Sinister warnings, infantilised debate and British 'values'

In the last few weeks, as the phrase has floated back and forth, like a cloud over the post-election horizon, I have found myself mulling precisely what “British values” are.

If there are values that are specifically “British” then they must be unique to this nation and different from values anywhere else.

Otherwise, why keep insisting that they are “British” values? And let’s face it, there has been little meat on the bones of that soundbite.

I suspect that most Britons like to think that we’re a fairly tolerant lot, so is tolerance a ‘British value’? In which case, does no other nation share it or, if they do, have they nicked the idea from us because we created it – hence it being a particularly ‘British value’?

Freedom of speech, perhaps? Exactly the same questions apply.

Freedom from illegal imprisonment? I suppose we can go back to Magna Carta on this one – fitting, in the year of its 800th anniversary. Of course, in that document, it was not about the plebs being protected from illegal imprisonment, but rebellious barons having a right to be tried by their peers.

However, let’s not get too pedantic about these things.

This, though, might give you an idea of my problem: I’m looking for a value that is quintessentially British and I can think of not a one – well, certainly not without resorting to sarcasm.

There’s going to be no suggestion here that there are ‘universal’ values, because a glance around the world would show that to be far from the case.

Values have to be developed, and while the West shares many of the same values – not least as a result of western Europe in particular having experienced the Enlightenment at the same time – other parts of the world do not. They may at some point in the future, but they do not now.

And values are not set in stone, they evolve over time: see the changing attitudes toward LGBT people in the UK – and the West in general – over the last 50 years. Which, of course, illustrates that, if tolerance is a value we rate particularly in the UK, why are we only in recent years become tolerant toward such people, both in terms of most of the populace and the country’s institutions?

But David Cameron’s post-election statement that our society has been ‘passively tolerant’ for too long, allowing things if they were within the law, is perhaps the most sinister uttering from a UK politician in a very long time.

Nobody will be in doubt as to which group are the main targets of this pumped-up rhetoric. This is about Muslims, radicalisation and extremism, and how to avoid the second and third in that list. And few people would object to that aim or fail to understand how important it is.

Last November, the then government released advice to maintained schools on Promoting fundamental British values as part of SMSC in schools.

‘SMSC’ stands for ‘spiritual, moral, cultural and mental’.

The document is quite clear that the main issue it was addressing was situations where teaching of religious law might conflict with law in this UK.

It also states that “fundamental British values” are “democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty, and mutual respect and tolerance of those with different faiths and beliefs”.

Which is all well and good, but brings us right back to the question of what about any of these is so fundamentally ‘British’?

Interestingly, that doesn’t mention ‘free speech’, although one could probably suggest that that would fall within “individual liberty”.

The next question after that, though, is why, if they’re so fundamental, do all schools not have to promote these values and only maintained ones? This actively excludes any religious school, for instance, that is operating in a realm without state funding.

Perhaps one could avoid some issues by having a strictly secular education system where every child, no matter their religious background, has access to thought and debate that can show them a world beyond the strictures of the faith that their parents have decided they belong to?

At present, we have a situation where religious schools, for instance, can opt out of sex education to some degree or other.

Should it not be a fundamental value that all young people, irrespective of the religious beliefs (or lack thereof) of their parents, has the right to a clear and informed education about something like sex?

Ours is the same system where, at present, one particular religious sect can say that it will ban any child from its schools if they are driven to school bytheir mother, because women should not drive – but it’s okay because none of the women want to drive.

Indeed, only yesterday, the school’s leaders have claimed that such a ban is essential to maintaining “religious principles and strong traditional values” and noting that, “as private schools we have the freedom to set our own high standards by which we seek to live and bring up our children.”

Ah yes, “high standards” that include telling girls that it’s ‘immodest’ for a woman to drive a vehicle. And see that bit about being a private school allowing such things.

Let’s be clear: this is no more in tune with ‘British’ values than brainwashing children with any other religious, fundamentalist bigotry and idiocy.

A properly secular education system is far from being the be all and end of dealing with fundamentalist religion, as the situation in France illustrates, but it could help to break down the ghettoising effect of religion in general.

By all means have your places of worship and your religious traditions in the home, but education should be a free space for pupils.

We need to be encouraging young people to be able to think more philosophically – and not to run scared of ideas that may challenge their beliefs.

We need to promote the idea that nobody has a right to be not offended or have their beliefs challenged. We do not need anything that drives us down the same infantilising path as in the US, where students increasingly object when anyone voices a view that challenges their own – and run away to ‘safe rooms’ full of videos of playful puppies and Play Doh.

What can never work, though, is destroying precisely the things we claim to be defending – in the name of defending them.

The censorship and the increased snooping that are being proposed; the replacement of human rights legislation with a bill of rights – with the degree of rights one is afforded dependent on where one is from; the suggestion that simply living within the law will no longer be good enough for some to avoid government intervention … all these are absolutely the opposite of what most people would consider to be ‘our’ values.

In particular, that statement on ‘passive tolerance’ is pernicious. Few people would be actively supportive of terrorists of any ilk, but such vague statements can only give rise to a feeling that we are moving into the realms of an assault on free speech; of thought crime, even.

If someone says, for instance, that ‘the Charlie Hebdo murderers had a point’, will that now be a cue for state intervention?

And if so, how long before saying that the government’s heads should be on spikes for all to see be put on the same level?

Who gets to choose, once the rationale has ceased to be breaking the law? Start down such a route and you’re on a very slippery slope.

And saying that only one group has its capacity for free speech impinged upon is really not a way to defeat the substantial issues of the radicalisation of the young.

Frankly, it’s like handing the extremist groomers an additional recruitment tool, never mind doing one of the sort of things that the very same people would like to do to us, in attacking our way of life.

Double standards and bad laws win no hearts and minds.

And it would be hoped that they were most certainly not what anyone views as ‘British values’.

  

Economics and the rise of extremism

The Greeks take on neo-liberalism

The day after a political earthquake in Greece might not seem the most obvious day to discuss the rise of Islamic extremism, but the two are far more closely linked than might appear obvious at first.

Let’s start, though, with the latter.

It’s a popular (and left-of-centre populist) analysis to suggest that Western foreign policy – in particular, the imperialist adventures in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the continuing refusal of many Western nations to even politely criticise the behaviour of the state of Israel toward the Palestinian people – are the reasons for the rise of Islamic extremism.

But while they can be seen as contributory factors – they’ve certainly fanned the flames of the problem – it’s simplistic to suggest that they are the sole or even main causes.

To start with, it’s worth noting that Al-Qaeda was formed sometime between 1988-89 and had been active well before the 9/11 attacks on the US.

And it’s a generally-accepted fact that the Taliban grew out of the proxy Cold War struggle in Afghanistan between the Soviet Union and the West.

The Palestinian situation was well established by 9/11, but whether of not one believes that the invasion of Iraq in particular was an own goal in terms of handing Osama bin Laden a massive recruitment boost, it’s clear that the invasion did not begin the process.

There are a number of analyses that place the beginning of the rise of what we call Islamic fundamentalism at the death of Gamal Abdel Nasser.

Film footage from Nasser’s funeral in Cairo shows no mass of niqabs or even hajibs, so it’s fair to say that the use of these have grown in the years since – one visible sign of the growth of increased religious observance and of increased religious conservatism.

Fast forward to Iran in 1979, and we see religious bods taking power and benefiting from the help they received from the secular opposition – which they subsequently crushed.

Now take things forward considerably. The ‘Arab Spring’ was not triggered by issues of religion.

It began in issues of economics: ‘I don’t have a job’, ‘I have sod all pay’.

The Egyptian government reacted by raising the minimum wage.

Victory!

Or perhaps not. Because Egypt had signed up to trade treaties that allowed corporates to sue the country if it did something that the said corporates didn’t like.

In this case, it was Veolia doing the legal stuff.

Now this is important: the clause in a trade treaty that Egypt had signed is incredibly similar to that being currently negotiated by the EU and the US. To be accurate, because of campaigning, that clause Investor State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) has been ‘suspended’ in the treaty negotiation.

Do not even begin to pretend that it is ‘over’.

This is an illustration of how national governments are giving in and handing power to corporates.

How would anyone who believes in democracy want to support such things?

But let’s go back.

There is an increasing prevalence of people joining jihad from non-Muslim backgrounds and not just from Europe, but from the EU too – and from the likes of the US.

I am going to suggest that the core, key, underlying issue is not Islam ... but that the real issue is the economic philosophy that being foisted upon the majority by the minority.

‘Trickle down’ doesn’t work – it never has.

It doesn’t matter whether you’re in Paris or Cairo, London or Athens: the big – the really big question – is about how all of us create a world that is fairer for all of us.

Disillusion presents a wonderful opportunity for theocrats and would-be theocrats to offer something different – not least when the mainstream political discourse has apparently let them down. And the same is true of the far right.

But this is not simply a West v East situation, as Greece shows us.

Although there are other factors, the most important is an economic one.

The Greeks have chosen to use the ballot box to challenge why they should pay the price of neo-liberalism. At least some of the actions of Islamic extremists are almost certainly triggered by the same polices.

While there are particular issues historically with Greece (the scale of tax avoidance for one), the country also suffered at the hands of the politicians who were so desperate to join the euro, and the bankers – Goldman Sachs – who diddled the country's books to enable it to be able to meet the criteria for entry.

Isn't it a wonder that nobody has done or is doing jail time for this?

But then again, austerity is being foisted on countless countries, with millions suffering, while the bankers who caused the global financial crisis of 2008 remain at liberty, well off and without having to have made any form of restitution.

As big bonuses and continuing fines for wrongdoing show, banks continue to go about their business the way they did beforehand.

We understand the roots of fascism and how and what fascists take advantage of. The theocrats and the Islamic extremists are little different.

And while trying to avoid this economic context to discussing the rise of Islamic extremism is simply crass, it's easy enough to see why many in the political establishment would be reluctant to do so.

Soyons tous caricaturistes: let us all be cartoonists

Today’s massacre in Paris has sent shockwaves around the world. Eight journalists, a visiting economist, a maintenance worker and two policemen were killed simply for doing their jobs.

For the journalists of Charlie Hebdo, that job was poking fun at whatever they considered needed it.

They sailed closed to the wind of taste on more than one occasion – and on more than one subject – but offending taste is not a crime and never should be.

There had been threats and an arson attack on the magazine previously. And all apparently because some people don’t like you to question their beliefs – particularly not when there’s a big god geezer involved somewhere.

Already, one or two commentators have suggested that the journalists brought it on themselves.

In other words, that they shouldn’t poke fun at certain things. Well, probably not religion in general and certainly not Islam, which has a minority of followers who get very, very offended if they feel that their particular version of a spiritual comfort blanket has been insulted.

Some have suggested that you can critique religious belief and attitudes in a way that is rational and calm and that Charlie Hebdo didn’t do that.

Indeed it didn’t. But that is to forget that satire is a long-standing part of European culture as a whole – possibly even more so in the UK.

And if satire is a valid form of literature/art/debate, then no subject should be exempt from its reach.

A very simple truth remains: no matter how savage a cartoonist is in ink, it’s ink – not blood.

Our thoughts should be with the loved ones of those who were murdered in Paris today, including the two policemen in the street outside the Charlie Hebdo offices, and with those who were critically injured.

To suggest those journalists were to blame is to utterly miss the point: nothing should be sacred.

There should never, ever be a right to not be offended.

Yes, any and all have the right to believe what they wish: but they have no right to force their beliefs on anyone else and they have no right to demand that everyone else adhere to their particular interpretation of whatever cult they happen to link themselves to.

And let us ensure that the terrorists do not win: in other words, let us never be cowed into refusing to moderate our criticisms through fear, because that would mean that the terrorists would have triumphed.

So let us all be cartoonists.


* Edited on 8 January to clarify the positions of those killed.

Context, logic and the horrors in religious books

According to reports from the UK schools inspector, Ofsted, an English primary school in Luton has been found to have books in it that involve what most people would regard as fairly extreme ideas, including stonings and lashings.

The BBC has stated that books in the schoollibrary included “The Ideal Muslim by Dr Muhammad Ali Al-Hashimi, which advocates parents hitting children if they do not pray by the age of 10, the report said.

“Another, Commanders Of The Muslim Army by Mahmood Ahmad Ghadanfar, was said to praise individuals who ‘loved death more than life in their pursuit of righteous and true religion’.”

The school has been told that it must act to meet “key standards for independent schools.

“These include ensuring the curriculum ‘better prepares [pupils] for living in modern Britain ... in line with the laws of the land’ and having library books with ‘balanced and tolerant views which reflect British democratic values’.”

A couple of things occur.

First, it’s actually worth asking why some people find the idea of stoning as a method of execution so bad, if they believe that capital punishment is otherwise acceptable. Could there be anything less civilised than employing – and paying – people to come up with methods of execution that are not “cruel and unusual”?

If you find the idea of burying someone up to their chest or neck and then belting them with rocks until bloodied and dead, do you not also find the idea of hanging bad? And what about strapping someone to a table and injecting them with chemicals that, when they work properly, stop that person’s heart?

Anyway, back in 2012, education secretary Michael Gove announced that every school was to be sent a special copy of the King James Bible, to mark the 400th anniversary of its translation, and complete with an introduction by the minister himself.

As it happened, even Prime Minister David Cameron baulked at the idea of public funding for the project at a time of cuts, and it was decided that it would be done via donations.

It was never made clear just how many UK schools do not already possess at least one Bible – and in that particular translation – but it seems unlikely to be a large number.

But if we can feel fairly safe in the assumption that the overwhelming majority of schools will already be in possession of at least one Bible, then it’s also clear that the overwhelming majority of schools will be in possession of a book that condones and suggests an awful lot of spectacularly nasty stuff.

There are stonings and plenty of other brutal killings in the Bible.

Take the tale of Onan, for instance. After his brother died, God ordered him to, in effect, ‘take over’ his widowed sister in law.

He refused to take her sexually, ‘spilled his seed on the ground’ and was killed for that. Hence ‘onanism’ being a synonym for masturbation.

The Bible is full of stuff like that.

Now obviously, most believers – well, at least those in what we like to see as the tolerant, generally sensible West – don’t take all the Old Testament horrors too literally.

Some believers play the old pick ‘n’ mix game and ignore some of the most horrific bits – few will demand, for instance, that a woman should take two birds to her priest to be sacrificed after her period has finished, so as to ‘cleanse’ her, although plenty who would reject that will still quote the same book of Leviticus on homosexuality.

Colour your own child sacrifice

But it’s all too easy to think that no Christian would ever take the most brutal aspects of the Bible things literally.

Well, unless they do. Only recently, a woman in Florida, who killed a two-year-old boy that she was babysitting, cited a sermon about God telling Abraham to sacrifice his son, Isaac.

The woman, who subsequently tried to kill herself, left a note saying that the sermon had really affected her, but that “God never told me to stop!”

A solitary exception?

As the BBC reported yesterday, around 50 independent schools in the UK use the Accelerated Christian Education (ACE) curriculum, which has been imported from the US.

The course makes some interesting observations on homosexuality, which are worth reproducing at length.

“Homosexuality. Homosexual activity is another of man’s corruptions of God’s plan. The prefix homo- comes from a Greek word that means “same.” Homosexuals engage in sexual activity with their own sex. The Bible records that God destroyed the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah because of homosexual activity.

“Some people mistakenly believe that an individual is born a homosexual and his attraction to those of the same sex is normal. Because extensive tests have shown that there is no biological difference between homosexuals and others, these tests seem to prove that homosexuality is learned behavior [sic]. The Bible teaches that homosexuality is sin. In Old Testament times, God commanded that homosexuals be put to death. Since God never commanded death for normal or acceptable actions, it is as unreasonable to say that homosexuality is normal as it to say that murder is normal.”

Where shall we start?

First, it presents the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah by God as having been an historic event – and because of homosexuality.

And nowhere does it suggest that God might just have been a bit OTT and that, obviously, He wouldn’t go around acting like that nowadays.

Nowhere does it point out that God saved one ‘good’ man from Sodom and Gomorrah – and his daughters and (almost) his wife – but that Lot was considered as the one good man worth saving irrespective of his having tried to pimp his daughters to be gang-raped as a way of distracting a group of adult males wanting sex with other adult males.

Go on – read the story, because that’s what the Good Book says.

If that should alert people to one point, it’s that what might have been acceptable in the dim and distant past is not acceptable now – in other words, that humanity has moved on since such books were written and such stories told. And that applies to every single ancient religious text.

Nor does the ACE brainwashing teaching point out that after Lot and his daughters successfully flee (his wife is turned to a pillar of salt by God after she looks back at Sodom), the daughters rape their father when he’s drunk and get themselves up the duff.

Then, of course, there’s the absence of basic logic in the conclusions on homosexuality being “learned”, which are nonsense. There doesn’t have to be a discernible biological difference for sexuality not to be “learned”.

The thing is, though, once you introduce children to certain parts of a story as a literal, historic truth that must be accepted uncritically, how do they know not to take the rest of it in the same manner when they read that later on – particularly when the entire book is being taught as the word of God?

Indeed, very carefully, the ACE teaching effectively presents God’s condemnation of homosexuals as factual, without any moral comment. But since it also presents that god as all-knowing and generally infallible – He’s God, after all – then how can God be wrong if He chooses to punish homosexuals with death?

You can probably guess the approach that ACE takes toward evolution and science.

But these are the sort of values that are contained in the book that Michael Gove thought needed sending to every school in the UK.

‘British values’, one wonders? It’s rather doubtful that many people would think so.

But in recent years, religious faith has taken on a sort of ‘special’ nature that political leaders seem happy to encourage.

It leaves us with a situation where questioning any religious beliefs can be decried as ‘offensive’ or even ‘discriminatory’.

Well, how about a quite simple question on about what many non-fundamentalist believers believe?

For instance, many mainstream Christians, while absolutely rejecting the horrors of the Old Testament, would still says that they believe that God was the father of Jesus Christ.

The trouble is, if you believe that, how do you reconcile it with modern morals – and, indeed, with ‘British values’ – given that the Bible story makes it entirely clear that God didn’t ask Mary’s permission first, and that she was only notified by an angel after she had been impregnated?

Wouldn’t that be classed as rape?

There are layers to all this. Some indoctrination is rather more subtle/sophisticated that other indoctrination.

And there are questions of harm: in the grand scheme of things, does it really matter if someone believes that Mary was impregnated by God – and then quietly fudges over the ethical implications of that belief?

The mere presence of a book on a school library shelf does not automatically mean that children are being taught that everything in it is acceptable.

But it is entirely reasonable to ask what any school is doing – never mind a primary school – with a modern book (first published in 2007) that proclaims beating a child if he or she doesn’t say their prayers by the age of 10.

It’s not censorship to say there’s no place for such a book in any school any more than it would be for any such library to have modern Christian books on parenting that promote regular beatings – a variety of literary endeavour to which a number of cases of child murder in the US have been linked.

There is a difference between modern books and ancient ones – even when the latter include particularly nasty things, as does the Bible and, no doubt the Qur’an too (I haven’t read any of the latter so am in no position to comment specifically on it).

Perfect entertainment for children

The differences between different flavours of fundamentalists are not as wide as some might imagine.

Everyone has – or should have – the right to believe whatever they want.

Clearly they have the right to tell their children what they believe.

But in that case, perhaps the ultimate solution is for all education to be secular – if for no other reason than to give every child the space in which to learn about the wider world, outside their own parents’ ideologies and beliefs.

Any curriculum should include teaching children about religion in the broadest sense – in that it exists in many forms and has done throughout history etc. This should be entirely neutral.

In the meantime, if we’re going to have politicians near the end of their term in office wittering on about ‘British values’, then it would be rather nice if they would make at least a tiny effort to think through what they’re on about.

And if we’re going to have edicts about school libraries that contain only books with ‘balanced and tolerant views which reflect British democratic values’, then whoever came up with that garbled, populist soundbite better get ready to ban the Bible, the Qur’an and plenty, plenty more, including, but not limited to, any books of Greek or Norse myths and legends.

Grave dancing and when I might make an exception

The look of hate

It is tempting, when someone dies whose legacy is particularly negative, to make one or two choice, splentic comments.

It was very much the case with Fred Phelps, who died last week.

The octogenarian preacher became famous not because he founded a small, extremist Christian sect in the US, but more because, in recent years, he and his followers (many of whom were from his extended family) picketed the funerals of people who had died of Aids-related illnesses and US soldiers who had been killed on active duty.

‘God hates fags,’ became their slogan – designed to get as much publicity as possible, which it duly did.

There has been speculation that Phelps himself might have had a homosexual encounter or even homosexual inclinations that left him with such an apparently deep-seated hatred.

Members of the family who have left it have reported a violent home life.

But what is left is the memory of hate – which will continue as long as his sect continues. Indeed, he was apparently ‘excommunicated’ from his own church last summer, with some versions of events having it that he was thrown out for wanting to soften the sect’s image.

And there is something pitiful about an old man dying, with some of his family not allowed to see him a final time, while others had rejected him in other ways.

Phelps may have been at the extreme end of fundamentalism – mostly because of his actions rather than his beliefs – but he was not alone.

Also last week, one Susanne Atanus, won the Chicago primary for the GOP, and will now challenge the Democrat incumbant for the 9th Congressional district of the city.

Among her views, Atanus is opposed to abortion, marriage equality and LGBT rights.

She has stated that: “God controls the weather. God is angry. We are provoking him with abortions and same-sex marriage and civil unions.

“Same-sex activity is going to increase Aids. If it’s in our military, it will weaken our military. We need to respect God.”

So, three stops short of Upminster, yes?

Well according to unofficial totals, this bona fide loon received 15,238 votes compared with her opponent’s 13,864 votes.

No matter how much the Republican Party itself is trying to distance itself from her and urge her not to stand, we’re still left with an equation where a whole load of people went into the ballot box and cast a vote for someone who espouses such views in public and during her political campaigning.

Thank goodness that the US is part of the civilised West.

Phelps’s death was widely reported in the UK, such had been the publicity surrounding his actions.

The face of someone who makes a living by being nasty

“Founder of hate-filled Westboro Baptist Church Fred Phelps dies aged 84,” said the Daily Mail headline. In reports and comments it also called Westboro a “hate church” and a “hate group”. And all without even a hint of irony.

This was on the same day that the paper’s infamous click-bait columnist Jan Moir declared that she had only heard of the recently deceased L’Wren Scott because she was Mick Jagger’s partner, and Jagger himself was “seedy”.

Moir is no stranger to controversy, having penned a particularly poisonous piece about Stephen Gateley that tried to suggest that his death from natural causes was actually unnatural and somehow linked to his “dangerous lifestyle”.

And now, with editor Paul Dacre’s approval, she has shown once more her utter lack of humanity and decency. She and the paper are perfectly suited.

The Mail was one of a number of publications that had earlier decided that it was entirely appropriate to splash a picture all over its front page of Jagger at the moment he learned that his partner had taken her own life.

So that’s what Dacre and so many of his fellow editors meant by a ‘free press’ when facing the possibility of actual regulation.

There was no public interest argument: it was sensationalism, voyeurism and intrusion into a moment that should have been respected as private.

You don’t need to like or dislike Jagger, or to be profoundly aware of the life and work of L’Wren Scott to understand this.

Forget Phelps and live life

And to understand that, on Dacre’s watch, the likes of Moir and others pour poison from their keyboards – regardless of whether they actually believe it – simply to gain hits and gain advertising revenue. Which makes them far more morally bankrupt than Phelps and his ilk.

But back to the preacher.

On the one hand, I rather like the idea that his funeral will be picketed by flamboyant drag queens miming to I Am What I Am.

On the other, if nobody attended, if the streets around were deserted, it would stand as a message that his views have no place in the world today. And that his legacy may well be, as many have suggested, an increase in tolerance for LGBT people rather than the increased intolerance that he might have wanted.

The people to feel for are the family – the ones who have managed to break free from a life of hate, and the children who are still there, locked into a world where hate is central to the daily diet.

Feel sorry for the children, taught to hate

A form of child cruelty? Probably. Remove them from their families? If we start doing that, perhaps we'd also have to start removing children from homes where the Daily Mail is part of the daily landscape.

And that would be a slippery slope.

However, in the case of Dacre, I may break every possible promise I could make about not dancing on graves, when he himself finally self-combusts after spending so many years trying to poison the public discourse.

It was Oscar Wilde who said, with great beauty and poignance: “We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars”.

With Dacre and his unholy rabble, who pimp other people’s lives and loves and deaths and grief to line their own pockets, they’re so deep in the sewer that all they can ever hope to see above them are the rats swimming away to the surface.