Free speech
Free speech must include the right to ridicule gods.
n Britain in the 21st century you can be punished for
mocking gods. You can be expelled from the kingdom, frozen out, if you
dare to diss Allah. Perversely adopting medieval Islamic blasphemy laws,
modern Britain has made it clear that it will tolerate no individual
who says scurrilous or reviling things about the Islamic god or prophet.
Witness the authorities’ refusal to grant entrance to the nation to the
alt-right Christian YouTuber Lauren Southern. Her crime? She once
distributed a leaflet in Luton with the words ‘Allah is gay, Allah is
trans, Allah is lesbian…’, and according to the letter she received from
the Home Office informing her of her ban from Britain, such behaviour
poses a ‘threat to the fundamental interests of [British] society’.
This is a very serious matter and the lack of outrage about it in the mainstream press, not least among those who call themselves liberal, is deeply disturbing. For what we have here is the ringfencing of Britain from anti-Islam blasphemy. The purification of the kingdom against those who would take the mick out of the Muslim faith. In refusing leave to enter to Ms Southern because she handed out those leaflets, the UK authorities are making it clear that this is a nation in which certain things cannot be said about Allah. They are sending a message not only to Ms Southern but to Britons, too: trolling of Islam is a ‘threat’ to society and counter to ‘the public policy of the United Kingdom’. They haven’t only banned one woman; they have sought to chill an entire sphere of ‘blasphemy’.
Ms Southern was stopped at the border in Calais. She was reportedly questioned under Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act. This is an extraordinarily broad and illiberal part of the law. It can be used to stop anyone at Britain’s borders, even if there is no suspicion that they are involved in terrorism. The individual can be detained and questioned for up to nine hours. There is no right to silence. There is no right to a publicly funded lawyer if the person is at a border. That such a repressive measure was allegedly deployed in the questioning of someone for distributing leaflets, for speech, should horrify anyone who cares about liberty. This effectively treats speech as terror, ideas as violence, mere words as things to be kept out of the nation, setting a terrible precedent for free speech in this country.
When David Miranda, the partner of then Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald, was detained at Heathrow Airport under Schedule 7 in 2013, there was outrage in the liberal press. But there has been none over Ms Southern. That’s because liberal journalists liked what Mr Miranda had to say – he was carrying ‘journalistic materials’ from the whistleblower Edward Snowden – but they don’t like what Ms Southern has to say, which is that Islam is dangerous, migration is out of control, and Europe is dying, etc. I don’t like what Ms Southern says, either, but that’s not the point. If we only oppose the arbitrary use of Schedule 7 when it is wielded against people, ideas and words we approve of, then we are not really opposing authoritarianism and injustice at all – we’re just engaging in petty partisan politics that does nothing to defend liberty.
Alongside Ms Southern, two hard-right identitarians, the Austrian Martin Sellner and the American YouTuber Brittany Pettibone, were denied entry to Britain. A Home Office letter informed them that their movement, Generation Identity, is ‘viewed in the UK as a right-wing organisation’ – to which we might legitimately respond, ‘And?’. The letter also lists Mr Sellner’s plan to give a ‘speech at speakers corner in London Hyde Park’ as something that could stir up ‘tensions between local communities’. In short, their political views are too out-there, too hardcore, for Britain. The nation and its apparently gullible populace must be protected from these views. How patronising. The authorities are insulting us more than they are Sellner, Pettibone and Southern, because they’re effectively saying we will be driven mad or racist or in some way wounded by these people’s ideas.
Why so little faith in your own people, Home Office?
This is a very serious matter and the lack of outrage about it in the mainstream press, not least among those who call themselves liberal, is deeply disturbing. For what we have here is the ringfencing of Britain from anti-Islam blasphemy. The purification of the kingdom against those who would take the mick out of the Muslim faith. In refusing leave to enter to Ms Southern because she handed out those leaflets, the UK authorities are making it clear that this is a nation in which certain things cannot be said about Allah. They are sending a message not only to Ms Southern but to Britons, too: trolling of Islam is a ‘threat’ to society and counter to ‘the public policy of the United Kingdom’. They haven’t only banned one woman; they have sought to chill an entire sphere of ‘blasphemy’.
Ms Southern was stopped at the border in Calais. She was reportedly questioned under Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act. This is an extraordinarily broad and illiberal part of the law. It can be used to stop anyone at Britain’s borders, even if there is no suspicion that they are involved in terrorism. The individual can be detained and questioned for up to nine hours. There is no right to silence. There is no right to a publicly funded lawyer if the person is at a border. That such a repressive measure was allegedly deployed in the questioning of someone for distributing leaflets, for speech, should horrify anyone who cares about liberty. This effectively treats speech as terror, ideas as violence, mere words as things to be kept out of the nation, setting a terrible precedent for free speech in this country.
When David Miranda, the partner of then Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald, was detained at Heathrow Airport under Schedule 7 in 2013, there was outrage in the liberal press. But there has been none over Ms Southern. That’s because liberal journalists liked what Mr Miranda had to say – he was carrying ‘journalistic materials’ from the whistleblower Edward Snowden – but they don’t like what Ms Southern has to say, which is that Islam is dangerous, migration is out of control, and Europe is dying, etc. I don’t like what Ms Southern says, either, but that’s not the point. If we only oppose the arbitrary use of Schedule 7 when it is wielded against people, ideas and words we approve of, then we are not really opposing authoritarianism and injustice at all – we’re just engaging in petty partisan politics that does nothing to defend liberty.
Alongside Ms Southern, two hard-right identitarians, the Austrian Martin Sellner and the American YouTuber Brittany Pettibone, were denied entry to Britain. A Home Office letter informed them that their movement, Generation Identity, is ‘viewed in the UK as a right-wing organisation’ – to which we might legitimately respond, ‘And?’. The letter also lists Mr Sellner’s plan to give a ‘speech at speakers corner in London Hyde Park’ as something that could stir up ‘tensions between local communities’. In short, their political views are too out-there, too hardcore, for Britain. The nation and its apparently gullible populace must be protected from these views. How patronising. The authorities are insulting us more than they are Sellner, Pettibone and Southern, because they’re effectively saying we will be driven mad or racist or in some way wounded by these people’s ideas.
Why so little faith in your own people, Home Office?
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment