h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

From that Guardian link.

'Footage leaked to the Observer shows Welsh Assembly candidate setting fire to Islamic holy book in his garden.'

That's got to be one of the more surreal subheadings in a newspaper article.

In serious though, that article is very concerning in terms of what our society is coming to. It might almost turn me Islamaphobic..except the real culprits are the half wits who would actually choose to not simply ignore such a thing.

"It might almost turn me Islamaphobic"

In this instance it's clearly not the Muslims you should hate and fear - it's the people, including the police, taking offence in advance and on their behalf.

Then again, what sort of historical pattern of behaviour leads to people thinking "Oh no, that person has done something that might offend Muslims... ARREST HIM! NOW!" How did we get so terrified of offending them?

Well presumably the way they blow shit up, fly planes into buildings, and behead innocent people..UN does not equal USA...

Another quote from the article:

"A statement from the Home Office said: "The government absolutely condemns the burning of the Qur'an. It is fundamentally offensive to the values of our pluralist and tolerant society."

What the Qur'an is fundamentally offensive or burning it? Not quite worked that out...um...both in a a pluralist and tolerant society (whatever that is)

>it's the people, including the police, taking offence in advance and on their behalf.<

Yes I was meaning them. I didn't express it clearly.

I still can't quite believe that Britain is coming to this...I don't think it bodes well to pander to it. I hope it's just a silly phase.

Oh, it will not be a phase. This is just what Muslims want.

They've already tried to get blasphemy into UN human rights stuff...failed this time but that's how big they are 'thinking'.

http://creepingsharia.wordpress.com/2011/04/04/temporary-victory-muslims-anti-blasphemy-resolution-not-introduced-at-un/

Interesting that Prof Niall Ferguson identified the West's commitment to freedom of speech and freedom of expression as key features which underpin our society's success.

Features which some say are threatened.


Anyone else catch his Channel 4 series "Is the West history"?

I watched part of the first part and the presenter's style irritated me so much..I didn't bother with it any more.

I have confidence in our capacity for humour and ridicule to overcome this little local difficulty. Let's face it we have to do it here due to the incomprehensible censorship on occasion.

Aren't the Muslims very fussy about what constitutes a true Koran? Surely we'll see someone burning an unKoran before long, and if they still get arrested..someone else will burn an even more unKoran...It's gonna get funny...I'm quite tempted

For me it's got to be Victoria...

I thought the Niall Ferguson series was pish, personally. He was so caught up in his sexy, telegenic &#39;killer apps&#39; pseudo-thesis that he ignored the underlying economic and geographic factors. Possibly, just possibly. it was European mercantilsm, industry and colonialism that gave rise to all the things he spoke about, rather than vice-versa.

Our Welsh person:

It&#39;s certainly ludicrous to outlaw the burning of books in the privacy of one&#39;s own back garden. A Welshman&#39;s home is his etc. etc.

If, however, it&#39;s the intention to disseminate images of the act publicly, this might - or might not - put a different complexion on things. One view, as expressed above, is that if anyone is upset about things, then &#39;Tough&#39;.

But this utterly misses the point. The audience of these silly Qu&#39;ran-burnings is not simply Muslims, and the intent is not simply to cause pain to Muslims - or to stir Muslims up into a frenzy so that we can wag fingers. (&#39;Look! Look! They&#39;re at it again! Just goes to show how their religion brainwashes them...&#39; etc. etc.) If that were the intent , we can see that it has been pathetically ineffective. Throughout the Muslim world reactions have ranged from indifference to exasperation to annoyance. It is only in those places where tensions and violent conflicts are already ongoing that further mayhem has been added.

The *main* audience for Qur&#39;an burners is for hatemongers and their fellow-travelers themselves. Their purpose is to whip themselves up into Kristallnacht-lite frenzies. Note the opening sentence of the Hitchens article:

"Heinrich Heine&#39;s famous observation about book burning—that where books are burned, people also will be—was actually first made about the torching of the Quran."

It&#39;s a quite difficult question - one I&#39;m not pretending to have an answer to - as to when one should intervene with someone who is likely spoiling for violence. I fear the answer is more complex than &#39;Freedom of speech, innit?&#39;

"when one should intervene with someone who is likely spoiling for violence"

That's a valid point.

Trouble is, while we can all agree that violence is bad, I'm not comfortable with making "spoiling for violence" an arrestable offence.

My reasoning is simple: if, now, us right-minded liberals agree that "spoiling for violence" is something that should attract arrest and imprisonment, we're fine with it as long as it's just nasty skinheads getting arrested. The only problem is, when our leading start bombing brown people again (and it's only a matter of time), and we feel the need to point out that we disagree, we might choose to walk down a street in London with a banner saying "Down with this sort of thing".

We may believe this to be a perfectly reasonable and civilised protest, but it's laughably easy for it to be reinterpreted as "spoiling for violence", and suddenly we're in a cell without even access to a copy of the Guardian.

It's really, really important that freedom of speech has as few suffixes as possible, and that "for people we agree with" is never one of them.

I&#39;m not disagreeing. ()

But just let&#39;s be clear that, whatever they are, the Qu&#39;ran burnings are not the same species of fish as holding up a placard against library closures. More akin to waving around a knife while shouting &#39;I&#39;m gonna chib you Muslim b******s&#39; to show your possible future intent. Granted, one should be free to wave knives around in one&#39;s back garden while shouting &#39;I&#39;m gonna chib you Muslim b******s&#39;...but it might give us pause if someone were to film it and bung it on a website for his fellow gang members.

So I&#39;m not sure what suffixes dissemination of Qu&#39;ran burning videos has. It&#39;s a genuinely difficult question. As with other conflicts of rights, possibly we would want a judicial process to decide where free speech elides into incitement to violence. What we should *not* do is make out that it&#39;s clear cut.

If I were on a jury, you'd have to work VERY hard to convince me that simply burning a book - any book - was in any way an incitement to violence, assuming that burning the book is all you did.

Even distributing a video of you burning a book is not, to me, an incitement to do anything at all, except possibly burn books.

Distributing a video of your posing with a weapon and threatening a group with violence is a qualitatively different thing, not in any way comparable. You're describing something there that's clearly an incitement to violence in a way a book-burning simply isn't.

Burning a Koran is a clear, distinct and vehement rejection of Islamic customs, just as, for instance, wearing a mask in public is a clear, distinct and vehement rejection of European customs. Personally I think people should be free to do either as long as they're prepared to take the consequences.

>>If I were on a jury, you&#39;d have to work VERY hard to convince me that simply burning a book

Well I hope you&#39;d listen to the case before reaching such a forthright conclusion. And maybe take some direction from the judge. You might be asked to consider the burner&#39;s intent. Did he intend to incite violence? Hopefully, if that were the case, evidence would be presented. Hopefully you&#39;d have the wit to be able to reach a judgement on that evidence and leave your prejudices at home.

Myself - I&#39;m not pretending trhat I can leap to a conclusion on the basis of a couple of Grauniad articles and I would (perhaps naively) hope that no court would do so.

All this is hypothetical, of course. Such a case has not reached court. You or I are not on the jury. My only point here is that these matters should not be decided on trite nostrums along the lines of if we tolerate this we&#39;ll pretty soon all find ourselves banged up. We&#39;re dealing with complex legal and philosophical issues here...but fortunately to help us through the morass we have a body of law and a judicial process, with appeals, in which all judges must consider Human Rights implications in cases before them...etc. etc.

But then...if you prefer to reject these western values...

Ed - <>

I would be absolutely astonished if you thought anything else Ed
His effortless dismissal of Marx's "opiate of the masses" mantra last night was a genuine lol moment.

"The Glaswegian-born academic and presenter, 46, has been sending the left into fits of rage ever since he published Empire in 2003 – an elaborate cost-benefit analysis of the British empire, which concluded that it had, on the whole, been a good thing."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/apr/11/niall-ferguson-political-debate-england-america

back atcha.

"I hope you'd listen to the case before reaching such a forthright conclusion"

I didn't reach a conclusion. I said you'd have to work hard to convince me to reach a particular conclusion. It's pretty explicit in the phrasing that I am open to persuasion, I'm merely pointing out that you'll have to have a very good argument to convince me.

The Crown prosecution service has decided that it won't go ahead and try to prosecute the back garden book burner..sensible decision. Anything else would make it look like British Muslims simply can't be trusted not to react violently to such a thing.

In other news. Two mask wearers have already been arrested in France. The law against it came in today. Apparently they are to be sent off to receive citizenship training.

I know it's a bit offtopic..but it related to what's been discussed about things provoking public disorder. It's about having an unRoyal Wedding street party

'...However permission was later withdrawn *citing worries about disorder* and concerns from some local businesses that it would “directly contradict the Royal Wedding theme in terms of their merchandise.”



http://snipe.at/scoop/republican-not-the-royal-wedding-street-party-banned-by-camden-council

What a joke..and Dave made such a point yesterday of saying people didn't need to worry about any red tape for their street parties.