Letter to Feedback

Apparently, the BBC Trust are likely to reply on Feedback soon regarding Thought for the Day (which I heard when I used to listen to The Today Programme). So I have written to Feedback as follows:

Dear Sir/Madam,

I am the organiser of the online pledge which prompted approx. 1,500 people to e-mail The Today Programme in January to complain about “Thought for the Day”.

I understand these complaints are now being considered by the BBC Trust.

Please would you ensure that the points raised in my own letter (available here: http://www.gavinorland.org/religion/thought-for-the-day-my-letter/) and those regarding the BBC’s remit for fair representation are answered on Feedback.

Many thanks.

Best regards,

Gavin Orland

New Dalrymple article

A new article from the great Theodore Dalrymple, containing the excellent sentence:

“Islamists are political entrepreneurs with a plausible doctrinal reason for violence. They are now able to extract from society the kind of respect that street muggers demand, and multiculturalism has become the ideological wing of sheer cowardice.”

Flu makes Church observe good hygiene

Further to the Archbishop of Canterbury’s recent remarks, it’s a shame it takes a flu pandemic to make the Church realise it’s unhygienic to have everybody drinking “Jesus’ blood” out of the same chalice.

In a BBC news article the Reverend Ed Saville concludes the use of the chalice during Communion services is “basically unhygienic”.  “Normally we get away with it”, he says, “because for most infections people have got inbuilt resistance – but with this H1N1 flu virus there is no inbuilt resistance.”

Just another example of the church being dragged, kicking and screaming, into the modern age.

The limits of free speech

I’ve been having a disagreement with Barbara Smoker (former president of the NSS) recently about the decision to invite Islamist terror group founder Anjem Choudary to speak at Conway Hall in London. When these liberals invited him there he had to be thrown out because they had not anticipated the kind of thuggish encourage he would bring with him. This made him look silly (but he already looked silly) and at least to me, it made them look very naïve.

Conway Hall is an interesting building with a rich history. It was frequented by intellectuals such as Bertrand Russell and G.E. Moore. It says on its website:

“It is the aim of the Trustees and Committee to place at the disposal of the members and visitors from the Provinces, British Dominions, United States of America and other countries, Headquarters in the heart of London, where men and women of advanced thought could meet and enjoy the amenities of social discourse, with facilities for writing, rest and refreshment.”

My italics.

I wrote to the NSS Newsline as follows:

“Dear Sir,

I just read your article on Anjem Choudary being expelled from Conway Hall. First of all, I have to say I was taken aback that this open preacher of hatred was even allowed into the building. Conway Hall has a rich history as a place for nurturing free thought and rational enquiry – both of which are contrary to the tenets of Islam. While Al-Muhajiroun perhaps should not be banned, it seems to sully Conway Hall and the memory of great secularists such as Bertrand Russell allow these people to even set foot in the premises. While it may have proved to be bad publicity for them, I would rather they had less publicity or at least publicity generated by themselves and in a building with a less prestigious history.

The problem with Anjem Choudary is that while he is something of a comedy character, he is actually right in what he says according to the Qur’an. So is Hassan Butt, who trained as a Jihadist and now calmly explains that Muslims’ hatred of non-believers is fully sanctioned by the Qur’an (is “part and parcel of it”, as he puts it). Choudary should not be portrayed as some kind of “extremist”. We must rather run the message home (as Geert Wilders, Ayaan Hirsi-Ali and Robert Spencer do) that Islam itself is the problem. Any civilised society should have very low tolerance for this totalitarian quasi-religious ideology. Furthermore – and this is a big furthermore – the widespread silence of “moderate” Muslims merely lends tacit support to fundamentalist Muslims such as Choudary. For detailed exposition of this argument see Sam Harris’s excellent book The End of Faith, and others.

Choudary also has the facts on his side with regard to his comments on demographics. While there are currently thought to be less than 2 million Muslims in the UK (we can’t be sure because the government has no idea how many illegal immigrants it has let in), “Muhammed” is the 17th most popular baby name for boys according to official government statistics (more common according to other statistics). This is disproportionate. Choudary may be a little optimistic (from his point of view) with his 20 years prediction, but it is obvious that if current trends continue then the Islamification of Britain (and indeed Europe as a whole) will be inevitable. This process is currently being helped rather than hindered by European governments.

Further information on these issues can be found in the books “While Europe Slept” by Bruce Bawer, “Londonistan” by Melanie Phillips and “America Alone” by Mark Steyn.”

Barbara Smoker disagreed with me, writing as follows:

“In Gavin Orland’s letter (Newsline 26 June) he says that he was ‘taken aback’ that the Islamic preacher Anjem Choudary was even allowed to set foot in Conway Hall. But that venue stands for free assembly and free speech. The scheduled event was a debate, organised by a student society, between fundamentalist Muslims (of whom Choudary was one) and representatives of the Centre for Social Cohesion. As such, it was totally acceptable. Unfortunately, however, the Muslim extremists managed to hijack the meeting. They barred women from the ground floor, relegating them to the gallery – and even then objected that some non-Muslim men were also seated up there.

The reason why the meeting was cancelled was on account of this imposed sex segregation – not because any person, however obnoxious, is (or should be) denied access to the building.”

Well, the thing is, this e-mail suggests that there should be no limits to free speech and that no place is inappropriate for it, and I can’t agree with that position, so I replied:

“Dear Sir,

In her letter last week, I am afraid Barbara Smoker missed the point of my objection to Anjem Choudary being invited to speak at Conway Hall, even though I went to pains to make it clear in my original letter because I predicted just this kind of response.

It is already well known what Anjem Choudary stands for, so it was unnecessary to go through the charade of a debate with him, but my core point was that it was inappropriate at Conway Hall of all places, and I stand by this. Ms Smoker writes of Muslim extremists “hijacking the meeting”, but Choudary himself is one such extremist (a fundamentalist – the two terms are interchangeable). To invite him was just going through the motions of political correctness, and it is hardly surprising that it ended with him having to be asked to leave.

If Ms Smoker believes that Conway Hall, with its rich tradition for encouraging rational enquiry and humanist ethics, is a suitable place for preachers of hatred to be invited to spout religious dogma, we’re just going to have to differ. I wonder, would she have invited a burgeoning Hitler to invite at Conway Hall too? Because what he said was not so very different from Islamic ideology, as Geert Wilders and many others have pointed out. Personally, I think there are lines that need to be drawn and standards upheld, especially in a venue such as this, and the predictable outcome on this occasion proved me right.
As Graham Davis commented in the latest Newsline: “The sad truth is that being reasonable with Islam is always going to end up as appeasement both at here at home as well as abroad.”
Islamists currently view western liberals as “useful idiots”, and it’s easy to see why. It’s time to wise up and recognise the kind of people we are dealing with when it comes to fundamentalist Islam. If we keep on treating them with “respect” (and giving them a platform at Conway Hall is certainly granting them an honour), we just shouldn’t be surprised when this thrown back in our faces.”

I kind of didn’t expect the NSS to publish this response, as nobody wants and ongoing argument in a newsletter, I just wanted to write it. But they did publish it and Barbara Smoker replied:

“In his reply (Newsline 10 July) to my letter on the commitment of Conway Hall to free assembly and free speech, Gavin Orland says I missed the point of his objection to the Islamic preacher Anjem Choudary having been invited there. No, I understood his point all too well: he would obviously accord free speech to people he agrees with but not to anyone else!

As I explained in my earlier letter, Choudary had been invited (by a student body) to represent Muslim extremism in a balanced debate on the subject. How are people to become aware of the threat of fundamentalist Islam if they are never allowed to come into contact with its advocates and hear their views? To drive it underground is far more dangerous. However, in the event, the meeting was called off, rightly, in light of the imposed sex segregation.

Mr Orland goes on to ask, seemingly as a clinching example, whether I would have allowed “a burgeoning Hitler” to speak in Conway Hall. The answer is yes – as long as his opponents were given equal opportunity to challenge him. Indeed, that might have helped to impede his success in Germany’s election of 1933.”

I’m not going to reply on Newsline because I don’t think people want to see an ongoing disagreement there, but I’ll say something about it here.

A few things have been ignored by Ms Smoker:

• Conway Hall is supposed to be a place for reasoned debate (see above). People like Anjem Choudary are not interested in (or perhaps even capable of) reasoned debate. They represent religious dogma.
• As a matter of interest, I do agree with restricting freedom of speech when it is hate speech of the kind that Choudary spouts. So does British law.
• People are already “aware of the threat of fundamentalist Islam”. Where is Ms Smoker living? Didn’t everyone get to hear about Sept 11th and 7th July?
• I am not talking about driving people like Choudary underground, though we should have security personnel watching there and wherever there is a threat. I’m just talking about not paying him undue and unnecessary respect either.

We, secularists, can well articulate what fundamentalist Muslims say without inviting them into Conway Hall, onto advisory boards and so on. We can quote directly from them when they are at ease. Because they will always give a skewed impression of their true aims when speaking publicly, as indeed Hitler did prior to his election. That is the point. I would urge everyone to read the Qur’an to see its threat, and to listen to quotations from the likes of Choudary, but not to invite him into secularist HQ.

If we take Ms Smoker’s argument a step further, it seems she wishes no limits to free speech and no place where any free speech would be inappropriate, as I mentioned earlier. But there obviously are such places, and there must be some limits to free speech (for example we would wish to prevent a person walking up to a small child and unloading a volley of obscenities – although this happens – and prevent them from indoctrinating children with religion through their words).

Ms Smoker was not the only person to respond to me in Newsline. Craig Lucas said:

“I apologise in advance for perpetuating Gavin Orland’s demonstration of Godwin’s Law but I, for one, would most certainly have liked the opportunity to challenge Hitler at Conway Hall. When such a controversial figure only ever speaks in front of a staged audience, any outside witnesses could be fooled into thinking that the speaker has general public support (this is, of course, why UK politicians like to pack their audiences with party members).

Any opportunity to put extreme views in front of a challenging, rational audience should be welcomed; even if all the speaker does is to rant and get thrown out, it is better than them only ever speaking in front of a passive audience of stooges. It is indeed essential that standards should be upheld but such standards lie in the level of open, rational enquiry available to the Conway Hall audience. The honour to have such a venue available is on the floor, not on the stage.”

What these people are saying is that every point of view has a right to be heard in Conway Hall, and this is where I disagree. I think there are standards to be met first – namely having a rational position at all.

And as for being “fooled into thinking that the speaker has general public support”, what fools me into thinking he has general support is the almost complete silence of British Muslims in the face of people like Choudary, although they already know full well what he says. Perhaps this is because they know it to be true and in accordance with the teachings of the Qur’an – and they must never be seen to break ranks with a fellow Muslim. These are not people likely to turn up to Conway Hall either, incidentally.

Finally, regarding “Godwin’s Law”, it is not really a law at all, and it has been misattributed by Mr Lucas. It is when a person compares another’s position to Hitler’s, essentially committing a straw man fallacy. The trouble is, in the case of Islam, this is a perfectly valid analogy, as the two ideologies have a lot in common – to see this one need only read the Qur’an.

There should be (and are) some limits to free speech, and I maintain there should be some qualifications required to speak at places such as Conway Hall – just as there are standards to be met for being published in an academic journal (or indeed presumably for being published in the NSS newsletter): a minimum requirement being an obvious respect for reason.

Back to the UK

I have just returned to London after six weeks in Florida. It is always shocking and disappointing to return to London. To see that I am not the only one to rightly (if sadly) have a low regard for my many fellow citizens, see the first class writing of Theodore Dalrymple, and for my past impressions, see here.

I guess I could have been landing at any European airport, but the abundance of lip piercings, eyebrow piercings, nose piercings and tattoos suggested English airport above all others. These were accompanied by gum chewing and a complete lack of evident manners, as usual. I waited for my cases then made the trip back, on the train. Very quickly I began to see examples of bad parenting: brusque, harsh language towards children from black parents this time. But to intervene would be doubly taboo: you do not involve yourself with other families, much less so if they are a different colour. It doesn’t matter if the children are being treated badly.

On the train I found a newspaper and read the main stories. They were as follows:

• City bank bonuses bonanza is back. A bank bailed-out by the government (Goldman Sachs) rewards its greedy and incompetent employees with $4.1bn in bonuses.
• Pwoooarty Towers. Mass orgy occurs at stately home.
• “Lovely” teacher crushed to death inside dustcart. A teacher (a teacher, of all things), whom we are encouraged to regard highly, was so drunk he fell asleep inside a rubbish bin and got crushed to death in a lorry. He was very popular, it says (I don’t doubt it) and was always “out having a laugh”.

Then, of course, there are the light-hearted pages, which obsess over “celebrities” who are without any discernible talent and therefore should not even be mentioned.

Arriving back to Balham, I noticed the difference in the behaviour of staff here. There are none of the smiles, the “you’re welcome”s or anything of that kind, which are standard in Florida. You are quite frankly ignored. They will open the gate if they have to, without even looking at you. They are not happy to be doing their jobs. By contrast, the bagger in Walmart was one of the most polite and obviously genuine people I have ever met. I made a point of thanking him.

You can tell you’re back in Balham because immediately you see big, waddling Somali women, making no effort whatsoever to fit into their new culture. I sat in Starbucks for a while and from there I also saw niqab wearing women passing by. Let’s be honest: there isn’t any integration – these societies just live in parallel. But we always have the indigenous people to appreciate – don’t we? Sure. In Waitrose, a surly looking woman wearing a t-shirt saying “I love parties”. Men sitting outside a pub at midday, covering in tattoos, drinking.

What about the staff in aforementioned Waitrose? Surely they compare with the Floridian Walmart? Well if you call having a conversation with their colleague during the entire time of your transaction and hardly acknowledging your presence polite, then sure.

It will take some time to re-adjust to this dead culture. I will do so by trying to avoid it!

Acceptance

It is best of all to be accepted for who you are, but it is better to be rejected for who you are than accepted for someone you’re not – and it is worst of all to be rejected for someone you’re not.