Now, I don't know a huge amount about the bill, but from what I've read it will cover spoken or written words which incite hatred. So, books which promote religious hatred will be outlawed. As I mentioned the other day, the Old Testament says that if a city houses people who worship false gods we should:
smite the inhabitants of that city with the edge of the sword, destroying it utterly, and all that is therein... with the edge of the sword.
...gather all the spoil of it into the midst of the street, and burn with fire the city, and all the spoil thereof every whit... and it shall be an heap for ever; it shall not be built again.
Meanwhile, the Koran tells its adherents to:
Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth, (even if they are) of the People of the Book, until they pay the Jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued.
Both of which sound to me very much like incitements to hatred and explicit calls to violence.
Home Office Minister Paul Goggins has said: "It is about protecting the believer, not the belief." Which is perfect, as the last thing we want to do is protect the belief. Now, once this gets through parliament, as it undoubtedly will (Tony always gets his way), does anybody know of any high-powered legal types who would be willing to assist me in putting together some sort of case?
9 comments:
Oh my god... (oops, excuse the obvious irony there)... I was just listening to the Today programme on Radio 4 and heard the first public figure so far to explore the problems of hatred-inciting verses in the Koran. He sounded very reasonable and well-informed on the matter. Then it got to the end of the interview and it turned out I'd been listening to Nick Griffin. This is rather worrying, to say the least. (Also worrying is the fact that the major US dailies seem to be in agreement with Griffin on UK immigration policies.
Okay, it's official, the world has gone mad. I mean who wrote this headline on the R4 site
"BNP attempts to forge ethnic minority links" !?!
More to the point why was Jim Naughtie or whomever being so goddam careful not to accuse Griffin and the party's website of being racist.
It is, he is, they are.
The interviewer should have accused him of being a racist and preferably a fascist too (though I really can't be fagged with the technical definitions of England's Falange) - and just said, 'Well hey if you don't like it sue me!'
Then Nick G could have claimed he was being defamed and persecuted and we could all have written lots of fun posts about the Pot Calling the Kettle Black...
Does the fact of who Nick Griffin is and what he represents automatically mean it is necessary to disregard everything he says? Obviously I didn't hear the interview, but reasoned and logical argument remains so regardless of the source.
Simon
Funnily enough I recall meeting a girl who lived and grew up in the East End a few years ago and she said the BNP slogan now was: Black and white unite against the Asians. The beef was that "these" people are taking "your" council homes.
It's much the same strategy as the Nazis used. After all, although racists, they were quite content to ally with the Japanese (who themselves became subject to racist charicatures by the Allies) while of course demonising the Jews.
Re NG Simon, that's a fair point, but in my experience (another thread really this) the most effective cults are those that lace their bollocks with a grain of truth or plausibility. The means are largely irrelevent (to them) it is the ends that matter.
However, I would suggest that a whole strata of the white (and indeed black) working class has been tarred as racist/ ignorant by Labour and the left-leaning elites which refuse to take their concerns about immigration seriously, thereby leaving the door wide open to the BNP. But in reality hasn't the left always been somewhat contemptuous of the working class?
Simon, you're right, it is possible to be wrong and right at the same time (of course, I have to say this, so that I have a get-out for warming so much to Griffin on the radio this morning).
What's worrying is, as Nick says, that this is just pure Machiavellian politics: achieving the BNP's racist, bigoted aims by any means necessary.
It's just a great shame (an outrage even) that Nick Griffin seems to be the only person in the country who thinks it's OK to raise these matters at the moment. The Observer blog mentions that they considered basing this Sunday's editorial on the subject of whether ideas kill, or just people. I posted a comment to this blog piece immediately after it was posted, discussing this issue with specific reference to hatemongering in the Koran, but by the next morning my comment had been deleted and comments on this entry closed. To be honest, I can't believe they did this just because my post was so controversial (particularly when you look at some of the other comments posted to Guardian blogs), but I emailed them asking what the reason was and they've yet to reply. Bastards.
Dan, while I liked the idea of using the Religious Hatred legislation to ban the major Eurasian religious texts of the last two millenia, I'm afraid I'm somewhat unconvinced by the idea that its the textual stuff that kills.
Its all about cultural interpretation, teaching and subcultural contexts - which is to say, for example, in my particular subculture killing people to draw attention to my beliefs is not acceptable (etc).
Additionally I'm unsure about this right and wrong at the same time business - what you mean is that information, opinion and interpretation can serve a variety of masters and more pertinently can appear to serve the cause of truth while actually serving the cause of hatred.
Finally I think its worth challenging the dangerously condescending notion that the working class are always conservative with a small 'f' on immigration.
This is an interpretation based upon very particular circumstances and to some extent on post-war dependency models.
Its also because the foot soldiers on the street are the most visible examples of racism and its both easy and melodramatic to take the skinheads bowling, while its less so to challenge the louche colonialist preconceptions of several generations of in-bred academia.
Further, throughout British history the working class has generally been receptive to immigrants - or at any rate at least as receptive as the upper classes (I'd argue more so). Most major examples of hatred being whipped up against immigrants as a group have not stemmed from the working class. Take a look at some of that stuff about Hugenots for example and obviously compare working class hero Mosley (not) and his Lady Birdwood-type mates to those who opposed them in places such as Cable Street.
Sure people in power will often attempt to misdirect the attention of the working class to the threat of the other as opposed to that posed by his more powerful brother but that after all is the mechanicism of fascism.
Your contrarian attempt to think the unthinkable therefore becomes dangerously close to an apologia for racism as an inevitable function of immigration and, before we know where we are, we are blaming the wretched for their wretchedness and the darkies for the darkness of our own worst imaginings. Next stop rape myths...
Chris, I don't blame the textual stuff for the killings, but I do think it's a contributory factor: it gives those already worked into a frenzy some reassuring traditional justification to hang their bigotry on. Besides which, as you may have gathered, I am strongly opposed to religion (or more correctly, I suppose, dogma) of all flavours because it is frequently wrong, it impedes progress and all the good it does is probably balanced by ill. And most of all, it is anachronistic and unnecessary.
I'm not quite sure that interpretation plays as large a part as you think though. Well, obviously it does otherwise Moslems everywhere would be refusing to befriend Jews, Christians and Pagans, as required by many Surahs in the Koran, but here I think we can read "interpretation" as meeaning "ignoring the bits you don't like". Of course, as religious books have got older and human knowledge has advanced, "the bits you don't like" for many now mean virtually all of the text. For comparison, I recently read Yamamoto Tsunetomo's "Hagakure: The Way of the Samurai" which was written some 300 years ago. It contains some wonderful pieces of sage advice, absolutely inspirational stuff. It also contains some real claptrap. Fortunately, it's never been made the basis of a religion (except perhaps by Ghost Dog) so I can make use of the bits I like but throw out the chaff without having to beat myself with a studded leather belt afterwards.
Anyway, I'm still not sure whether I'd like to pursue this legal case on the basis of my hatred of religion or my hatred of the religious discrimination bill. I'll probably make up my mind once I get to court.
As for right and wrong: yes, it is possible to say something which is true in support of something else which is untrue. To simplify the BNP case, NG says "the Koran is riddled with hatred and incitements to violence" (true) and then, on our own or with a little more prompting, hopes that we will move on from this to "all Moslems are a danger who need to be removed from our country" (false).
I'm presuming the following stuff about the working class is aimed at Nick rather than me, but then in your final paragraph you accuse me (I think) of coming close to "an apologia for racism"... well, yes and no. It can be used that way, and humans being what they are I've no doubt it will be. But that is absolutely not my intention nor my hope: to go back to the words of the Home Office minister, I am fighting the belief, not the believers. How we do that is, admittedly, problematic in the extreme: nobody likes being told they are wrong (putting aside the whole issue of Moslems being required by law to kill those of their number who admit Islam is wrong). But we all are wrong from time to time (hey, even me!) and just because it is sometimes difficult confronting wrongness, doesn't mean we shouldn't give it a try.
Phew! I'd better go now before my dinner gets cold.
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