Mayor of London Suspension

In February 2005 Ken Livingstone, Mayor of London, was harassed by Evening Standard reporter Oliver Finegold (who happens to be Jewish). An exchange then took place, thus:

Ken: "What did you do before? Were you a german war criminal?"
Oliver: "No, I'm Jewish, I wasn't a German war criminal. I'm quite offended by that."
Ken: "I thought you might be, but actually you are just like a concentration camp guard; you are just doing it because you are paid to, aren't you."

Following this, Ken was reported to the Standards Board, which which was established to promote and investigate ethical standards in public life, by the Jewish "board of deputies" and the equal opporunities commission. The result, on 24th February 2006, was that Ken was suspended from the office of London Mayor, for 28 days. On the 27th, Ken lodged an appeal, which it is said will cost him (personally) £80,000 should he lose.

Many people have noted that an unelected, three-person committee have been able to remove from office a duly elected representative of the people of Greater London, when he committed no crime. I agree that this is important. But the issue I concentrate on is that Ken (whatever you think about him, and who doesn't) made a fair, relevant and reasonably astute comment; on a theme which was started even before he knew the race or religion of his protagonist.

In war crimes trials after WW2, it became clear that concentration camp guards were able to justify their actions because they were "only doing their job".

Every time people act unreasonably in the name of their religion, I incrementally start to dislike and eventually to hate what that religion stands for. Muslims who think their religion is beyond parody or criticism, Jews who believe they can behave in a nasty manner and then hide behind their religion when they're insulted in kind, Christians who think the law of the land should bind everybody by their own religion.If religious people want to ponder their acceptance, they should not seek exceptions the rest of us don't enjoy.

Iranian Nuclear policy: press bias

Iran claim that they have a nuclear energy programme. Some other countries claim Iran has a nuclear weapons programme. For at least as long as there is no hard evidence presented as proof by independent agencies, media should not make pejorative and subjective judgements.

I'll attach comments to this Blog entry when I find examples by media outlets which should know better.

More on Danish Cartoons

The confrontation continues, and Islam comes out of this looking very bad indeed.

• Protesters outside the Danish embassy in London include a guy who was apparently dressed as a suicide bomber. Some time after this soft-spoken guy gives an apology for the damage he's done to Islam by his portrayal, he is found to be a drug dealer, out of prison on license after serving part of his sentence. It seems he's now been returned to gaol. (But I want to register my defence of his right to dress as a suicide bomber if he so wishes. He was making a point, and raising a debate. Of course when he said in his apology that he was behaving just as badly, and possibly worse, than the cartoonists, he testified to the self-defeating nature of the point he was making.)
• It seems the Danish cartoons weren't sufficient by themselves to raise anger in Islamic states. The Danish imams who went to publicise the cartoons fabricatd three further cartoons (1, 2, 3) portraying Mohammed as a paedophile, a pig and engaged in bestiality. If that's the case, we know that they were inciting hatred, stirring up unrest, and that they don't care about misrepresentation of Mohammed at all. For more alleged lies and misrepresentations, see here.
• It appears that the cartoons which caused the viloent protests when reprinted in Denmark were also reprinted last October by Al Fagyr, one of Egypts largest newspapers.

Other points of record:

• On Monday 6th February, police have promised a swift investigation into Muslim protestors calling for enemies of Islam to be killed. Here's a mediocre BBC anlaysis of the possible offences.
• According to the BBC, a Swedish Internet Service Provider, in correspondence with has shut down a political party's web site after discussions with the government and security police. The reason, it seems, was that the web site was calling for readers to send in their own Mohammed cartoons. It's difficult: should a government allow free speech when it's likely to end up with some of their citizens being killed and others suffering economic effects? I believe it must inevitably be so, because the alternative is ultimately that Islamic views are allowed to override principles of free countries to the point where free countries become Islamic countries.
• Here's a Cartoon Conflict time-line from the BBC

Two significant developments

Iran reported to UN Security Council

Earlier in the week, Bush was expressing no intention of military action against Iran. But today we are told that Iran was reported to the security council by 27 out of 35 country members of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) (see comment).

I'm not sure whether this is a fair move or not. I have heard suggestions that third world countries were pressured into not voting against, and India wants to humour the USA in advance of a meeting with Bush next week (he is apparently expected to give them aid towards their own nuclear fuel programme).

But I *am* very sure that the British and US leaders will lie, threaten and enter all manner of deceit and trickery to get their own way... we know that's what they do (see yesterday's post), and I accord them an appropriate level of respect for so doing. But it is a sad reality that we can't rely on news organisations like the BBC to give us unbiased reporting on this issue. Oh, they're not entirely at fault... they occasionally run investigative programmes to explore countries, regimes and beliefs a bit deeper. But at a fudamental and day-to-day level, they accept the premise of their government.

When I make notes in these articles, it's largely to create a reference point for my own use in the future. Here are a few of the snippits that interested me:

"If we are reported to the security council you will be making a serious historic mistake. Don't use the language of threats. The Iranian government is sensitive and responds badly to threats. We're beginning to understand the bitter experience of Iraq."
An Iranian Embassador in Vienna, reported by BBC Journalist Bridget Kendall

Syrians torch Danish and Norwegian embassies in Damascus

Today Syrians torched the Danish and Norwegian embassies in Damascus. Let's put that another way. Today muslims who believe they and their religion are so much more special than anybody else on earth that they cannot have fun poked at them in a few cartoons have torched two embassies, and threatened death and destruction to Western countries. It's not as if these cartoons were inciting hatred of Islam... if they incited anything it is only a reactive hatred by muslims of all non-Islamic countries. And it's not as if they don't mete out similar things against Judaism themselves.

So, are there limits to free speech? Quite likely there are, but these cartoons registered zero on the free-speech-limitation gauge. If they had incited people to some kind of violence against Muslims there might have been some case to assess. But I'm going to come very close to that now, in the name of defending the values that I believe in, and I don't think I should be culpable either.

People with strong religious beliefs tend to believe that they are above criticism, above parody. They tend to believe that rules their religion applies to them should affect everybody else in society. They further believe that everyone else should be forced to accommodate their religious beliefs. Followers of Christianity believe it, followers of Judaism believe it, and above all, followers of Islam tend to believe and insist upon it. Wrong, wrong and almost wrong again.

We deserve to live in a secular society where no religion has any particular rights above secularity. It is unfair and inequitable for people who have no religion to have few rights than those who do. Let me work through some examples of that:

• Should people be able to wear religious dress in place of uniforms? Only if people of no religion can also wear ther choice of dress - jeans and sweatshirt, multi-coloured hair, tattoos and body piercings, or whatever.
• Should discrimination be allowed on the basis of people's religious beliefs? For having the beliefs, discrimination is only justifiable if they are inconsistent with the safety of other people (or their property) in society. (ie. you wouldn't employ somebody whose beliefs committed them to harming their co-works, harming their pets, destroying their property, etc.)
• Should discrimination be allowed on the basis of people's religious practices? Very likely, yes. If a person wants a separate prayer room in their workplace to meet their religious duties, why should employers be burdened with the expense? If they wanted to have time off for a half-hour prayer meeting after every 2 hours of work, why should employers be put to the expense of arranging cover for them? Anything which accommodates religious practices must be negotiated, not given as a right. If it is denied, hard luck to the religious individual, go and find a job elsewhere. Just in the same way as a secular employee may want a gym, or a half-hour cigarette break every two hours.
• Should people be excepted from a national law because of their beliefs? No, they should campaign for a change in the law if they want it changed, the same as everybody else has to.

Now if this basic secular kind of basis to society is unacceptable to any religious group, and they feel the need to demand rights that the rest of society isn't afforded, they should feel free to sod off to some other society of likeminded people.

If they are members of a religion which holds as its creed that followers will seriously disrupt society who do not follow their laws (for example, kill people who act outside their religious beliefs but within the society's law), they should be made safe (eg. locked up) for the good of the rest of society until they modify their beliefs; or expelled from the country if they aren't a citizen of that country.

If it comes to the point (as it did with Aum Shiri Kyo in Japan some years ago) where the religion itself is a threat to society, it should be banned, and practicing the religion should be punishable. This is rather a powerful law: to outlaw a religion must require a demonstration that the religion requires of its members to act to the serious bodily or mental harm of non-consenting adults. And a ban must be regularly reviewed against the current rules of the religion.

So let's apply these general rules to Muslims living in a non-Muslim country.

• If they want to wear religious dress to work, they should only be allowed to do so if anybody else can wear what they like to work (and I'm fully in favour of that).
• If they don't want to live in a council house in which the toilet happens to point towards Mecca and they don't like that orientation, the council should be sympathetic to any request to re-position said toilet so long as it's practical, paid for in full by the requestor and reloated at the requestors' expense before they move.
• If they don't want other people to express their freedoms, they should either learn to accept those freedoms, or go and find somewhere else to live, or else end their pitiable existence.

Notes:

This is a fascinating summary of the "dilemma" faced by the BBC of whether to publish the pictures in reference to the story and cause offense, or not publish and thereby not properly report the story. I believe their decision not to publish was taken against their journalistic instincts... not because of offence, per se, but because of their fear of backlash. They were no doubt mindful of Jack Straw's condemnation of France's "Le Soir" for reprinting the cartoons and his praise of British newspapers for not following suit.

"On Saturday, Asghar Bukhari, chairman of the Muslim Public Affairs Committee, said the demonstration in London on Friday should have been stopped by police because the group had been advocating violence. He said the protesters 'did not represent British Muslims'".
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4682262.stm
I am not convinced that the protestors do not represent British Muslims. I haven't heard a single Muslim voice which didn't express solidarity for protest against free speech, even if they condemned the threats of violence itself. I want to know why the BBC felt it necessary to cover the march to the Danish embassy yesterday when there were apparently only 120 people attending. If I arranged a march of 120 people for my favourite cause, would it get any publicity at all by the Beeb?

I hate Islam a little more today than I did yesterday.

A run of sickening events

In an eventful couple of days of news affecting the Middle East and Islam, three political subjects have come to the fore, as well as news of a ferry sinking in the Red Sea between Saudi Arabia and Egypt.

• On 1st February 2006, George Bush made his "State of the Union address" which played down the idea of taking military action against Iraq


• On 2nd February 2006, A record of a White House meeting emerges, which shows Bush and Blair fully intended to go to war with or without the "second UN resolution"


• Also on 2nd February, Muslims take great offence at a series of cartoons which appeared in a Danish newspaper.

And yes, I have something to say about each of those...

Bush's State of the Union Address

There was a distinct note of desperation in the speech of a president who's out of favour with even his own dim-witted electorate. Brush seemed to back away from aggression against Iran... he seemed to be almost pleading with the Iranian people to rise up against their leaders. I don't suppose it will last.

Bush and Blair intended war against Iraq, whatever the UN decided

A leaked memorandum from a White House meeting between Blair, Bush and their respective advisors in the run-up to the war on Iraq. This memo will be fresh content in the new edition of the book "Lawless World" by the international lawyer, Philippe Sands. Strongly as I feel about this issue, I don't have a lot of time just now to disgorge it, so by way of record, quotes from various other sources:
The Channel 4 news effectively summed up the meeting:

"The whole tone of the White House meeting seems to be two leaders who don't feel they have enough evidence of a breach to convince the world, but their own position is that Sadam is already in breach because of lack of cooperation with inspectors."

Sands himself said, on C4 news:

"His note seems to indicate that in his opinion, as of January 2003, Sadam Hussein's Iraq was not in material breach. And of course if Sadam Hussein's Iraq was not in breach at the beginning of January 2003, nothing happened after that date to bring him into material breach, and it means that the entire argument about material breach unravels."

I completely agree with John Snow's question:

"Isn't the most serious challenge from this conversation that they kind of knew, before we did, that there was absolutely no evidence against Sadam Hussein at that stage, and yet people like Colin Powell, people like - well, even the Prime Minister himself, were still talking about Weapons of Mass destruction, 45 minutes and all the rest of it?"

And as for demands for Western countries to show due "respect" for Islam; Islamic countries may ponder that the rest of us wish they'd have respect for women, homosexuals, secularity and a thousand freedoms they suppress and oppress.
... and with Menzies Campbell's reply:

"Absolutely right, that conversation suggested that they knew and had accepted that they weren't going to get WMD evidence that was going to support the argument that Sadam Hussein was in breach. And there's another date that we haven't mentioned so far, is that on 5th of February Colin Powell went to the security council of the United Nations, and he delivered that extraordinary attack, as it were, on Sadam Hussein, on based on intelligence: an event that he's since described as the most uncomfortable occasion in his life."

Here are some of Channel 4 News' summary extracts from the minutes

"The US was thinking of flying U2 reconaissance aircraft with fighter cover over Iraq, painted in UN colours. If Saddam fired on them, he would be in breach."
"It was also possible that a defector could be brought out who would give a public presentation of Sadam's WMD, and there was also a small possibility that Sadam would be assassinated."
"A second Security Council Resolution would provide an insurance policy against the unexpected and international cover."
"The US would put its weight behind efforts to get another resolution and would 'twist arms' and even 'threaten'."
"But he had to say that if ultimately we failed, military action would follow anyway."
"Tony Blair said he was "Solidly with the President ready to do whatever it took to disarm Sadam"

So, as if we didn't know it before, we have a picture of a conniving, lying, Prime Minister; who builds a case for war which he knows to be completely false. He builds that case to deceive parliament, to deceive the country, to get his own way. The guy is a war criminal and stand down to free himself for trial in The Hague.

Islam and Free Speech

Is anybody under the illusion that I am an apologist for Islamic extremists? If anybody said yes, go to the bottom of the class: I despise most of everything Islam stands for. I hate bullies, I hate restrictions in freedoms and human rights, and therefore I hate Bush, Blair and Islam. And if any of the above want a fight with me about that, bring them on. Oh yes.

This web link is currently hosting the images, for anyone interested. I can't see anything particularly offensive or even amusing about them myself, but if any group wants to prevent something being published, whether it's a posse of sleezy politicians or a clutch of self-righteous clerics, that's reason enough in itself to publish.