Freedom of Speech and the Rhetoric of Blasphemy

Since the Charlie Hebdo Murders, freedom of speech has become the mantra of the phobic community. To add Muslim angle to the mantra and to stay on course for inciting hatred against Muslims, Blasphemy has been added into the mix. Maajid Nawaz even presented a motion for free speech and right to blaspheme, at the Liberal Democrat spring conference. Being a Prospective Parliamentary Candidate for the Liberal Democrats, he should have known that UK abolished the blasphemy law in 2008. Furthermore, the freedom of expression is enshrined in the law. Not surprisingly, Maajid’s motion and its adoption by the Liberal Democrat conference received praise from people like Nick Cohen .    

Anyone who has some knowledge of their faith or faiths in general knows that, no faith or faith scriptures mention blasphemy. Furthermore, all faiths support freedom of thought and speech because that's how faiths spread. So where does this term and idea comes from, if not from religion or faith. As far as I know the blasphemy was first constructed and introduced by the Christian or cannon law. In the UK it was adopted into the common law in the 17^th century and was only abolished in 2008. It was mainly introduced in common law to maintain the supremacy of the Church of England over other factions of Christianity.

A different form of blasphemy law was introduced in the colonies by Britain. The purpose of this law was more administrative than religious. As colonial rule expanded, it brought previously independent Hindu, Christian and Muslim areas under colonial administration. Furthermore, Britain needed to give protection to the missionary work by her clergy and newly converted subjects. So the aim of this legislation was to maintain order and to prevent communal violence. To date it remains on the statute books of these former colonies.

The reason such laws remained on the statuette books is that the newly independent countries were based on newly created borders which didn’t exist before the colonial rule. Furthermore, these new borders contained diverse communities, thus the need for this administrative tool to protect minorities not the majority religions. The prime example of this is the states of India and Pakistan. The laws in both countries protects, although not successfully, all religions not just the majority religions.

UK has abolished the blasphemy law, which mainly protected Christianity but it enacted new legislation with a view to protect minorities. The Racial and Religious Hatred Act 2006, is similar to the version introduced in the former colonies and is an administration tool. The act also preserves the right to freedom of speech/ freedom of expression but outlaws hate speech. Similar laws can be found on statute books of most European countries. Even France, the bastion of secularism, maintains laws for freedom of religion and against hate speech. It is another thing that such laws are rarely enforced and are flouted by the Far Right and “New” Atheists or anti-theists, secularists, humanists, etc.

As well as introducing the motion at the Lib Dem conference, Maajid Nawaz has also written an essay on the topic of Blasphemy. He starts his essay with the claim that the religious Prophets had blasphemed against the prevailing social constructs of that time. In other words when prophet Muhammad (pbuh) told people that burying daughters alive was wrong or Jesus spoke against money changers for profiteering from misery or Moses preached against pharaohs brutal rule, they all committed blasphemy. By that logic, Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela and today Palestinians, etc are blasphemers against the oppressive apartheid systems.

Maajid Nawaz’s convoluted arguments of cultural relativism, neo- oriental liberalism, can be summarised in few simple words. Western liberal society is monolithic and has no room for other cultures, identities, values or rights to equality. This attitude clearly ignores the fact that Majority of Muslim and other minorities in this country are born and bred here and regards themselves as British. When they go on holiday to Europe, North America, East or West they introduce themselves as British. Its people like him and other phobes and racists who want to give them the labels of their heritage. Hypocritically, Maajid Nawaz and co get on their high horse, when talking about other countries and protection of rights of minorities and cultures. Lecturing them to protect their religion, rights and cultures while doing the opposite here.

His position seems to be that minorities fighting for equality and maintaining their identity is a bad thing. On the other hand he claims, without providing any evidence, that there are minorities within the Muslim Minority who are experiencing victimisation. The fact is that himself and the so called ex-Muslims have aligned themselves with the powerful fascists, racists, New Atheists etc. They are deliberately provoking and attacking the Muslims and minorities. He includes himself in those minorities and hypocritically plays the victim card while criticising UK minorities for playing victim card. As usual he maintains that the majority of Muslims are extremists and are trying to impose Sharia and blasphemy on the liberal society. He is not interested in the socioeconomic situation and the attitude of some in the host community towards the minority communities, which has ghettoised some communities. Instead he claims that far right is profiting from the feeling of victimisation of the majority community. His attitude towards the orient and globalisation of the world ignores the fact that orient didn’t just provide the spices, silk, tea wealth; it also influenced and shaped the so called western values.

He talks about reformation but forgets that so called reformation came from within the Christian community not from outside. It is not the job of the so called ex-Muslims, Atheists or Quilliam to tell Muslims what to do. Muslims, for centuries both under Muslim rule and non Muslim rule co existed with various sects, cultures and religions. There were and still are inter religion, race, and sect marriages all around the world. There are no elected religious political parties anywhere in Muslim majority countries. Only countries where religiously influenced parties or persons are in power are India, Israel and the USA. People like Ayaan H Ali are not bothered by the election of fundamentalist religious party being in power in India. They are not bothered by the persecution of the low cast Hindus or religious minorities. They ignore the role of religion in Judicial and political systems in Israel or US.

As usual Maajid Nawaz is providing cover to his friends, who are involved in the racism, islamophobia and bigotry. The people, who have made a career out of their fascist activity by creating divisions and hate preaching. These people include Tommy Robinson, Sam Harris, Douglas Murray and Ayaan H Ali. Maajid and his friends use the rhetoric of freedom of speech to voice their bigoted views about the Muslim minorities in the west. They play the divisive games by praising some minorities while criticising the others. For example, Tommy Robinson would tweet praise about Sikh and Jewish minorities, while continuing his vile rhetoric against the Muslim minority. Recently Tommy Robinson tweeted guidance about recognising Sikhs by their turbans and to respect them. What this means is that everyone else of brown skin such as Sri Lankans, Arabs, South Americans, Indians, etc whether Christian, Hindu, Non Muslim, are a fair game. However, differentiating the Sikh women from Muslim women isn’t that simple so they remain open to the misogynistic attacks by his followers.  
  
The other thing Maajid and others say is that they have the right to offend. The question is what is the motive behind the offensive activity i.e. cartoons. Is it freedom of speech/ expression or there is sinister politics behind such cartoons. When Chris Moos and his partner appeared on a BBC programme and displayed their t-shirts bearing cartoons, what message were they relaying? Prior to their appearance on BBC Chris Moos and his partner had worn the same t-shirts at a university, during fresher’s week.  They had a stall purporting to promote atheism but their t-shirts had nothing to do with promotion of atheism. You don’t promote something by offending people, you antagonise them. If they wanted to promote the message of humanism and atheism then why didn’t they wear the t-shirts Richard Dawkins sells in his shops? Clearly their intentions were not about promotion of their ideology but to create divisions among students. Dawkins was so impressed by Chris Moos and his partner’s actions that he awarded him the humanist of the year award, but ignored his brown partner.

The fact is that such actions have nothing to do with freedom of expression. Neither are they satirical, as claimed by Richard Dawkins. They are deliberate attempts to stigmatise and dehumanise Muslim and minority communities. They are a copy of the Israeli rhetoric to dehumanise Palestinians by spreading lies i.e. Palestinians use their children as human shield. As it happens all of these groups and individuals are open supporters of Israel and her policies of suppressing the Palestinians. Sam Harris and Ayaan H Ali have openly agreed with IDF propaganda that Palestinians use human shields. Whether it is Tommy Robinson, Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Ayaan H Ali, Nick Cohen, Douglas Murray or Maajid Nawaz, they are all working with a clear political agenda. They give legitimacy to the war on terror which to date has claimed more than 2 million lives. Their role is to distract the populations of the West from what is happening around the world and keep them in a state of paranoia and fear.
     
A cursory look at the twitter activity of these people will tell you that neither of the above activity do anything to further their cause or belief. Instead you will find a common thread in their tweets. You won’t find Quilliam and Maajid addressing the Muslim youth with counter extremist message or Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris preaching atheism. You will not find Nick Cohen criticising Israel or Douglas Murray writing anything other than demonising of the Muslims and other minority communities and accusing them of anti-Semitism and homophobia. You won’t find Ayaan H Ali making civilised conversation about her rhetoric of reformation but inciting violence and supporting suppression of Muslims and minorities. You don’t even need to look at Tommy Robinson tweets to know his vile views, yet he has received admiration from all of the aforementioned.

Don’t be bamboozled by the rhetoric and sound bites by polished performers, always look beyond the glossy exterior and you may find the ugly truth of bigotry, Xenophobia, racism,Islamophobia, etc

Pushing Back Boundaries but, ....

In the Wrong Direction

Not a day goes by when a section of the British society is not in the news headlines. Even if there was a serious tragedy in the world affecting 100s, it would not trump the action / perceived actions of an individual from this community. Such coverage is deliberately normalising the issues which were made taboo by decades of struggle. This continuous highlighting of issues affecting the community is pushing back the boundaries but in the wrong direction. This is happening because every action and inaction of the community, is being looked through the tainted glass of prejudice. This prejudice is affecting more than the community in question.

Recently Channel Four broadcasted a documentary, presented by Trevor Phillips, a former head of the Equality and Human Rights Commission. The documentary titled “Things We Won’t Say About Race That Are True”, seems to be based on the old stereotypes. However, he failured to acknowledge, that the old stereotypes had in the past, given rise to hatred, violence and atrocities rarely seen in the human history. Therefore, it is important to fight old and the new stereotypes to prevent this happening again. While the documentry has been criticised by activists like Lee Jasper , it was welcomed by the right wing media such as the Daily Mail, which published this, incorporating his article. It is not surprising that only people they found to agree with him were couple of Tory MPs. The Mail, which is not a fan of the Equality or Human Rights, couldn’t help to have a dig on Trevor Phillips himself, stating that he received salary of £112,000 for 3.5 days work.

                                                           Cartoon by Operation Black Vote

Trevor Phillips’s only achievement was to merge the various branches of the Equality into one. I personally don’t think that this achieved the goals previously set by the various independent commissions. As the head of the EHRC, Trevor Phillips had started from the complacent belief that the equality, especially in the field of race had been achieved. His actions to merge various branches of equality commission were more to do with empire building than reality on the Ground. Since then we have seen case after case revealing institutionalised racism and discrimination not only in the field of race but also of gender, disability and the under privileged. The Rotherham case is as much, if not more, of institutionalised discrimination against the under privileged white community who’s complaints were ignored, of groomers being from a certain section of community. This is supported by the Oxford council’s admission, that their failures to investigate such cases properly had nothing to do with any political correctness.

Unfortunately, Trevor Phillips has allowed himself to fall into the trap of increasingly blurred lines made possible by the continuous headlines and reckless media coverage using inflammatory language. The mainstream media and the Politicians have muddled the equality issue with stereo types. It is now normal to hear Xenophobic language when discussing immigration, racism when discussing Islamophobia, macho attitudes when discussing sexism, derogatory remarks when discussing disability, label of anti-semitism when discussing Israel/ Palestine conflict and rhetoric of freedom of speech, while inciting hatred against Muslims.

The social media has also played a role in this normalisation of pushing boundaries in the wrong direction. People think that they can get away with typing their inner most dark thoughts in the anonymity of the Internet. We have seen threats of rape and violence against women, blatant lies and stereotypes to spread religious, racial and other forms of hatred. Unfortunately, the bigots take comfort in the knowledge that they have the support of respectable figures on the internet and in mainstream media. The trends on the twittersfield become headlines for the 24 hour media, hungry for more and more headline fillers. So tweets about halal/ kosher food become national headlines.

The recent example is the Clarkson fracas with an Irish producer, which turned out to be a serious unprovoked physical and verbal racial attack. For few days it looked that, like many times before, Clarkson would survive the latest mess of his own making. BBC did everything possible to keep Clarkson on their books but as more and more witnesses came forward, they had no choice but to ignore the tank carrying one million signature petition. The petition is the perfect indictment of the prevailing attitude in sections of the society. Despite the tragedy in the French Alps, BBC gave prominence to its decision to not to renew contract with Clarkson. BBC journalists gave his sacking disproportionate air time. They made arguments about his value, for bringing 50 million pounds, and made light of the physical assault, describing it as 30 second incident. It is this kind of attitude that minimises the gravity of similar actions against minorities.

The common thread, in majority of Clarkson's misdemeanours, is the race including the latest incident that included remarks about the victim being Irish. Although, he has been equally vile towards, women, disabled, etc. he receives admiration for not being PC, as though this is something to admire. Astonishingly, he received support from high profile people including our Prime Minister. It is this kind of support which normalises, racism, sexism, Islamophobia and victimisation of other disadvantaged groups, sick and the poor working classes. Such racism also affects the unity of the United Kingdom, as throw away remarks are made about the Scots, Welsh and the Irish for political gains.

I am not an expert on any of the issues listed above but as a member of ethnic minority group with migrant and Muslim heritage, I have views on these topics. We are witnessing the erosion of minority rights earned after long and hard struggles. I say earned as it took decades of fight with the overt, covert and institutionalised racism and discrimination. The equality Acts of 1977 did not work because of the reluctance of the establishment to implement them. This resulted in demonstrations, which were classified as riots despite it being reaction to provocation of discrimination and attacks by organisations like National Front and combat 18. Only after these “riots” and the Lord Scarman’s report, things started to improve. So from the passing of the Act in 1977, it took another decade to see changes especially in the public sector and the public services.  

Fast forward to the second decade of the 21st century and we find that all those prejudices, we thought had been left behind, have resurfaced. Only this time the problem has returned in a respectable form, in our politics, media and in the literati. It has spread like a virus from mainstream politics to the gutters of racist EDL and Britain First. An example of muddle alliances is Tommy Robinson, who still supports EDL, Pagida, Britain First and UKIP but is friends with the Islamophobic new Left, LibDem PPC Maajid Nawaz, and the disgraced Tory PPC Afzal Amin. He openly tweets Islamophobic and racist material on the internet but somehow keeps friendship with this diverse group of people. Maybe he is the new symbol of diversity.

The racist and fascist organisations always had the backing of powerful and influential people. It’s not different today as powerful members of the media, politics and literati, supporting the racist and Islamophobic individuals and groups. They are helping to undermine the progress in the equality field, by spreading fear through the xenophobic rhetoric of immigration and Islam. They cleverly use, all encompassing Islamophobic narrative, that includes all the traits of the Far right. It includes immigration, racism and misogyny . No wonder that people like Richard Dawkins, his followers and the organisations under his patronage claim that no such thing as Islamophobia. The same view expressed by others like Sam Harris and lately by Maajid Nawaz who even issued a Fatwa stating that there is no such thing as Islamophobia. If anyone thinks that the Islamophobia doesn’t affect others, they should read this SAALT report by the US Asian community highlighting the diversity of communities affected by Islamophobic attacks.    

Trevor Phillips, in his article attacked the idea of multiculturalism, and said that in multicultural Britain Muslim children may have a narrow view of the world. At the same time he blames France’s non multiculturalist system for the murder of Charlie Hebdo cartoonists. He can’t have both ways. Like many others he doesn’t want to acknowledge that children of migrants have a greater knowledge of the world than their white counterparts. There is a high chance that they are bilingual, they have visited developing countries of their  parents/ grandparents heritage. They probably have the first hand knowledge of struggles of people around the world. They are more likely to have a wider world view through the international media.

Trevor Phillips also talked about the young girls who had gone to the war torn Syria. Again his views seem to have been based on stereotypes rather than facts. It is clear that these girls had normal family life and were happy at school and were A grade students. The question to ask is about their experiences outside of school and home. What I have learnt from two groups of girls interviewed by the BBC News and BBC Newsnight. The first group interviewed was hijab wearing and they said that they had experienced racist, Islamophobic and Misogynistic attacks, because they way they dressed. The second group was interviewed by Evan Davis for Newsnight. They weren’t hijabis and they also said that they also feel that the society doesn’t accept them because of their colour and race. When they said they understood why girls would leave their comfortable life for a warzone, Evan Davis said that their comments could be interpreted as apology for terrorism. Not surprised that the BBC did not release these videos, while other videos like the interview with Ayaan H Ali were released immediately after the broadcast.

There are some people who have spoken out against the Islamophbia but not enough. In a recent appearance on the BBC Question Time, broadcasted on 18^th March, Will Self said that his students overwhelmingly think, that the Muslims are the most oppressed minority in the UK today. In the same week Matthew Parris wrote an article, in the Spectator, titled "Anti Muslim Prejudice is Real and Scary" . Unfortunately his lone voice is drowned by Douglas Murray’s weekly articles in the Spectator, who also wrote this and his other prejudicial gems include this vile article and this . 

It has become respectable to have Islamophobic prejudice and thanks to the false scandals such as Trojan Horse and the Cathy Neman tweets, it has spread from the mainstream media to the school playgrounds. Our universities are being monitored by the new humanists and the Henry Jackson Society supported group Student Rights. Their activity is not dissimilar to that of Hitler’s Nazi Youth. If we want to have a fair and equal society then we must confront this last respectable prejudice. Our failures to do so will have wider implications for all.  

Don't Talk About It, Its Not the Right Time

The appalling murders in France have rightly started the debate about the freedom of speech. However, at the same time people are being told that it is not the time to talk about the issues which are absolute relevant to the unity of the communities and are vital to stop such incidents happening again. This happens everytime such incidents happen and it is never discussed and addressed. Instead narratives are developed to create divisions, stereo types and prejudices, which can only lead to discrimination and feelings of not belonging. These feelings are then exploited and cause some people to act in a manner which is not conducive to a cohesive society.

The solidarity march in Paris today was to promote unity and inclusiveness for all. The impressive and historic attendance was a spectacle to hold with people of all faiths, colours and nationalities attending in large numbers. There were lot of moments to remember, like a Muslim Mayor of a Town who had come with his Jewish Businessman friend. Both were wearing placards, the Mayor’s placard said I am a Muslim and I love Jews and the Jewish friend was wearing placard saying I am a Jew and I love Muslims. The Jewish businessman spoke better English and said that the Muslim mayor had started a programme for teenage children from different races faiths and backgrounds to meet and learn about each other. Then there there was a Muslim man who gave white roses of peace to passer bys Jews and others. There was a Jewish woman who had moved from Israel to France, 20 years ago, and she was there with her Muslim friend but both also expressed their fears for the future. People were there with their children and elderly relatives with messages of peace and desire to live in peace and harmony. There were lot of young people whose parents / grandparents had moved to the country. Its this unity of young generation of descents of migrants and young white French that gives hope for a more tolerant future. 

The march was also attended by some leaders and high officials of the world. Some leaders tried to make political capital out of it and others were grateful to be invited. British Prime Minister was talking about security and measures to limit our freedoms further. Despite being told to stay away Netanyahu turned up, he used the well rehersed rhetoric of fighting Muslim extremists (Palestinians) and rise of anti-Semitism. He offered safe sanctuary to Jews in Israel, not surprising as more than 30% of Israelis want to leave the country for better careers and futures. One of the considred views of humanity and unity of all races, colours and beliefs and non belief came from an Italian Prince. Unfortunately he doesn’t have any power to bring about changes he was talking about. One Sky commentator and his guest agreed that this kind of unity procession was a better way to create cohesion, integration and unity than the proposed legislations limiting our freedoms.

Despite the positives of the march, one must ask questions whether the crowd represented all of the French communities. Was it just a gathering of the great and the good and middle classes and what efforts were made to include the marginalised and deprived communities where these murderers had come from. The neighbours of the culprits had nothing to say about these men except good things like they held doors, they helped people to carry shopping, they helped the disabled, they were quite and polite, etc. Even the person at the print warehouse, where they were finally killed spoke about their humanity. We now know that the brothers who carried out the Charlie Ebdo massacre were orphans, one of them was homeless the other had committed string of petty offences. They were born and bred in France and didn’t have any particular roots abroad. Yet they felt the need to travel abroad and make contacts with people with extreme views.

One person interviewed on the BBC said that there was abject poverty in the ghettos of Paris. Children were literally starving and young girls were prostituting themselves to survive. Another person who owned a restaurant said there was wide spread discrimination against the  descendants of the migrants from North African and Arab countries. He said while he had employees from various racial backgrounds such as Mali, Ethiopia, etc, there were no go areas for these young people and majority of restaurants will not employ young people from minorities like Arabs and Africans. One Muslim said that there are restrictions on the liberties of people with regard to expression of religion, clothing and even food. There is also the problem of increasing attacks on Muslims and their places of worship both before and after the murders at the Charlie Ebdo. There is no legal protection against Islamophobia anywhere in Europe.

Slowly it is becoming clear that the Charlie Ebdo wasn’t just a satirist magazine, it allegedly also promoted xenophobia, racial and religious hatred. It has also emerged that the Magazine had sacked one of its employees for anti-Semitic activity, but not for racial hatred or Islamophobic. It is clear that Charlie Ebdo wasn’t a popular magazine in any sense with only 60,000 copy print. The magazine mainly catered for the high society, which influence the opinions and policies of the government. It would be interesting to see if the proposed government funded million copies will contain similar material as alleged above.

While the France was preparing for the solidarity march, a debate was being held at the BBC studios for the programme the Big Question, with main topic of incident in Paris. The host of the programme is well known for his prejudice and collaboration with the Islamophobic community. This was reflected with the choice of guests disproportionally in favour of his views.  It was like having a match where the referee was in cahoots with one team. He failed to give enough time for reply to Raza Nadim of MPAC. It is becoming a norm for the BBC to give platform to people like Douglas Murray of the Henry Jackson Society and the Gatestone Institute and Quilliam’s front man Maajid Nawaz, to spread the narrative of division, fear and hate while gradually dropping the voices of reason. Douglas Murray said that it wasn’t the time to discuss the alleged inflammatory material and editorial of the Magazine. He made the laughable claims that Muslims were trying to enforce Sharia on the mainstream community and that the Islam was to blame for the actions of the perpetrators. Maajid Nawaz’s rhetoric is well known and is not  worth repeating. Nabila Ramdani a French Algerian Journalist puts it better in her Guardian artcle why French Muslims shouldnt be blamed. For that matter we need to get away from blaming whole of the Muslim communities for the crimes of the few and start confronting those who are creating mischief of this kind for own goals.    

To say it is not the time to discuss these issues is to ignore the real causes of disconnect, frustration and helplessness, which are leading to people acting out of character and committing acts of violence. The solidarity message need to be filtered through to the above mentioned deprived communities which exist in all of our societies. In reality they exist in all countries accross the world developed, developing, Western, Eastern, Muslim and Non Muslim. The lazy rhetoric to ask Muslims to do more, blaming the religion and rhetoric of back door sharia and the harsh language by politicians has been tried, tested and has failed. These people who carried out atrocities were born and bred in France. They were the product of French society. Therefore, to blame any other society, culture or religion is farcical and we are all to blame for our failings not just the one community.

Its time pay attention to the above mentioned deprived and discriminated communities. They include people of all races religion and colour. We need to provide comfort, assurance and support to these communities before someone else does and exploit them for their own agenda. Don’t just blame the religion and ask communities to do more as it reinforces the idea of separation not cohesion. We all have a responsibility to our young; don’t treat them as foreigners as their roots are here, treat them as citizens. Dont let people with extreme dark agendas of creating divisions and hatered talk and listen to the voices of reason in all communities.