On blasphemy and bullets

I’m against burning the Qur’an. Whatever valid debates might be had about its contents, it has inspired and consoled millions of people who have led honourable lives. I’m sure it still inspires them. For all that I detest jihadis and Islamic totalists, I don’t want to aim a symbolic middle finger towards such decent men and women. 

In fact, call me a killjoy, but I’m against burning books in general. Yes, some books are very bad — if not morally then aesthetically. But do we have to burn them? Even disregarding the historical connotations, the vibes are terrible. What would civilisation lose if we decided not to burn books?

The problem is that this debate is not happening in the abstract. It is happening because Salwan Momika, who burned copies of the Qur’an in Sweden, has been shot to death. As much as I think burning a book is obnoxious, I have what I consider to be the modest opinion that shooting a man is worse.

I have similar thoughts about drawings of Muhammad. Frankly, I’ve never seen a funny one. If you think a cartoon of Muhammad showing off his bare backside is an example of rib-cracking comedy then I’m not going to take stand-up recommendations from you. Satirise religion, sure, but do it with the gravity that theme deserves.

Yet we can’t debate such things on the grounds of comedic or aesthetic merits when cartoonists who have depicted Muhammad, and even people who have allegedly shown cartoons of Muhammad, are being killed or driven into hiding. If someone was stomped to death for being discourteous, you wouldn’t stop to ask just how discourteous they were being.

Well, perhaps you would if you worked for a European government. Recall, for example, the case of the Yorkshire schoolboys who faced death threats for allegedly scuffing a copy of the Qur’an. The school rushed to suspend the boys and the police rushed to record their actions as a “hate incident”.

Now, a man has been convicted of a “racially aggravated public order offence” for burning a Qur’an in Manchester. The police, who have a thousand reasons not to investigate when the average Briton’s own property is stolen or destroyed, rushed to brag about arresting him in the aftermath of his “crime”. (Well done, lads. You arrested a middle-aged man who posed no threat to anyone. Have a beer on me.)

“The Koran is a sacred book to Muslims and treating it as you did is going to cause extreme distress,” said Judge Margaret McCormack. The dishonesty — conscious or otherwise — with which the great and good pretend to care about what is “sacred” is astonishing. Mary Whitehouse is considered a censorious fool for trying to get James Kirkup convicted for blasphemy over his poem about Jesus having gay sex. Visions of Ecstasy, apparently depicting Saint Teresa of Jesus having sex with Christ, appears to be available on Amazon Prime. When a rabbi burned a Bible in 2017 there was minimal fuss. 

I’m sure there is some extent to which Christians are considered to be fair game because they are the “majority” (in a cultural if not literal sense). But it is also true that Christians do not march, riot and kill over people who offend them. A concern for public order is being dressed up as a concern for religious sensibilities.

… our understanding of Muslim sensitivities should not extend to the conclusion that society should be ordered around them 

I’m not above admitting to an element of sympathy with local institutions here. The real villains are the successive governments which have welcomed mass migration from countries which are very culturally different to our own. What did they expect? It’s hard to blame a Muslim man for reacting aggressively against something he has been raised to think of as more sacred than anything else. It’s easy to blame the politician who did not foresee the man having, and potentially causing, problems.

But our understanding of Muslim sensitivities should not extend to the conclusion that society should be ordered around them. I think it is childish and obnoxious to blaspheme for the sake of it. Yet we cannot allow such standards to be imposed through the means of intimidation. The intimidation is worse than the offence. Yes, it is upsetting to see holy books get burned. But it should be more upsetting to see cartoonists get shot, and novelists get stabbed, and teachers get driven into hiding. Talk about offensive. Everyone from the Pope to the president of Israel condemned the burning of the Qur’an in Sweden. A man who burned them being riddled with bullets has inspired a far more muted response.

Besides, who knows where it would end? I think we can all — religious or otherwise — accept that burning a holy book is deliberately insulting. (Why else would you do it?) When Tahir Ali MP calls for banning “the desecration of all religious texts and the prophets of the Abrahamic religions”, though, is that even restricted to acts such as burning the Qur’an or would it apply to, say, The Satanic Verses?

I think we should respect people’s religious beliefs. But we should respect people’s freedom and safety, too, and when the latter are so gravely endangered by the former, it seems contemptible, and self-serving, for the state to focus on suppressing disrespect.