We have a blasphemy law. No electorate has approved it. No parliament has passed it. No judge supervises its application and no jury determines guilt beyond reasonable doubt. There’s no right of appeal. And the penalty is death. It is enforced not by a police bound by codes of conduct, but by a fear that dare not speak its name; a cowardice so total it lacks the courage to admit it is afraid.
.... most journalists have lived a lie for years, as have many in the arts, academia and comedy. We take on the powerful – and ask you to admire our bravery – if, and only if, the powerful are not a paramilitary force that may kill us.
.... Fear of radical Islam is not only driving support for the National Front in France and Ukip here, but providing an excuse for more attacks on civil liberties, including, despite David Cameron’s pious words after Charlie Hebdo, attacks on freedom of speech.
I hope I am wrong, but I cannot see a culture shift on this necessary scale happening. I fear we must look forward to a lying and frightened future.
[TOP RATED COMMENT 783 votes] Great piece – spot on. Thanks to the Observer’s nick Cohen.
Contrasts with Guardian’s continued complacency at being this liberal bastion : consistently taking the easy editorial line that to criticise Islam – and censor anyone who does - is to attack people already oppressed, marginalised and discriminated against. It’s an easy line to maintain (Iraq!) and involves no reflection on the illiberal nature of Islam as practiced by a significant minority.
I respect the Independent’s editor who came out and said he would not publish the cartoons out of fear over the welfare of his staff. No such honesty from the graun, as alluded to here. With a few admirable exceptions, guardian comment pieces have been the usual trope of ‘don’t blame muslims’, which insults the readership – no one but idiots blames ‘muslims’, and most of us understand that discrimination is real and exists.
But the guardian has never really challenged the illiberal ideology of islam because to do so is just too intellectually difficult for journalists who see themselves as left wing, and cannot bring themselves to criticise an ideology followed by people they see as oppressed by the west. Steve Bell comes across as simply lost, with nothing meaningful to say, and the usual commentators you get on just carry on doing their thing without any real thought. That would be too hard.
Recent editorials justifying not printing the cartoons (I do understand why they weren’t) have been embarrassing.
[SECOND 771] A brave article. It's nice to see someone trying to address the real long-term problem.
My friend and comrade Maajid Nawaz was a jihadi before he converted to liberalism and understands the totalitarian mind. He says that people still do not realise that radical Islamists do not just want to impose their taboos at gunpoint. They want to “create a civil war” so that European Muslims accept that they can only live in the caliphate; to encourage the rise of the white far-right so that ordinary coexistence becomes impossible. If they win one demand, as they are winning in Britain, then they will up the tension and move to another.
I'm sure this is true, but what do we do about it? In the absence of the reform of Islam, it seems to me that we only have three options:
1) Appease the religious fascists, and surrender our freedoms, and then hope that the fascists will leave us alone.
2) Defy them, and take the violent consequences (which includes accepting that many Muslims approve of attempts to silence the critics of Islam by force).
3) Eject the Muslims who don't accept the Western secular state from the West.
I'm sorry to have to say it, but we have to face the terrible reality of our situation: Solutions 1 & 2 won't work. When our ancestors fought and defeated the Nazis, they had to fight the German as a whole. By the same token, we cannot defeat the islamofascists without also defeating the Muslims as a whole. Therefore, the only long-term solution to the problem, in the absence of the reform of Islam, is to eject the Muslims who won't accept the Western secular state from the West.
[THIRD 737] Call Islam what it is. A medieval, man-made pile of bullshit and abuse just like so many other religions. There really is no god or lines of virgins awaiting the faithful.
Also time to get all religion out of our schools where it is little more than a form of child abuse.
Also label all food that has been prepared according to the wishes of religious folk.
[FOURTH 641] Self censorship is already with us, and has been for decades. It is policed and enforced with ruthless zeal by the very liberals who Nick Cohen believes should now be taking a stand against it.
For instance, when is the last time that anyone has been able to hold a well informed, honest debate about immigration or race or multiculturalism without some Left wing bigot shouting " Racist " within the first five seconds? There are many other similar totems of the Left where open discussion is impossible
Granted, they may not arrive with Kalashinikovs, but many people have lost their jobs, their livelihoods - especially in local government - simply for making remarks or holding views which are " inappropriate". One social work department even refused to allow parents to adopt children because the prospective parents supported UKIP.
My argument is that, no matter how much you or I may disagree with a point of view, discussion and debate is ALWAYS the best way ahead. The Left can no longer hold double standards. Ruthless censorship and enforcement of political dogma is never that far away from justifying the bullet.
[FIFTH 550] The truth. Finally.
[314] Yes. And meanwhile the editorial rolls over and plays dead.
[SIXTH 544] Absolutely, after all the mealy-mouthed equivocation, something with guts and balls that really gets to the heart of the matter.
Most of the rest of the Gurdian's other columnists and writers (you know who you are!) who've penned pieces on this subject in the past few days should hang their heads in shame.
Cohen seems to be the only columnist speaking out and robustly defending the liberal values this paper so smugly claims to support.
[SEVENTH 544] Bravo Nick Cohen. Finally someone in the Guardian willing to put in writing the blindingly obvious truth.
[EIGHTH 471] Now here’s a turn up for the books. At last, the beginning of a lucid analysis is printed in the Guardian. Until now we have been told, as is the Guardian’s way, to ignore whatever visceral feelings you may harbour, ignore what your own eyes and experiences tell you and to sing kumbaya while reveling in white liberal guilt as it’s been all your filthy, white Western fault.
Recent events have had nothing at all to do with Islam, the shouts of “allahu akbar” were misinterpreted and the shite who perpetrated this abomination apparently have been tying themselves in knots of existential crises while debating millennia of suppression and their ongoing daily persecution. I note, along with that other troubled soul Jihadi John, that the life of a gangsta rapping, drug dealing and McDonald’s eating Western debaucherist suited them just fine until they became tired of that.
It would have more generous for the Guardian to take a moment to mourn those that died, in fear, for nothing more than drawing pictures, but the Guardian, until now, have all but skipped over them and been at pains to tell us “although it has nothing to do with Islam, Islam condones this event, BUT…… And there have been numerous inexcusable Guardian buts.
[NINTH 380] "But the guardian has never really challenged the illiberal ideology of islam because to do so is just too intellectually difficult for journalists who see themselves as left wing, and cannot bring themselves to criticise an ideology followed by people they see as oppressed by the west."
This a thousand times.
Western nations are seen by the left as the bad guys, the oppressors and Muslims as amongst those oppressed by western nations and, thus, the good guys. When it's explained to those on the left that the Muslim good guys might be practising a bad religion i.e. a religion whose core texts preach violence and oppression, it creates a huge cognitive dissonance. Good guys practising a bad religion?!?!?!
And often this cognitive dissonance is dealt with by ignoring what the core texts say, or by aligning oneself with pseudo-scholars who claim the core texts teach a message of peace, or by shouting "Islamophobia" at any criticism of Islam, no matter how well reasoned.
Anything to avoid a thorough, objective intellectual examination of those pesky core texts.
[TENTH 327] The condemnation and misrepresentation of the wording of Enoch Powell's so called "Rivers of Blood" speech was clear proof censorship of necessary and open debate on a very contentious issue had already taken root amongst the political hierarchy of Westminster.
The British public have been left to suffer the consequences past, present and future.
As my old Dad used to say: " You always get it in the neck when you tell the truth about touchy matters". [11 Jan. Nick Cohen, The Observer, 2073 comments] Read more
