A comment by AJ Milne of Accidental Weblog on “Of course, however”:
My view of mockery of Islam is the same as mockery of Christianity:
That is: it is in everyone’s interest that such mockery be normalized, not discouraged. Whether it’s flippant, silly, rude, juvenile, absurd, insulting, thoughtful, or whatever it might be, people need to get used to the idea that it’s going to be out there if you go looking for it.
And no, I don’t care who does it, how stupid it is, how ugly or stupid anyone thinks it is. Or not much. As in, no, I won’t be writing any asinine fart jokes about anyone’s prophet (tho’ mostly because I can’t make those funny anyway), and, absolutely, if something’s genuinely and clearly racist, yes, fine, I want that discouraged, too. That, I think, is more than fair enough.
But it’s not some abstract ideal that when someone wants to make fun of someone else’s god or prophet, they should absolutely be allowed, nor is it a chip you should even be imagining put on the table. And if someone gets killed because someone takes offense, no, the person who wrote the joke isn’t a murderer, however callous or cruel or even deliberate was the apparent incitement. If someone loses it and kills someone over the mockery of a mythologized god figure that’s been made sacred and declared protected from such excesses, that someone who held the knife or the gun or who lit the fire is the murderer, not the one who scrawled something lewd on the bathroom wall. And the first accessory I’ll be looking for is the one who told them such things are sacred and that such mockery is forbidden in the first place.
In the long run, again: normalization has to be the goal. We have to get to the point that when an extremist imam wants to whip up his flock into a proper rage over random YouTube video X, his protest goes off like a damp squib because they’ve become so used to this stuff, that it’s just not shocking or particularly upsetting to anyone anymore.
We need to stick our elbows out and create space for open discussion of all religions, Islam included. We have to make it harder and harder for people to be raised in a vacuum, unaware that there are no unbelievers, unaware anyone might mock, and utterly convinced that if someone does it’s somehow your prerogative to hurt people and break things. Get to that place, and the voices from the ancient books and the frothers in their pulpits can rage on and on about what a travesty this is if they like; the world will have moved on, and that is how those voices will be made irrelevant. Get to that place, and it opens up people’s lives and minds, gets people thinking, gets people talking. Push that door open, and eventually calm and fearless scholarly secular discussion of early Islam will be that much easier for the academics. Push that door open, and Channel Four can run all the documentaries it likes, and it doesn’t matter how ‘revisionist’ is the historian scripting it. Push that door open, and one more lever for driving people to excesses is taken out of the extremists’ hands.
Religion has ever done this ‘you must respect/you must hush yourselves’ thing. It always will, if you give it even half a chance. It keeps on trying even when it has no chance, because that is central to its survival. Give it any excuse, it will try to sneak through such restrictions on that excuse, and ‘people will get hurt’ or ‘those most insulted are already oppressed and this is additionally hurtful’ will also do just fine.
And the reality about normalization is: we’re partway there already. The increasing ubiquity and interconnectedness of the data networks has changed the game already. It’s been pointed out: those imams could probably find a steady supply of perfectly insulting videos for the purposes of incitement anyway, with very little effort, just through YouTube, right now; ‘Sam Bacile”s flatulent little mess of a trailer was nothing special, in this regard. The reality is probably also: we probably can’t even change this entirely if we were stupid enough to allow legislation directed that way. Such legislation would make a life a misery for those who got caught, and would be entirely unconscionable, yes, but the light would still sneak in around it, now.
Speaking of: while plenty of attention has been paid to the geopolitical dimensions of this, and yes they are significant, and yes there is real resentment that has little directly to do with religion, and yes there’s absolutely some justification, that dynamic of increasing interconnectedness and increasing closeness is also probably significant, here. The world is changing quickly because of it, and those extremists and those religions are fumbling around, trying to work out how to survive and how to work within it. They see opportunities, but the reality is: they also have much to fear: the old formula of hushing entirely dissent and driving it out by the force of social sanction and the plain old iron fist is now greatly complicated by the many additional avenues through which people can see around the monoculture of ideas they try to create, and into a larger world. That, too, is part of what’s happening here.
So they’re off balance, and real human freedom from their previously extremely effective techniques of trapping their flock within a bubble of unquestioned dogma is opening up as a real possibility. Letting the clerics dictate the terms, doing their work for them, joining in hushing the mockery and trying to cooperate and close up the space in which it can be made just because they manage to get a tiny percentage of their population (and yes: these protests are tiny, from my understanding, against, say, the scale of the Arab Spring, and the violent elements tinier still) angry enough about is just incredibly counterproductive, utterly against the interest of anyone who wants genuine freedom of conscience to prevail, and a huge step backwards.
So if they incite by screaming ‘thou shalt not mock’, focus your criticism on them. And, conversely, if the Copts want to make fun of the Muslims, or the Muslims want to make fun of the Copts, I say: shrug and say: that’s your right. Because it is. And it should be. And it’s in everyone’s interest that it should be.
Now: I am absolutely grateful to those trying to tamp down the discord, here get some calm restored, stop people getting hurt. I am beyond grateful to those who step up and say any statement is racist when it clearly is…
But as that former thing, I don’t think we need to compromise the longer view in doing so, at all, anyway. Remember: the protests are relatively small. The Salafists are making a power play, here, and it’s probably winning them a few more loyalists, but it’s costing them, elsewhere, too. There are a lot of people in the countries effected affected who are pissed off those who talked this stuff up, and just want things to calm down.
So it’s back as always to diplomacy and discussion. Calm. Keeping your sense of proportion. Keeping in mind the long view. You probably can’t often say ‘Great video, that’ (and as widely noted, it’s not, particularly, anyway), but you can absolutely say ‘Look, these are our laws, and that is anyone’s right under them’, and people will accept it. There are those of them who don’t see anything wrong with the larger direction I’m seeking here, anyway, others who may not much like it, but probably do realize and/or fear: that’s probably where the wind is going eventually anyway.
So summing up: fine, call out racism, where you really see it. But do not forget this larger direction, in doing so. And do not assist anyone trying deliberately to close in the boundaries of discussion around their sacred cows, whatever you do.
Advance apologies if the nitpick is undesired… But did you mean to say:
“…people in the countries
effectedaffected who are pissed off…”?
(Sorry, I work with a lot of ESL (and ETL, EFL, etc…) folks, and that’s one of those things that keeps coming up!)
We have them on the run, and they know it. Religion’s star is fading (some places faster than others, of course.) Why else would we see the desperate alliance of Mormons, Evangelicals, and conservative Catholics in the USA? It is a last gasp move, because, if they don’t win in this election cycle, four years from now they won’t stand a chance, due to demographics and changing public opinion.
To use Daniel Dennett’s question: How long will it be before the Vatican becomes the Museum of European Catholicism, and Mecca Disney’s Magic Kingdom of Allah?
Well, I suppose that if you did the Charlie Hebdo thing every day the fundies would soon tire and go home.
Mecca Disney’s Magic Kingdom of Allah
Disney really knows crowd control. There’d be none of the crush, injuries, dehydration, and lines for rest rooms. And there’d be a special little electric train for the handicapped (maybe it’d be a cute little flying pony with a rainbow mane?)… And it’d be awesomely profitable! Think of the concession business they’d do in Tshirts and slurpees! OMG!
(Groans and laughs…)
See, that’s the stuff right there!
Oh, and re effected/affected, no, I didn’t mean to. I just do that, now and then. Sort of a signature error, for me.
A Catholic priest has a piece up in which he says we are not “authentic atheists” because we do spend our time mocking and fighting against his imaginary friends. He describes a “human sub-species” he does consider authentic atheists who are “spiritual zombies” lacking any thought of the supernatural (more here). I am trying to persuade him that no one in our world today can ignore religion, exactly because of the things the people do under its delusion. Yes, we should and do mock. Getting standardized about it might be worth pursuing.
Normalized, not standardized! 😀
Standardized would be everybody mocking the same way. That’s no fun.
Is it fair game to mock Father Longenecker for this bit from Quines link above?
Surely no priest who wishes to avoid piss-taking should conjure up images of getting revelation from under age old boys experiencing the first whisperings of love? There must be better ways to phrase it.
Who decides what is “genuinely and clearly racist?”. I rather not risk any infringement and be able to identify those who are racist than drive it underground and give possible cover to those who would claim to be protecting our sensibilities on race.
Yes, Ophelia, you are correct. Perhaps I was wishing for the norm to be at least the standard mocking.
@oolon #9, I do not see that part, there. Has it been deleted?
Oh, it’s there all right.
The second blockquote is nowhere to be seen, however.
Some posts of mine on this same subject:
In praise of cartoons about Islam
Islam must be criticised until everyone treats it as a hobby
(Both of these really apply to all religions. The underlying theme is “religions are hobbies”. If everyone treated them as such, all views could coexist because we know hobbies can coexist – somewhat!)
That is a good question, and unfortunately various parties on all sides deliberately exploit ambiguity and confusion. For example:
– There is EDL (English Defence League) in the UK which opposes various aspects of Islam and immigration of Muslims, probably largely on racist grounds. But their opposition to Shariah isn’t very different from that of Maryam Namazie and her promotion of “One Law for All”, which opposes Shariah.
– During the previous UK government, discussion of immigration was often deliberately discouraged by labeling the discussion “racist”. Yet it is a valid topic for discussion, in a country where for example there aren’t enough houses to go round and lots of language problems in schools.
So racists groups will play the religion card, and those who favour multiculturalism in the worst sense will play the race-card.
If we let any of these agendas censor more enlightened discussion of problems, they have won. The hope is that if we get behind the more credible groups, the other groups will become marginalised. The greater the visibility of Maryam Namazie and others, the less valid reason there is for EDL, and their “unique selling proposition” becomes exposed as racism rather than anti-Shariah.
Another element to this is of course – the locals don’t seem so keen on the Islamists either.
Apparently on Friday a bunch of Libyans got gatvol over the death of that American diplomat and expelled one of the biggest Libyan Islamist militias from their base.
What is or isn’t racist is an interesting question; would it be simply answered by ‘ad hominems referring to a person’s race, cultural background, skin colour or other personal non-chosen attributes’?
Is that a useful definition of racism at all? I’ve always thought the distinction between attacking ideas and people to be rather clear. If you’re attacking someone directly for something that they did not choose to be, you’re probably engaging in (X)ist behaviour, for X read race, gender, sex, orientation etc.
If you’re attacking something that a person has decided to do or believe or promote, then you probably are not unless you also engage in the former.
~~
I also know that the above view is very clear on paper, but can be a mask for nasty organisations to push their clearly racist agendas. Pity everything seems to come down to another irritating discussion about the merits of free speech 😐
We (or at least the media ‘we’) consistently forget that the ‘offence’ taken by the poor widdle muslims is never spontaneous.
When I saw headlines about the Libya attack, my first assumption was that is was in response to the channel 4 documentary. Silly me, of course it was about some incoherent mish-mash from some moron’s back-yard film.
Just like the MoToons, the ‘offence’ was incited deliberately by ambitious thugs/’religious leaders.’ For all its garbling and crudeness, did ‘Innocence of Muslims’ actually include any falsehoods about Islam?
The problem with religion, all religion, is its tendency be be irrational in response to critical or negative comments.
A critical comment or insult to a religion does not justify a violent response. I personally respect the right of anyone to believe whatever they want and do not insult them or their religion but I have no respect for any individual who responds violently or irrationally to criticiosm or insult.This problem (religious conflict) has been with us for thousands of years and I expect will be with us for many more. Wouldn’t it be nice if there were no religions?
Arg! Why did I follow the link to that priest on Patheos? Biggest pile of muddled and duplicious nonsense I’ve read in a long time.
I’d say you should have had a warning on the link, but I suppose “blogging catholic priest” really should have been enough.
Perhaps cynically, my default starting-point for such events is that there are always at least 2 groups involved:
– Puppets
– Puppeteers
We see the puppets on TV. The trick is to identify the puppeteers and their agenda.
(It is also useful to discover the sequence. For example, were the puppets played before the claimed trigger, with the trigger being blamed as little more than a post-hoc distraction?)
I accept that sometimes this view is wrong.
I see this repeated a lot but I don’t think it’s true. I lived in the UK for most of my life – the “discussion” of immigration had only moved beyond “send ’em all back” in its care of phrasing, not its substance. Successive governments have made hay off being “tough” on immigration and only accepting the “hard-working”, and generally acting as though they’d fighting back the Hun from the gates of Vienna (or in this case Brussels.) The supposedly intelligent and pragmatic opposition to immigration was sorely lacking, and a great many of the people who didn’t like “immigrants” basically were and are racists.
The serious discussion now taking place is not in the slightest about “send ’em all back”! Send back illegal immigrants, perhaps, but not “all”.
I’m sure there are still those who favour “send ’em all back”. (I’m not sure they have a consistent view who “’em” are – I guess “not white”, and perhaps also “Irish”). But there are no policy proposals to do so, so certainly no substance. There can’t be substance – the UK couldn’t operate without our integrated immigrants and descendents of immigrants!
There has been such opposition, but reactions to it have obviously varied according to the prior opinions of those reacting. For example, Migration Watch has had a mixed press, and I don’t know what the private motivations of the leaders are, but their analysis has tended to be good. Some criticisms of them appear to be of the form “they are dangerous if there is no similar authority presenting counterarguments”. But is that merely frustration that there aren’t adequate counterarguments?
Then there is the Balanced Migration organisation. Not “stop immigration”, but “balance it against emigration”. Is that racist?
I agree that many opposed to immigration are racists. But I’m equally sure that many are not, and their arguments and analysis must not be dismissed without scrutiny by assuming they are in the same camp.
A “problem” is that even racists can get some things right! I assume EDL are primarily racists, but one of their objections is to Shariah. That doesn’t make Shariah OK, not does it make other people’s opposition to Shariah racist.
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