In the US, this Pastor Jones - with his indescribably stupid and irresponsible threat to burn the Koran - was pleaded with and pressed by politicians to stop.
But he was not banned.
He was not threatened by state officials with their coercive powers.
In the UK, however, he would probably have been arrested and possibly charged.
The arresting officers would probably not have given it a second thought.
Which way is the better way?
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Friday, 10 September 2010
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38 comment(s):
I don't agree.
The book burning strikes a resemblance to the extremists who were going to march through Wootton Bassett here in Wiltshire not so long ago.
The public outrage is similar and no action was taken to stop the march if I remember correctly.
Though, in the end, Islam4UK, the people organising it canceled it themselves.
I'm distinctly uneasy about the breadth of powers given to the police by, for example, The Public Order Act 1986. I'm sure that on this point we agree.
However, I'm pretty comfortably with the balancing act the courts perform when interpreting Article 10 rights. They might not always get it right but I think we're in the right sort of area.
Of course, whether the police are mindful of their responsibilities under the ECHR is another matter.
On this issue, I'm sure Pastor Jones would be committing an offence and I'm happy that he would be. I don't think restraining someone from burning holy books is a significant restraint on someone's freedom.
Why was he not given the anonymity and total radio silence he so richly deserved? The guy has basically hit upon a wizzard wheeze to troll the entire world, and the world just dived right in and gave him an all-you-can-eat troll-food buffet. Er, WTF?!
He might be arrested in this country if he did it in front of a mosque at a time when the attenders were likely to encounter him. But otherwise I think he would get away with koran-burning if there wasn't the immediate risk of violence. I believe we have the right to general disrespect of religions in this country, if we do so in a way that would not immediately cause a breach of the peace. If you got arrested merely for general disrespect of a religion, "Protest the Pope" would be rounded up, and the "Rev Dr" Ian Paisley would be behind bars. As it is, the latter has merely been excluded from Parliament from time to time.
A timely example of heavy-handedness by British police:
http://blogs.reuters.com/uknews/2010/09/09/tiny-anti-pope-rally-draws-huge-police-response/
I am all for The Flaming Pastor burning all the korans he wants. He can burn bibles too, copies of the selfish gene, whatever he wants.
The incident has however once again brought into focus the apparently widespread view among those of the muslim faith that anyone who disagrees with them must be threatend with violence until the disagreement is ceased.
One day we will I suspect have to call a halt to the constant appeasment of this medieval behaviour. For such behaviour to die a natural death, as it seems to have in nearly every other large human population everywhere else, may take centuries. If the mad mullahs succeed in their desire to drive us back to the stone age then it may never happen.
Quite why JackOfKent and various sceptical commmentators are happy to accept these bogus and irrational Islamist Diktats from afar yet refuse to accept locally held cherrished beliefs (chiropractic, aromatherapy, various Woos, are good for you) I have no idea but it seems absurd to me.
The Flaming Pastor's proposed burning is surely no more offensive that the 1023 campaign?
Why are Skeptics prepared to offend he sensibilities of Chiropractics, Hopeopaths, Christians, and yet you condem the process of offending the sensibilities of Islamists who threaten people with death? I don't understand.
I have a copy of Dianetics I'm keeping for when the nights get colder- should I expect a visit from the constabulary when I strike the match?
I agree with what a lot of people have been saying- why has this guy been given airtime? He's a publicity hungry nutcase and we've been feeding him.
Given the potential to stir up violence with the real possibility that people will be killed and injured perhaps the real question should be not whether this person should be given air time but why he was given air time.
What this Pastor Jones, and his whopping congregation of a mere 50, has forgotten, regardless of what the US Bill of Rights and the Constitution might punt, is that there is no such thing as 'rights' and 'freedoms' without an explicit understanding of the responsibilities which go hand-in-hand with exercising same.
This Jones clown has obviously swallowed the KoolAid which informs him that 'rights' are a consequence-free attribution, when they plainly are not - "lose lips sink ships", and all that. Also, him being an alleged Christian, he's missing two basic tenets of Christianity which are to love thy neighbour and offer forgiveness (his burning of the Qur'an, as he has stated himself, is merely a cheap attempt at 'vengeance' for 9/11). And seeing as these right-wing 'Christian' sects in the US insist on living their lives in the Old Testament, he's also forgotten that 'Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord", and not the preserve of some tinpot hick gobshite wannabe with a passable Battle of Britain pork-chop moustache. He's now had his 15 minutes of fame and should have been, rightly, as was mentioned above, judiciously ignored from the outset.
As for book burnings, I think he's missed a trick here: instead of the Qur'an, he should have advocated the mass bonfiring of anything written by Dan Brown; then we would have never heard a peep from anyone on the subject...
I am glad the police in the States could not shut this goof down. He has basically hung himself on his own public stupidity. It was a bit ugly, but it worked.
My fear is that this will give other goofball sects the idea to do this to get attention.
When it comes to Danish cartoonists, dramatists or Salman Rushdie, and probably the wild-west pastor, Islam loves death. It should get a life. Not take a life.
If he wants to burn books, he can. As long as he paid for them and is burning them on his own property and not being a safety hazard.
I find the the thought of destroying any books abhorrent but he has the right to do so.
Far more questionable is the amount of undue media attention given to this topic.
I agree with your analysis; he would probably have been arrested in the UK. So does this tell us that the powers the police have been granted are unnecessary? Inapplicable in this instance? Illiberal and restrictive of free speech?
I would be interested in your analysis of the offence that Jones would have committed (assuming that he burns books that he owns on church property and he takes appropriate safety precautions). It is not at all obvious to me that an offence would have been committed.
I assume you consider that the pastor would have committed the offence of stirring up religious hatred under s28B(1) of the POA 1986. To commit the offence, he would have to use threatening words or behaviour which are intended to stir up hatred against a group of persons defined by their religious belief.
Whilst a private bonfire of holy books is clearly offensive - I am skeptical that fuelling the bonfire is necessarily within the scope of the offence. First, the behaviour must be "threatening", Will a bonfire of holy books on private land necessarily be threatening (of course I appreciate that much depends upon the context)? Secondly, is the intention directed at stiring up hatred against the religion or against the persons who practice the religion? In my view the former is outside the scope of the offence.
Couple all of this with the right of free expression under the ECHR, and I think that it could be difficult for the CPS to make out the offence.
JamesJones
There is no need to take JackOfKent's writing as a representation of Skeptics in general.
I agree entirely that the "right to not be offended" should not exist for any one group more than another, whether that 'group' is a religion, cult, or alt-med practice.
As for the actions of the Pastor, the correct response from everyone, IMHO, would have been to ignore him. If his act had received no media attention, then absolutely no harm would have been done to anyone (unless one of the idiots burned themselves in the process, but that's their own issue).
I read on the BBC that there are demonstrations in Afghanistan calling for death to Christians. If Pastor Jones' aim had been to demonstrate "when it comes religious intolerance, there's a lot worse than me", then he has been rather successful.
@Cherry Black: The UK charity commission has decided that Scientology does not have the status of a religion for the purpose of UK charity laws. Its status in relation to religious hatred laws I suspect has not been tested. But I would tend to believe you can burn Dianetics without much risk of a visit from the police, rather like burning a Star Wars video in relation to the Jedi Knight community.
The issue for me is nothing to do with religion, but to do with tolerance. This was a point made by Karl Popper: if people are not prepared to tolerate other opinions or debate rationally, but prefer the use of force, it is appropriate to suppress their opinions, as the alternative is the inevitable loss of tolerance. As such, we as a society need to reserve the right to restrain or respond with force (only if needed) against those who act with intolerance. This applies identically (and needs to be applied fairly) to fundamentalists of all flavours.
The US Constitution embeds a high degree of tolerance. My personal opinion is that it embeds too high a degree in a few areas, and Jones's proposed action was the kind that ought to open to some control. Especially since the US government does apply the same control to fundamentalists in a different country.
Well, it looks like the pastor won't be going ahead with his bonfire of the Koranies.
"The book burning strikes a resemblance to the extremists who were going to march through Wootton Bassett here in Wiltshire not so long ago. "
The resemblance ends there. Pastor Jones has shown every sign of intending to carry out his threat, whilst Islam4UK almost certainly never had any intention of marching. On January 1st this year,they announced their plan to carry 500 coffins through Wootton Bassett; 10 days later, after huge media uproar, internet protests and the condemnation of the Prime Minister, the group announced it was cancelling the march. At no point had they actually attempted to obtain permission for the march.
This situation always brings to mind those words that, as we all know, Voltaire did not actually say "I disagree with what you are saying, but will defend to the death your right to say it." I agree with those who say that the right of Americans to burn their flag protects liberty itself rather than the symbol of liberty. It would make me proud to think that my own nation aspires to the same standards of liberty.
But let us make no mistake: defending Pastor Jones' liberty really will involve the sacrifice of human lives. In particular, he is putting at risk the lives of American soldiers in Afghanistan. It is easy for me, from the comfort of my study, to praise freedom in the knowledge that I never will be called upon to die for someone else's statements. The honest truth is that I would feel resentful if I had to sacrifice my life to defend the freedom of a self-indulgent jerk.
I think the best reaction for everyone should be an indifferent shrug of the shoulders, a mildly indignant tut and a patronising comment of "pathetic". Utterly childish behaviour... :-(
What could he be charged with in the UK? Inciting religious hatred against himself and his religion? Apart from himself, all the hatred and intolerance seems to be shown by some of the Moslem world.
I rather fancy the idea that acts of racial/religious hatred aren't political speech (or at least they aren't democratically valid political speech) and so not protected by the fundamental right to freedom of speech.
If that's the case then the issue is just a balancing act: the slippery-slope danger of any censorship on one side and the damage done to society by xenophobic hate on the other. There's a real danger that this treatment of muslims as a homogeneous entity (@connor, @jamesjones) will push otherwise moderate muslims into extremism. But without more knowledge about how likely this is, I can't really make my mind up about which way I'd decide.
Er, this is an exercise in futility. We're talking Gainsville. Florida. America. Not a country that spawned the Life of Brian and Four Lions. Jones would never have been taken seriously enough to gather followers and get any airtime.
Perhaps apt that I'm willing to type the word 'sufablub' below to verify this comment...
@Lloyd Jenkins
I did say "some of the Moslem world". I fully accept that moderate Moslems were as appalled by the scenes of howling hate-filled rioters as I was. Would there have been as much upset if some Moslems threatened to burn a few bibles? No.
You can only cause offence if offence is taken. This is a Moslem problem, which does need addressing by Moslems. How, I've no idea.
We cannot restrict a person's ability to express their opinions just because those opinions are abhorrent. Our rights shouldn't be granted only to those who can win a popularity contest. That is why we went to the trouble of writing them down.
@jamesjones
Your comment is ridiculous. 1023 was a group of people taking a large overdose of homeopathic treatments to show they don't work. It was not offensive in any way and to compare it to a book-burning hate rally is absurd.
My principle on these things is that only actions which obviously and directly incite hatred and violence be criminalised and banned outright. (Although I think it's fair enough that the right to free speech is not the same as the right to free speech in any location and time of your choosing, so I'm not with those who would allow Parliament Square to be turned into a permanent protest camp or allow marches to be staged in the most provocative places).
The fundamental problem is that if you take as your criterion for banning activities and speech as one when it will offend certain subsections and vocal members of society, you create a position where you are a hostage to the subjective values of others. It also favours those groups that tend to violent reactions over those with more passive responses. This cannot be a good thing.
None of this means that what this chap is up to is anything short of insane, probably prompted by bigotry. Responsible people should do their utmost to dissuade this guy from this path of action, but it should fall short of criminalisation, until such time as he crosses the line into inciting his followers to violence.
In a sane world, insane minority acts would not garner this publicity, and we would also not have groups that express the degree to which they've been offended by violent, and sometimes fatal, demonstrations.
nb. I was also not in favour of the prosecution of those Islamic marchers in London who fell foul of laws regarding incitement.
The US way, by and large.
Though I sympathise with the desire to easily be able to silence embarassing and dangerous freedom of expression, I can't honestly say that I'm happier with the State dictating what counts as "incitement to hatred".
I'd just like to draw attention to the total hypocrisy of the media in this story.
As far as I can understand, the reason people are annoyed at Pastor Jones is because once the news of the book-burning reaches certain areas, there will be riots etc. In which case, Jones arguably bears some responsibility (morally if not legally). It's a sort of incitement to violence by proxy.
But, if that's a crime, then conveying the news to the proto-rioters is just as criminal. And who is spreading the word? The same media groups who are blithely publishing condemnations of Jones.
For me, that pings the irony meter pretty hard.
@Lifewish
I would be very careful with that line you are taking. It would appear to say that any journalist publishing any story which might lead to violence is, by implication, responsible in part for the consequences. Follow that through and you are in a world of censorship, perhaps state imposed, for the good of society.
That's not to say that giving publicity to this nutter is a good thing, but with the Internet, the genie is well and truly out of the bottle. It no longer requires mainstream media to spread this stuff for news to spread across the world.
@Connor: I obviously misread your comment. Apologies.
The "better way" is to let anyone safely burn their personal private property whenever it suits them.
I don't think he would have been arrested - it would have sparked mass protests about freedom of expression. I'd say the "better way" would be to give everyone the freedom to be intolerant and offensive if they so desire, but educate them so at least they're not basing their prejudices on ignorance.
One of my friends friends has just recounted the following story:
On Sunday evening on FaceBook he made made a comment about the noise from a police helicopter that was flying overhead to the effect that "I wish I could blow the F'ing thing out of the sky", to which his mate replied "I'll lend you my rocket launcher".
The following day the police visited his house, his wife answered the door and when they asked to speak to her husband she told them that he was at work. They requested that he call them.
Upon his return from work he called the number that had been provided.
The police informed him that they had seen his comments and warned him that he could get in to trouble for posting such comments. They also informed him that they did not like some of his 'racist comments' on his FaceBook page.
My immediate response was to suggest that he contact his MP and the newspapers to bring this
blatant suppression of free speech to wider attention.
Haven't the police got better things to do than to infringe upon the rights of normal members of the public?
What do you think Jack?
Jones would have been arrested before you could say "section 5, POA".
Religion is an idea. Distasteful and "distressing" as some may find it, Jones was threatening to criticise what he sees as a "evil" idea.
So what.
I'm distressed by people's expression of their ideas on a daily basis. I am expected to rise above it. I try to refrain from making threats of what I might do if others proceed to carry out their distressing behaviours.
Wouldn't it be nice if some followers of the religion of peace did not kick off and kill people when insulted by third parties.
The UK way is best; if it means that idiots like that get to spend a few nights in the cells, for stirring up a needless "international incident". Instead of having to sit through the absurd and obscene pantomime of world leaders and suchlike pleading with this gutless nobody to desist (just bcos he is the minister of a branch of the unofficial state religion!); then to have to listen to his absurd claims of "making a deal" - to stop a major building project! Sigh! & if it were over anything else than a "mosque", even the US press would laugh/be very skeptical. (Even if he made similar claims regarding an abortion clinic.) We also know that if it were a Muslim group kicking up a fuss, threatening to symbolically burn this or that, in that country it would likely be the Muslim cleric that got arrested; never a Christian, unless they invaded a military base.
I also tried to make the point on Twitter (not that anyone was paying attention) that if it were anyone else (non-pastor) using similar tactics
Interestingly this has actually happened...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-tyne-11396980
And so I see I was wrong. Well at least the police arrested, even it if it still remains unclear whether any charges will be brought, and even if they whether they will stick. The laws of blasphemy were abolished in this country by the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008. I hope that they are not being brought in again by the back door.
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