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.