistrate Baltasar Garzón, who is accused of abusing his position by opening an investigation into the deaths of 114,000 people during the Franco dictatorship.

…

Amnesty International (AI), Human Rights Watch (HRW) and the International Commission of Jurists (IJC) have all sent observers amid concerns that Garzón is being targeted because of his innovative use of international human rights laws.

…

Reed Brody, of HRW, warned that judges in less developed countries were also watching nervously to see whether the developed world was happy to accept that limits be put on human rights investigations.

“This is the first time that an established democracy has tried a judge for investigating human rights abuses and applying international law,” he added.

Brody pointed to the importance of Garzón’s investigations of human rights abuses committed by the regime of the Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet and by Argentina’s military juntas in pushing forward the global reach of human rights laws.

…

Garzón’s investigations had helped persuade judges in Latin America to strike out amnesty laws and put dictators and their henchmen on trial, he added, saying: “Will Franco’s victims now have fewer rights than Pinochet’s victims?”

Pedro Nikken, of the IJC, said Garzón had been right to ignore Spain’s own 1977 amnesty law when investigating Francoist repression. “International human rights law comes into play when national laws do not provide enough protection,” he said. “A judge is obliged to take that into account.”

HRW called on Spain to ditch the 1977 law in March 2010.

Spanish authorities should abide by the United Nations call for an end to its 1977 amnesty law rather than prosecuting a judge seeking accountability for past abuses, Human Rights Watch said today.

Judge Baltasar Garzón of Spain’s National Audience tribunal is currently under criminal investigation for looking into 22 alleged cases of illegal detention and forced disappearances involving more than 100,000 victims, committed between 1936 and 1951. Spanish courts have routinely closed investigations into abuses committed during the country’s civil war (1936-1939) and the dictatorship of General Francisco Franco (1939-1975) by invoking a 1977 amnesty law, which covers all crimes “of a political nature” committed prior to December 1976. The case against Garzón is based, among other factors, on the judge arguing that the amnesty law did not apply to crimes against humanity.

…

Under international law, governments have an obligation to provide victims of human rights abuses with an effective remedy – including justice, truth, and adequate reparations – after they suffer a violation. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which Spain ratified in 1977, specifically states that governments have an obligation “to ensure that any person whose rights or freedoms … are violated shall have an effective remedy.”

In 2008, the UN Human Rights Committee, in charge of monitoring compliance with the ICCPR, called on Spain to repeal the 1977 amnesty law and to ensure that domestic courts do not apply limitation periods to crimes against humanity. The European Court of Human Rights held in 2009, as a general principle, that an amnesty law is generally incompatible with states’ duty to investigate acts of torture or barbarity.

Human Rights Watch praised Garzón’s work in achieving accountability for atrocities around the world. Applying the principle of universal jurisdiction, Garzón issued an historic indictment against Chilean General Augusto Pinochet for the murder and torture of thousands, which led to Pinochet’s detention in London in 1998.  His arrest was critical in prompting the Chilean justice system to prosecute past abuses. Garzón’s request to Mexico led to the extradition of Ricardo Miguel Cavallo, a former military official from Argentina implicated in atrocities during the country’s military dictatorship. Cavallo was extradited to Spain in 2003 on charges of genocide and terrorism, and was eventually sent to Argentina to be tried by Argentine courts.

 

 

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Posted in Notes and Comment Blog
Tags: ,


Oh no you don’t

Jan 26th, 2012 8:25 am | By

The LSE Atheists, Secularists and Humanists Facebook page has a new logo.

There’s more, but I’m not sure they want me quoting them; I’ve asked and I’m waiting to hear back. The logo however is publicly visible.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Posted in Notes and Comment Blog
Tags: , ,


You in the plaid shirt: more rage please

Jan 25th, 2012 3:19 pm | By


And in case we haven’t seen enough screaming bullies yet, let us change the scene to Jaipur.

 Indian Muslims shout slogans against Salman Rushdie in Jaipur, Rajasthan, during this year's Jaipur Literature Festival.

It’s Rage Boy again. There’s nothing like religion for spawning Rage Boys.

Salman Rushdie’s virtual participation at the Jaipur Literature Festival was canceled at the last minute Tuesday,  after Muslim groups attending the festival threatened violence if his image was shown.

Mr. Rushdie was scheduled to address thousands of Lit Fest attendees by video conference Tuesday afternoon, after cancelling an in-person appearance.

‘‘There are a large number of people adverse to this link in and around this  property and they have threatened violence,’’ said Thakur Ram Pratap Singh of Diggi, the owner of Diggi Palace, the festival venue. ‘‘This decision is necessary to protect everyone here,’’ he said.

Why? Why have they? Oh, no reason, really. Somebody told them Rushdie is a Bad Man who said something Bad about Allah. Same with Irshad Manji, no doubt. It’s something to do. If you have money you go mountaineering, if you don’t you go to public places and scream yourself purple. The second hobby, sadly, fucks things up for everyone involved; lose-lose.

Mr. Rushdie criticized both the Indian government and Islamic leaders in an interview Tuesday evening with television channel NDTV. While Mr. Rushdie said he has been cast as an enemy of Islam, the real enemies are “the leaders, the Deobandis, the various extremist leaders and their followers, who behave like this, because what they do is to strengthen the extremely negative image of Islam as an intolerant, repressive, and violent culture,” he said.

Exactly so. The Rage Boys don’t do anybody any good in the long run, not even the Rage Boys of Tomorrow. Or rather, especially not them. Better to be a Rushdie than a Rage Boy.

 

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Posted in Notes and Comment Blog
Tags: , ,


Shouty shout shout

Jan 25th, 2012 3:02 pm | By

And here is a much more extended version of The Visit of the Agitated Gentlemen With Elevated Voices.

They’re fascism, alive and kicking and right in your face. I’m dumb with admiration for Irshad and her colleague (the two of them were on the stage talking when the Elevated Voices started screaming hoarsely and puffing themselves out like angry cats) who stayed calm in the face of that. I’m dumb with admiration for the woman standing protectively in front of them along with others, looking matter of fact and immovable.

I hate the Agitated Gentlemen. I hate them all. They should join a gorilla troupe and try to become alpha males there. That would keep them busy and out of our hair.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJS6IypEVR8

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Posted in Notes and Comment Blog
Tags: ,


The art of persuasion

Jan 25th, 2012 2:46 pm | By

Even Irshad Manji, who loves Allah herself, deserves to have her neck broken according to some suave fellows from an outfit called Sharia4Belgium who mobbed her book launch in Amsterdam.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=nSFxZ62E7sQ

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Posted in Notes and Comment Blog
Tags:


A protection racket

Jan 25th, 2012 11:21 am | By

The LSE student paper reports on the cartoons and free speech and “Islamophobia” and shut-uppery affair. It has details.

On 20th January, members of ASH Society met with Stanley Ellerby-English, Students’ Union Activities and Development Officer, who explained “the situation, the complaints that had been made and how the action of posting these cartoons was in breach of the Students’ Union policy on inclusion and the society’s constitution.” The society agreed to certain outcomes, though these have not been disclosed yet; however, the Students’ Union will “now be telling the society that they cannot continue these actions under the brand of the SU.”

Chriss Moos, President of the LSE’s Students’ Union ASH Society, responded to the formal complaints that had been filed against the society, stating that the issue should not be framed as one pertaining to Islamophobia.

“We firmly reject the allegation that actions of our members have ‘sought to marginalise’ anyone, have caused ‘harm to the welfare of Muslim students’ or constituted a ‘targeted campaign,’” Moos said. “Although we reserve the right to criticise religious ideas, as humanists we will always oppose any targeted campaign against any community. We strongly oppose any form of anti-Muslim prejudice. The cartoons criticise religion in a satirical way. They do not target or call for the targeting of Muslims or any other religious group.  Framing the criticism of religion as ‘discrimination’ or ‘Islamophobic actions’ is highly misguided and results in the stifling of valid debates. We do not discriminate amongst religions in our criticisms.”

The Students’ Union sabbatical officers addressed the issue at the UGM held on 19th January and inestigating the claims. An Emergency General Meeting (EGM) is scheduled for Thursday 26 January at 1:00p with two separate motions, one on antisemitism and the other on Islamophobia, to be discussed.

Ah so the E was for Emergency? Or perhaps the reporter is making the same mistake I did.

“There will be two separate motions which will lay out what these types of discrimination incorporate and that the SU stands against them,” said Sherelle Davis, Anti-Rascism Officer. “The recent Anti-Semitic incident on the ski trip and the Islamophobic actions taken by certain campus groups have brought these issues to the forefront of race relations at the moment and it’s important the SU take a stance on it.”

The Students’ Union issued the following statement to further reiterate their stance on religious discrimination on campus: “the LSE community’s values of tolerance, diversity, and respect for all students regardless of race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality or religious affiliation are not in accordance with the offensive nature displayed in the recent cases of antisemitism and Islamophobia. We respect the need for freedom of expression and discussion, but believe there must be a balance between respecting freedom of speech and protecting the communities that make up the student body at the LSE.”

And by “protecting the communities” she means “protecting people we sort into certain groups (and not others) from hearing or reading or seeing anything that might imply that their groups’ ideas and beliefs might be wrong or illiberal or unfortunate in any way.” In other words by “protecting” she means “stultifying and insulating.”

It’s not just ASH and atheists and secularists who are harmed by this crap, you know. If anything the harm done to the people being “protected” is worse than the harm done to the people who already have access to thinking uninhibited by the proxies for god.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Posted in Notes and Comment Blog
Tags: , ,


If we want to live together peacefully

Jan 25th, 2012 10:40 am | By

Jesus and Mo are watching current events. (Well they would be, wouldn’t they.) (That is one good thing about all this; Streisand effect; lots of new fans of J and M.)

multi

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Posted in Notes and Comment Blog
Tags: ,


It’s a boy it’s a frog it’s a plane it’s WEIRD

Jan 25th, 2012 10:35 am | By

Oh for god’s sake.

I was looking at something (reluctantly) in the Daily Mail, and noticed another headline, so took a look at that…

Young girl has short hair shock-horror!!!1111!!!!!!!!!!!

I know the Mail specializes in being as stupid as possible, but honestly………….

Angelina Jolie’s little tomboy Shiloh unveils her very short haircut

Angelina Jolie has said daughter Shiloh prefers to ‘dress like a boy’ and ‘thinks she’s one of the brothers.’

And now the five-year-old has a new short back and sides like her older male siblings.

Shiloh dressed in utilitarian black for the fun day out with her mother and two of her brothers, Knox, three, and eight-year-old Pax, which exacerbated the effect.

Exacerbated the effect?? Made a bad thing even worse? Because a child of five has short hair? Jeezis, police gender roles much?

I feel like starting a Butch League or something.

 

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Posted in Notes and Comment Blog
Tags: ,


One stop shopping

Jan 25th, 2012 10:09 am | By

I’ve done a lot of posts about all this shut-uppery at UCL and Queen Mary U and LSE. I thought it might be useful to collect them all in one place.

http://freethoughtblogs.com/butterfliesandwheels/2012/01/when-certain-muslims-voiced-their-offense/

http://freethoughtblogs.com/butterfliesandwheels/2012/01/jesus-and-mo-and-the-barmaid-resolve-to-say-nothing-offensive/

http://freethoughtblogs.com/butterfliesandwheels/2012/01/remove-that-offensive-image-at-once-please/

http://freethoughtblogs.com/butterfliesandwheels/2012/01/never-anything-more-than-an-informal-request/

http://freethoughtblogs.com/butterfliesandwheels/2012/01/developments/

http://freethoughtblogs.com/butterfliesandwheels/2012/01/they-will-take-more-consideration/

http://freethoughtblogs.com/butterfliesandwheels/2012/01/1-shut-up-2-shut-up-3-shut-up/

http://freethoughtblogs.com/butterfliesandwheels/2012/01/if-i-hear-that-anything-is-said-against-the-holy-prophet-muhammad/

http://freethoughtblogs.com/butterfliesandwheels/2012/01/just-a-kind-request/

http://freethoughtblogs.com/butterfliesandwheels/2012/01/behold-theocracy-in-action/

http://freethoughtblogs.com/butterfliesandwheels/2012/01/jesus-and-mo-promote-peace-tolerance-and-respect/

http://freethoughtblogs.com/butterfliesandwheels/2012/01/who-gave-these-kuffar-the-right-to-speak/

http://freethoughtblogs.com/butterfliesandwheels/2012/01/history-has-told-us-that-these-things-cause-offence/

http://freethoughtblogs.com/butterfliesandwheels/2012/01/london-11-february-2012-defend-free-expression/

http://freethoughtblogs.com/butterfliesandwheels/2012/01/more-from-the-goombahs/

http://freethoughtblogs.com/butterfliesandwheels/2012/01/are-you-now-or-have-you-ever-been-an-islamophobe/

http://freethoughtblogs.com/butterfliesandwheels/2012/01/no-longer-a-safe-space/

http://freethoughtblogs.com/butterfliesandwheels/2012/01/too-much-conflation-of-being-offended-and-being-intimidated/

http://freethoughtblogs.com/butterfliesandwheels/2012/01/it-has-come-to-our-attention-that-you-are-wicked/

http://freethoughtblogs.com/butterfliesandwheels/2012/01/emergency-everybody-to-get-from-street/

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Posted in Notes and Comment Blog
Tags: , , , ,


Emergency! Everybody to get from street

Jan 24th, 2012 5:08 pm | By

Great news! The LSE Students’ Union has another statement out. It’s another pip. It’s about an urgent EGM on Thursday – which I take to be an Emergency General Meeting (but perhaps it’s Electric, or Elegant, or Educational, or Elevated*). Emergency, emergency! Why I bet we can guess what that is…

In light of recent events there will be two anti-discrimination motions being discussed and debated at an EGM this week, these are: No to racism – no to Islamophobia! and Stop Anti-Semitism Now.

Guessed right.

Stop racism no to Islamophobia! – in the form of a cartoon image of two guys having a beer on the Facebook page of a student group. That’s racism ‘n’ Islamophobia? No, but in studentworld, it’s so much like it that it’s worth punishing just the same.

Union believes

1. In the right to criticise religion,

2. In freedom of speech and thought,

3. It has a responsibility to protect its members from hate crime and hate speech,

4. Debate on religious matters should not be limited by what may be offensive to any particular religion, but the deliberate and persistent targeting of one religious group about any issue with the intent or effect of being Islamophobic (‘Islamophobia’ as defined below) will not be tolerated.

5. That Islamophobia is a form of anti-Islamic racism.

Union resolves

1.To define Islamophobia as “a form of racism expressed through the hatred or fear of Islam, Muslims, or Islamic culture, and the stereotyping, demonisation or harassment of Muslims, including but not limited to portraying Muslims as barbarians or terrorists, or attacking the Qur’an as a manual of hatred”,

2. To take a firm stance against all Islamophobic incidents at LSE and conduct internal investigations if and when they occur.

3. To publicly oppose actions on campus that are Islamophobic based on the aforementioned definition,

4. To ensure that all Islamophobic incidents aimed at or perpetrated by LSE students either verbal, physical or online are dealt with swiftly and effectively in conjunction with the School,

5. To work with the Pro-Director for Teaching and Learning and Deans to address Islamophobia and other forms of racism on campus and methods to alleviate it,

6. To ensure that this definition is used to promote and enhance legitimate debate regarding the morality and legitimacy of international conflicts and oppose illegitimate acts of Islamophobia on campus.

 4 is good. 4 is very special. Debate should not be limited, but it will not be tolerated.

5 too. A form of “anti-Islamic racism” – as if Islamic were a race. “A form of anti-Christian racism” – doesn’t work, does it. (Mind you, it might, in Nigeria or Egypt for instance. But are British Muslims being targeted the way Nigerian and Egyptian Christians are? Are they being blown up or shot down in large numbers? Not that I’ve heard.)

1 under Union resolves is good too. Hatred of “Islamic culture” is a form of racism. So, what, then? Hatred of the way many Saudis treat foreign servants for instance, is that racism? Hatred of laws against “adultery by force” that allow a raped woman to be sentenced to 12 years in jail, is that racism?

And then all the rest of it is good, because clearly the whole point is to lay the groundwork for sending the LSE ASH to Re-education Camp.

Especially 6. “Let’s agree to accept our definition so that we can define anything we want to as Islamophobia and then proceed to pitch exquisitely self-righteous fits whenever we find some. Let’s punish us some cartoons, man!”

* No: it’s Extraordinary. H/t Gareth Chan.

Addendum

www.youtube.com/watch?v=El03KPUeQc4

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Posted in Notes and Comment Blog
Tags: , ,