“As we now know, you’re not allowed to say anything even remotely critical about Islam or its practices these days”
“We’re witnessing the return of blasphemy laws by the backdoor.”
Indeed. And increasingly, by the front door, as Western leaders continue to be cowardly as they are clueless.
“Boris Johnson and the liberal criticism of Islam,” by Brendan O’Neill, Spectator, August 7, 2018:
A truly bizarre thing happened yesterday: Boris Johnson was branded an Islamophobe and a bigot for writing in defence of Muslim women who wear the niqab….He’s been slammed everywhere as a racist, a borderline fascist, a poundshop Mussolini who if he ever gets to No10 will declare war on Muslims and other minorities. What is the basis to these shrill and wilful misinterpretations of what he said? Because alongside defending women’s freedom to wear the niqab and burqa, he expressed distaste for these garments. And, as we now know, you’re not allowed to say anything even remotely critical about Islam or its practices these days….The rash reaction to Boris’s comments, the depiction of him as a hard-right tyrant, confirms that it is now tantamount to thoughtcrime to say anything critical about Islam. To make any kind of moral judgement about Islamic practices, to question its beliefs or its prophets or its garments, is to run the risk of being branded an ‘Islamophobe’, a racist, a fascist.We’re witnessing the return of blasphemy laws by the backdoor. Only now it isn’t the Christian God and Christian beliefs that are protected from ‘contemptuous, reviling, scurrilous or ludicrous’ commentary, as was the case under the old blasphemy laws; it is Islam. Slowly but surely, informally, through the sly and hyperbolic demonisation of anyone who has any issues whatsoever with Islam, we have erected a moral forcefield around this religion to protect it from criticism or scepticism. Old blasphemers against Christianity were denounced as ‘heretics’; new blasphemers against Islam are branded ‘phobes’.That Boris can be so publicly mauled for defending Muslim women’s rights while also criticising certain Islamic views shows how chilled and unforgiving the public discussion of this religion has become.It also points to a profound confusion about freedom and tolerance among the modern commentariat. They seem to think that society doesn’t only have a responsibility to guarantee freedom of belief to its citizens, but also that it must respect what its citizens believe. This is utterly wrong. In a free society, people must have the right to adhere to whatever religious or moral convictions they consider best, but the rest of us must have the right to criticise and even ridicule those convictions. That is freedom in action.What Boris’s shrill detractors are really demanding is that he respect everything about Islam. That he be unquestioning towards this religion. That he celebrate it and love it, unconditionally. But why should he? His responsibility, as a politician, is to never interfere with people’s religious freedom; he doesn’t have to like people’s religious beliefs.The attacks on Boris are a reactionary, illiberal assault on his right to be critical of certain aspects of religious ideology. People are not demanding that he support freedom of religion, because it is clear from his column that he already does. Rather, they are demanding that he bow and scrape before Islamic values and never criticise them again. This is a medieval demand, a war on heresy, dressed up as a progressive critique.
Posts
