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.

Freud's slip and the dangers of the unsayable

It’s been an Orwellian week in terms of any concept of free speech in the UK, with two rather different cases provoking the sort of widespread outrage that threatens once more to dampen the inclination to actually saying anything that might go against the accepted view of the (mostly) elite.

It can be all too easy, sometimes, to forget that the test of whether one believes in free speech is not allowing what you agree with, but what you don’t.

And there is a danger that, increasingly, social media in particular is rendering some things unsayable.

Welfare reform minister Lord Freud is under continuing fire days after a recording from a Conservative Party conference fringe meeting was released, appearing to show that he had described disabled workers as ‘worth less’ than their non-disabled counterparts – and therefore should not be entitled to the national minimum wage.

That’s a précis of how the story has been tackled, with calls from across politics, mainstream and social media for him to resign or be sacked, and screams about how it illustrates that ‘the nasty party’ is back.

Also during the last few days, TV personality Judy Finnigan made comments on the TV show, Loose Women, to the effect that, while all rape in unacceptable, some rapes are more serious than others.

A few more tons of metaphorical bricks were rained down on her head – and now, it seems that she and her daughter have had threats of rape made against them via Twitter.

There are a number of points here.

First, the hysterical responses disguise certain nuances and therefore deplete any proper debate.

It is not the first time that the issue of disabled workers and pay has arisen.

Back in 2011 that Philip Davies, the MP for Shipley, suggested in the House of Commonsthat disabled people should be able to opt out of the minimum wage, as thismight make employers more likely to consider them for a job.

He was, of course, roundly castigated.

But there is a certain disingenuity in the way that Freud’s latest slip has been tackled in many quarters.

It is worth pointing out that the peer was responding to a question from David Scott, a Tory councillor from Tunbridge Wells, who had said:

“The other area I’m really concerned about is obviously the disabled. I have a number of mentally damaged individuals, who to be quite frank aren’t worth the minimum wage, but want to work. And we have been trying to support them in work, but you can’t find people who are willing to pay the minimum wage.

… “And I think yes, those are marginal areas but they are critical of actually keeping people who want to work supported in that process. And it’s how do you deal with those sort of cases?”

In response, Freud noted:

“ ...You make a really good point about the disabled. Now I had not thought through, and we have not got a system for, you know, kind of going below the minimum wage.

“But we do have … you know, Universal Credit is really useful for people with the fluctuating conditions who can do some work – go up and down – because they can earn and get ... and get, you know, bolstered through Universal Credit, and they can move that amount up and down.

“Now, there is a small … there is a group, and I know exactly who you mean, where actually as you say they’re not worth the full wage and actually I’m going to go and think about that particular issue, whether there is something we can do nationally, and without distorting the whole thing, which actually if someone wants to work for £2 an hour, and it’s working can we actually …”

You can – and please do – read the fulltranscript (and listen to the audio) at Politics Home.

It’s pretty clear from reading that that Freud was thinking on his feet. This wasn’t a policy statement – but ruminating on a question.

There is no evidence that the ‘not worth it’ aspect of his comments was not an economic comment.

Let’s take issue with that by all means – discussions of economic policies and markets and goodness knows what else often flounder on a simple, basic fact: that they are abstract and exclude the ‘real world’ and real human beings.

Let’s take issue with any sort of suggestion that lowering pay even further could ever be positive. 

But frankly, the approach seen in that exchange doesn’t sound as much ‘nasty’ as just downright patronising and paternalistic.

And if anyone wants to say that ‘the nasty party’ is ‘back’, well, you’d could do rather better by looking at Iain Duncan Smith, who has repeatedly lied about matters related to welfare, and been pulled up for it by the UKStatistics Authority.

By all means disagree with the gaffe-prone Freud, who has form for cretinous remarks – and presumably, Scott, although his comments seem to have been forgotten – but screaming for resignation or the sack because you disagree with something that someone said is way over the top. 

Better, surely, to use such an opportunity to engage with the subject and, as here, ask what can meaningfully be done to help to get disabled people into work.

This case offered an opportunity to raise the issue of the abysmal treatment of disabled people by the government since 2014; the general difficulties in disabled people finding work; the very idea of seeing human beings in purely economic terms, and even a chance to raise awareness of mental illness in particular.

Indeed, one positive on the social media side was the appearance of a list of famous people who had a variety of mental illness conditions, which was an easy way to illustrate that geniuses can be disabled (in our current use of the term) too.

After all, who would question, for instance, whether Beethoven was ‘worth it’?

Similarly, in terms of Finnigan’s comments, behaving as though she has no right to voice her views is ludicrous.

In fact, it was less a view than an observation of straightforward fact.

In the context of whether Ched Evans should be able to return to plying his trade as a professional footballer after his prison sentence for rape, Finnigan observed:  “The rape – and I am not, please, by any means minimising any kind of rape – but the rape was not violent, he didn’t cause any bodily harm to the person.”

“It was unpleasant, in a hotel room I believe, and she [the victim] had far too much to drink.”

Now how can any half-way intelligent person conclude that those comments make Finnigan ‘pro-rape’, as was subsequently suggested on social media by some?

Indeed, many women would go further than Finnigan. A 2010 survey, for instance, revealed that women are less forgiving of a rape than men – and indeed, that many believe that, in some cases, the victim should bear at least partial responsibility.

Disagree with Finnigan by all means, and make the case against what she said, but hysterical shouting down of comments such as that, to the extent that a row blows up and people are threatened (however credible or not the threat is), is completely detrimental to any sensible, considered public discourse. 

As is something that, in effect, would see any political meeting turned into something that has to be scripted in order to avoid something that could be jumped on in such a manner, rather than permitting open discussion that might be far more revealing of far more things.

Be Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells (or Islington) all you want, but your disgust should not stop a discussion. 

Indeed, there’s an irony in all this that seems to have rather passed some people by. 

Making certain things unsayable was a factor in the way in which the systemic abuse and rape of vulnerable girls and young women by groups of men from particular ethnic backgrounds was allowed to go unchallenged for so long in Rochdale and Rotherham. 

That point alone should be enough to convince of the dangers of making things unsayable – no matter how unpalatable they may be.

Why nobody should care if you're offended

If you find this offensive, you're the one with the problem

At the weekend, thousands of people took part in protests after a woman who was breastfeeding in public was photographed by an anonymous individual, who then posted the picture on the internet, labeling her a “tramp”.

Most people have responded in the appropriate manner – also condemning the anonymous coward – although some have suggested she should feed her child in a toilet.

Well, yes – you’d eat your dinner in a public bog too, wouldn’t you?

I detect a common sense deficit.

It’s not clear who took or posted the picture and comment – and in many ways, it’s not the point.

Whoever they are, they’re an anonymous coward – simple as.

It’s not guaranteed that they were male, either.

As the BBC report of Saturday’s protests noted:

Be offended – be very offended

“Cydney Davis, who organised an event in Milton Keynes, said she had also encountered negative comments while breastfeeding.

“I was in a restaurant and I was asked by an elderly lady to use a blanket because it was disturbing her eating,” she said ...

“I asked the lady if she’d like to eat her dinner under a blanket instead. She just walked away and very quickly finished her meal and left the restaurant, but that was her choice.”

Full report

Male or female, these are people who spend their lives looking for something to be offended about.

And it is the perfect illustration of why there should never be any form of law against offence or any idea that anyone has a right not to be offended.

You have a mother who, finding that her infant is hungry while she’s out shopping, discretely finds a place to feed the child.

There is nothing more natural in the world.

Yet someone thinks it’s bad. And on the basis of the quote above, they’re not alone.

‘Oh, get out of my face with your nasty, natural behaviour!’

Presumably they can’t see titties without thinking about sex – either in a prurient or a puritanical manner.

Tramp? (A Poem for Emily Slough) is a perfect riposte to their cretinism.

Offended people burning books and CDs, Pakistan

But we’re on an increasing path toward pandering to anyone and everyone who wants to be offended – not least in terms of religion, where it seems that believing in some form of a god or gods has to be treated as though it were a special gift.

And since any and all gods have proved singularly incapable of showing their own indignation at anyone saying naughty things about them, their followers have to step up to the mark and show their own offense.

In 1989, we had Muslims burning The Satanic Verses (a brilliant novel that I very much doubt any of them had bothered to read) and in 2001, Christians burned Harry Potter books (‘it’s witchcraft, I tells thee!’).

Hands up children – who else burned books that they didn’t like?

Then there are the cartoonists who have been murdered for depicting a particular flavour of supposedly divine being.

In 2004, Sikhs rioted in Birmingham because they objected to Behzti, a play by a Sikh writer. The play was closed.

In 2005, Christians sent death threats to the BBC when Auntie decided to screen Jerry Springer: The Opera, after being stirred up by Rupert Murdoch’s rag the Sun and the equally odious Daily Mail, both of which will condemn others taking offence but whip it up when it suits their own agendas.

How odd that the offended in that case never seem to have objected to the Jerry Springer show itself, and the entire range of similarly vile, 21^st century freak shows that exploit people’s problems for profit.

In 2008, Waterstones in Cardiff cancelled a poetry book launch by Patrick Jones, calling it “prudent” after a campaign by Christian Voice, which also called on the chain to stop selling the book because Jones is critical of religion in general and writes about that.

Offended people burning books, USA

In February this year, there was an outcry at London’s South Bank University when non-religious students advertised the secular society with a poster depicting a Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster version of Michelangel’s iconic Creation of Adam fresco.

Initially, the student union claimed that Adam’s genitals were the problem – too small, perhaps? – before admitting that the posters were removed on the grounds that they caused religious offence.

If god is the creator of everything, you wonder how we ever got a sense of humour.

And only last week, BBC3 caved in when it cut a scheduled question on Islam and homosexuality from a programme that was being filmed at Birmingham Central Mosque.

The chairman of the mosque said it was unhappy about the planned question; the BBC said that the mosque had never raised any issues, but had received threats late on. It subsequently emerged that the same mosque chairman is a senior official in The Islamic Party of Britain, which thinks gays should be executed.

Offended people burning books, Berlin

Whatever actually happened, the decision was effectively censorship – and particularly ironic given that the programme was called Free Speech.

There’s the political-religious variety of offence too: take arch-Zionists, who seek to shout down any criticism of the state of Israel by accusing its critics of anti-semitism. And everyone knows how offensive that is, so people retreat from the subject out of fear of being thus tarnished. Which is, of course, entirely the point.

Mind, on a positive note, one thing managed to create common cause between Jewish, Christian and Muslim religious leaders in Israel in 2006, as they set off in joint squealing at the idea of World Pride being held in the area.

One rabbi in the good ole US of A (which has no shortage of its own intolerant religious bigots) threatened ‘blood on the streets’ over the issue. The parade didn’t take place.

According to news agency Agence France-Presse, one “radical” Jewish group started handing out leaflets around Jerusalem, offering a 20,000-shekel (£2,659) reward to anyone who “kills a sodomist”. The police did nothing.

So, girls and boys: now you know how to stop something that offends you being discussed or taking place. Squeal and threaten, whether it’s with violence or taboo labels. And when in real doubt, offer to pay someone else to murder people or campaign in political parties that want gays executed.

Strange how none of them seem content to rely on their god sorting it all out in the afterlife, isn’t it?

In a further irony: in recent years we’re seen the obscene demonisation of disabled people in this nation of ours – yet those who choose to believe in something for which there is not a single, solitary shred of evidence have to be treated increasingly with kid gloves.

And the issue of offence is not just about those with tender religious souls who need to defend their god.

We also have increasing numbers of situations where people are imprisoned for posting unpleasant messages in social media.

Since when did we start jailing people for saying something that we don’t like?

Yes, some of it can be very nasty indeed, but jailing people for it? Really?

How many times can we now read of police looking into what someone posted on Twitter?

It’s quite simple: the police should only look into something if there is a real and serious physical threat, or if a pattern of behaviour occurs that could constitute bullying and put a vulnerable person at risk.

Bad taste isn’t a crime. Yet.

Thank the gods that don’t exist. 

More widely, should we censor groups that we don’t like?

If someone wants to say that they dislike gays or black people – let them. If they want to say that their invisible friend is a bit cross about something, let them.

As long as someone is not spreading material that is directly intended to incite criminal behaviour, then no – we should not censor them.

And yes – that means that fascists and religious fruitcakes alike have their right to free speech too, because that’s what free speech means, not just allowing those who doesn’t offend you personally to have their voice.

At a time when more and more of the mainstream media is owned and controlled by people who have no interest in promoting serious public discourse but only their own agendas and assorted lies; at a time when we are more spied on than ever; at a time when government is using the law to gag vast swathes of organisations across the land – at such a time, we need to defend any idea of free speech more and more vigilantly.

And giving in to cretins and cowards who go looking for something to be offended by is only the way onto a slippery slope.

After all – who knows how long it then becomes before we cannot, for instance, openly criticise whoever is in No 10 or the police or any other institution?