The demonstrations, by religious bigots, outside Batley Grammar School, in themselves are an affront to a civilised, secular society. That a teacher has been forced into hiding by threats from some of those behind those protests is an even greater affront, as well as being a criminal act. But, just as bad is the failure of the school to defend the teacher against this manifestation of bigotry, and medieval barbarism, by the protesters. Worse still has been the response of the Labour MP, for Batley and Spen, Tracey Braben, whose cowardly statement has not only failed to support the teacher, and the principles of freedom of expression basic to a civilised society, but has lent credence to the bigotry of those involved in the protests. But, then this is typical of the current Labour Party's cringing accommodation to all sorts of reactionary and bigoted ideas, as it searches for a few extra votes.
This is a repeat of the instances of bigotry from religious zealots that was seen in relation to the Danish Cartoons, and more recently, the murder of journalists at Charlie Hebdo. The responsibility of all democrats, let alone social-democrats and socialists is to stand up against such barbaric religious bigotry, not as Braben has done, jump into bed with it.
If Muslims believe that it is wrong to display images of Mohammed, they are quite free to act accordingly, and not do so. We may think that such a belief is irrational, but it is not for us to impose our view about Muslims. By the same token, it is not for Muslims to impose their own, irrational, religious beliefs on the rest of us. A long time ago, liberals, democrats and socialists fought against the imposition of such irrationality by the Church of England and Catholic Church upon us. Britain is, overwhelmingly a secular society. If we do not accept the right of the established Church of England, to impose such restrictions upon us, why on Earth would we accept the right of some other religion to take us back to the Middle Ages, and allow ourselves to be so constrained?
In an English School, in a secular society, teachers, or indeed anyone else is entitled to freedom of expression, including the expression of ideas or images that others may find offensive. Freedom of expression is no freedom at all, if others can limit it to only what is acceptable to them. Already, that freedom is seriously under threat by the governments new Bill restricting the right to protest, which follows on from its ability to get away with restricting people's rights and freedoms through the implementation of lock-outs and lockdowns over the last year, and its limitation on the right to free movement following on from Brexit.
It doesn't even matter what purpose the teacher had in showing an image of Mohammed in the classroom, and any attempt to divert attention on to that is precisely that a diversion, because the fact remains that, in a free secular society, everyone, teacher, student, caretaker or whatever has a right to freedom of expression. If you dislike what they express, you have a right to disagree, and express your own view, that is all. Issuing threats that result in someone going into hiding, demanding their dismissal from their job, and so on, is not acceptable.
This situation is the product of a long period in which basic rights and freedoms and principles of a free and secular society have not been defended. Even going back to the Danish Cartoons, that was the case, as spineless liberals in the media failed to stand up for the right of journalists to publish the cartoons. Time and again what we have seen is an appeasement of reactionary ideas and bigotry. Nor is that just a question of reactionary ideas and bigotry from Muslims, there has been an increase in attacks on free expression by other religious zealots, and reactionaries too.
The whole issue of faith schools plays into this appeasement of cultural separation, and appeasement. At the start of the twentieth century, such ideas were termed national-cultural autonomy. It acts necessarily to divide the working-class in fighting its real enemy capital, by separating it into silos based upon ethnicity or religion. There can be no place in a civilised, secular society for faith schools of any type. Again, here, it is the spinelessness of liberals that is to blame. Liberals have promoted the idea of multiculturalism, which implies that all cultures are equal, but separate, and so should be encouraged to exist side by side, on an equal basis. But, all cultures are, in fact, the culture of the ruling class, and as such they are all reactionary and based upon exploitation. Where cultures are cultures of other nations, whose ruling class is even more reactionary than that of the bourgeoisie, and remains bound up with all of the barbarisms and mysticism of bygone ages, these cultures themselves are even more reactionary. Such is the case with Islam.
As socialists we have no truck with promoting the myth that all cultures are equal, or that they should all be allowed to exist side by side unchallenged. The only culture we are interested in promoting is the culture of the international proletariat, in opposition to all of these other cultures of exploiting classes. That Tracy Braben should suck up to the reactionaries in this case is not surprising. It is fully in keeping with the spineless politics of liberals and social-democrats. More specifically, it is fully in keeping with Labour's own collapse into reactionary politics, and nationalism in its promotion of Brexit, its attempts to wrap itself in the Union Flag, the butcher's apron stained with the blood of millions, its scramble into jingoism of the worst kind. All of that is down to a pathetic attempt to win over a few reactionary voters, which itself will be a vain hope.
No comments:
Post a Comment