America’s Catholic League, which describes itself as the country’s ‘leading Catholic civil rights organisation’, is up in arms over ‘one of the worst assaults on Christian sensibilities ever.’ Could it be something like the use of a crucifix as a dildo in The Exorcist? The suppression of the Christian right to worship and organise churches in countries like China? No, it turns out that this ‘assault’ is that an artist has created a 6-foot naked model of Jesus out of milk chocolate.
Quite how anyone’s civil rights are being violated by this strange creation, due to be exhibited at a New York gallery during Easter Week, is hard to tell, but still the Catholic League has denounced it and called for a boycott of the gallery and the hotel that houses it. The gallery’s curator has received angry emails and phone calls and says he is ‘in the process of trying to figure out what we’re going to do next’ – hinting that the exhibition might be cancelled, and emphasising that the timing of the exhibition is ‘just a coincidence’.
The Catholic League, despite being a ‘civil rights’ group, has effectively launched an attack on the First Amendment of the American Constitution protecting freedom of expression, which traditionally encompasses artistic expression. Catholic League president Bill Donohue branded the chocolate Christ ‘hate speech’, a ‘direct, in your face assault on Christians’, and warned that ‘[a]ll those involved are lucky that angry Christians don’t react the way extremist Muslims do when they’re offended - otherwise they may have more than their heads cut off’.
So, making a chocolate sculpture is ‘hate speech’, but veiled threats of violence are fine. Despite the supposedly favourable comparison to ‘extremist Muslims’, the Catholic League is no more respectful of civil rights and basic liberties than are the Muslins Donohue disparages. Criticise ‘Sweet Lord’ for being bad art all you like, but trying to subordinate artistic expression to the moral outrage and offended ‘sensibilities’ of hyper-sensitive religious types is a sure way to stifle the creativity, inventiveness and free-thinking necessary for any vibrant society. We’ve seen this in the UK time and time again – be it Christians wanting to ban Jerry Springer - The Opera on TV and in theatres, Muslims trying to stop the filming of Brick Lane, or Sikhs attacking the theatre that staged the controversial play, Bezhti. In almost all these cases, we saw institutions caving-in (kudos to the BBC for resisting): supermarkets refusing to stock the Jerry Springer DVD, the Birmingham Rep suspending Bezhti, Brick Lane being filmed elsewhere.
Here’s hoping that the New York gallery defends America’s First Amendment tradition, defies the protests, and attract more visitors than ever – the likeliest and best possible outcome of the Catholic League’s outraged spluttering.
Lee Jones
Friday 30 March 2007
Thursday 29 March 2007
This just takes the Mckey
It ain’t cool to be overly fastidious about language. Deliberate attempts by a single institution or organisation to manipulate or manage the language others use often end in failure. One would really need to live in Blair’s world for such endeavours to be successful (that is Eric Arthur Blair, of course). Nevertheless, some keep trying.Last week it emerged that McDonalds will be launching a campaign to urge the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) to alter its definition of the slang word, ‘McJob’. The term, popularised by Douglas Coupland’s Generation X at the beginning of the 1990s, signifies a low-pay dead-end job. The fast-food chain argues that this pejorative definition, first entered into the OED in 2001, no longer fits the contemporary reality of employment in the hamburger restaurant.
Many corporations are defensive about their image, and McDonalds are rightly known for being particularly litigious, but what is striking in this case is not Mickey-D’s zeal for pettily defending its trademark, but rather its ‘compassionate’ justification for a change in the definition: "We believe that it is out of date, out of touch with reality and, most importantly, it is insulting to those talented, committed, hard-working people who serve the public every day" (my italics).
There is an agonising falseness about this ‘concern’ for their employees’ ‘feelings’. But without getting into a huff about workers’ pay and conditions, we should ask why McDonalds are pursuing this PR defence of their employees’ dignity. Surely it will expose them to charges of hypocrisy? Actually, Ronald McDonald is cleverer than that – the clown with the red afro reckons that the argument about employees’ feelings will hold purchase with the public. And he’s probably right.
As has been widely noted elsewhere, the perception of language as being a means of rational communication is changing to that of being an act in itself. This new status is unwarranted, especially in the case of political speech which truly is a means to an end, not an end in itself (contra poetry, for example). This explains why debates over what words we use have become legitimate political battlegrounds, in some cases even taking precedence over what is happening in the world ‘out there’ (see this article on the banning of the 'N-word' in New York). In such a context, we can surely understand why some people might be swayed by McDonalds’ appeals to sign their petition. One might even conceive of ‘progressives’ arguing for a change to the current (denigratory) definition of a ‘McJob’ on the grounds of ‘showing solidarity’ with burger-flippers the world over.
A correlative recent case is that of Professor David Coleman where students at Oxford University seemed more intent on preventing him from airing his anti-immigration views than on actually campaigning for open borders. Such stories point to a strange new political shadow-puppetry going on. Where nowadays few are prepared to take action against real injustices, it is increasingly legitimate – and desirable – to intervene on behalf of the ‘vulnerable’ to protect them from exactly what matters least – words.
The consequences are two-fold. Firstly, this fixation on language obviates the need for real political action by appearing to ‘deal with the problem’. In the McDonalds case, a McJob is magically transformed into meaningful, well-remunerated employment; or rather, the difficulties faced by minimum-wage service sector workers are resolved through them no longer having to face the ignominy of having one’s job referred to as ‘unstimulating’. Secondly, the blurring of the line between speech and action – whereby causing offence is an actual harm – gives undue importance to the emotional impact of words, instead of to their capacity to rationally inspire action.
The logic of those self-described progressives who earnestly seek to protect the vulnerable from harmful words, and of those such as McDonalds who in Orwellian style try to convince you black is white, is the same: don't change the world, just change perceptions. And the consequence is the same too: our capacity to initiate political action through rational argument is severely diminished.
Alex Hochuli
Sunday 25 March 2007
Porn to be mild
A new UK Criminal Justice Bill is set to criminalise the possession of a wider range of pornography in Britain. The bill includes measures to clamp down on what the government calls ‘extreme pornographic material'. Depictions of apparent sexual violence will be criminalised even when they involve consenting adults or are staged with actors. Violent pornography is never going to be a popular cause, but the legislation is quite rightly being opposed by a new campaigning group, Backlash.
The group makes the point that the criminalisation of images will do nothing to help the victims of real sexual violence or domestic abuse, and disputes the notion that they lead to crimes of this kind. In a press release dated 15 March, Backlash notes: "The Home Office admits there is no evidence linking pornography to violent crime. Nonetheless it has continued to pursue this policy, prompting Clive Walker, Professor of Criminal Justice at University of Leeds to argue 'a decision to criminalise possession of extreme violent pornography is based solely on moral and political grounds rather than on public safety'".
Backlash and Professor Walker are onto something, but the legislation is not moralistic in any traditional sense. Old-fashioned notions of family values or Christian decency hold little currency today, and nothing substantial has taken their place. In fact, it is the frailty of contemporary moral thinking that explains the government's resort to spurious safety concerns. In a free society, people should be allowed to look at whatever images they want, provided nobody is harmed in the process. But there is no reason others should not disapprove, and say so openly. Indeed, if pornography were not objectionable on some level, it is doubtful whether it would have any appeal. Much, if not most pornography is degraded and disturbing, an affront to human dignity: that is surely what makes it effective, whether we react to it erotically, or simply turn away in disgust.
It would be far better if people were willing to express their discomfort with pornography in established moral terms, whether religious or humanistic, rather than lurching between a relativistic, 'anything goes' attitude to sex, and panicky efforts to suppress distasteful expressions of it. If we were more at ease with discussing morality, perhaps we would be less anxious about a few odd websites and videos.
Dolan Cummings
The group makes the point that the criminalisation of images will do nothing to help the victims of real sexual violence or domestic abuse, and disputes the notion that they lead to crimes of this kind. In a press release dated 15 March, Backlash notes: "The Home Office admits there is no evidence linking pornography to violent crime. Nonetheless it has continued to pursue this policy, prompting Clive Walker, Professor of Criminal Justice at University of Leeds to argue 'a decision to criminalise possession of extreme violent pornography is based solely on moral and political grounds rather than on public safety'".
Backlash and Professor Walker are onto something, but the legislation is not moralistic in any traditional sense. Old-fashioned notions of family values or Christian decency hold little currency today, and nothing substantial has taken their place. In fact, it is the frailty of contemporary moral thinking that explains the government's resort to spurious safety concerns. In a free society, people should be allowed to look at whatever images they want, provided nobody is harmed in the process. But there is no reason others should not disapprove, and say so openly. Indeed, if pornography were not objectionable on some level, it is doubtful whether it would have any appeal. Much, if not most pornography is degraded and disturbing, an affront to human dignity: that is surely what makes it effective, whether we react to it erotically, or simply turn away in disgust.
It would be far better if people were willing to express their discomfort with pornography in established moral terms, whether religious or humanistic, rather than lurching between a relativistic, 'anything goes' attitude to sex, and panicky efforts to suppress distasteful expressions of it. If we were more at ease with discussing morality, perhaps we would be less anxious about a few odd websites and videos.
Dolan Cummings
Saturday 24 March 2007
Doorstopping Free Speech
Leeds University has been accused of censorship following its cancellation of a talk entitled 'Hitler's Legacy: Islamic anti-Semitism in the Middle East'. When the speaker, German academic Matthias Köntzel, arrived in Leeds only to be told that his lectures were off, he was shocked. “It is a controversial area but I am accustomed to debate. I value the integrity of academic debate and I feel that it really is in danger here,” he said.
The case is a telling example of the banal nature of censorship today. It was not that the university authorities thought that Köntzel's work lacked merit, nor even that they thought his work was wrong. Rather, they cancelled on 'security grounds'. They insisted that they were not expressing an opinion about his views. It was, they said, merely a bureaucratic matter of not having enough doormen to ensure his safety. So does health and safety become the dull final arbiter of which views get a hearing?
The case also shows that people no longer even listen to viewpoints with which they disagree, let alone engaging with and fighting them. The head of the university Islamic society issued a 'complaint' about the speaker, saying that the title was “provocative” and that his views were “not very pleasant”. Why not just say you disagree, or openly criticise his views as wrong, immoral, or blasphemous? Why not turn up to voice such criticism in person, or lobby the lecture with banners and whistles? Anything but the dull and neutered ‘complaint’ that the title of the lecture was 'provocative'.
There is a risk that we may lose the ability to tell what is and is not an insult. There are criticisms of Islam that are merely provocative and insulting, and that are best ignored. But Köntzel has gone to the bother of writing books and articles, and formulating arguments in the light of historical evidence. The Muslim brotherhood did, in fact, have a relationship with the Nazi Party in the 1930s - though what you make of that is another thing. There are insults, and there are formed opinions, and the latter deserve an opportunity to be heard.
Josie Appleton
The case is a telling example of the banal nature of censorship today. It was not that the university authorities thought that Köntzel's work lacked merit, nor even that they thought his work was wrong. Rather, they cancelled on 'security grounds'. They insisted that they were not expressing an opinion about his views. It was, they said, merely a bureaucratic matter of not having enough doormen to ensure his safety. So does health and safety become the dull final arbiter of which views get a hearing?
The case also shows that people no longer even listen to viewpoints with which they disagree, let alone engaging with and fighting them. The head of the university Islamic society issued a 'complaint' about the speaker, saying that the title was “provocative” and that his views were “not very pleasant”. Why not just say you disagree, or openly criticise his views as wrong, immoral, or blasphemous? Why not turn up to voice such criticism in person, or lobby the lecture with banners and whistles? Anything but the dull and neutered ‘complaint’ that the title of the lecture was 'provocative'.
There is a risk that we may lose the ability to tell what is and is not an insult. There are criticisms of Islam that are merely provocative and insulting, and that are best ignored. But Köntzel has gone to the bother of writing books and articles, and formulating arguments in the light of historical evidence. The Muslim brotherhood did, in fact, have a relationship with the Nazi Party in the 1930s - though what you make of that is another thing. There are insults, and there are formed opinions, and the latter deserve an opportunity to be heard.
Josie Appleton
Friday 16 March 2007
Desert island discussions
More than any of its rivals in the reality TV market, Channel 4 has proved the most adept at stimulating and satisfying our taste for violent confrontation. Moments of explosive conflict between contestants have now become the primary aim of much of C4’s output in this field. The channel’s success owes much to the cherry-picking of individuals willing to speak their minds, irrespective of what ugly thoughts might spew forth. The latest of such gems, 18-year-old Lucy Buchanan, can be found roaming the desert island reality show Shipwrecked.
Fresh from public school and complete with Victorian perspectives on race and sex, she already stated, in one of the first instalments, that slavery ought to be brought back. On this past Sunday’s episode she once again obliged by commenting on women’s supposed inherent inferiority to men. When a fellow contestant, Jo Davis – an outspoken lesbian DJ – heard the comment, she gasped in horror before fiercely reproaching Lucy. The trailer for the episode predictably featured this tantalising glimpse, and viewers were promised the thrill of a fiery shouting match.
As it turned out, it didn’t live up to its promise. Rather than a verbal battering of the prim and privileged Lucy by the forceful Jo, viewers were treated to a thoughtful discussion between the two. Jo invited Lucy to explain her views before suggesting that these probably did not correspond with Lucy’s and her own experience, inherited as they probably were from her parents and grandparents. The discussion lasted about five minutes, at the end of which Lucy accepted the force of Jo’s argument and both went back to lounging in the shade.
The discussion may have been brief, but it was significant. Not because the ‘right’ view won out, but rather because of the exemplary attitude shown by Jo: she engaged with a position that she found abhorrent and self-evidently wrong, and rather than denying Lucy a voice by denouncing her as a bigot, Jo entered into dialogue and a constructive exchange of ideas ensued.
It is precisely this sort of attitude that encourages others less bold – or more circumspect – than Lucy to speak freely where they might otherwise have bitten their tongues and censored themselves for fear of giving offence or attracting censure. I say this not simply to encourage more people to air racist or misogynist views, but rather because it is only through doing so that such prejudices can be properly challenged. Jo provided a telling reminder of how fundamental such an attitude is to free and frank discussion and, more generally, to the establishment of a robust discursive culture.
Fresh from public school and complete with Victorian perspectives on race and sex, she already stated, in one of the first instalments, that slavery ought to be brought back. On this past Sunday’s episode she once again obliged by commenting on women’s supposed inherent inferiority to men. When a fellow contestant, Jo Davis – an outspoken lesbian DJ – heard the comment, she gasped in horror before fiercely reproaching Lucy. The trailer for the episode predictably featured this tantalising glimpse, and viewers were promised the thrill of a fiery shouting match.
As it turned out, it didn’t live up to its promise. Rather than a verbal battering of the prim and privileged Lucy by the forceful Jo, viewers were treated to a thoughtful discussion between the two. Jo invited Lucy to explain her views before suggesting that these probably did not correspond with Lucy’s and her own experience, inherited as they probably were from her parents and grandparents. The discussion lasted about five minutes, at the end of which Lucy accepted the force of Jo’s argument and both went back to lounging in the shade.
The discussion may have been brief, but it was significant. Not because the ‘right’ view won out, but rather because of the exemplary attitude shown by Jo: she engaged with a position that she found abhorrent and self-evidently wrong, and rather than denying Lucy a voice by denouncing her as a bigot, Jo entered into dialogue and a constructive exchange of ideas ensued.
It is precisely this sort of attitude that encourages others less bold – or more circumspect – than Lucy to speak freely where they might otherwise have bitten their tongues and censored themselves for fear of giving offence or attracting censure. I say this not simply to encourage more people to air racist or misogynist views, but rather because it is only through doing so that such prejudices can be properly challenged. Jo provided a telling reminder of how fundamental such an attitude is to free and frank discussion and, more generally, to the establishment of a robust discursive culture.
Beau Hopkins
Wednesday 14 March 2007
Gagged down under
Fear and loathing are not the only things which can unite people in Australia. It seems there is nothing like banning free speech to get us all singing from the same hymn sheet, as Australia’s top Muslims are gagged by the Lebanese Muslim Association in Sydney.
Not so long ago, there was media uproar over a sermon given by Australia’s top Mufti, Sheik Taj Din al-Hilali, in which he (reportedly) claimed that women wearing revealing clothing and no headscarf were like meat left out for the cats to attack. Granted, it’s pretty awful stuff, but I thought we had gotten used to judges, clerics and other unelected members of the establishment making idiots of themselves by ranting on about women ‘asking for it’ because of how they dress, dance, smoke, drink or wear their hair. In 2001 we had a possibly worse example, courtesy of the Anglican Church. While he was Archbishop of Brisbane, Governor General Peter Hollingworth seemed to excuse the actions of an Anglican priest accused of sexually abusing a 14 year old girl.
Like al-Hilali, Hollingworth was another unelected figure with ‘weird and dangerous’ views. The difference between the two cases is that no one associated Hollingworth’s opinions with that of the entire Australian Anglican population. Hollingworth only spoke for himself and possibly for Elizabeth II. The Governor General eventually moved on, as did the controversy.
For al-Hilali, his case has proved different. Seeing the Mufti’s words as incitement to rape, Pru Goward, Australia’s Federal Sex Discrimination Officer, sought to have him not only gagged but also deported (to where of course, I don’t know). After John Howard also stepped-in to condemn him, the Mufti hit back saying that if his comments were indeed an incitement to rape he would stand down and quite literally gag himself, for 6 months.
The Mufti then commented on Egyptian TV that ‘Muslims [are] more entitled to be in Australia than those with convict heritage’. For the Lebanese Muslim Association (LMA), this was the straw that broke the camel’s back, and the LMA officially gagged al-Hilali and four other top Muslim clerics for the ‘immeasurable damage’ they had caused. According to Tom Zreika, the LMA President, the organisation was trying to put an end to ‘perceived un-Australian viewpoints by some clerics’.
The knee-jerk censoriousness and hypocrisy on all sides is remarkable here. While comparatively few complained over Hollingworth, many more believe al-Hilali’s views too offensive to be heard. Meanwhile, the LMA seem to have bought into al-Hilali and his unelected cohorts’ pretences to speak for the entire Muslim community – and so tried to stop them making public statements altogether.
Despite the late summer warmth here in Australia it is quite chilling to think the one thing that may unite Australians from many different backgrounds is an ever increasing desire to limit freedom of speech.
Dom McCarthy
Not so long ago, there was media uproar over a sermon given by Australia’s top Mufti, Sheik Taj Din al-Hilali, in which he (reportedly) claimed that women wearing revealing clothing and no headscarf were like meat left out for the cats to attack. Granted, it’s pretty awful stuff, but I thought we had gotten used to judges, clerics and other unelected members of the establishment making idiots of themselves by ranting on about women ‘asking for it’ because of how they dress, dance, smoke, drink or wear their hair. In 2001 we had a possibly worse example, courtesy of the Anglican Church. While he was Archbishop of Brisbane, Governor General Peter Hollingworth seemed to excuse the actions of an Anglican priest accused of sexually abusing a 14 year old girl.
Like al-Hilali, Hollingworth was another unelected figure with ‘weird and dangerous’ views. The difference between the two cases is that no one associated Hollingworth’s opinions with that of the entire Australian Anglican population. Hollingworth only spoke for himself and possibly for Elizabeth II. The Governor General eventually moved on, as did the controversy.
For al-Hilali, his case has proved different. Seeing the Mufti’s words as incitement to rape, Pru Goward, Australia’s Federal Sex Discrimination Officer, sought to have him not only gagged but also deported (to where of course, I don’t know). After John Howard also stepped-in to condemn him, the Mufti hit back saying that if his comments were indeed an incitement to rape he would stand down and quite literally gag himself, for 6 months.
The Mufti then commented on Egyptian TV that ‘Muslims [are] more entitled to be in Australia than those with convict heritage’. For the Lebanese Muslim Association (LMA), this was the straw that broke the camel’s back, and the LMA officially gagged al-Hilali and four other top Muslim clerics for the ‘immeasurable damage’ they had caused. According to Tom Zreika, the LMA President, the organisation was trying to put an end to ‘perceived un-Australian viewpoints by some clerics’.
The knee-jerk censoriousness and hypocrisy on all sides is remarkable here. While comparatively few complained over Hollingworth, many more believe al-Hilali’s views too offensive to be heard. Meanwhile, the LMA seem to have bought into al-Hilali and his unelected cohorts’ pretences to speak for the entire Muslim community – and so tried to stop them making public statements altogether.
Despite the late summer warmth here in Australia it is quite chilling to think the one thing that may unite Australians from many different backgrounds is an ever increasing desire to limit freedom of speech.
Dom McCarthy
Monday 12 March 2007
More PC at the FC
Yet another story involving racism and Tottenham Hotspur Football Club: last week, eight schoolchildren in Ware, near London, were arrested after a teacher saw a video on YouTube showing them chanting 'Yid Army' at his leaving do. As argued previously, this has nothing to do with racism; rather this incident highlights a growing tendency to assume the worst, and to apply informal but fastidious speech codes in ever more bizarre contexts.
In any case, football crowds have never been known for their PC sensitivity, and their rowdy chants and songs have often attracted the attentions of the censorious. While racist chants were relatively common when black players first began to appear in British football in the 1970s and 1980s - in the context of a far more racist society - they are largely unknown today. (The reaction to racist chants by a small number of Motherwell supporters at a recent game showed that racism is considered embarrassingly beyond the pale by football fans today.) Nonetheless, fans will use just about any other kind of abuse to wind up opposition players and supporters, with 'sectarian' chants and songs common in Scotland, and 'homophobic' abuse common everywhere. The authorities are increasingly anxious to rid the game of these unseemly features. The European football body UEFA recently fined Rangers because their fans sang the sectarian song 'Billy Boys' in Villareal, Spain, while the English Football Association recently decided to ban 'homophobic' chanting.
Leaving aside the straightforward free speech argument - these are chants and songs, not sticks and stones - the bans are based on a basic misunderstanding of what is happening at football matches. A football stadium is not a debating chamber or a public square where ideas are taken seriously and have bearing on real life. As Mick Hume has argued, 'football is the home-ground of the id', where people go to unwind by indulging their irrational passions for ninety minutes. As a matter of fact, there is virtually no sectarianism in Scotland today outside football grounds - the 'sectarian' songs are a peculiar expression of football rivalry, not a window on the soul of the nation. Similarly, 'homophobic' chants are not meant to insult gays and lesbians in general - again, there is overwhelming indifference to homosexuality in the world beyond the turnstiles - but to antagonise particular players, who may or may not be gay. (It's not big and it's not clever, but the implication that someone is gay is the cell form of male humour, and says pretty much nothing about broader social attitudes.) Banning this kind of abuse does not simply deprive people of the right to express their opinions; worse, it deprives them of the right to spout nonsense even when they don't mean it.
This is not simply irritating for those of us who enjoy the free and anarchic atmosphere of the football stadium - or indeed the leaving do. It encourages a humourless, witchhunting mentality that sees every slip from PC orthodoxy as something to be punished, and refuses to distinguish between the meaningful and the trivial. What we desperately need is not more bans, but the robust arguments to deal with actual bigotry, the good humour to deal with daft football chants, and the common sense to know the difference.
Dolan Cummings
In any case, football crowds have never been known for their PC sensitivity, and their rowdy chants and songs have often attracted the attentions of the censorious. While racist chants were relatively common when black players first began to appear in British football in the 1970s and 1980s - in the context of a far more racist society - they are largely unknown today. (The reaction to racist chants by a small number of Motherwell supporters at a recent game showed that racism is considered embarrassingly beyond the pale by football fans today.) Nonetheless, fans will use just about any other kind of abuse to wind up opposition players and supporters, with 'sectarian' chants and songs common in Scotland, and 'homophobic' abuse common everywhere. The authorities are increasingly anxious to rid the game of these unseemly features. The European football body UEFA recently fined Rangers because their fans sang the sectarian song 'Billy Boys' in Villareal, Spain, while the English Football Association recently decided to ban 'homophobic' chanting.
Leaving aside the straightforward free speech argument - these are chants and songs, not sticks and stones - the bans are based on a basic misunderstanding of what is happening at football matches. A football stadium is not a debating chamber or a public square where ideas are taken seriously and have bearing on real life. As Mick Hume has argued, 'football is the home-ground of the id', where people go to unwind by indulging their irrational passions for ninety minutes. As a matter of fact, there is virtually no sectarianism in Scotland today outside football grounds - the 'sectarian' songs are a peculiar expression of football rivalry, not a window on the soul of the nation. Similarly, 'homophobic' chants are not meant to insult gays and lesbians in general - again, there is overwhelming indifference to homosexuality in the world beyond the turnstiles - but to antagonise particular players, who may or may not be gay. (It's not big and it's not clever, but the implication that someone is gay is the cell form of male humour, and says pretty much nothing about broader social attitudes.) Banning this kind of abuse does not simply deprive people of the right to express their opinions; worse, it deprives them of the right to spout nonsense even when they don't mean it.
This is not simply irritating for those of us who enjoy the free and anarchic atmosphere of the football stadium - or indeed the leaving do. It encourages a humourless, witchhunting mentality that sees every slip from PC orthodoxy as something to be punished, and refuses to distinguish between the meaningful and the trivial. What we desperately need is not more bans, but the robust arguments to deal with actual bigotry, the good humour to deal with daft football chants, and the common sense to know the difference.
Dolan Cummings
'Empowering women' through censorship at Warwick University
There is disquiet among feminist groups at Warwick University. A local nightclub, ‘SMACK’, is running a weekly night called ‘SMACK – My Bitch Up’. As I’m informed by a campaign poster that had previously adorned the Sociology corridor but now sits on my desk: ‘Publicity surrounding this event displays a portrait of a woman who has facial injuries suggesting violence against women.’
When I tell you that other campaigns by such groups at Warwick have included moving lads-mag FHM to the top shelf of the campus newsagent, you’ll understand just how closely this type of thinking associates banning things with the supposed empowerment of women. This time, however, I think we can detect a hint of naivety alongside the usual serving of censoriousness.
Does anyone honestly think that promotional material like this truly reflects a widespread and seductive climate of acceptable violence toward women? Isn’t it more likely that this rather harmless, run-of-the-mill student haunt is using taboo as a way to pass itself off as rather more of a seditious place than it actually is? It is the secret glee of pissing-off captious feminists, rather than the guilty pleasure of beating women, that grants a cruddy promotional campaign any allure it might have.
Ben Walford
When I tell you that other campaigns by such groups at Warwick have included moving lads-mag FHM to the top shelf of the campus newsagent, you’ll understand just how closely this type of thinking associates banning things with the supposed empowerment of women. This time, however, I think we can detect a hint of naivety alongside the usual serving of censoriousness.
Does anyone honestly think that promotional material like this truly reflects a widespread and seductive climate of acceptable violence toward women? Isn’t it more likely that this rather harmless, run-of-the-mill student haunt is using taboo as a way to pass itself off as rather more of a seditious place than it actually is? It is the secret glee of pissing-off captious feminists, rather than the guilty pleasure of beating women, that grants a cruddy promotional campaign any allure it might have.
Ben Walford
Some Independent thinking...
The Independent has launched a pious crusade against ‘racism’ in British institutions, with one of its targets being Professor David Coleman of Oxford University (see Oxford students prefer taboo to argument, 5 March). As I’ve pointed out elsewhere, this is an egregious assault on free speech and academic freedom that can only harm the pro-immigration cause. But according to The Independent’s editorial, ‘we should dismiss [the] claims that these are matters of free speech’. Why we should simply ‘dismiss’ them is not made clear. The Independent thinks that while Coleman should not be sacked, ‘students should not be compelled to take lessons from someone about whose views they feel deeply uncomfortable’. This makes a mockery of university education.
Meanwhile, commentators have been falling over themselves to point out the troubling character of recent 'race rows'. One such writer is leading black journalist and campaigner Darcus Howe. Lamenting that there is no one to speak up for black and working-class people, he stated that ‘[t]his is not the same country I came to 50 years ago. I have great sympathy for the whites because everything has been swept away by Mrs Thatcher and now Tony Blair but there is nothing to take its place.’ Open, rational debate remains the only way of challenging the implicit forms of racism we have seen in recent 'controversies'. However, when students and newspapers who supposedly pride themselves on being ‘free thinking’ are the first to call for restrictions on speech, there is little hope of progressing.
Lee Jones
Meanwhile, commentators have been falling over themselves to point out the troubling character of recent 'race rows'. One such writer is leading black journalist and campaigner Darcus Howe. Lamenting that there is no one to speak up for black and working-class people, he stated that ‘[t]his is not the same country I came to 50 years ago. I have great sympathy for the whites because everything has been swept away by Mrs Thatcher and now Tony Blair but there is nothing to take its place.’ Open, rational debate remains the only way of challenging the implicit forms of racism we have seen in recent 'controversies'. However, when students and newspapers who supposedly pride themselves on being ‘free thinking’ are the first to call for restrictions on speech, there is little hope of progressing.
Lee Jones
I'd rather be a censor than a football fan?
The metropolitan police are investigating a racist incident at a premiership match between West Ham and Tottenham Hotspur on 4 March. Fans allegedly chanted such lovely slogans as ‘I’d rather be a Paki than a Jew’. Spurs are well-known for their Jewish following and this was definitely unpleasant, but is it something to be banged-up for?
This, the latest in a long line of interventions by the police into the world of football, will unfortunately not be the last. No speech, however offensive, should have the threat of police action hanging over it. Moreover, a football match isn’t a dinner party and some of the normal rules of polite society are suspended for 90 minutes. Where the line should be drawn is a matter for football fans themselves, not the police.
Equally concerning is another story, also involving Spurs. Luminaries from that club as well as the FA and the anti-racism campaign ‘Kick It Out’ are to debate later this month whether there should be an ‘education campaign’ to phase out Spurs fans’ reference to themselves as the ‘Yid Army’. Although less obviously repressive, this restriction on what is appropriate for football fans to say or call themselves is a threat as equally pernicious as that posed by the 'boys in blue', those West Ham supporters. Let’s kick speech codes out of football along with racism.
Robin Walsh
Monday 5 March 2007
Oxford students prefer taboo to argument
A group of Oxford University students has launched a petition urging the university to ‘consider the suitability’ as a Professor of the University of one David Coleman. Coleman, a professor of demography, is also an honorary consultant for the anti-immigration group MigrationWatch UK, and a member of the Galton Institute, which is associated with eugenics.
What seems to be at stake is not anything in particular that the professor has said, but the very fact that someone with such connections and ideas should enjoy the prestige of being a Professor of the University. Campaign spokesman Kieran Hutchinson Dean told the student paper Cherwell, ‘By offering interviews as a “Professor of Oxford University”, he lends credibility to his political viewpoint. The main point of the petition is to raise awareness of his views and affiliations among students. We do not expect everyone to agree, but think that it is an interesting and important debate to have.”
There is something odd about this. The campaigners are concerned that Coleman is using his position to lend credibility to his opinions, and yet they feel the need to ‘raise awareness’ of both. If people are not already aware of the professor’s opinions, how can they be influenced by his university professorship? More importantly, if this is such an important debate to have, then why initiate it with a petition hinting that Coleman should be sacked, rather than by making a positive case for immigration and against eugenics?
In truth, it seems that the students concerned are less interested in debate than in mobilising the power of taboo to win the scalp of someone whose academic reputation is currently far greater than his public profile. Rather than arguing against Coleman, they are trying to brand him as a racist (without even having the courage to use the word in their petition). But while there is a powerful taboo against racism, opposition to immigration is a mainstream view that is at the heart of government policy. A group calling itself Student Action for Refugees would do better having out the hard arguments rather than hiding behind taboos, like the three monkeys.
It should be noted that both the university and the local MP Evan Harris, as well as Dennis Hayes of Academics for Academic Freedom, have responded to the petition by reasserting the importance of free speech and freedom of association, and it seems very unlikely that Coleman will lose his university professorship. Nonetheless, the campaign serves to reinforce the idea that certain opinions are not to be tolerated in the polite society of the university, even if they are widely held in society at large. This reduces the university to a safe haven for sensitive souls, rather than a forum for open enquiry. Coleman has a moral as well as legal right to his opinions. His opponents have an intellectual responsibility to challenge them rather than resorting to phoney 'exposés' and smears.
What seems to be at stake is not anything in particular that the professor has said, but the very fact that someone with such connections and ideas should enjoy the prestige of being a Professor of the University. Campaign spokesman Kieran Hutchinson Dean told the student paper Cherwell, ‘By offering interviews as a “Professor of Oxford University”, he lends credibility to his political viewpoint. The main point of the petition is to raise awareness of his views and affiliations among students. We do not expect everyone to agree, but think that it is an interesting and important debate to have.”
There is something odd about this. The campaigners are concerned that Coleman is using his position to lend credibility to his opinions, and yet they feel the need to ‘raise awareness’ of both. If people are not already aware of the professor’s opinions, how can they be influenced by his university professorship? More importantly, if this is such an important debate to have, then why initiate it with a petition hinting that Coleman should be sacked, rather than by making a positive case for immigration and against eugenics?
In truth, it seems that the students concerned are less interested in debate than in mobilising the power of taboo to win the scalp of someone whose academic reputation is currently far greater than his public profile. Rather than arguing against Coleman, they are trying to brand him as a racist (without even having the courage to use the word in their petition). But while there is a powerful taboo against racism, opposition to immigration is a mainstream view that is at the heart of government policy. A group calling itself Student Action for Refugees would do better having out the hard arguments rather than hiding behind taboos, like the three monkeys.
It should be noted that both the university and the local MP Evan Harris, as well as Dennis Hayes of Academics for Academic Freedom, have responded to the petition by reasserting the importance of free speech and freedom of association, and it seems very unlikely that Coleman will lose his university professorship. Nonetheless, the campaign serves to reinforce the idea that certain opinions are not to be tolerated in the polite society of the university, even if they are widely held in society at large. This reduces the university to a safe haven for sensitive souls, rather than a forum for open enquiry. Coleman has a moral as well as legal right to his opinions. His opponents have an intellectual responsibility to challenge them rather than resorting to phoney 'exposés' and smears.
Dolan Cummings
Friday 2 March 2007
The trouble with speech codes
The US First Amendment Center recently flagged up research showing the dominance of speech codes on US campuses. An analysis of more than 330 colleges across the USA found that some 68 per cent have policies that ‘clearly and substantially restrict freedom of speech’.
This included The University of California at Los Angeles’ harassment policy, which states that ‘Sexual harassment may include: derogatory remarks about one’s clothing, body, or sexual activities based on gender; disparaging remarks, jokes, and teasing based on gender; verbal harassment or abuse; subtle pressure for sexual activity; unwelcome touching, patting, or pinching; demanding sexual favors’. It’s a wonder that students there have a social life at all.
The organisation that carried out the research, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, gave colleges a red, amber or green grading, based on whether they infringed First Amendment principles. Yet the UK has no such Amendment principles. When it comes to taking up similar speech codes here we have to start from scratch, exploring how free thought and expression are essential to a vibrant social life, and the development of individual ideas and character. After all, how are students to grow up into sensitive and responsible adults, if every aspect of their life – down to comments about clothing - is governed by codes? By simply banning any speech deemed unpleasant or bad, codes stifle the development of moral responsibility.
Josie Appleton
This included The University of California at Los Angeles’ harassment policy, which states that ‘Sexual harassment may include: derogatory remarks about one’s clothing, body, or sexual activities based on gender; disparaging remarks, jokes, and teasing based on gender; verbal harassment or abuse; subtle pressure for sexual activity; unwelcome touching, patting, or pinching; demanding sexual favors’. It’s a wonder that students there have a social life at all.
The organisation that carried out the research, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, gave colleges a red, amber or green grading, based on whether they infringed First Amendment principles. Yet the UK has no such Amendment principles. When it comes to taking up similar speech codes here we have to start from scratch, exploring how free thought and expression are essential to a vibrant social life, and the development of individual ideas and character. After all, how are students to grow up into sensitive and responsible adults, if every aspect of their life – down to comments about clothing - is governed by codes? By simply banning any speech deemed unpleasant or bad, codes stifle the development of moral responsibility.
Josie Appleton
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