The Gray Monk

« Defence of the Realm | Main | Glastonbury Pilgrimage »

July 09, 2004

Religous tolerance?

FROM THE GRAY MONK:

An item on the BBC website about the Home Secretary's proposal to create a new law to "protect" Muslims certainly raises some difficult questions.

There is a very fine line between ensuring fairness, tolerance, and dignity for all races, groups, and beliefs, and denying the freedom to put one's point of view to anyone who differs from the supposed "mainstream". This is especially true of situations where the declared "mainstream" of "decent and right thinking" people is actually a small but powerfully placed minority.

The Home Secretary's latest proposal to "protect" Muslims from the latest fadword "Islamophobia" is a case in point. The law is always a blunt instrument, but when it is drafted on the orders of a man whose tendency is to be a dictatorial bully by incompetents, then it is usually equivalent to holding a shotgun muzzle to someone's eye and urging them to pull the trigger! This is why I am deeply concerned that this is under consideration - indeed, more than under consideration - it is very likely already being drafted and will be forced through that chamber of cretinous luvvies under the usual bullying tactics employed by this government to ram through stupid and unpopular policies. This one will have the added stamp of being pushed as "fair" and "reasonable" and designed to ensure that the followers of Islam are "protected" from those nasty Christian types who have demonised them and stirred up hatred against them.

Welcome to the world of "1984". If you wish to destroy a nation, you first attack its language, then its heritage. This government of snivelling "moralists" have succeeded in both enterprises. The language has been re-interpretted so that perfectly ordinary idioms, selected words in everyday use, and everyday concepts have been branded "offensive". At the same time the spelling, the grammar and the usage have been destroyed by declaring them "irrelevant" in the highest "academic" circles where we have Cambridge Dons arguing (among other no less eminent academics) that spelling is arbitrary and irrelevant because the eye "sees" the corrected spelling as long as the word is more or less obvious. U dint sez! Grammar is also declared to be redundant because it is more or less optional and the modern idiom is much freer. That must be why we have a communication gap with the younger generation now emerging from schools illiterate and unable to put a sentence together without using obsenities instead of adjectives or punctuating the words with "like" or "um" or "right". Even those selected to present TV shows or the news or weather cannot pronounce the place names of our own country, cannot pronounce ordinary words in the language, and barely recognise the difference between singular and plural in some contexts. This is how Orwell introduced "Newspeak" the language of the dictatorship in his bleak novel.

Our culture and heritage is being given the same treatment. Anything that is peculiarly "British" is bad - unless it is Scottish or Welsh of course - and anything that is Islamic, Sikh, or anything non-Christian must, by definition, be good. Therefore we have companies and local authorities ordering their employees not to display the cross of St George (which happens to be the English Flag) because it will cause offence to "minorities". Does this government take action against these idiots? Of course not! To do so would be to show that they support a National Identity for the English and that would never do - the English are a nasty bunch of oppressors who exploit and are generally mean to the Welsh, the Irish, the Scots, and to any other "minority" who come to these shores to enjoy the prosperity they created for themselves and their fellow Britons. Our history is being "re-interpretted" by a string of academics and school teachers with a warped view of ethics, history, and moralism to support their avowed intent to create a new and "liberal" state based on their idea of "liberal" and "free". In their hands, though, neither of those words actually means what the dictionary suggests!

The supposed "liberals" who are driving much of this forward at the present time have a very bnarrow view of liberalism - in short, only what they consider acceptable is allowed and is considered "modern" or "liberated". Free in their lexicon means "free to think and say what I say is acceptable". As I said, welcome to the world of 1984.

The proposed new law will, in all likelihood, deprive us of the ability to debate (not that we really can at the moment!) issues of difference in theology or thought between Christian and Muslim - or any other religion and Muslim. It is likely that as soon as it appears that any argument advanced by any non-Muslim is superior to the arguments presented by a Muslim, the claim of "Islamophobia" or "stirring up religious hatred" will be made and the Christian debater will find himself under the full weight of the law. You may be sure that the law will not work the other way at all!

We are no longer a free people; we are living in a dictatorship run for the benefit of the few in power, a political elite of 1960's pot-smoking, rioting, pitch destroying public and grammar school children of middle and upper middle class background who have now got control of the three elements which ensure that they cannot be removed from power. What are these? Why, the Civil Service, which controls public spending and therefore the "welfare" state, Education, which ensures that their children have almost guaranteed access to the best there is and everyone else is condemned to the abysmal "Comprehensive" system which is anything but "comprehensive", and finally the media, so that they can control what we are told, how it is presented, and how we are to think.

Look at the last of these carefully, on radio and televsion there is a constant stream of subtle, but effective, promotions of ideas and concepts of "better" or "superior" cultural or religious (and here I include Atheism as a religion) thoughts. This flows over into entertainment, with children's programmes in particular targetting the promotion of ideas intended to plant concepts in the minds of children which guarantee the adoption of anti-authority figures and a "counter culture" of youthfull superiority. Watch out when this generation start to wonder why Tone and his cronies don't want to step aside for them to take over! It is evident, too, in the way magazines and newspapers attack and denigrate anyone who is prepared to stand up for a principle. A heinous offence if it is in conflict with what our masters wish to promote, and the person daring to do this must be instantly destroyed morally, intellectually and socially.

No, I have no confidence in the Home Secretary's stated desire to bring in this law - or in his ability to apply it even handedly if it is brought in. I readily predict that it will be used against people like myself who dare to challenge the perceived wisdom that Islam is superior to Christianity, or that it might not be the religion of peace and mercy its promotors claim it to be. An item posted on Samizdata points out the potential legal minefield that would be created by this.

Let us hope that the Lords once again block this stupidity and buy us the time to throw this complete party of charlatans, hooligans, and bullies out of office and onto the scrap heap of history. Unfortunately, it may already be too late.

TGM

Posted by The Gray Monk at July 9, 2004 10:31 AM

Comments

Posted by: tim at July 10, 2004 03:02 PM

Posted by: MommaBear at July 11, 2004 01:56 AM

Posted by: IXLNXS at July 14, 2004 02:12 AM