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November 28, 2024 - 1:30pm
Yesterday in Parliament, Labour MP Tahir Ali asked Keir Starmer whether the Government would “commit to introducing measures to prohibit the desecration of all religious texts and the prophets of the Abrahamic religions”. Both the question and the Prime Minister’s response have already attracted a great deal of attention and criticism, but of perhaps overlooked significance is the way in which the question was introduced with reference to Islamophobia Awareness Month.
Critics of both the term “Islamophobia” and its proposed definitions have long warned that it could amount to a backdoor blasphemy law. In response, they have frequently met with scorn, derision, and allegations of Islamophobia — which you’d think rather proves their misgivings.
Now, however, the connection between Islamophobia and an outright proposal for blasphemy laws has been made aloud, and occurs shortly after the case of Samuel Paty, the French teacher who was murdered for allegedly showing his class cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad, has re-entered the news cycle. That is because the schoolgirl who originally whipped up the allegations of Islamophobia, attracting the attention of local Islamist preachers and subsequently a jihadist’s blade, has now admitted she made it up.
An allegation of Islamophobia is not simply to be accused of being discriminatory or bigoted towards human beings: it is to be accused of being against Islam, making it a short leap to the sometimes-fatal allegation of blasphemy. That leap has been made a little bit shorter by Ali’s comments in the House of Commons yesterday.
Once the allegation of either Islamophobia or blasphemy is out there, the accuser has no control over who hears it and what they see fit to do about it. Those who seek to weaponise these allegations can then use this to their advantage with plausible deniability. The French anthropologist Florence Bergeaud-Blackler discovered this the hard way last year, when her book on the European activities of an Islamist group, the Muslim Brotherhood, was met with an Islamophobia backlash cynically orchestrated by the very subjects of her research from their positions dotted around academia, civil society and the media. After receiving death threats, Bergeaud-Blackler was forced under police protection.
In Britain, we have had our own sorry episodes. Would the 2021 film The Lady of Heaven, a production by Shia Muslims which was subject to protests and was pulled from many UK cinemas over safety concerns, come under such proposed legislation?
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SubscribeBlasphemy laws are the opposite of freedom. We should not even be entertaining the possibility of them. Unfortunately we are already travelling down that path with the concept of “hate” crimes and the performative hysteria which greets even the most sensible challenges to Progressive sensibilities.
And where does Tahir Ali get off elevating the Abrahamic religions above others. Are Buddhists and Hindus unworthy of the same respect in his estimation?
My only hope is that by vocalising this outrageous demand, it exposes Starmer’s snivelling appeasement of his party’s most undemocratic elements.
But of course he didn’t really mean the ‘Abrahamic religions’, that was just a fig leaf to make his remarks seem a little more acceptable. I suspect he has only one religion in mind.
Islam is an ideology. Like all others it can be interrogated, mocked, satirised and rejected It has no special status. Its followers, Muslims, aren’t a race. They have no special status.
Whilst in a country that truly values freedom of thought and speech we shouldn’t have to congratulate the author of this article on not just his rigour but his bravery, i feel we must.
We need more such voices, since we won’t hear them from our elected representatives in parliament (i wonder if even Reform MPs would raise this matter in the chamber?)
It’s also worth exploring the link to the French anthropologist, who the author interviewed following the publication of her work which attracted death threats. The spirit of hard-won Enlightenment freedoms continues to shine, but currently with a reduced arc of luminosity.
I weary of the political obsession with hate speech, non-crimes, racism, equity and ‘islamaphobia’, – whatever that means. I can guarantee that a party that cannot even define what a woman is will have a much harder task with that word. I do wish the entire edifice of “Hate” legislation and “protected characteristics” was simply abolished.
Personally I have little time for any religion, regarding most of them as “the easiest way of getting fundamentally decent people to do very bad things”. They are just ideologies, like socialism or capitalism or dadism. They are not exempt from critique and neither are their adherents.
I certainly do not like islam; I think it is crude, medieval, of questionable moral foundation, demeaning to women, intolerant of others and seeks to aggressively proselytise itself. And its adherents range across the spectrum of being mildly deluded at best to deeply dangerous at worst (like a lot of religions). I am quite happy to argue the case against it as well.
Do I think it should be banned? No. But it should not be permitted to interfere with, in any way, other peoples desire to believe what they want, live as they choose and say what they think. Nor indeed should any religion. However I would observe that it never seems to be adherents of christianity, or buddism, or hinduism, or judaism, or janism or any other credo who call for censure, punishment or worse for those who ‘disrespect’ their beliefs; that appears to be a preserve that is exclusive to islam and I think it needs to be watched very carefully.
I’m suggesting the strictest Sharia law for the next five years. First, it will immediately stop all small boats. Second,it’ll drive away the home “abrahamists”
The other question raised by Tahir Ali’s request is why should the three Abrahamic religions be treated differently and preferentially to any other religion.
Phobia means irrational fear of or dislike of.
9/11, 7/7, Madrid, Manchester, Hebdo, Bataclan, Rigby, Paty, Nice, Borough Mkt, London Bridge, and on and on and on.
Islamophobia is the wrong word. There is nothing irrational about it.
Is anyone ever called technophobic anymore?
Peter Hitchens tried to introduce a term ‘Christianophobic’. It didn’t catch on, despite many people being deeply hostile to this religion and who openly mock its claims.
Can we get one thing clear? In a world that has been de-sacralised by science and democracy, what act would constitute ‘desecration’ of religious texts of certain religions?
Are there lots of maladjusted people in Britain placing the holy text of a certain religion on the floor or holding it while menstruating in the privacy of their own homes in deliberate acts of defilement while suffering bouts of phobia? For the sake of community relations, should the police find out? If only so that their ‘phobia’ doesn’t contaminate anyone else living with them.
Is the Archbishop of Canterbury going to lead picket lines outside cinemas screening the infamous Life of Brian? Joined by Muslims who regard Jesus as a prophet. Is the Archbish going to demand there be a Christianophobia Week? And moreover, a figure of a religion – saint, holy man – cannot be ‘desecrated’. They can be mocked or criticised. In free speech. In debate.
Blasphemy law holds certain truths to be self-evident. But are they? Is Jesus of Nazareth the Son of God? That God has a companion, counsellor or son is a blasphemy in Islamic thought. Does everyone in speech or written word have to refer to Jesus as ‘The Lord Jesus’? Is not to do so ‘desecrating’ that prophet?
In shielding a religion from examination – even in a discussion in a school – by blasphemy law is to almost elevate that religion into a state religion. Previously, such a law made blasphemy not just a crime against the Church but also one against the state.
Does the author believe that there is a ‘right side of blasphemy’? That transgressions are ‘perceptions’? Describing the sensibilities of a religion as ‘perceptions’ (it’s all in the mind), could that be ‘desecration’?
If, as the author says, the definition of Islamophobia is being ‘against Islam’, does ‘against’ really mean to disagree with the claims of this religion? Or being against its presence or influence in a country? Or having an irrational fear of it? In a country where there is freedom of worship, the first two are private opinions. The first making a person a non-believer. The last needing sympathetic understanding and medical treatment.
A person can be ‘against’ Christianity in the first two senses, but is the Hindu or the atheist or the humanist to be penalised in law for either opinion? Is Lord Byron to be cancelled because, musing on the effects of the English seaside holiday on conceptions of the sacred, he described the sea as ‘the seat of the Infinite’?
But what if Starmer takes a strong stance – or rather, makes a difficult decision – only to get murdered for it? Surely we can understand and excuse our stoic National leader’s wavering here?
Why?
If the PM is afraid to “take a strong stance”, what hope for the rest of us?
We’re in deep trouble, I fear.
What if he does nothing and innocent people get murdered by the sort of extremists going down this highly dangerous and quite unnecessary road is only going to encourage ?
Yes, perhaps it is better that he is murdered?