Robert Sharp

Here’s another piece I have just had published at Comment is Free…  Later, I will publish a selection of comments I’ve received, and try and respond as best I can.

After the article was published, I and the Guardian were contacted by lawyers for Khalid Bin Mafouz.  I had incorrectly stated that the Sheikh sought to have damages awarded in the USA, but this was not correct.  It was the fear that he would seek damages, which promoted US legislators to action.  You can see the correction made, below.

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While various campaigning groups spring up left, right and centre with the aim of reforming Britain’s mangled political system, it seems that our friends abroad have already grown tired of waiting for us to get it right. It is time, they have decided, to take matters into their own hands.

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I have to say, I was slightly disappointed by the type of comments my inaugral Comment is Free post received. Most people only wanted to discuss the extreme anti-free speech attitude of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference:

perklet: What you’re really asking is, “How do I deal with someone who insults my imaginary friend?”

and

Happytobeasocialist: Who is insulting them? I find religions and their reactionary, bigoted, backward, and misogynistic beliefs offensive. So where is my redress?

In many cases, it seemed as if the commentators were criticising me for being too religious, or for supporting religious defamation – which of course I don’t.  I was, however, trying to empathise with the religious, which seemed to sow confusion.

This from ishouldapologise was more substantial.

Yes, point taken. But, in fact if you had been a little more awake Robert Sharp, and as on your toes as you imply, then  you would know and refer to the many spin off Guardian blogs that have been created to do precisely what you say. To disagree with things that were said on the Guardian and to express themselves the way they feel like doing so.

Google is your friend.

Well, yes and no.  There are many projects like Islam is Peace which are online attempts to counter negative propaganda.  But in my travels around the web I couldn’t find anything to match Theatre J for really grabbing the offensive thing and creating with it.  My point was not so much that people should use the web, but rather, they should respond in the same medium as the offending piece.  So, a theatrical response to Behzti, for example.  If there are examples out there, I couldn’t find the right search terms on Google to harvest them, and would welcome further examples.

Later, imogenblack offers this:

Its just dawned on me that this guy is encouraging extreemists to use the net to air thier views… its hillarious… drivel, but hillarious.

Not quite, Imogen.  In the first instance, I am encouraging extremists to use the net to air their views, but only as an alternative to legislating against freedom of speech.  I think this is pretty uncontroversial, but its a point needs airing.

Second, I’m not really talking to the extremists, who (let’s be honest) are not really interested in freedom of expression, on the net or otherwise.  I am talking to more moderate adherents.  To repeat a point I made in the comments at CiF, its possible to be religious, to be offended and distressed by certain “denigration of religious persons” and yet still engage with the insult in some non-violent, constructive way.  To the commenters at CiF, it seems, this point is lost: For them, to be religious is by definition to be an extremist and an unworthy partner in dialogue.  I don’t share that point of view, for both idealistic and practical reasons.

On reflection, I think my main mistake in the post was not to elaborate on this:

However, when religion comes under attack, the alienation and marginalisation felt by believers is real. How can they achieve redress for a perceived offence, without resorting to censorship, or its kid brother, the boycott?

I think the word ‘perceived’ does the heavy lifting here, but that may have been lost in the sea of words.  When I talk of “redress”, I am not advocating that the faith groups be somehow compensated for the defamation of their religion.  That way, madness and intolerance lies.  Rather, I just mean a form of psychological redress.  A catharsis.  A satisfying opportunity to speak out, talk back, Have Your Say.  If we are going to mock and insult religion, then the least we can do is to grant those who are hurt by our words a platform to say “I am upset by what you say, and here’s why.”  If we do not see that as valuable, then we are no better than those who suppress freedom of expression in the name of their religion.

Here’s a post I’ve just had published over at Comment is Free.  Later, I will post a selection of the comments I’ve received there.

Credit where its due: The Way of the Blogs is hardly a new idea.  It was much discussed back in the ‘04 when people in the UK were starting to take notice of online debate.  More recently, it was discussed at one of English PEN’s round-tables that we held as part of our ongoing inquiry into UK libel laws.

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There was some depressing news from Geneva last week, as the UN Human Rights Council voted to adopt a resolution on “defamation of religions”. Although the resolution is non-binding, and does not compel any state to change its laws, it does lend authority to those in countries around the world who wish to clamp down on criticism of religion.

Here in the UK, English PEN’s No Offence campaign in 2005 successfully ensured that religious defamation laws remained off the statute books, and that blasphemy laws are a thing of the past (thank God). Such laws are bad for freedom of expression, of course, but in seeking to shield adherents from criticism of their faith, they ultimately weaken religion, too.

However, when religion comes under attack, the alienation and marginalisation felt by believers is real. How can they achieve redress for a perceived offence, without resorting to censorship, or its kid brother, the boycott?

I think there is a lesson to be learnt from blogs. Despite the robust nature of much of the debate online, I do perceive a sort of online Omerta, a Way of the Blogs. This states that if you have been offended or disrespected online, you can always fight your corner by setting up a counter-blog somewhere else. The idea is that you do not attempt to suppress the offensive material, legally or otherwise, but instead use the same medium to counter and debunk it.

Offline, a recent example from the US, shows this spirit in action. The Jewish organisation Theatre J, based in Washington DC, has been staging readings of Caryl Churchill’s controversial Seven Jewish Children, despite many people branding the play anti-semitic (Comment is Free has already discussed this point at length). Director Ari Roth says he doesn’t endorse the play, but feels the playwright’s language has some resonance: “So many of the lines resonate not with the language of hate, but with the language of perception.”

Roth denies that he is engaging in a form of self-flagellation, because Theatre J’s staging was not done so uncritically. He commissioned two new pieces that engage with Churchill’s text, entitled Seven Palestinian Children and The Eighth Child. Ultimately, what Theatre J has done is to appropriate Churchill’s play. They have mirrored its style in new works, subverting it in order to advance an alternative world view. The quick and impromptu way they have done so seems to me to be very much a 21st century act, reminiscent of the mash-ups, parodies and rebuttals at which internet culture excels. Not so different from The Way of the Blogs after all.

So, staging someone’s play, singing their song, or telling their story, is not necessarily an act of endorsement. Sometimes it can be a broadside attack on a particular orthodoxy. Appropriation and mutilation of art is an act of rebellion, a well-established weapon of the disenfranchised. To give two other examples: I am reminded of Angela Carter’s feminist reworking of traditional fairy tales; and the sampling and looping that is an inherent feature of urban music such as hip-hop. Those who found Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti’s Behzti offensive, or those who were upset by Jyllands-Posten’s provocative Mohammed cartoons, could and should have responded in a similar manner. New digital technology makes this cheap and easy.

But why engage? Why should religious communities have to dignify such attacks from a secular majority that is intent on insulting them at every turn? The answer is simple: art and culture evolves through conflict. Failure to engage leads a culture to stagnation, irrelevance, and finally, death. Religious defamation laws will strangle the very communities they seek to protect. Only raw and offensive free expression can offer salvation.

(Comment at Comment is Free)