Starmer made several recommendations in a series of Downing Street press conferences to put an end to the rioting, orchestrated by what he called ‘far-right thuggery’. He vowed to punish those involved in criminal damage with lengthy prison terms. Subsequently, he threatened to use facial recognition software to identify the most extreme agitators. The most concerning thing he said was that social media companies should be held more accountable for spreading ‘disinformation’. A dire warning was then issued to everyone who would sow discord by disseminating false information, rumours, or speculation online. 

Of course, false information has circulated widely in recent weeks, both online and off. The majority of the unrest was caused by the blatantly false allegation that the stabbing suspect was a Muslim asylum seeker. Whatever else they indicate, however, the events of August 2024 serve as a terrifying reminder of what happens when the state attempts to control free speech.

The official UK government X account posted  a message on social media warning users to ‘think before you post’, as, according to the Crown Prosecution Service, ‘content that incites violence or hatred isn’t just harmful—it can be illegal.’ If this had come from a friend over a pint in the pub, it wouldn’t have been quite as bad, but this was from an organisation that can put someone in jail for speaking their mind. 

This was the fate of Lee Joseph Dunn, who was sentenced to two months in jail for posting what Cumbria Police called offensive and racially aggravated content online. The 51-year-old Sellafield worker shared three separate images on Facebook. The first featured a group of men who appeared to be Asian and was captioned, ‘Coming to a town near you.’ Another showed Asian-looking men stepping off a boat onto Whitehaven Beach with the caption, ‘When it’s on your turf, then what?’ The final one, which shows men with Asian-like features brandishing knives in front of the Palace of Westminster, was also captioned, ‘Coming to a town near you.’ Offensive? Controversial? Perhaps. However, jail time for words that refrained from inciting violence?

Elon Musk has now become involved. The CEO of X and US tech billionaire took to his own platform. ‘Is this Britain or the Soviet Union?’, he joked, going on to post a Family Guy meme of Peter Griffin about to be executed with the statement, ‘In 2030 for making a Facebook comment the UK government didn’t like.’ He then engaged in a spat with former Scottish First Minister Humza Yousaf, accusing him of being a ‘super, super racist’ who ‘loathes white people.’ Musk is most likely alluding to Humza’s time as the Justice Minister, during which he went on the now-famous ‘white’ tirade, citing a long list of governmental positions along with the colour of the holder’s skin. Remind me about inciting racial hatred again?

The Home Secretary, Yvette Cooper, directed her words towards the online ‘armchair thugs’ she said were to blame. Cooper asserted during an appearance on Radio 4’s Today programme that social media companies were responsible for the ‘shocking misinformation that has escalated’ the riots.

It is likely that some of the people who were arrested will face charges under the Online Safety Act, which criminalises sending false information. Meanwhile, the 2003 Communications Act—specifically Section 127—makes it illegal to send ‘grossly offensive’ messages. If it is ruled that the defendant was motivated by ‘hate’, the sentence may be increased.

That’s the problem with grey areas in the law. It creates definition creep. How do you define hatred? Some people view shouting as violent, but there are no elaborate hate speech laws that prohibit shouting—unless you include the 61-year-old man who was sentenced to 18 months in jail for chanting ‘Who the fuck is Allah?’ in front of the police during a demonstration outside Downing Street on 31 July. People who often cheer the loudest for censorship run the very real risk of experiencing its authoritarian sting themselves. During the Middlesbrough riots, Hope Not Hate CEO Nick Lowles falsely claimed on Twitter that an acid attack had been committed against a Muslim woman. Now, he has apologised. The lesson? Be careful what you wish for. 

It may seem counterintuitive, but it is possible to loathe the rioters’ actions while simultaneously criticising the government’s response and its effects on civil liberties. Any crackdown on free speech, misinformation, or the enduring abstraction of ‘hatred’ will never be limited to those actively committing violent crimes or causing harm to others. It will be used as a weapon against those who have dissenting opinions or criticise government overreach.

Nigel Farage is a case in point. The leader of Reform UK released an ill-advised video implying that the authorities may be hiding important details about the Southport suspect and his possible intentions from the public. For the record, Farage did not repeat any of the false assertions made online that the suspect was a Muslim asylum seeker. Nevertheless, he was accused by LBC’s James O’Brien of directly inciting the riots. The ‘left-wing Limbaugh’ now refers to them as the ‘Farage riots’. If someone assaulted Nigel Farage after listening to this, should James O’Brien be arrested for incitement to violence? No. That’s the thing about free speech. It’s for everyone, not just the people we agree with. 

By labelling everyone as far-right, you run the risk of associating all right-of-centre journalists, populist politicians, and people with moderately centrist viewpoints with extremists and racists. ‘Far-right narratives’ were being mainstreamed after the Southport tragedy, according to the anti-racism organisation Hope Not Hate. How do you define ‘far-right’? According to Hope Not Hate, one defining feature of being far right is believing that multiculturalism isn’t working in the U.K. That opinion, by the way, is a mainstream, majority view, according to Hope Not Hate’s own research.

Some have demanded strong restrictions on so-called ‘Islamophobia’, using the riots as a pretext. The Daily Mail, according to suspended Labour MP Zarah Sultana, has ‘fanned the flames of hate and normalised Islamophobic and anti-migrant rhetoric.’ Labour also adopted the All-Party Parliamentary Group on British Muslims’ divisive definition of Islamophobia while they were in opposition, promising to enact it into law if they were elected. This would effectively make criticising Islam, and potentially even critiquing Islamist terrorism, illegal. It would be a de facto Islamic blasphemy law. When London Mayor Sadiq Khan met with Starmer to celebrate Eid last month, he urged him to do more to tackle Islamophobia. The prime minister agreed. ‘There’s certainly stuff online which I think needs tackling more robustly than it is at the moment,’ he said. 

The dangers of this sort of creeping censorship have been pointed out by respected journalists for years. In 2009, for instance, Christopher Hitchens gave a speech that was remarkably prescient:

The next thing [is] you’ll be told you can’t complain because you’re Islamophobic. The term is already being introduced into the culture as if it was an accusation of race hatred, for example, or bigotry, whereas it’s only the objection to the preachings of a very extreme and absolutist religion.

While we condemn the rioters, prosecute the offenders, and restore the safety and security of the affected communities, we also need to have a serious conversation about why there was such widespread resentment in the first place and the best ways to address people’s legitimate complaints. The breakdown in the social cohesion and coexistence of distinct ethnic communities is the root cause of this communal violence. In the past two years alone, over a million legal immigrants have arrived in Britain each year, most of them from non-European countries. This has resulted in major demographic changes. Between 2001 and 2021, for example, white ethnic Brits decreased as a proportion of the population by 13.1%—from 87.5% to 74.4%.  

Multiculturalism has failed. This is not a controversial statement. Numerous problems have arisen as a result of the mass immigration of individuals who reject Western liberal democracy and our shared, innate sense of civic virtues. Even though white Britons commit many serious crimes, the sharp rise in sectarian violence, interethnic conflicts on the streets of Leicester, the child grooming gang scandal, and the competition for scarce resources have caused many to question the state’s immigration policies. Laws protecting minorities from hate speech and increased censorship only serve to reinforce the perception that white British people are not being heard. 

While the media has pushed the narrative that we are a nation beset with racists and fascists, it is the law-abiding majority who have legitimate reason to feel frustrated—as evidenced by the protestors who yelled ‘save our kids’. If we don’t address some serious questions about immigration, violence, and why the police appear to treat some people from minority backgrounds differently, these riots will happen again and again. To combat this, we need more, not less speech. 

Related reading

The far right and ex-Muslims: ‘The enemy of my enemy is not my friend’, by Sara Al-Ruqaishi

Reflections on the far right riots: a predictable wave of violence, by Khadija Khan

Featured image: Laurie Noble. CC BY 3.0.

The post Free speech and the ‘Farage riots’ appeared first on The Freethinker.

All this, to my mind, underscores the need for a much more robust secularism in the UK. Perhaps we ought to start with the Church of England? The CoE, after all, was the original—and, thus far, the single most successful—sectarian religious group dedicated to imposing on the rest of us. Without such privilege enshrined in our law and state, other groups will have a much weaker foundation for their own claims to special treatment. ~ Daniel James Sharp, Editor

In his first address to the nation as prime minister, Keir Starmer promised that his government will ‘unite our country’.

This must be a priority for our new PM. The 2024 election campaigning and its result keenly illustrated why.

Rishi Sunak’s call for a general election predictably sparked a flurry of wishlists for the next government from myriad groups. But this election’s lobbying frenzy was overcast by a worrying shadow of sectarianism.

A coalition of Hindu organisations released a ‘Hindu Manifesto’ which said linking Hinduism to issues of caste and misogyny in India could be considered ‘Hinduphobia’, and that Hinduphobia should be criminalised.

The Board of Deputies of British Jews published a ‘Jewish Manifesto’ calling for future MPs to allow religious freedom to trump other rights, by protecting the controversial practises of ritual circumcision on baby boys and ritual non-stun slaughter of animals.

And the ‘Sikh Manifesto’ 2020-2025 from the Sikh Network called for a ‘code of practice’ on the right of Sikhs to wear religious items such as swords and recognition of ‘anti-Sikh hate’ in a ‘similar fashion to Anti-Semitism and Islamophobia’.

All three manifestos called for more support for state-funded, segregated faith schools for their respective communities, as did the Catholic Union. Interestingly, a newer Sikh Manifesto from the Sikh Network omitted this call—a step in the right direction.

All three manifestos also made some barbed references to sections of other religious communities. The Hindu Manifesto accused Islamist and Sikh extremists of ‘acts of violence’ against UK Hindus and suggested that the government is giving more support to Muslim and Jewish causes than Hindu ones. Conversely, the latest Sikh Manifesto says the government ‘needs to confront Hindu nationalist groups’ in the UK, while lamenting that Sikhs are under-represented in the Lords compared with Jews, Muslims, and Hindus. And the Jewish Manifesto expressed that ‘Islamist extremists’ are one of the ‘major threats to the immediate physical security of British Jews’.

These concerns are all valid. But their inclusion in each religious group’s ‘manifesto’ suggests that cracks between British religious communities are widening.

Meanwhile, a group of Muslim organisations launched ‘The Muslim Vote’, whose ‘high level pledges’ include adopting the contentious All-Party Parliamentary Group on British Muslims’ ‘Islamophobia’ definition and ensuring school rules have exemptions to accommodate pupils wearing ‘religious symbols’ and attending Friday prayers.

A similar ‘Muslim Vote’ campaign has been launched in Australia, ahead of the next federal election. The country’s prime minister Anthony Albanese has spoken out against it, saying: ‘I don’t think, and don’t want, Australia to go down the road of faith-based political parties because what that will do is undermine social cohesion.’

He’s right. But in the UK, too many candidates have instead rushed to embrace faith-based politics. Some have publicly endorsed the various faith manifestos and posted pictures of themselves clutching them on social media.

And sectarian politics had significant success in this election. Despite its overall victory, Labour lost four seats to independent candidates backed by The Muslim Vote in Leicester, Blackburn, Birmingham Perry Barr, and Dewsbury and Batley. Other Labour MPs only just held on to their seats, including the new health secretary Wes Streeting, who retained his seat with just 528 more votes than the candidate backed by The Muslim Vote, Leanne Mohamad.

Sectarianism, particularly in connection to the Israel-Gaza conflict, also underpinned appalling campaigns of abuse and threats against candidates. Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi and Rushanara Ali were smeared as genocide supporters, Naz Shah was followed around and heckled by a man who called her a ‘dirty, dirty Zionist’, and Jess Phillips was heckled during her victory speech with cries of ‘free Palestine’. Phillips called it the ‘worst election’ she’d ever stood in, and that one Labour activist had her tyres slashed.

Starmer’s Labour government has inherited a country where most people have no religion, Christians are a minority for the first time in history, and other religions are growing in number and variety. But most of us don’t let religion divide us. During his campaign, Sunak called the UK ‘the world’s most successful multi-ethnic, multi-faith democracy’. It is true that, in general, we rub along pretty well with each other, but the lack of separation between religion and state creates unequal citizenship and so undermines this claim.

The election has revealed powerful forces which threaten to split our communities apart and pit them against each other. And many of our representatives seem all too happy to help them, for the sake of votes.

This approach will not heal divisions. It will instead entrench the notion that religious communities should compete with each other, rather than work for the mutual benefit of all UK citizens of all religions and beliefs.

How will Starmer face this challenge? So far, not all signs have been encouraging. Despite his personal atheistic beliefs, Starmer is in danger of falling into the same trap by appealing to faith-based interests. He told Premier Christianity magazine that his government will work ‘in partnership with churches and faith communities’, using a ‘network of parliamentary faith champions’.

Starmer needs to ensure that this ‘partnership’ doesn’t lead to a balkanization of public services or become a vehicle for proselytising and religious privilege.

Before the election, Starmer said his government would be ‘even more supportive of faith schools’ than the Conservatives. An early test for Labour will be whether they resist Catholic bishops’ demands to continue with the Tories’ dreadful plan to abolish the 50% cap on faith-based admissions at free schools, paving the way for a new wave of religiously, ethnically, and socio-economically segregated faith schools.

If Starmer wants to make sure his vision for a changed United Kingdom doesn’t turn it into a divided one, he and his party must consider carefully their approach to religion. Rather than giving more and more privileges to religious elites at the expense of equality, cohesion, and fairness, the government should work to ensure our society is a level playing field based on shared values, where individuals of all religions and beliefs have the opportunity to flourish.

Let’s hope the change Labour promised is in the right direction.

Related reading

What secularists want from the next UK Government, by Stephen Evans

The case of Richard Dawkins: cultural affiliation with a religious community does not contradict atheism, by Kunwar Khuldune Shahid

Faith schools: where do the political parties stand? by Stephen Evans

Circumcision: the human rights violation that no one wants to talk about, by Alejandro Sanchez

Britain’s liberal imam: Interview with Taj Hargey, by Emma Park

Cannibal Speaks Out, by Modus Tollens

Islamic identity politics is a threat to British democracy, by Khadija Khan

Three years on, the lessons of Batley are yet to be learned, by Jack Rivington

Secularism and the struggle for free speech, by Stephen Evans

Bring on the British republic – Graham Smith’s ‘Abolish the Monarchy’, reviewed, by Daniel James Sharp

Secularisation and Protestantism in the 2021 Northern Ireland Census, by Charlie Lynch

The need to rekindle irreverence for Islam in Muslim thought, by Kunwar Khuldune Shahid

British Islam and the crisis of ‘wokeism’ in universities: interview with Steven Greer, by Emma Park

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Every couple of years, whenever he declares that he is a ‘cultural Christian’, Richard Dawkins provides a ‘gotcha!’ moment to a whole host of ideologues. That he has expressed this sentiment for at least a couple of decades should suffice in putting to bed the self-congratulatory notion that his latest LBC reiteration is a triumph of Christianity over nonbelief or the death knell for ‘New Atheism’. These claims have been made more frequently recently, owing to Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s recent conversion from atheism to Christianity. In fact, her conversion prompted an open letter by the evolutionary biologist questioning her embrace of Christian beliefs.

Another reason why Dawkins’s LBC interview received backlash was that he set contemporary British Christian culture against Islam, declared his dislike of Ramadan celebrations in Britain, described Britain as a (culturally) ‘Christian country’, and noted that Islam is ‘hostile’ to, for example, gay rights and women’s rights. But again, there is nothing new about Dawkins’s singling out of Islam as being especially problematic today—even many Muslim thinkers concede this. Like Christopher Hitchens before him, he believes that Christianity was just as dangerous as Islam historically (he states as much in his open letter to Hirsi Ali).¹ Even so, Dawkins does not limit the simultaneous embracing of a cultural affiliation with a religion and staunch atheism to Christianity, even extending it to Islam in The God Delusion.

The idea that atheism and religious identity can coexist in an individual is hardly groundbreaking. In Sanatana Dharma, or Hinduism, the nirishvaravadi (one who rejects the notion of a divine supreme being) and the nastika (those who reject the divinity of Hindu scripture) not only have the freedom to self-identify as a Hindu, but also have the Vedic, or scriptural, permission to do so. Both Jainism and Buddhism stem from the nastika tradition of Hinduism, rejecting the notion of a creator—albeit still preaching the divine and the supernatural, thus underlining the fluidity of the Indic belief systems. However, while the combination of irreligion with religious culture is natural in syncretic polytheism, pantheism, and non-theism, it is more difficult to envisage in Abrahamic monotheism.

While Jews run the gamut from the ultra-Orthodox to the atheist, all of whom unapologetically lay claim to a Jewish identity, Christianity and Islam are the last bastions of monotheistic rigidity. It is no coincidence that these two became the two largest religions in the world, given the aggressive evangelicalism and the notion of one, absolutist, divine truth common to both. These strategies have since been coopted by political dogmas that establish themselves as quasi-religions, which in recent years can be seen in the rise of Critical Social Justice ideology or ‘wokeism’. The Christian uproar against Dawkins identifying with Christianity owing to his rejection of the Biblical doctrine is no different to the woke repudiation of Dawkins as left-leaning or progressive owing to his blaspheming against gender ideology, for which he has been duly excommunicated by the American Humanist Association. But, of course, these affronts carry a whole different meaning in Muslim countries and communities.

Not only is Islam unparalleled in how it explicitly names other religions as enemies, and in how it reiterates the negation of all other faiths and gods in its daily prayers, but most critically it today remains the only religion that codifies death and violence for thought crimes in numerous states. And yet, despite facing sharia-codified violence, many thinkers for centuries have managed to merge a communal Muslim identity with a rejection of Islamic faith, from Persian alchemists to Turkic physicians to Arab philosophers to Urdu poets in the Indian subcontinent. Granted that self-preservation has been a significant motivation for such thinkers, many also associated with religious culture owing to their desire for uplift and community. This invariably hinges on fighting theological dogma, for it is convenient for the fundamentalists to reject even indigenous voices that self-identify as being outside of the fold as echoers of alien ideas, an allegation customarily launched against the critical thought propounded by many prominent ex-Muslims in recent years.

Furthermore, those who establish theological belief as the definitive feature of religious identity ignore that only a fraction of humankind chooses their faith when they convert from one to another; for the rest, religious identity is just a coincidence of birth, not much different to nationality or ethnicity. Also, if belief were to be used as the determiner, its logical extrapolation would be to presume that all members of the community are adherents of all religious tenets, making all Christians homophobes and all Muslims violently misogynistic. The very reason many have championed a rethinking of the term ‘Islamophobia’ is that it conflates Islam and Muslims, a distinction that many, including Dawkins in his latest LBC interview, maintain is critical so as to protect the expression of critiques against the harmful ideas Muslims and ex-Muslims alike are born into.

Another much-regurgitated critique of Dawkins’s latest interview, which arguably he has walked into himself, is that by identifying as a cultural Christian, the atheist scholar wants to ‘reap the fruits’ of Christianity without believing in the tree that produced them. When Dawkins calls Britain a ‘Christian country’—regardless of the cultural or communal asterisks—to reject Islamic displays, he inadvertently echoes Christian nationalists and their relegation of Muslims, and members of other religious communities, as lesser members of British society, even if not in the eyes of law. Any secular state, which Dawkins has spent a lifetime advocating for, should neither be Christian, nor Muslim, nor affiliated with any other religion, which is perhaps best achieved by limiting all religious displays to their designated spheres.

This is the crucial difference between people formulating religio-cultural identities and states doing so. State secularism has been, and remains, more critical to human progress than any variation of theism or atheism, and it is the sole guarantor of coexistence for all belief systems and cultures, especially when implemented without any preference for the majority or minority. And it is in secular realms that all orthodox and heterodox identities, including nonbelieving members of monotheistic communities, can find their own spaces to express themselves.

1. Hitchens argued that all religions were evil, but not always in the same way or to the same extent at different times; he once said that if he had lived in the 1930s he would view the Catholic Church as the most evil religious force. He was well aware, too, of the many contemporary threats posed by Christian fanatics, and believed that ‘over space and time…[the threat of different religions] tremendously evens out… [And that all religions are] equally rotten, false, dishonest, corrupt, humourless, and dangerous, in the last analysis.’ ︎

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As revealed in the new review by the Independent Advisor on Social Cohesion and Resilience Sara Khan, the teacher was utterly failed by the school, police, and political authorities. Their response exposed a severe lack of understanding of the seriousness of blasphemy accusations, and only succeeded in validating and encouraging the demands of the mob.

This is particularly true of Batley Grammar School (BGS), which decided to issue an apology to the parents of every pupil after a single menacing phone call. The apology provided no context or explanation for the lesson’s content, and leaders did not consult the religious studies (RS) teacher before sending it.

This attempt at appeasement actually invited further pressure, legitimising religious outrage by accepting there was something that required an apology. Now faced with agitators outside the school gates, and the sharing of the teacher’s image and personal details online, the school capitulated. Senior leaders denounced the use of the image at a televised press conference, and met several self-appointed ‘community leaders’ – none of whom were parents. They also suspended the teacher, isolating him by preventing communication with his colleagues.

The effect of this ordeal upon the teacher and his family has been severe. He remains in hiding, unable to return home, and living with the effects of post-traumatic stress disorder and suicidal thoughts. His children missed months of education, and had to sleep on the floor of squalid temporary accommodation.

Galling as it is to see Batley Multi Academy Trust stand by its actions in the Khan review, schools are under-equipped and under-qualified to manage situations like those faced by BGS. Far less forgivable are the failures of those responsible for defending our democratic freedoms: the local authority Kirklees Council, local MP Tracy Brabin, and West Yorkshire Police.

Kirklees Council, which issued no public statement of any kind during the protests, told the Khan review that they took this decision to maintain their relationship with the local Muslim community. This illustrates an alarmingly ignorant view of Muslims as a homogenous group, with a single viewpoint to which one must defer in the interests of cohesion. In reality, a plurality of views exists amongst British Muslims on every issue and, as the Khan review makes clear, many Muslim parents at Batley did not support the protests.

Brabin’s statement at the time describing protestors’ ‘upset and offence’ as ‘understandable’ and ‘predictable’ betrayed the same ignorance, and a bigotry of low expectations towards British Muslims. Though she issued a meekly worded criticism of the threats and intimidation directed towards the RS teacher some days after her first statement, it was tempered by a simultaneous welcome of the school’s apology and ‘recognition of the offence caused’. Like the council, Brabin validated religious hysteria about a drawing of a human being and sold out the right to free expression in the hope of a quiet life.

The police’s appalling response to the protests is only comprehensible in light of comments made by one anonymous officer to the Khan review, describing how police inadvertently support extremist preachers in the misguided belief that they have a positive relationship with a minority community. Even so, one would have thought the murder of Samuel Paty—beheaded in Paris for teaching a very similar lesson to the one delivered in Batley just six months earlier— would have led police to take the threat to the RS teacher very seriously. Instead, they treated the protests as a low-risk ‘neighbourhood incident’, a baffling decision given the blasphemy-motivated murders of Asad Shah in Glasgow and Jalal Uddin in Rochdale in 2016.

In the Khan review, experienced police officers also criticised the failure to make clear that any threatening, harassing, or intimidatory behaviour against the RS teacher and other school staff would not be tolerated, and that perpetrators would be subject to the full force of the law. To date, no arrests have been made for the harassment the Batley RS teacher experienced.

The events at Batley are not unique. In 2023, a pupil received death threats after a Quran was lightly damaged at a Wakefield school. Once again so-called community leaders used this as an opportunity to whip up tension, leading to representatives from the school, West Yorkshire Police, and the boy’s mother appearing at a local mosque in order to ease tensions. As with Batley, every effort was made to accommodate, appease, and defuse, with very little made to challenge.

In these responses, we see the success of dogmatic religious activists in convincing public bodies that they represent the wider Muslim community, and how the privileging of religious sentiments throughout public life makes it more difficult to challenge fundamentalism.

Only now do some of the lessons of these events finally seem to be sinking in. Action to challenge the fundamentalist threat to our schools is long overdue, and the Khan review’s recommendation to form a specialist unit to support schools which find themselves targeted by religious thugs is a step in the right direction.

But it is not enough. Until we succeed in denying the concept of blasphemy as one which should have any force in our society, or indeed worldwide, events like those in Batley will continue. Yet instead of challenging blasphemy-related extremism, political parties, local government, universities, and civil society promote the nebulous and authoritarian concept of ‘Islamophobia’, which opens the door to criticism and discussion of religion being portrayed as attacks upon individuals. This is little more than a blasphemy law disguised as a diversity and inclusion initiative.

There are signs UK society is coming to terms with the danger and scale of anti-blasphemy violence. Let us hope we can wake up to this threat before any more innocent teachers are left living with post-traumatic stress, or any more individuals are beheaded for asserting their right to freedom of speech.

Editorial note: this piece was originally published on the National Secular Society website on 4 April 2024 and is republished here with permission.

Further reading

Blasphemy in the classroom, by Emma Park (New Humanist)

Free speech in Britain: a losing battle? by Porcus Sapiens

Secularism and the struggle for free speech, by Stephen Evans

Britain’s blasphemy heritage, by David Nash

Cancel culture and religious intolerance: ‘Falsely Accused of Islamophobia’, by Steven Greer, by Daniel James Sharp

Blasphemy and bishops: how secularists are navigating the culture wars, by Emma Park

Faith Watch, November 2023 and Faith Watch, March 2024, by Daniel James Sharp

The Michaela School and religious exceptionalism, by Khadija Khan

The post Three years on, the lessons of Batley are yet to be learned appeared first on The Freethinker.

While Ramadan is a sacred month for Muslims, let us not forget that it is also an excuse for religious fanatics and theocratic Islamic governments to force individuals to adhere to their intolerable ideologies. While Ramadan is said to be a month of compassion, generosity, introspection, and tranquillity, it is also a month of persecution and pain during which those who refuse to comply with fasting rules are bullied and oppressed.

Many closeted apostates and liberal Muslims around the world face harsh punishment for defying fasting rules. They endure severe penalties, isolation, and exclusion in the name of religion. It is therefore important that, during Ramadan, we scrutinise such appalling attitudes, which are contrary to the spirit of human dignity and freedom.

In Pakistan, according to the Ehtram-e-Ramazan Ordinance, anyone eating in public places during fasting hours can be fined and/or jailed for three months. These draconian Ramadan laws have been used to harass and persecute minorities across the country. In 2016, a Hindu man in his eighties was beaten up for eating rice before Iftar (the fast-breaking evening meal during Ramadan). Such a horrific incident set a dangerous precedent in a society that is already plagued with ever-growing religious intolerance.

In 2014 in Iran, where fasting rules are also enforced by law, two men were publicly flogged for eating during fasting hours. In Nigeria this year, eleven Muslims were arrested for eating during Ramadan. In Oman, Muslims who break the fasting rules can be fined or arrested. In Egypt, where there is technically no legal enforcement of Ramadan, cafes have been stormed by police for not following Ramadan edicts.

Even in the West, this bullying is not uncommon. Allegedly, a non-Muslim man in England was recently bullied by his Muslim colleagues for eating during fasting hours in their presence. The full context of the video is unclear, but the man filming it can be heard using the slur ‘kuffar’ against the man who was eating.

It is absurd that those who are convinced that fasting is a spiritual necessity are obsessively concerned with whether others are participating in their rituals. There is a plethora of reasons why someone could not be fasting, including old age, illness, medicine, pregnancy, impending travel, not being a Muslim, or simply not feeling like it. Coercing people into not eating or drinking for your sake is not respecting someone’s religious sensibilities. It is a blatant instance of religious bullying. If someone’s faith is so shaky that they feel disturbed by the sight of another person eating, then perhaps they need to set their own house in order rather than inflicting pain on others.

To defy such rigid and draconian fasting rules, last month the Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain (CEMB) staged fast-defying picnics in London outside the embassies of Pakistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Morocco—countries that prosecute people for eating in public during the fasting hours of Ramadan. I was an attendee.

Fast-defying activists drinking a toast outside the embassies were approached by staff and security officers, who continuously questioned the activists’ motivation for eating and drinking in protest of compulsory Ramadan fasting. The security guards and the staff watched over the activists through windows. As CEMB put it, ‘they weren’t too pleased to see us there and shared some disgruntled looks, and kept an eye on us, peeking through the windows.’

Outside the Saudi embassy, two armed police officers approached the protestors and asked them pointed questions about eating and drinking outside the embassy. CEMB spokesperson Ali Malik explained to them that ‘We’re not Muslim. You’re free to be a Muslim the same way we are free to drink.’ The officers even called their colleagues and a police van showed up right away, but those officers soon left when they realised no crime was being committed. The two armed officers remained and could be seen looking up public drinking regulations, presumably looking for an excuse to take action. They failed, but this shows how willing even the British police are to intimidate and harass Ramadan dissidents.

Maryam Namazie, the spokesperson for CEMB, wrote to me:

‘People are expected not to eat out of respect for Muslims’ religious sensibilities. For us, defying fasting during Ramadan is very crucial because we remember all the pressure and intimidation, the flogging, and the arrests that have been inflicted on those who defy fasting edicts. Even in Britain, if you have a Muslim name or you look Muslim, they’ll say “why are you not fasting?”. The whole idea of identity politics is such that people feel entitled, as if they have a right to ask you that and put pressure on you.’ (Lightly edited for clarity.)

She further added, ‘The imposition of Ramadan rules by brute force is linked to the rise of Islamism. Therefore, these fast-defying picnics are an important form of dissent against intimidating Islamists who seek to subjugate people and in solidarity with those who are persecuted during this bleak month for merely drinking or eating to allay their thirst or hunger.’

Ramadan bullying is just one of the many ways in which extremist Muslims oppress the vulnerable. Inside some Muslim communities, women are treated as second-class citizens and human rights are completely disregarded. Closeted apostates and liberals in these communities are the greatest victims of this extremism, as they are forced to be silent and obey at the price of ostracization—or worse. Those who criticise such dogma and bullying, whether they are Muslim or not, are frequently accused of being an ‘Islamophobe’ or a bigot, but this only serves to validate and strengthen the Islamists, which, in the end, only leads to harm—of Muslims as well as non-Muslims.

Society must be free to scrutinise and criticise practices that are incompatible with human rights. The fringe elements who seek to dominate public discourse through fear and intimidation need to be called out unequivocally. Only then can we protect the most vulnerable of all: the dissident minorities within minorities.

Further reading on Islam, Ramadan, and dissent

Interview with Maryam Namazie: ‘The best way to combat bad speech is with good speech’

Religion and the decline of freethought in South Asia, by Kunwar Khuldune Shahid

The price of criticising Islam in northern Nigeria: imprisonment or death, by Emma Park

The need to rekindle irreverence for Islam in Muslim thought, by Kunwar Khuldune Shahid

Breaking the silence: Pakistani ex-Muslims find a voice on social media, by Tehreem Azeem

From religious orthodoxy to free thought, by Tehreem Azeem

Faith Watch, March 2024, by Daniel James Sharp

The post Mind Your Ramadan! appeared first on The Freethinker.

Official secular states are falling like dominoes into the hands of radical religionists the world over. Many secular Israelis say they would rather cope with anti-Semitic backlash overseas than live under the incumbent ultra-Judaic regime. India, an erstwhile battleground for minority and majority fundamentalisms, is now firmly in the grip of Hindutvaadis (proponents of Hindutva or Hindu nationalism), who control the state machinery. There are demands for death and apartheid for sacrilege against Islam in Bangladesh. Even the US, the ‘leader of the free world’, cannot guarantee anatomical freedom for half of its population owing to the pervasiveness of conservative Christian beliefs about abortion.

In these countries and others, not only have secular spaces been usurped by religion, but the term ‘secularism’ itself has been declared anathema by the religionists. Meanwhile, the self-avowed defendants of secularism – especially the left-wing progressives, depicted as part of the liberal elite by their detractors, who are accustomed to combatting philosophical challenges with condescension more than contemplation – are religiously refusing to accept that their own privileging of regressive ideas is analogous to intolerant religious dogma. The tendency of left-wing progressives to equate satire on Islam with persecution of Muslims, or to conjure up unsubstantiated allegations of ‘Islamophobia’, reveals an embrace of Islamic dogma which is part of a comprehensive failure to strengthen the separation of religion and state.

Amidst all this apparent backtracking, left-leaning progressives of this persuasion have arguably made a pariah out of the only rendition of secularism that actually is uncompromisingly neutral on religion: laïcité.

Every time French authorities treat Islam like other religions, the blame is laid at the door of laïcité. This simple refusal to allow for Islamic exceptionalism might as well be the effective definition of ‘Islamophobia’. Whether it is the anti-radicalism bill, the enforcement of the ban on religious symbols in public institutions, or the 1905 law that laid the foundation of the separation of church and state, none of the French legislative provisions explicitly mentions Islam and all are equally applicable to all religions. If an egalitarian law impacts some groups of ideological adherents more so than others, it only serves to highlight the expansionist and exceptionalist tendencies of those ideologies, rather than any intrinsic discrimination in policy. Yet this remains a blind spot for those Anglo-American progressive secularists, whose treatment of anti-secularist ideas sometimes seems to depend on nothing more than the numerical strength of their proponents.

The fundamental difference between classical Anglo-Saxon secularism and French laïcité lies in the way in which they separate state and religion. Anglo-Saxon secularism aspires to separate the state from the individual, or communal, religious space, while French laïcité aims to separate religion from statecraft. The differences are rooted in the countries’ respective histories of secularisation, and their corresponding sociological evolutions. The US and the UK have sought the post-Enlightenment harmonisation of Christian sects, while France predominantly occupied itself with overturning the monopoly of the Catholic Church in the nineteenth century.

The Indian version of secularism is even more passive and accommodationist. Different religious communities have been allowed to govern their own exclusive matters: this in effect creates separate communal spheres which have adopted an apparent commitment, at least temporarily, towards coexistence, in line with the pluralistic, polytheistic, traditions of the Indian subcontinent. However, while today’s multi-religious societies pose a challenge that the Anglo-Saxon and Indian brands were supposedly designed to address, it is French laïcité that offers the best solution, because it would eliminate religion from any level of governance altogether, and so in effect would create more robust checks, both between and within religions.

Paradoxically, by officially distinguishing between communities based on religious beliefs in their bid to maintain harmony between them, both the Anglo-Saxon and Indian brands of secularism actually institutionalise religious separation. This in turn empowers radical ideologues within these communities to uphold their religion’s exceptionalism, because they are able to define its adherents through the narrowest interpretation of their ideology and demand others to respect this strain in the ‘sprit of secularism’. For instance, the Islamic ban on the depiction of Muhammad – a Salafi enforcement which was not originally in other interpretations of Islam – has been dutifully lapped up by many in the Anglo-Saxon ‘progressive elite’, who are terrified of offending ‘all Muslims’. Furthermore, this buttressing of ideological lines abandons minorities and the marginalised within those communities to their fate, as exemplified by the Muslim women being victimised by sharia rulings even in the West.

Elsewhere, secularism and religious heritage are coalescing to forge national identities and ultimately bring about theological takeovers. Unlike the adherents of the other two Abrahamic faiths, secular and even nonbelieving Jews have historically overcome identitarian dissonance by staking their claim to being an ethnoreligious group. However, given that this belief itself is rooted in the orthodox, religious Judaic tradition of matrilineal descent, the transformation of Israel from a state for the (ethnic) Jewish people to one for (religious) adherents of Judaism – especially after decades of the sustained privileging of ultra-orthodox Jews – was inevitable.

In India, the land of Sanatana Dharma, or Vedic religions, which in themselves are scripturally devoid of the monotheistic rigidity of Abrahamic texts, it is the Hindutva, or ‘Hinduness’, that is being peddled by the majoritarian ideologues as an uncharacteristically monolithic definition of an Indian. This in turn elevates Hindu beliefs over others even unofficially. Sri Lanka, meanwhile, has facilitated the rise of radical Buddhists by describing Buddhist heritage as the supreme binding force of the nation in the state’s constitution. This illustrates the way in which the Dharmic religions of the Indian subcontinent too can be weaponised to enforce a nationalistic religious hegemony and erode longstanding traditions of secularism. Myanmar has taken this weaponisation to murderous extremes, prompting the ethnic cleansing of Rohingya Muslims.

Laïcité provides safeguards against any consolidation of religious dominance by barring the manifestation of any religion, majority or minority, in public institutions. As such, it in effect treats religion like any other ideology. The fundamental failure of all other brands of secularism is that they allow exceptional behaviour in the name of a religious ideology that they would not allow on the basis of other ideologies, traditions, or individual preferences. Judges or teachers are not allowed to wear the insignia of political parties, because of the suggestion of bias that they would create; the wearing of religious emblems in public institutions should not be treated any differently. To make exceptions for religion where they would not be allowed for political beliefs or personal prejudices is to give religions a truly privileged status, which undermines a state’s claim to be neutral in such matters of conscience.

Laïcité is also often misinterpreted as an exclusively French obsession or colonial hangover, which France has exercised over its Arab or Muslim subjects. But this misinterpretation dismisses the various versions of secularism that have thrived across the world. The tradition of laïcité has sustained secular ideals in Tunisia and Lebanon; secularists in the latter have even organised ‘Laique Pride’ protests to insist that only a more assertive secularism can undo the religious and sectarian fault lines dividing their society. Making the state laico in 2010 helped Mexico to decriminalise abortion last year; as a result, many American women have travelled down south to exercise their fundamental human right to bodily autonomy.  

Albania overcame the Millet institutionalisation of religious communities, an Ottoman remnant, through the creation of shtet laik, ‘laicist state’, and a strict neutrality on religion. The maintenance of shtet laik also helped the Muslim-majority European state overcome the state-sanctioned atheism and religious repression of the Communist era, which has seen an Islamist resurgence in many other Soviet states since the fall of the USSR. The unflinching neutrality emphasised by laïcité, and its many proponents, also extends to anti-religious expressions. It is critical to stress this point, since an active crackdown on religious beliefs undoes impartiality. In other words, privileging atheism above religion, in policymaking and statecraft, is no better than the other way round.

Similarly, it is crucial to note that merely enshrining laïcité in the constitution is no guarantee of sustained state neutrality on religion. The example of Turkey shows how any reversal in staunch secularism, whether in the name of nationalism or misdirected liberalism, eventually paves the way for a religious takeover. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is the man who spearheaded Turkey’s Islamisation; Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu is the leader of the Mustafa Kemal Atatürk-founded Republican People’s Party (CHP) that created Turkey on the founding principle of laiklik, or laicism. As the two rivals participated in the runoff election on 28th May – one of the most critical elections of recent times – even a cursory debate on the country’s secularism was not being held. This was because the Turkish opposition had surrendered in advance to the nation’s conservatives, who want more Islam in governance and consider it integral to Turkish identity. Such an attitude has unsurprisingly eroded religious tolerance and subjugated minorities in the country once deemed the benchmark for Muslim secularism.

The reason different versions of laicism have been misconstrued as ‘illiberal’, whether in Turkey or France, is due not least to the general capitulation among progressives to identity politics. This attitude not only reinforces communitarian boundaries, but earmarks certain minorities as designated vote banks. Whether it is the Labour or Democratic parties in the Anglo-American sphere, or the Congress in India, traditionally left-wing parties have, not unlike their opponents on the right, sought to profit from a communal segmentation, with both ends of the political spectrum offering contrasting, but similarly damaging, perversions of secularism. This divisive approach has helped create a world where both the rejection of religious ritualism, and the embrace of religious identitarianism, are simultaneously rising, as demagogues within religious communities successfully exploit the loopholes in submissive secularism. Religious ideologies do not only threaten the principle of equality before the law, but have now mutated into forms of religiously-grounded nationalism. This makes it more critical than ever to confine the manifestation of religion, as of all other ideological manifestations, to its designated sphere.

Where ‘religious tolerance’ has become synonymous with tolerating religious intolerance, a form of secularism that is sustainable and that treats everyone equally can only be attained by making religion irrelevant in all matters of public policy. This is what the supporters of laïcité maintain, notwithstanding various shortcomings in its implementation in states like France. The ideologues who champion the more selective and opportunistic brands of secularism fear that making religion inconsequential might render their own positions irrelevant. It is thus crucial to safeguard secularism from manipulation, whether by progressives, religious ideologues or nationalists. The only way that this can be done is by upholding truly ‘laicist’ neutrality on religion.

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In the last fortnight, the National Secular Society participated in two quite different discussion events in London. Both events contributed to the debate on how and why Britain should continue its movement towards greater secularisation, why religious privilege should be abolished, and the extent to which free speech should be a fundamental democratic principle.

On Wednesday 10th May, the Free Speech Union hosted FSU In-Depth: Blasphemy law by the back door, in central London. The speakers included the NSS’s CEO, Stephen Evans. He was joined by Dr Rakib Ehsan, author of Beyond Grievance: What the Left Gets Wrong about Ethnic Minorities; Emma Webb, director of the UK branch of the Common Sense Society and a member of the National Conservatism conference committee; and Ben Jones, the deputy director of the FSU cases team, who has recently completed a PhD on British ex-Muslims. The meeting was chaired by the FSU’s founder and director, Toby Young.

On Wednesday 17th May, the NSS hosted Future of church and state in Committee Room 5 of the Houses of Parliament. Stephen Evans chaired a disparate panel consisting of the veteran Labour journalist and long-term secularist Polly Toynbee; Martyn Percy, former Dean of Christ Church, Oxford; Tommy Sheppard, a Scottish National Party MP and chair of the All Party Parliamentary Humanist Group; and Jayne Ozanne, a gay evangelical Christian activist.

In the ‘culture wars’ which are so fracturing British society at present, the NSS occupies a finely balanced position.

On the one hand, the society has been a strong critic of the imposition of de facto blasphemy laws by religious groups in the UK. Opposition to blasphemy laws and the free criticism of religion, as Evans observed at the FSU meeting, have long been key aspects of secularism. This goes right back to 1883, when GW Foote, the second president of the NSS and first editor of the Freethinker, was imprisoned for publishing cartoons that were blasphemous of Christianity. Secularists, from a political perspective, have always resisted the authority adopted by religious institutions and their power to impose their doctrines on wider society.

In recent years, probably dating back to the fatwa against Salman Rushdie in 1989, the main drive to rein in free speech about religion in the UK has come not from Christians, as in the nineteenth and much of the twentieth centuries, but from hardline Muslim organisations and leaders. This was made clear in the Batley Grammar School case, the Jesus and Mo cartoon mug case, and, earlier this year, the Wakefield Koran-scuffing case. The NSS has certainly been vocal in criticising the readiness of secular authorities, including schools and the police, to sacrifice the teacher who showed a cartoon of Mohammed in class, or the student who dropped a Koran, to the wrath of religious demagogues.

As Evans also pointed out, the NSS and the FSU – along with other organisations, including Humanists UK – have criticised the definition of ‘Islamophobia’ that was proposed by the All Party Parliamentary Group on British Muslims and subsequently adopted by Labour, the Liberal Democrats, the Green Party, and all of Scotland’s political parties. According to this definition, ‘Islamophobia is rooted in racism and is a type of racism that targets expressions of Muslimness or perceived Muslimness.’ But this invocation of racism enables it to be used as a way of silencing people who criticise Islam, said Evans: as Charles Bradlaugh, founder of the NSS, put it, ‘without free speech, no search for truth is possible.’

The problem is with what Young, who makes no secret of his right-wing sympathies, calls the ‘woke’ left – many of whom, particularly at educational and arts institutions, seem to have fallen over themselves to adopt this muddled concept. When the law academic Steven Greer was accused of Islamophobia by the Bristol Islamic Society – falsely, as was later proven – it was his own progressive colleagues, as well as the university authorities, who were involved in his ostracism and effective ‘cancellation’.

On the other hand, Rakib Ehsan argued that freedom of expression was the ‘friend’ of socially conservative minorities, such as the Muslim community in which he had grown up. He explained that one of the reasons he supported free speech was that he wanted to be able to criticise the teaching of some forms of sex and relationships education at his children’s school. In doing so, he accepted that the right to criticise extends to everyone. (Readers may recall the controversy surrounding the protests by conservative Muslim parents in Birmingham in 2019 against the teaching of LGBT relationships at a primary school.)

George Orwell, one of the greatest of free speech advocates and a socialist, declared, ‘If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.’ The FSU has duly adopted this as one of its slogans. In ironic contrast, the Guardian seems of late to have become ambivalent about Orwell’s legacy, including these very words.

Such points of tension raise fundamental questions. If there should be free speech about religion, should there also be free speech about other equally emotive subjects, such as race or transgender debates? Where is the line to be drawn, in any of these cases, between criticising ideas and criticising persons? How far should either notions of offensiveness, or parents’ rigid views about any subject, influence what is taught in schools?

The attitude of the FSU was clear: ‘free speech’ simpliciter should be added to the list of ‘British values’ that are affixed to the classroom wall in schools across the country. At a time when many in the Conservative party are trying to replace the Human Rights Act with a British Bill of Rights, the ‘British values’ list almost seems to have become a mini-manifesto for the Bill. Those on the left may see the whole idea of ‘British values’ as a distasteful form of nationalism, as well as overly authoritarian. And yet it was the left-leaning and nationalistic SNP that introduced Scotland’s Hate Crime Act 2021, which restricts speech about a range of protected characteristics, including, to a lesser extent, religion.

Among Britain’s neighbours, free speech on religion and other matters is currently under threat. As Young pointed out, the Criminal Justice Bill 2022, currently passing through the Irish Parliament, looks like an attempt to reintroduce blasphemy offences into a country that has only just formally abolished them. The Bill would criminalise behaviour that is ‘likely to incite violence or hatred’ against a person or group on account of protected characteristics, including religion, provided such behaviour is done either with intent to incite violence or with recklessness as to whether violence is incited. This seems like a dangerously low bar. The European Union is also considering whether to extend ‘the list of EU crimes to hate speech and hate crime’, which may have a similar effect.

For its part, the FSU is in turbulent waters: although it claims to be a ‘non-partisan, mass-membership public interest body’, its director’s sympathies make it all the easier for progressives simply to dismiss it as a right-wing organisation. On the same day that the NSS was meeting to discuss church and state, Young gave a talk to the National Conservatism conference entitled ‘A Dispatch from the Woke Wars’ – a move unlikely to endear him to the left.

Progressives who have endorsed the Islamophobia definition would doubtless claim that criticism of Islam by an organisation like the FSU can all too easily slip into xenophobia and hatred of Muslims and immigrants generally. This is an area fraught with controversy. It certainly increases the delicacy of the NSS’s position, as the representative of ‘secular liberals’ who support free speech on religion but categorically oppose what the NSS describes as ‘anti-Muslim bigotry’.

National Conservatism emphasises ‘God and public religion’; the list of talks at its conference included such titles as ‘Faith, Family, Flag, Freedom’. Its supporters would doubtless not have approved of many of the secularist campaign aims discussed by Stephen Evans, Polly Toynbee et al.; indeed, the week before, Young had interrogated Evans as to whether the NSS’s opposition to state-funded faith schools was not just ‘dogmatic secularism’. The proposals mooted by the panel included removing the bishops from the House of Lords, disestablishing the Church of England, abolishing prayers at the beginning of Parliamentary sittings, and removing state funding from faith schools. Abolishing the monarchy was mentioned, though the NSS itself does not have a position on this issue.

Although all the speakers were broadly secularist, there were differences of emphasis, and a few tensions, between the religious and non-religious stances represented.

On the non-religious side, Tommy Sheppard focused on the removal of bishops from the House of Lords and the replacement of Parliamentary prayers, which he said ‘offends against our sense of democracy’, with a ‘secular moment of reflection’. Polly Toynbee, for her part, poked fun at the anachronistic moments in the coronation, including the ‘Wizard of Oz’ anointment behind a screen. She read out the oaths which the king swore to ‘maintain the laws of God’ and the ‘Protestant reform religion’, and described the event as a ‘shocking wake-up moment’ for those who had not expected so much religion to be involved. She also highlighted the continued opposition to assisted dying legislation by bishops and other religious representatives.

There was something of the sermon in Martyn Percy’s thoughtful speech, in which he compared the Church of England to a ‘overcrowded vestry cupboard’. He focused on the Church’s numerous involvements in child sexual abuse scandals and safeguarding failures in recent years, right up to the present. He also made the point that the Church has its own system of canon law which still ‘trumps common law’. The solution, he said, quoting Michael Caine, was to ‘blow the bloody doors off’ and clean it out from top to bottom.

Jayne Ozanne said that she was not opposed to religious leaders in the House of Lords, as long as they were required to ‘earn the right’ to be there rather than entering ex officio. As a gay Christian, she bemoaned the way in which the bishops in the Lords used their position to push for exemptions to legislation which had the effect of discriminating against people like herself. She also criticised the Church of England’s ‘institutional homophobia’.

In the Q&A session, however, Ozanne warned Toynbee to ‘careful about ridiculing religion’ in the context of the coronation. Toynbee responded tartly that it was ‘not a question of being rude about what some people think of as sacred’, but of the ‘ludicrous’ intersection between religion and the monarchy.

One of the issues which was rather glossed over was how disestablishment would occur in practice. Given the nearly five centuries in which the Church of England has been intertwined with the secular state, there are likely to be far-reaching legal and practical difficulties in disentangling them. This does not mean it should not be done, but, as with any major constitutional change, it will take time and resources, and the devil will be in the detail.

Another problem raised by the discussion goes back, once again, to the culture wars. If Britain is so divided on so many fundamental issues, from Brexit to ‘British values’, from immigration to the definition of ‘woman’, it is very unclear how we as a society are going to be able to reach a consensus on what collective traditions and ideas, if any, we want to adopt. One of the key arguments made by monarchists and supporters of the established church has long been that church and king, and their associated ceremonies, are historic traditions that provide Britain with some sort of identity. Right-wing commentators delight in painting the aims of secularists and humanists as purely destructive, and as leading to a cultural and moral wasteland. This is clearly wrong; but more needs to be done to counter this narrative.

Ultimately, in modern Britain, there seems little necessity to retain an established church, or even a monarch. But the case for their abolition would be strengthened if more consideration were given to what exactly is going to happen once they have gone.

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The post Blasphemy and bishops: how secularists are navigating the culture wars appeared first on The Freethinker.

On April 26, I returned to my alma mater, the University of Edinburgh, to attend a film screening hosted by the Edinburgh chapter of Academics for Academic Freedom. The film, Adult Human Female, is a gender-critical documentary, which is all you need to know to understand why it has caused such a fracas.

The academics had tried to screen it last December but the event was disrupted and shut down by a gang of activists who took offence at the film’s content. I had not tried to attend that time, but thought I should go along to the rescheduled showing on 26th April. As it happens, I am not particularly interested in the gender wars. I have my criticisms of the radical feminists as well as the gender ideologues. But the gender debate is, among other things, a central free speech battle, and free speech is something I care about very much. I wanted to express solidarity with the organisers.

There was a loud protest outside the venue—a crowd of people behind a barrier, a loudspeaker blaring out cheesy music, and speeches about how evil the film was. Fine, I thought. They have every right to protest. But then I discovered that masked activists (apparently, or at least officially, unaffiliated with the protestors) had shut off all entries to the venue. University security could not remove them for fear of escalation, so the screening was cancelled.

You may say this is just another drama in the long, slow, agonising death of academic freedom and free speech at British universities. But familiarity should not breed complacency. Disruptions like the one I have just described should always inspire anger. They cannot be allowed to become normal, unremarkable events. Masked activists shut down, essentially by force, a screening of a film about an important and controversial matter of public concern – on a university campus, no less! If important and controversial issues cannot be debated at universities, then what exactly is the point of having them in the first place?

The details of the gender debate and of the disruption on 26th April are not the point here. The point is that the threat to academic freedom and free speech posed by ideological zealots – or self-righteous bores, as I prefer to call them – is real and dangerous. I bring up the Edinburgh example only as a recent illustration of this threat, and one which occurred shortly before I read Professor Steven Greer’s new book – and because it recurred to me often as I read it.

Falsely Accused of Islamophobia: My Struggle Against Academic Cancellation relates Greer’s experience of being silenced by people who did not like what he was saying. Greer’s story is in many ways different from the Edinburgh disruption, but at the same time shares some important features with it and with other recent attacks on free speech at universities. [See our interview with Greer – Ed.]

Greer, Professor Emeritus of Human Rights at the University of Bristol, was the target of a complaint by Bristol’s student Islamic Society (BRISOC) that he was an Islamophobic bigot who had, inter alia, mocked the Quran in a lecture and denied that Uighur Muslims were being persecuted in China.

The complaint was, as the merest glance at the evidence shows, full of lies and misrepresentations. In February 2021, BRISOC went public with their complaint and targeted Greer with a social media campaign designed to intimidate him into apologising or resigning. Later that year, Greer was completely cleared of all charges by the university. Throughout all this, the University of Bristol, and Greer’s own Law School in particular, were either useless in the face of, or actually compliant with, BRISOC’s harassment of Greer.  

Greer has since retired from Bristol and has become the Research Director at the Oxford Institute for British Islam. He is currently pursuing litigation against his old university. In Falsely Accused of Islamophobia, he aims to put his story down comprehensively, rebut publicly all the allegations made against him, and persuade universities and academics to take the threat posed by what he calls ‘illiberal leftism’ more seriously.

In writing this book, Greer has provided a document that is very valuable to those of us who care about academic freedom and free speech. He forthrightly defends himself and expertly dismantles the pathetic case that was made against him. And, in a chapter reflecting on the broader trend of illiberal leftism on campuses, he shows that ‘cancel culture’ and the like are not right-wing myths but real – and dangerous – phenomena.  

Perhaps even worse than the cases of campus authoritarianism that make the headlines are all the cases which are less dramatic in their cause, and which do not garner as much media interest, but are no less chilling in their effects. Indeed, although it is impossible to know how many students and academics have self-censored in fear of the consequences they could face for expressing an unfashionable opinion, it is almost certainly a large number. Greer cites the cases and the data to prove that cancel culture and campus illiberalism are, even if their extent is sometimes exaggerated, very much not merely products of right-wing fantasy.

There are, however, some stylistic problems with this book. In some ways, it is too academic. For instance, chapters are mapped out at the beginning and summarised at the end, textbook-style. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but it does make for sometimes repetitive, bloated reading. It certainly makes it less engaging.

Greer also uses language—“snowflakery” or “wokeism”—that is likely to put off the very people he is trying to reach. To be clear, he defines these terms correctly and uses them in very precise ways. He is not frothing at the mouth and screaming ‘TRIGGERED SNOWFLAKES!!!’ Unfortunately, however, his use of this language will make it easier for his enemies to dismiss him as just such a frother.

Finally, the book could have done with a more thorough copy-edit. The overuse and occasional misuse of commas is distracting. For example: “What might be done to tackle these toxic trends and to cultivate a more tolerant and less censorious, hair-trigger, environment?” Or: “The Committee, thus not only presumed to know more about the scope and remit of my research than I do myself; it also ignored the fact that…” Perhaps I am being pedantic and allowing my inner English teacher to come out, but this sort of thing is grating and destabilises my reading experience.

I said that Greer’s story is different from the Edinburgh film disruption, but that many of the core issues at stake are the same. This is true, so far as it goes, but it is not the whole story. There is one aspect of Greer’s case that distinguishes it from other campus controversies: it is a controversy involving one very sensitive religion.

Greer is correct to point out the strange alliance between ‘woke’ authoritarians and often-conservative Muslim students. In short: the latter are ‘oppressed’, so the former must stand with them in all things. Illiberal leftism is indeed at the root of many of our contemporary campus woes. But Greer’s story is about how he was targeted by an Islamic group – and yet, for some reason, he spends very little time on this part of the problem.

There are a few mentions of Salman Rushdie and Charlie Hebdo; and Greer writes, shockingly, of feeling so threatened that he had to leave his home for a few days. But mostly he blames illiberal leftism and elucidates the ways in which the Bristol Islamic Society’s complaint fits into that ideology. Indeed it does, but is there not another interesting and important story to be discussed here?

They may use the language of ‘wokeism’, but cries of offence and calls for retribution have long been used by illiberal Muslims. In fact, such cries have been used by all powerful religions throughout history. The illiberal leftists are neophytes in comparison. Could it be that the causal relationship is the other way around? That is, have the ‘woke’ inherited their brittleness from the religious impulse, rather than conservative believers adopting ‘woke’ language for their own ends? No doubt the original, godly offence-takers will adopt whatever garb seems most alluring at any given moment, but still, they did it first. It would have been interesting to hear Greer’s views on this subject.

Another difference between typical illiberal campus culture and Islamic illiberalism is that the latter comes with very real threats of violence and even murder. Think of Samuel Paty and the Batley schoolteacher in hiding for displaying an image of Mohammed to his class. Religious fanatics are past masters of cancel culture, in a much more sinister sense of the term. Greer’s neglect of the Islam(ism) theme is a puzzling oversight. But perhaps this is slightly unfair—after the trauma of being targeted by an Islamic mob, and with the examples of Paty and countless others in mind, Greer might be forgiven for glossing over the topic in this way.

I was also disappointed that Greer takes the silly word ‘Islamophobia’ at face value. Such an imprecise word, and one which has so often been used to demonise all critics of Islam as bigots, is a word not worth having. In defending himself from what he once or twice more properly calls ‘anti-Muslim prejudice’, Greer arguably gives too much ground. Defining Islamophobia as ‘visceral prejudice against Muslims and Islam based on myth, caricature and misrepresentation’ shuts off quite a lot of what I am sure Greer would consider legitimate criticism of Islam. The Charlie Hebdo cartoons were, quite literally, caricatures. Why should hatred, even blind, stupid hatred, of a particular belief system be equated with prejudice against a group of people?

By lumping together ‘visceral prejudice against Muslims and Islam [my emphasis]’, Greer makes easier the job of the fanatics who wish to equate the criticism of ideas and beliefs with bigoted hatred of an entire, and very diverse, demographic. Perhaps this is simply an issue of tone: as an academic specialist who has spent many years comparing human rights in the West, in Islam, and in Asia, Greer may be inclined to be cautious and careful.  

Still, the choice is surely not between vile bigotry and respectful disagreement. Ruthless satire and the mockery of sacred beliefs—even hatred of and disgust at certain ideas—do not a bigot make. That is why terms like ‘anti-Muslim prejudice’ or ‘anti-Muslim hatred’ are preferable. They are much more precise and do not conflate bigotry against people with criticism, however savage or merciless it may be, of ideas. I think Greer would agree with this, but sometimes he comes off as too defensive. Again, perhaps this is understandable, given everything he has been through. Indeed, his descriptions of the personal consequences of the campaign of vilification against him are the book’s most moving, and angering, parts.

All in all, Greer’s book is an essential addition to the literature on cancel culture and academic illiberalism. And it is heartening to see him still fighting the good fight despite everything he has been put through. Those who ought to be ashamed are the Bristol Islamic Society and Bristol University itself, along with all those colleagues and acquaintances who sided with Greer’s harassers or, perhaps even worse, maintained a cowardly silence in the face of all the lies and the intimidation.

It is to be hoped that more academic victims of cancel culture will write their own stories in future. If they do it half as comprehensively as Greer has, then they will have achieved something extremely important: they will have rebuked – and exposed – their persecutors.

Falsely Accused of Islamophobia: My Struggle Against Academic Cancellation, by Steven Greer, was published by Academica Press on 13 February 2023.

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The post Cancel culture and religious intolerance: ‘Falsely Accused of Islamophobia’, by Steven Greer appeared first on The Freethinker.

Introduction

An expert on human rights might seem to be an unlikely target for censorship by a British university. Yet this is what happened to Steven Greer, emeritus Professor of Human Rights at Bristol Law School and a fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences and of the Royal Society of Arts, in the years leading up to his retirement in 2022. As reported by the Free Speech Union and elsewhere, in October 2020, the president of the Bristol University Islamic Society (BRISOC) complained to the authorities that Greer’s module on ‘Islam, China and the Far East’, on the Human Rights in Law, Politics and Society (HRLPS) unit, was ‘Islamophobic’. In February 2021, despite being warned not to go public about a matter still under investigation, BRISOC set up an online petition that featured a photograph of the professor next to a sign saying ‘Stop Islamophobic teaching’.

In July 2021, Greer was cleared of all allegations after an independent enquiry lasting five months. Nevertheless, he claims, some of his colleagues in the Law School effectively prevented him from teaching the module again in the last of his thirty-six years there. Moreover, ‘Although the complaint [against Greer] was not upheld,’ as the university publicly admitted, the latter also ‘recognised BRISOC’s concerns and the importance of airing differing views constructively.’ Greer argues that the university’s conduct ‘sent a clear signal’ that he was ‘guilty of Islamphobia in spite of having been officially exonerated.’ His latest book, Falsely Accused of Islamophobia: My Struggle Against Academic Cancellation, which contains a full record of his ordeal, was published by Academica Press on 13 February 2023.

In January 2022, as a direct consequence of the BRISOC scandal, Greer was appointed to a non-stipendiary Visiting Research Fellowship at the Oxford Institute for British Islam, a fledgling UK charity whose stated aim is to develop ‘an authentic Islam that is rooted in and relevant to life in 21st century Britain…and which has taken on board the useful nuances and good personality of British life and culture without compromising any of the fundamentals of the faith.’ He later became OIBI’s Research Director.

I met Greer over tea in Piccadilly, London. In the interview which follows, he talks to me about the origins and course of the campaign of vilification against him, including its allegations of Islamophobia, and his response. We explore the reasons for the failure of his fellow academics and Bristol University to defend his right to responsible scholarly discussion about Islam.

Greer also looks back on his youth in Belfast during the Troubles, his early research into counter-terrorism in Northern Ireland, and his assessment of Prevent, the UK government’s controversial counter-extremism strategy after 9/11. Finally, we consider two knotty problems: how Islam can be best integrated into and accepted by modern British society, and how we in the UK can move beyond the polarising mindset of the culture wars.

~ Emma Park, Editor

Interview

Freethinker: Do you have any religious or spiritual beliefs?

Steven Greer: I would describe myself as a freethinker – one who inclines towards classic liberal values: human rights, democracy, rule of law, and open markets with a touch of Oriental mysticism and Buddhism. I have a sense of the spiritual, if you like. But my interest in Buddhism is open-ended – it is more about contemplation and meditation. This is possible without endorsing its finer points, except perhaps for the basic ideas of impermanence and insubstantiality.

Could you tell us a bit about your background and where you grew up?

I come from Belfast and grew up in a very devout, liberal Methodist family. My parents were not very political and were uncommonly anti-sectarian. I suppose that gave me the opportunity to think for myself. I went to a state grammar school. Looking back on that, the thing I value most was that our teachers also encouraged us to think for ourselves.

Today, would you see yourself as Irish or British?

I am British-Irish or Irish-British – I have had both passports for decades. That was another thing that was unusual in my upbringing, because my father in particular always insisted that we recognised our Irish identity. It has become fashionable recently for more Protestants in Northern Ireland, and people further afield, to claim Irish citizenship, particularly because of Brexit. I was ahead of the game. However, I am proud of both my British and Irish identity, and I recognise the strengths and flaws of each. In both cases, there have been negative and positive elements.

What are your research interests?

My research was initially motivated by my experience of growing up in the Troubles, which blighted my teenage years. There were gangs roaming the streets, you could easily get caught up in fights, and you could be blown up or shot at a moment’s notice. I was very perplexed by this: why was it happening? How had I ended up in such a dysfunctional society? I yearned to find out more. I studied law at Oxford from 1976-79, but I was disappointed by it intellectually. It was very dry and limiting. Then I went to the LSE to study sociology, and then back to Belfast for a PhD in counterterrorism law.

I ended up writing a book about the ‘supergrass’ system in Northern Ireland: a series of trials in the 1980s on the evidence of informants, which was deeply controversial on both sides of the sectarian divide. It was one of the few things that, in the counter-terrorist framework, both Loyalists and Republicans vehemently objected to, partly because they were very worried about it decimating their ranks. It may well have done. But it did so in a way that was difficult to defend by any credible conception of civil liberties and the rule of law: there were not enough legal controls, there was little corroboration, and it all happened in a non-jury context.

My intention was to have a career that straddled law and sociology. But there were more jobs in academic law than sociology. I was initially obliged to teach traditional legal subjects. In the mid-1990s, however, the law school at the University of Bristol was mildly criticised in a teaching review for not having a human rights course. So I said, ‘I’ll do that.’ It was not until 2005 that I had the first opportunity to design a unit that fully coincided with my interests. This was a socio-legal or social science course, which I called ‘Human Rights in Law, Politics and Society’, and which provided a platform from which to observe global current affairs through the lens of human rights, or vice versa.

Where does the study of Islam fit into all of this?

In the post-Cold War context of 2005, in addition to western liberalism, the two biggest kids on the block were political Islam, which had been on the rise since the Iranian Revolution in 1979, plus China and the Far East. Islam, China and the Far East are ideologies or a ‘geopolitical spaces’ which offer self-conscious alternatives to Western liberalism. The fact that there was a rapidly expanding literature about human rights in all these contexts made it possible to add a module on Islam, China and the Far East to the HRLPS course, which I then taught without incident for 13 years.

The fact that I have served the University of Bristol productively and faithfully for 36 years makes my experience all the more bitter. I had some of the best students in the law school – the more reflective and more thoughtful ones who wanted to look over the legal parapet and see the lie of the land beyond. Many of them were Muslim. Nobody had any issue with the unit or module whatsoever until, almost out of the blue, the University of Bristol Islamic Society (BRISOC) decided everything I had been saying about Islam was Islamophobic.    

It is important to separate the intellectual debate about Islam and human rights from the scandal that developed. BRISOC lodged a complaint with the University in October 2020 without bringing it before any of the law school’s half a dozen or so informal mechanisms first. It was signed by the president of BRISOC, a medical student, who was ostensibly acting on behalf of anonymous students, but who had never attended my course himself.

Ultimately, after a vitriolic campaign by BRISOC on social media, and after a senior academic at the University of Bristol had investigated my conduct, in July 2021, I got a very gratifying email saying I had been completely exonerated of all charges [see a fuller account in Greer’s conversation with the Bristol Free Speech Society, and in his book].

However, I was told I was not allowed to tell anybody except my family and close friends until I, the university, and BRISOC had drafted a joint statement, which never happened. There was then the question of what I was to teach in my last year before my retirement in 2022. I wanted to deliver the topic on Islam, China and the Far East again, to prove that I had been vindicated. But two junior colleagues, who were due to take the unit over, decided to remove the module from the syllabus, precisely for the reasons the enquiry had rejected. This decision was immediately approved by the Law School. I then went on sick leave for three months because there was no way I could have gone back into the Law School with a cloud like that hanging over my reputation and integrity.

In October 2021, after BRISOC had unsuccessfully appealed against my exoneration, the University issued its final public statement, which said, ‘the complaint has not been upheld…[but] we recognise BRISOC’s concerns and the importance of airing differing views constructively.’ It also said that my course had been altered to respond to the new conveners’ ‘wish to deliver the material in a context that is both broad-reaching and respectful of sensitivities of students on the course.’ I was absolutely furious because, in spite of my exoneration, this statement made it look as if I had been let off on a technicality, and that there might have been substance to BRISOC’s complaint after all. This was not only a smear on my reputation and integrity; it compounded the risk that BRISOC’s campaign posed to my physical safety.

When my sick leave ended, the Law School and the University also declined to authorise my return to work and in fact obstructed it.

Did your two colleagues who decided to cut your module give reasons for their decision?

I was told expressly in an email that it was to avoid further complaints and to prevent ‘othering’ Muslim students. This was, of course, totally in defiance of my exoneration.

What were BRISOC’s charges against you?

They claim that everything the authoritative academic literature says about Islam, particularly about Islam and human rights – which is all I was discussing in the class – is Islamophobic.

Let me give you an example. It is universally accepted that in its early history, the Islamic faith spread very rapidly through war and conquest in the first instance, driven mostly by material motives – power and booty, basically. And then it stabilised through trade and conversion. Within a few decades of Mohammed’s death, a huge Muslim empire had been established extending from the shores of what is now Portugal to the Himalayas. BRISOC claims that to make such an observation is Islamophobic. Yet there is not a scholar or historian who knows anything about the history of Islam anywhere in the world who would dispute it. BRISOC also claims that it is Islamophobic to observe that traditional Islam does not regard men and women as truly equal. Yet, according to the Qur’an, a man can have four wives, but a woman can have only one husband. That is plainly unequal. On divorce, children also typically go to the husband, and not to the wife.

What was BRISOC’s response to these points?

They have no answer. That is precisely the point. And it graphically illustrates the current crisis of academic ‘cancel culture’: the people who want to take their opponent down through vilification and victimisation do not want to engage in debate about the substance of the issues themselves. They just want to say, ‘You are a racist, Islamophobe, transphobe, etc. – because you have said things we do not like, that we think are Islamophobic, transphobic, homophobic, and so on.’ But if you ask them to tell you why something you have said is Islamophobic, their response is, ‘We are not going to tell you – it’s just the way it is.’ There is no debate. If we had had a debate I could easily have demonstrated how ignorant BRISOC is about the history of their own faith.

What is your view about using cartoons of Mohammed as a teaching aid in a lecture theatre at a university? Have you ever done so, or would you have done so?

No. It is obviously very dangerous. There is a huge risk even if, like the unfortunate US Art history teacher Professor Erika Lopez Prater, you take great care and only show representations of Mohammed painted by a highly respected medieval Muslim scholar for devotional reasons. Professor Lopez effectively lost her job for doing so.

We seem to be in a strange situation where academics and university administrators who are not Muslim are themselves suppressing people who want to discuss Islam. How have we got into this situation?

Fear – of two kinds. One is the fear of some kind of violent reprisal. But I do not think this is the dominant one. The most prominent is the fear, on the part of university administrators, of being seen as hostile to a minority, Muslims in my case, and of losing income from students as a result. It is as brutal as that. We have not used the term ‘woke’ in our conversation yet. But that is what it is.

On the subject of ‘woke’, what is your experience of the ‘culture wars’ and ‘cancel culture’ at university?

What the University of Bristol has done to me is a classic example of ‘wokeism’ and cancel culture. It is based upon many of the classic features, for example, the attitude that ‘we must be so concerned for and so sympathetic to (certain) minorities that they can never be criticised for wrongdoing. Whatever they say, whatever complaints they have, must be taken at face value and those who have offended them must be sanctioned.’ That is exactly what happened in my case. The university’s attitude seems to have been, ‘BRISOC was offended by your teaching and although you were cleared of wrongdoing we are still going to bend over backwards to placate them, we are going to take the module off the syllabus and you are effectively going to be frozen out for the remainder of your career.’

The ‘remainder of my careeer’ happened to be a very short time span. But had I been a younger man, less well advanced in my career, it would have been much more costly for me to have taken the stand I did. In fact, I probably would not have done so. I probably would just have capitulated myself.

Whose opinion are university administrators worried about?

They seem to be most worried about the opinion of angry militants and their supporters on the illiberal or ‘regressive’ left who dominate the social sciences, humanities, law and the arts in British universities. I have seen this perspective gain currency over the course of my career. As a result, I am no longer sure where I am now myself on the political spectrum. I spent most of my adult life on the centre left. I was, for example, a member of the Labour Party for 30 years, until I left in 2013, when I saw the leftward direction the party was taking.

I think that, in British universities, there has been a drift over the past decade or more, towards greater extremism, less tolerance, a greater willingness to vilify and victimise opponents, and to regard them as enemies rather than colleagues with a different, though legitimate, point of view. When I first arrived at Bristol, most of the staff were centre left politically, but academically conservative. But without my fully realising it, the whole institution has been shifting further and further towards the left, particularly over the past decade or so. Colleagues whose views were centre-right were squeezed out of the Law School. Life was made so uncomfortable for them that they moved elsewhere.

You might have thought of the tradition of Western scholarship in all fields, humanities and sciences, as being about the disinterested pursuit of knowledge – that this should be the ideal of liberal education. How do academics today who are so far on the left reconcile their dogmatic views with this idea of disinterested scholarship? Or do they not think that such a thing exists anymore?

Since they will not engage in these debates, it is difficult to say. But I think, from reading the literature and from what I know about some of my own former colleagues who are on that wavelength, that they view ‘disinterested scholarship’ as itself an obstacle to the ‘liberation’ of those oppressed minorities whose ‘emancipation’ they seek to facilitate.

Are the academics themselves in these oppressed minorities?

Sometimes, but usually not. Typically, they are people who regard themselves as the ‘allies’ of putatively subordinate or oppressed groups, and who are trying to fight their battles for them. One of the grievances I have with this is that, quite often and quite plainly, people who belong to these so-called ‘oppressed minorities’ do not subscribe to the political profile that the ‘wokes’ want to impose upon them. The ‘wokes’ want them to be angry, hostile and aggressively asserting a sectional identity. They do not want them to integrate. And anyone who belongs to such a minority but does not subscribe to this ideology is simply regarded as a traitor to the cause.

Take my case, for example. One of the questions it raises is why it happened when it did. One of the triggers seems to have been that I am a vocal defender of the government’s Prevent counterterrorism strategy. The people who regard me as their enemy had been trying to discredit me for this reason for some time. In 2018, some colleagues from another university denounced me and one of my Bristol colleagues on twitter as racist and Islamophobic because we publicly defended Prevent. Another of my own Bristol colleagues then jumped on the bandwagon and retweeted the denunciation, adding that we were suffering from ‘white psychosis’. We complained to the Law School, arguing that it should not tolerate one of its own staff falsely denouncing other colleagues as racist and Islamophobic, and endorsing a demand that they be sacked as unfit to work at any academic institution. Nothing was done about it. The colleague in question is still in post and has, in fact, since been promoted.

Is there any evidence that the Prevent strategy has increased Islamophobia?

No. The reason is that hardly anybody knows about it. The activists are hyper-aware of it. But the general public, including Muslims, generally have not heard of it.

The other thing that has happened in academic life, which is a source of great dismay to me, is the prostituting of social science. What I mean by this is that social science has become a vehicle for prejudice. Studies are being conducted and published which have no scientific credibility. Typically, those involving surveys do not employ random sampling but are driven by a self-selected group of people who tend to share the objectives of those who have conducted the survey. So the entire exercise is constructed in a manner which confirms the prejudices of the researchers.

One of the few randomly selected surveys about public attitudes towards Prevent found, for example, that very few Muslims knew about it. That knocks on the head the claim that Prevent is turning Muslims into a suspect community, and fuelling Islamophobia.

The reasoning of the anti-Prevent movement is also a classic exercise in illogicality. The argument goes like this: ‘Prevent is Islamophobic and racist. Therefore, anyone who denies that it is Islamophobic and racist, must themselves be Islamophobic and racist.’ Any logician would tell you that this is a logical fallacy, because the premise – that ‘Prevent is Islamophobic and racist’ – is precisely what is at issue.

You could argue that there are many logical fallacies in the ‘woke’ approach.

Yes – it is based on prejudice. The tragedy is that it warps something that is actually, on a more sensible interpretation, very worthy. Like many, I am in favour of social justice, inclusivity, diversity and equity in the academy and everywhere else, but not on ‘woke’ terms. However, according to the ‘wokes’, if you have a conception of social justice that differs from theirs, you are the enemy and part of the problem, not part of the solution. Therefore, you have to be silenced, not debated with.

The Oxford Institute for British Islam is a young organisation. Could you tell us a bit about it?

The Provost and originator of the OIBI, Dr Taj Hargey, originally from South Africa, is the imam of the Oxford Islamic Congregation. He wants to promote a liberal and progressive version of Islam globally, and particularly in Britain. His wife, Dr Jacqueline Woodman, is a Unitarian Christian and gynaecologist. The idea behind OIBI is to establish a think tank and research academy that can study and debate Islam in the UK and promote a liberal conception of the faith. I was originally invited to become OIBI’s first non-stipendiary visiting research fellow and later became its first Research Director.    

The profile and position Muslims have in Britain is primarily for them to determine. But those of us who are not Muslim should help them to address this challenge in a way that is positive for everybody. Muslims have the prime responsibility to deal with the issues of Islamism, jihadism and the threat of terrorism, because only they can authoritatively demonstrate their inconsistencies with any legitimate interpretation of Islam.

What is the future of Islam in Britain?

Religions can be both forces for good and for bad. The key lies in how they are interpreted and what is done with them. Islam is no exception. The message of the Oxford Institute is that Islam takes on distinctive forms according to the environment in which it is found.

Like Christianity?

Yes. Therefore the challenge for organisations like OIBI is to try to mould both Islam and its environment – a kind of autopoiesis or symbiosis. The precise details are matters for negotiation, consideration and reflection.

Muslims are here in this country to stay. They are our neighbours and friends. Nobody could seriously think, and it would be terrible if they did, that they should be expelled as Jewish people once were. The challenge is to ensure they manage to live here in a way that is decent, fair, makes them feel at home, and contributes to society in a way that we can all appreciate and understand. A particular feature of this challenge is to find ways of persuading younger Muslims that they can have an authentic Islamic faith and still be part of Western liberal democratic society.

How can we in Britain move beyond the polarisation of the culture wars?

One of the lessons I have learned from my own, very sour experience is that when people try to shut you down, you should respond by saying more, not less. But finding ways of doing so can become more difficult as a result.

See also: Daniel Sharp reviews Greer’s book.

The post British Islam and the crisis of ‘wokeism’ in universities: interview with Steven Greer appeared first on The Freethinker.