How's that belief in free speech going then?

Whilst many of us took heart from the 1.5 million + who turned up in Paris in defiance of the Islamist thugs, the following also happened:

- Over 2,000 dead in Nigeria, as Islamist terror group Boko Haram goes on a pogrom against those who resist it in one town. The five-year insurgency killed more than 10,000 people last year alone, according to the Washington-based Council on Foreign Relations.   Nigeria is increasingly losing the battle against the group, meanwhile Michelle Obama presumably thinks she has done enough by endorsing the hashtag #bringbackourgirls

- Brunei introduces the death penalty for blasphemy and apostasy from April and expect absolutely no diplomatic or trade reprisals.

- Saudi Arabia inflicts 50 lashes on a blogger for blasphemy and its ambassador to France had the audacity to turn up to the Paris "Je Suis Charlie" rally on Sunday.  Again, expect no serious diplomatic or trade reprisals.

- ex. quasi-dictator of Malaysia, Mahathir Mohamad blames the Charlie Hebdo cartoonists for provocation saying "we respect their religion".  No you don't you prick, they were atheists.

- In Egypt, the government imprisons student Karim al-Banna for three years for saying on Facebook that he is an atheist.   You thought the Muslim Brotherhood had been ousted didn't you? "Al-Banna's father testified against his son saying "[he] was embracing extremist ideas against Islam. Al-Banna had been facing neighbourhood harassment ever since his name had appeared in a local daily under a list of atheists". Remember, Barack Obama who offered his "support" for free speech, runs a government which gives the Egyptian Government billions of dollars in aid.

Where's all the Islamophobia?

Bear with me as I use the etymologically absurd word "Islamophobia" in the way that it has been misused by the mainstream media.  That is, to have it mean "hatred of Muslims" rather than what its etymology should mean as fear of Islam or those practicing Islam.  It's a nonsense word, but it has common usage so I'm running with it for now.  Literally, Islamophobia, as a fear, is rational for many....

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Just like with 9/11, 7/7 and every other terrorist attack in the West, the narrative that the so-called "liberal" left presents is familiar.  It goes like this:

1.  The use of violence is never justified and we empathise with the victims and their families, this should never happen again; but..

2.  We have to realise that US foreign policy and/or poverty and disenfranchisement and/or the plight of the Palestinians and/or anything else other than the declared motives of the terrorists, can incite these sorts of reactions.  If only we change those policies, we can stop this happening; and

3.  We must first and foremost guard against mass Islamophobia.  This isn't the fault of Muslims or anything to do with Islam, it's a perversion of Islam.

So after showing faux concern for terrorism, and blaming anyone but the perpetrators for it, the key concern is that there will be mass violence or threats against Muslims.

Tim Black at Spiked points out that after past events, there is barely any such response, and most of what is recorded involves abuse online, which while vile and inexcusable, is not anything like the pogrom of attacks Jews now fear in France.  

Quite simply, the numbers of people who blame other people for the actions of the terrorists are very few.  Most people reject the immoral notion of collective guilt, or in any way diluting or transferring blame for crimes from the perpetrators to those who had nothing to do with it.   In France, of course, there may be more reason for concern, given the popularity of the fascist Front Nationale, although it has tried to distance itself from those who would undertake such attacks.

Brendan O'Neill in the National Review discovers the same, 

After the Boston Marathon bombings there were loads of media panic about the“ignorance and prejudice [that arise] in the aftermath of a terrorist attack” and concern that Muslims in America would get it in the neck. But Muslims have not been assaulted en masse by stupid Americans in recent years, including in the wake of 9/11. According to federal crime stats, in 2009 there were 107 anti-Muslim hate crimes; in 2010, there were 160. In a country of 330 million people, this is exceptionally low. After the Lindt café siege in Sydney at the end of last year, there was once again heated fear on the pages of the broadsheets about dumb Aussies going crazy and attacking brown people. Nothing happened. No mob emerged. Muslims were not attacked.

Those warning against so-called Islamophobia may be well motivated.  Who can argue against calls for there to be no attacks against innocent Muslims or their property?  However, there is something more to all of this.  It's the application of the Orwellian post-modernist doctrine of structural identity politics, a theory that makes all politics and relations about power, and classifies everyone into pre-defined groups that either have power or don't.  

A thank you from Al Qaeda

As-salaam'alaykum people of the United Kingdom

You have seen what has happened to the blasphemous ones in France as they have faced the appropriate penalty for insulting the Prophet, peace be upon him.   As you progressively realise the truth and inevitability of adopting sharia law you will not be shocked.   You will accept that so-called "free speech" comes with responsibilities, and that includes not to insult the Prophet, peace be upon him, to denigrate the truth of Islam or to be offensive to our faith.

We accept that you infidels can live in peace under sharia law, as long as you worship in private and embrace our laws in public.  Brother Anjem Choudary made this clear on American imperialist zionist television.

However, we are heartened by the response of your newspapers and media, all of which have had the wisdom to refuse to publish images of the Prophet, peace be upon him, in recognition of sharia law.  

This demonstrates how much closer to Islam British media are compared to the vile publications in France, Belgium, Denmark and Germany.  Some of them are paying the price for their foolishness.

You have learned that it is more important to not offend us, than to demonstrate some silly, repulsive, blasphemous belief in freedom that is not subject to the laws of the Prophet, peace be upon him.

British media have learned that Islam literally means submission, so you are learning and we have hope for you yet.   You may express disgust and objection to our ways of dispensing justice, but because you refuse to infringe the laws we are enforcing shows your respect for us.

That respect is noted.

Of course there is much more to be done.   

The Jews, whose forces occupy Muslim land and people, and have long had ways that historically were recognised by Christians to be offensive, cannot be tolerated whilst they occupy Palestine and challenge our faith.  They need to speak up about the crimes of Zionism or they too will be targets.   Those born Jews would be better following the example of the leader of the Labour Party, who as a Jew supported laws against insulting religions.  We have great hope that he will try again as Prime Minister, to enshrine the laws we will otherwise enforce if necessary.

Your women continue to dress as prostitutes on an every day basis.   This continues to offend us, and it is no surprise that a few of our brothers have been treating a few young women who present like that, on that basis.  We expect some action to be taken against their pornographic appearance.

There is much else that needs to change, but our priority is that you do not interfere with our efforts to help your society become pure and do not insult our Prophet, peace be upon him, or his teachings.

Your Government continues to battle our brothers in Iraq and threaten those in Syria.  Although we have some differences with them, we reject your interference in our territories.  It is futile,  and dangerous for members of your armed forces, as are efforts to support the infidels in Nigeria who are denying our brothers victory there.   We are a religion of peace, and peace will come from your submission to our truth, our values and the beauty of our faith and justice of our laws.

More and more of your people are understanding this.  Even your future monarch appears to understand this.

You also have taken to accepting that those who resist us are branded Islamophobes, and so are treated with derision for being racist.  Although our people come from many races, we are not bothered by the bluntness of this response, as it suits us.  Fellow Muslims who fear infidels are more likely to realise truth and justice come from supporting us.   It encourages us when Members of your Parliament, newspaper columnists and other commentators are more concerned about reprisals against Muslims, than about the Zionists or those who blaspheme against the Prophet, peace be upon him.

So thank you for not requiring us to take the actions we have taken in France.  It bodes well for us to have a media in the United Kingdom that is progressively compliant with Shariah Law.

Keep your women safe and obedient, do not offend us and do not try to change our people to your ways, and you too will be safe.  

Peace be upon you

Al Qaeda


Note:  This piece of parody is to reflect the contemptuous cowardice of the British press and broadcast media in not publishing or displaying any images from Charlie Hebdo that depict Mohammed, or indeed any drawings of Mohammed at all.

Islamic blasphemy law need not be enforced in the UK, for the media have simply rolled over and followed it.

Read Spiked on "What if Charlie Hebdo had been published in Britain"?

The BBC has already surrendered to the Islamists UPDATED

UPDATE: The BBC appear to have changed the policy outlined below

As Douglas Murray eloquently stated yesterday on the BBC Daily Politics show (hosted by the man who is now the BBC's eminent balanced journalist - Andrew Neil), what the Islamist terrorists (forget the mainstream media euphemism "militants") wanted to enforce with Charlie Hebdo was effectively Islamist blasphemy law.

They were offended by Charlie Hebdo's repeated publication of caricatures of Mohammed, and other parodies of Muslims (not paying attention for a moment to the parodies of Jews, Christians or numerous political and public figures of France and across the world).

Images of Mohammed in a magazine would get you, at best, arrested and imprisoned in almost any predominantly Muslim state.  There are quite a few non-Muslim states that also have blasphemy laws, including New Zealand.

In Afghanistan, Egypt, Kuwait, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia the punishment can be death, and in Iran people have been acquitted for informally enforcing blasphemy provisions by murdering those they "proved" had blasphemed. 

Of course, the Islamic State and the Taliban openly support the death penalty for blasphemy, and if we go back far enough in history, blasphemy was punished by death in the UK, against Christianity, until 1676.

The Islamists want to return us to the dark ages.  They are not murdering out of a random desire for hatred, nor are they avenging Western involvement in wars in Iraq (which France did not participate in) and Afghanistan (which France had almost no involvement in), they are seeking to impose sharia law.

They achieve their aims by these sorts of events, and the previous attacks on the Danish newspaper Jyllands Posten.

It creates a climate of fear, fear that if you do offend those who want sharia law, they will enforce it.

So what happens is that they get what they want.  

That is exactly what the BBC has done (and many other media outlets).

I pick on the BBC for some obvious reasons:

1.  It is state owned.  As such, it is meant to represent the UK, as a whole and embody the ill-defined values of the country.  

2. It projects itself as a bastion of objectivity and balance.  Although plenty will accuse of it bias (and it has an inherently statist bias, rarely taking the view that government should do less), it still has some credibility internationally, particularly with the BBC World Service, in not being afraid to take on those who would censor opinions and information that offend them or disadvantage them.

3. It is the dominant broadcaster in the UK, with the biggest audience across over eight TV channels and dozens of radio stations.

4. It enforces, with criminal punishment, payment by all British households with a TV, payment by force.  We are all forced to pay for the BBC.

The BBC's editorial policy states in its guidance on "stills, photographs and images" that "The Prophet Mohammed must not be represented in any shape or form".  

What is that if not appeasement?  It isn't that representation should not be undertaken if it is intended to be gratuitous.  It is absolutely blanket prohibition on even showing an image that is the source of the offence for the terrorists.

It is as if the BBC simply has agreed with the Islamists, and is, internally, enforcing its own form of self-censorship applying the sharia law that the Islamists are seeking to impose.

So have the terrorists won, if the UK's dominant, state owned broadcaster, enforces the censorship they want?

UPDATE AS THIS HAS BEEN WRITTEN - THIS HAS SINCE BEEN REMOVED

Maybe, just maybe, the tide may be turning.

Defending free speech when it is under attack

Following on from Peter Cresswell's excellent piece outlining the recent events in Paris, come two more fundamental questions.

1. What does a free society do about those who want to destroy its freedoms?

2. Why are we, yes we, threatened by those who want to censor us?

The Islamist threat to free speech is not new.  Indeed the battle for the right to offend those who hold certain beliefs, whether religious, political, philosophical or even aesthetic, is continuous.  Laws against blasphemy were often enforced in many Western countries, to not offend Christian faiths.  It is no accident that every authoritarian regime clamps down on free speech as a first move.

There are plenty of opponents of free speech in our midsts.  So in fact my second question can be answered first.  The majority have censored us already, the Islamofascists simply want the courtesy extended to them.

The much too obvious ones are the small numbers of ardent fascists, nationalists, communists and other sympathisers of politics that would explicitly censor media, art and speech.  It is extremely rare for any of them to do anything other than rabble rouse or disseminate their views, and the contradiction between their use of free speech to oppose it is clear, and so they have few followers.

Similarly, we are familiar with the religious conservatives who are keen on blasphemy laws, or who want to censor material involving nudity, sex or vulgar language.  Of course we still have laws restricting this, and the state will prosecute you for writing about or drawing all sorts of matters which it prohibits (including completely legal acts), but that's another story.  There are those who want more of such laws, some from a religious perspective, others from a radical feminist perspective.

More insidiously restrictions on free speech have come from the self-styled "liberal" left in the form of "hate speech" laws.  Whilst few would disagree with how unpleasant and vile such speech can be (i.e. explicit racism, sexism, denigration and debasing of people based on their inherent characteristics rather than behaviour), it is another story to make such speech illegal.  It has become increasingly normalised for some to say how "offended" they are by a portrayal of someone because of his or her race, sex, sexual orientation, disability, etc.  In recent years laws have been enforced to prohibit such speech.  This has been widely supported by most on the left, with the Police in the UK now arresting people for making offensive jokes.  

You will struggle to find many politicians who will argue for the unfettered legal right to offend (which is distinct from whether it is morally right or clever to do so).  Yet that is what this is about.

Indeed in the UK, a report into systematical sexual abuse in Rotherham indicated that child protection officials were dissuaded from questioning or addressing gangs of predominantly Muslim men targeting young girls, because it would "cause offence" in their communities.

Freedom of speech has been as much under attack from those who live amongst us who are "do-gooders" as it has been by those willing to wield violence directly.  The difference is the matter of degree.

The killers of the Charlie Hebdo cartoonists and employees were offended by the cartoons published by that magazine.  The law didn't protect them from offence, but it protects others from offence in other areas.

Don't make an offensive joke about a crime or an accident, for the law may come visit you.  Don't think about writing a sexually explicit fictional short story that involves violence and what is deemed to be the degradation of a fictional person, for the law may come visit you.  

The men who murder because they are offended are extending the logic of existing laws, and taking the law into their own hands.  At least it remains legal to parody religion, right?

So how should this be addressed?