Defend secularism and freedom of speech
@ 2006-02-27 - 14:35:50Well, I'm back from New Zealand and I feel that I must make further comment on the furore over the Muhammad cartoons. These were also a big issue in New Zealand as they were published in two Kiwi newspapers as well. There has also been a, in my view, defining clash on the British left over the cartoons. My group (the AWL) published the cartoons whilst the SWP seem to have started a campaign to get such images banned by the state.
To me this is a definative moment for the left. Faced with the growth of radical Islam around the world, and the growing influence of religion in our government (with crypto-papist Tony Blair and Opus Dei associate Ruth Kelly pushing for more of our schools to be run by faith groups) do we stand to defend the gains of the English, French and American revolutions or do we kow tow to the clerics in the hope of picking up votes from the faithfull?
The risks in appeasing religion are shown by another event in New Zealand where the Catholic Church are up in arms over an episode of "South Park" where the Virgin Mary is shown menstruating. Now, I've been to Florence and seen many religious artworks and most of them seem to feature Christ bleeding conspicuously whilst being crucified so I don't see what problems the papists have with this. It would seem that haemoraging deities are only to be used in the service of idolatory.
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I would rather have the right to insult than to have no right at all. The cartoons can be found at http://www.obber.com in a nice little PDF package.
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2006-02-28 @ 01:49