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