Accursed be that tongue that tells me so,
For it hath cow'd my better part of man!
And be these juggling fiends no more believ'd,
That palter with us in a double sense;
That keep the word of promise to our ear,
And break it to our hope!
Funnily enough, I don’t like liars. I know all about Shakespeare’s equivocators – Macbeth’s witches, Iago, Richard III, etc. – how much damage they can do when they tell us what we want to hear, not what is true. And I’m suspicious of moral relativists. I suspect them either of knavish duplicity or wilful stupidity. You know, I just don’t think that if a Catholic priest is convicted for paedophilia Cabinet ministers would be calling meetings to tell the Catholic Church that it hasn’t happened - or that Henry VIII was in fact to blame. It just wouldn’t strictly be true.
I’m not a great fan of criminals either. I take one of those terribly outmoded approaches towards personal responsibility, that if you’re caught doing something illegal, not only you should be punished, but you should also be denounced. It sends out the wrong messages if you’re not. If everyone knows you're guilty, but don't punish you or denounce what you've done we’ll feel that things are unfair, and the British care dearly about fairness. Don’t we?
You’d have thought so. Except that the ongoing fiasco about the cartoons challenges such an assumption. The protesters against the cartoons in London – the ones calling for murder, decapitation, and similar charitable acts – were guilty of incitement to violence and incitement to murder. Added to which, those who burned down Danish embassies around the world broke the international law of diplomatic immunity. We should be in no doubt. What they did they did in the name of Islam and what they did was wrong. Most people are now agreed about that, even if it did take a lot of people a long time to discover their spines. Yet this is what Jack Straw said last night:
‘A large number of Muslims in this country were – understandably – upset by those cartoons being reprinted across Europe and at their deeply held beliefs being insulted. They expressed their hurt and outrage but did so in a way which epitomised the learned, peaceful religion of Islam. In doing so they were not being “unreasonable” or “un-European”. They were not threatening anyone’s values...’
Melanie Phillips is typically trenchant about the matter in her blog today. When you become indebted to bad guys at best you end up compromised, cowering and cowtowing; at worst you end up giving them everything they want. Islam might mean submission, but the extremists want Britain and the rest of the West to surrender.
When the social order is threatened we need a robust debate, not crapulous whining and pietistic cant. The newspapers broke no laws. It was the Muslim extremists who broke laws. Until we can be clear about this, we cannot begin to discuss how we orchestrate or promote greater racial and religious harmony. And we should be clear – those of us who believe in freedom of speech and the rule of law – how the social contract works. If you subscribe, you’re welcome; if you don't, you’re not. End of discussion. And we should stop feeling guilty about it.
Addendum: last week I posted the latest episode in the life and times of Ken Livingstone. Kindly enough, he has supplied us with another, affectionately calling the US ambassador to London a 'chiselling little crook'. The leader in the Daily Telegraph says what needs to be said. Has Red Ken become Mad Ken? When's this farce going to end?
Comments (2)
The cartoon debate was entirely bogus. The restriction of Islam is not to produce pictures of Mohammed so that they may not be worshipped. This is not the case with the Danish cartoon, they were the object of ridicule for non-believer. Thus, we may do so freely.
Beyond which point...did no one notice the Danish flag being repeatedly burned. Did no one point out to the Muslims that this is a Christian cross they were burning? They belittled and destroyed the central icon of our faith!
We have far more grounds to be angry than they. In fact, I would advocate continual repetition of the initial 'offence' until they learn that they may not behave in such a juvenile and disrespectful manner.
The behaviour of the mob was pathetic and to thumb a nose at it would make them come to turns with their adolescent pretensions.
Posted by Chas | April 13, 2006 2:12 AM
Posted on April 13, 2006 02:12
For someone who claims to have an ardent dislike of student politicians, Ken Livingstone seems to go out of his way to behave like them.
His statement about the US ambassador's reluctance to pay the congestion charge is a perfect illustration of how Ken publicly blows up low level disputes in order to advertise his political prejudices. But that's only the half of it. What he revels in even more is his soi disant victim status as the 'right wing' media then draws the public's attention to his jejune rantings.
I suspect that if Ken had been able to attend university and do the radical rites of passage thing too (instead of dissecting 'Janet & John' at TTC) he would not have developed the chip on his shoulder that appears to propel him from one political crisis to the next. The lack of an 'elite' education seems to spark off an inferiority complex in some ambitious types.
Just look at the mindset of a certain Austrian postcard artist for example...
Posted by Joseph | March 30, 2006 12:58 AM
Posted on March 30, 2006 00:58