Equality law: the Scouts’ exception

From the Telegraph:

Schoolboy ‘banned from Scouts for being an atheist’

Schoolboy George Pratt had attended his local Scout group for ten months, and was expecting to invest in the group along with his friends.

But, after being required to swear the traditional promise, he found himself unable to join as he does not believe in God.

George, 11, said he was “very disappointed” in the decision, calling it “very unfair” and claiming he feels left out from experiences and trips his friends are attending.

His father Nick Pratt, 45, has accused the Scout movement of being “narrow minded” and “intolerant”, saying his son is being “excluded because he doesn’t believe”.

To become a full member of the 1st Midsomer Norton Group in Somerset, which meets in a hall opposite his home, George must take the Scout Promise.

This reads: “On my honour, I promise that I will do my best, To do my duty to God and to the Queen, To help other people, And to keep the Scout Law.”

Different versions of the oath are available for different faiths, such as the use of ‘Allah’ to replace ‘God’ for Muslims.

Read the full story at the Telegraph. Another account is at the British Humanist Society website.

When I first read this story, I thought that the demand by the Scout group to swear an oath referencing God must breach the law in some way.

Reading guidance from the Charity Commission on the Equality Act 2010 reinforced this thought.

According to the guidance, the Equality Act 2010 makes it unlawful to discriminate against anyone in the provision of services because of a protected characteristic, one of which is religion or belief.

The charities’ exception allows a charity to limit its benefits to people who share a protected characteristic only if the charity’s governing document only allows people who share a protected characteristic to benefit, and the restriction can be justified either by Test A: Tackling disadvantage, or Test B: Achievement of a legitimate aim. The guidance gives examples to help understand what this means.

From this it would seem that demanding that individuals swear a religious oath in order to access a service would be in breach of the act unless the organisation could show that it was A: tackling a disadvantage suffered by religious people, or B: excluding non-believers in pursuit of some legitimate aim. I’ll try to get back to the legitimate aim argument in a later post, but for now let it suffice that I don’t think it could be justified in this case.

So is the 1st Midsomer Norton Group in breach of the Equality Act 2010? Well, I think they would have been had the original draft of the bill been enacted, but Scout and Guide groups successfully lobbied for an amendment to the Equality Act 2006, and it remains in the 2010 Act as Sections 193(5) and 193(6):

(5) It is not a contravention of this Act for a charity to require members, or persons wishing to become members, to make a statement which asserts or implies membership or acceptance of a religion or belief; and for this purpose restricting the access by members to a benefit, facility or service to those who make such a statement is to be treated as imposing such a requirement.

(6) Subsection (5) applies only if—

(a) the charity, or an organisation of which it is part, first imposed such a requirement before 18 May 2005, and

(b) the charity or organisation has not ceased since that date to impose such a requirement.

By that means the Scout Promise escaped the Equality Act, but being ‘not a contravention of this Act’ doesn’t mean the promise might not be in breach of some other law. How about the Human Rights Act 1998 which incorporates the European Convention on Human Rights into UK law? This is the part of the Convention that’s relevant:

Article 9 – Freedom of thought, conscience and religion

Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief, in worship, teaching, practice and observance.

Freedom to manifest one’s religion or beliefs shall be subject only to such limitations as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society in the interests of public safety, for the protection of public order, health or morals, or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others.

While one could hardly argue that the Scout Promise is a shining example of the spirit of Article 9, it’s not clear that it’s in breach of it either. If one likens the Scouts to a broad church that goes camping, then one could argue that they’re exercising freedom of thought in community. As they are a private organisation not imposing their will on those outside the organisation, they can argue that they’re not limiting non-members’ freedom of belief.

And yet there’s more to it, even if it falls outside the scope of the ECHR. If an organisation for the promotion of a religious doctrine becomes the dominant provider of certain services, then it can impinge on individuals’ ability to preserve freedom of belief while playing a full part in their community, on their ability to be true to themselves while sharing experiences with their friends that are largely secular, such as going caving. And the Scouts present themselves as more camping and caving than God. Ten months this boy had been going to Scouts before God came up. I’m beginning to think that this is not so much different to other sorts of clubs that used to exclude people on the basis of belief.

There’s another international convention to consider, the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. It includes the following:

Article 2

2. States Parties shall take all appropriate measures to ensure that the child is protected against all forms of discrimination or punishment on the basis of the status, activities, expressed opinions, or beliefs of the child's parents, legal guardians, or family members.

Article 14

1. States Parties shall respect the right of the child to freedom of thought, conscience and religion.

2. States Parties shall respect the rights and duties of the parents and, when applicable, legal guardians, to provide direction to the child in the exercise of his or her right in a manner consistent with the evolving capacities of the child.

3. Freedom to manifest one’s religion or beliefs may be subject only to such limitations as are prescribed by law and are necessary to protect public safety, order, health or morals, or the fundamental rights and freedoms of others.

Article 31

1. States Parties recognize the right of the child to rest and leisure, to engage in play and recreational activities appropriate to the age of the child and to participate freely in cultural life and the arts.

2. States Parties shall respect and promote the right of the child to participate fully in cultural and artistic life and shall encourage the provision of appropriate and equal opportunities for cultural, artistic, recreational and leisure activity.

In responding to the current controversy, Simon Carter, assistant director of media relations for the Scout Association, said “young people will not be refused membership solely because of their parents’ beliefs or non-beliefs,” a phrase that in emphasising parents’ beliefs rather than children’s seemed tailored to satisfy Article 2 (2), though perhaps it’s more likely that it was drafted with the Equality Act in view.

On Article 14, it’s not clear to me that the Scout Promise is incompatible with Article 14 taken just by itself, for the same reason that I doubted earlier whether the ECHR would apply, but if you read Article 14 together with Article 31, particularly 31 (2), then I think it becomes clear that in adopting the Scouts and Guides amendment, Parliament failed to live up its their duty under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

This is because in a case like George Pratt’s the Scout Promise prevents him from exercising his rights under Article 14 while also exercising his rights under Article 31. The Promise means he can’t both exercise freedom of belief and participate fully in cultural and artistic life, because in his town and amongst his friends the Scouts are a dominant provider of facilities for cultural and artistic activity. There don’t seem to be many other alternatives.

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Under Article 4, responsibility for enacting measures to implement the rights described in the UNCRC lies with the State, that is with Government and Parliament.

Unlike the ECHR the UNCRC has not been incorporated into UK law, though the UK is a signatory. There were repeated but unsuccessful attempts in the House of Lords in 2005 to amend the then Equality Bill to include a reference to the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

As the UNCRC hasn’t been incorporated into UK law, it can’t be enforced by UK courts, though they may refer to it in interpreting UK law. Interpreting does not mean creating or overturning law however. Even with the ECHR which is incorporated into UK law via the Human Rights Act, UK courts can’t change or overturn existing legislation where it’s in conflict with the ECHR, but at most issue a declaration under Section 4 of the Act that the relevant statutory provision is incompatible with the rights set out in the Convention.

A declaration of incompatibility leaves the law in force and passes the problem back to Parliament. It doesn’t seem clear that even this option is available to a UK court when it comes to the UNCRC.

UPDATE: The Scout Association’s anti-bullying policy cites the UNCRC.

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Time to incorporate the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child into UK Law.

Time for the Scout Association to stop religious discrimination against children in its non-religious activities.

Christopher Hitchens completes his life

Some links, first to blogs, then to periodicals and news organisations:

Tigerloaf: Christopher Hitchens is Dead

Shiraz Socialist: Hitchens is dead, and Now That’s What I Call Hitchens! and Irreplaceable

Harry’s Place: Christopher Hitchens, 1949–2011, and Another reason why God is not great, on Jerusalem and religious obstacles to peace, and A few thoughts on Christopher Hitchens, in praise of his post September 11th arguments, and cross posted from the Huffington Post, Sohrab Ahmari: Influence and conviction: Christopher Hitchens, 1949-2011

The Stark Tenet: Christopher Hitchens 1949-2011

Fat Man on a Keyboard: One hell of a writer

The Poor Mouth: Christopher Hitchens RIP

Simply Jews: Christopher Hitchens RIP

Though Cowards Flinch: Christopher Hitchens: the life of a contrarian

Francis Sedgemore: So long Dude! Also: Of slippery slopes and greasy poles

Obliged to Offend: So long, Hitch

Normblog: Christopher Hitchens 1949-2011, also A brother’s tribute and Tributes in the Times

David Aaronovitch’s tribute in the Times is included in Mick Hartley’s post: Hitch is dead

Bob from Brockley recommends two posts, by Rosie Bell: Decline and fall, and by Noga: Chistopher Hitchens and his Vocabular Cornucopia

Max Dunbar: Why writing matters (and related to Max’s piece, a post from October at Why Evolution Is True: Mason Crumpacker and the Hitchens reading list)

Gauche: Obituaries - 27: Christopher Hitchens

At The Duck of Minerva, a Realist on a revolutionary, Patrick Porter: Christopher Hitchens (1949-2011)

Terry Glavin: The Lights Are On The Dunes, Comrade.

George Szires: Christopher Hitchens 13 April 1949 - 15 December 2011

More by Bob from Brockley: He was a friend of mine, and On reading obituaries of Christopher Hitchens

The Sad Red Earth: Christopher Hitchens, Glenn Greenwald, and the War of Ideas, in response to Christopher Hitchens and the protocol for public figure deaths, by Glenn Greenwald at Salon.com

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The Daily Mash: Hitchens cancer not intelligently designed

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Salman Rushdie for Vanity Fair, February 2012 issue: Christopher Hitchens

A response to Salman Rushdie’s article by Mick Hartley, Hitchens, In Memoriam, echoed by Norman Geras, Rushdie right and wrong about Hitchens

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Juli Weiner, Vanity Fair: In Memoriam: Christopher Hitchens, 1949–2011, also a slideshow of photos from his life

Christopher Buckley on The New Yorker’s News Desk blog: Postscript: Christopher Hitchens, 1949-2011

George Packer, also on The New Yorker’s News Desk blog: Hitchens and Iraq

William Grimes at The New York Times: Polemicist Who Slashed All, Freely, With Wit

BBC News: Christopher Hitchens dies after battle with cancer. Related on BBC News: Christopher Hitchens talks to Jeremy Paxman, and Blair v Hitchens debate: Is religion a force for good?

Last updated 8 January 2012.

Maspero massacre

Ahram Online: Protest against persecution of Copts in Egypt attacked with bloody force

Ahram Online: Egyptian Military attacks Alhurra TV

BBC News: Cairo clashes leave 24 dead after Coptic church protest

EA WorldView: Egypt Latest - At Least 19 Killed in Clashes Over Christian March

Issandr El Amrani at The Arabist blog: Maspero and sectarianism in Egypt

Zeinobia at the Egyptian Chronicles blog: Black Sunday - 1954 Redux

Some Twitter reports and reactions this evening.

Rest your eyes, weary traveller

From August, a little painting on the wall of a B&B, a place up several flights of stairs on the top floor of a tall old building squeezed in with many others on the top of a hill in Ventimiglia, across the river from the train station. Bed good, breakfast sweet and pretty, coffee the best of the holiday.

One party wall was shared with a little church that had a carved stone skull over the door, and inside in silent and deserted darkness, a corpse: a life-size and lifelike Christ laid out on a sheet in the centre of the room.

The Massacre in Mazar-i-Sharif

In Dissent, Terry Glavin writes on the background to the killings of UN workers in Afghanistan, on Mazar-i-Sharif’s history of resistance to radicalism, on Iranian propaganda, and on Karzai’s collusion.

An excerpt:

Of all places in Afghanistan for a UN compound to be turned into a human abattoir, we’re supposed to be shocked that it would be in the contented little metropolis of Mazar-i-Sharif, the capital of the peaceful northern province of Balkh. We’re supposed to be astonished that the murderers of those seven UN workers arose from a frenzied mob at the head of a procession that started out at the city’s famous Blue Mosque.

We should not be surprised at all.

For centuries, Mazar’s glorious Shrine of Hazrat Ali was the journey’s end for Shia pilgrims from afar and an everyday refuge of gardens and esplanades for the local Sunni majority. The Blue Mosque, where everyone prays together, is a fountainhead of Sufi cosmopolitanism. It is a marvel of classic Islamic architecture built in the grand Timurid style on deep Zoroastrian foundations. This is no grim, radical madrassa.

Mazar has survived as a rebuke to the Islamist orthodoxies that have stultified civilized life from Persepolis to Peshawar. It is the epicenter of everything that jihadists hold to be heretical. During the late 1990s, the city put up an especially fierce resistance to Taliban tyranny. Since 2004 the province’s bare-knuckle governor, Atta Mohammed Noor, has cleaved to a law-and-order ferocity that terrifies the Taliban-friendly Pashtuns who form Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s base of power.

It was not in spite of these things but precisely because of them that about three years ago, Shia Khomeinists and Sunni Wahhabists teamed up in their efforts at subversion in Mazar. During my visits in the city last June, the smartest young Afghans I spoke with were worried that it was just a matter of time before these efforts would spill out in blood.

Read it all.

More background on Terry Glavin’s blog, here, here, and here.

Dion Nissenbaum and Maria Abi-Habib at the Wall Street Journal reconstruct events of the massacre.

C Christine Fair at Foreign Policy’s AfPak Channel on Karzai’s role.

Heart full of leaves

A lady in Paris photographed by Shaun Downey, from his new site. Be sure also to see his flowers and bees, spiders and caterpillars.

Copyright © Shaun P Downey.

Need some Scratch?

A small sampling of some early work by Ireland’s super-cartoonist Scratch, AKA Aongus Collins, from In Dublin magazine, 1986-’87.

The last one an illustration for an event in the magazine’s Noticeboard listings:

Copyright © Aongus Collins.

Little Cat lights the match

A Print Gocco card by Bo.

Sectarianism in the UK

Channel 4 News headlines it as: Tower Hamlets votes in independent mayor.

Francis Sedgemore puts it as: London jihadis control billion pound budget.

Via HP, reaction from Luke Akehurst of Labour’s NEC.

Also via HP, Jessica Asato, Labour Islington councillor on her experience of campaigning in Tower Hamlets, and Ken must go says David Prescott, and earlier, Ken Livingstone has left the Labour Party.

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Bob from Brockley: An enormous EDL post.

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From Your Friend in the North: “I have no interest in a party that does not want to be at the centre of government in Westminster.”

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BONUS! On sectarianism in the US, via AM: Pictures of Muslims wearing things.

The Cathedral

Via Tigerloaf, here’s a blog outstanding in its combination of tight focus and bountiful richness: Weimar, on the theme of art and modernity in Central Europe. And with such a subject, political history is central to very many of the posts.

The above image is by an artist new to me, A. Paul Weber, the subject of a post at the Weimar blog. Though he was actively anti-Hitler, and was imprisoned for a period because of his politics, nonetheless the Nazis used his satirical drawings on British imperialism as war propaganda. More on his story at the Weber Museum.

Image copyright © the estate of A. Paul Weber.

Radio in a bottle

I only recently came across the Speechification radio blog, via a post by illustrator Stephen Kroninger on the case of The Gorbals Vampire, a story of children, comics, and censorship, that began in a Glasgow graveyard in 1954, and led to the Children and Young Persons (Harmful Publications) Act 1955, a law that is still in force. A BBC Radio 4 documentary on these bizarre events is preserved at Speechification.

UPDATE 19th October: Speechification has gone off the air, along with its archive. I’m leaving the dead links in place in case of some future change of heart. You might also find cached copies of the blog via Google useful.

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Debunking the Islamisation Myth is a substantial attempt by Edmund Standing to distinguish between rational concern about radical Islamist movements, and irrational fears of Britain or other European countries being somehow conquered by political Islam, either via immigration or via conversion. Edmund Standing’s writings are mainly about the extremists of Britain’s racist far right, but he has also written on the extremism of political Islamism, and the interactions between political Islamism and the kitsch element on the left.

In the past I’ve disagreed with Standing’s views on immigration. I don’t know if his thoughts on that have now changed, but this current effort is a good attempt to tackle the problem of the racist right using concern over the extremist Islamist right to gain support for their divisive politics. Some reactions to it here.

Edmund Standing is a frequent contributor to Harry’s Place, a blog which has itself often been criticised for failing to adequately distance itself from racism and religious bigotry in its ongoing effort to cover extremist Islamism in the UK, this criticism being mainly in relation to the commenters it attracts. More on that topic by Flesh is Grass, Marko Attila Hoare, and Poumista.

Speechification has two BBC documentaries that complement the above particularly well: from Archive on 4, Hate against Hope, on the struggle against racist extremists in London’s East End in the 1970s and ’80s, and Turkey in Europe, on migration and Islam in Austria and in the Balkans.

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After that, a break for some music. Speechification is not just talk, here’s a Radio 3 documentary on outsider composer Moondog. There’s hours more Moondog radio with Irwin Chusid on WFMU here and here, and Mr Chusid blogs Moondog here.

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More recently on the WFMU blog, The Comedy Writer That Helped Elect Richard M Nixon, on the superficially counter-culture TV show Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In, its head writer Paul Keyes, and the media team of TV and ad men he worked with on Nixon’s campaign. (Spotted by Paul.)

The post details a substantial bit of American political and media history, and reading it is not easy in the WFMU blog format of white text on black. I printed the whole thing out, and it was worth the effort.

The post also goes into the Nixon White House campaign against another TV comedy show, The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour. If, like me, you were unfamiliar with them, may I recommend the following clips in order of ascending madness: Boil That Cabbage Down, a folk song from Israel, and My Old Man.

And to wash that down, one last item from Speechification, The Life and Crimes of Lenny Bruce, a BBC Radio 3 documentary from 1996.

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The illustration for this post is a detail from my cover art for The Chesterfield Arrangements, music by Raymond Scott performed by The Metropole Orchestra with The Beau Hunks.

“Adolf Hitler was a Roman Catholic”

Pope to Queen on Thursday last:

Even in our own lifetime, we can recall how Britain and her leaders stood against a Nazi tyranny that wished to eradicate God from society and denied our common humanity to many, especially to the Jews, who were thought unfit to live.

I also recall the regime's attitude to Christian pastors and religious who spoke the truth in love, opposed the Nazis and paid for that opposition with their lives.

As we reflect on the sobering lessons of the atheist extremism of the twentieth century, let us never forget how the exclusion of God, religion and virtue from public life leads ultimately to a truncated vision of man and of society and thus to a 'reductive vision of the person and his destiny.

Full text and video at BBC News.

Response by Richard Dawkins at the Protest the Pope rally on Saturday:

Hitler, Adolf Hitler, was a Roman Catholic. He was baptised, he never renounced his baptism. The figure of five million British Catholics is presumably obtained from baptismal figures. I don’t believe a word of it, I don’t believe there are five or six million British Catholics; there may have been five or six million who were baptised, but if the church wants to claim them as Catholics, then they have to claim Hitler as a Catholic.

And it gets worse, or better depending on your point of view. Full speech in this video:



More on Hitler the declared anti-atheist, his grounding in a ‘real Christianity’, and his support for faith schools, from Johnny Guitar.

Two posts at Shiraz Socialist, Letters to the ‘Graun’: the Catholic Church and Nazism, and Betrayal, Conspiracies, Sacrilege, Heresies.

Rosie Bell writes More Vatican PR.

Ophelia Benson at Butterflies & Wheels has several short posts on the Pope’s botheration of Britain, but I recommend this one in particular: Siding with the already strong.

The drawing at the top is one of a set for an article on Italian food from In Dublin magazine, issue No. 296, 18 February 1988. The rest are below.

Pope on the ropes

Dermot Morgan speaks for himself, from In Dublin magazine, 6 February 1986, a good few years before the marvels of Father Ted. The pope costume was from the video for his single, Thank you very much Mr Eastwood. Where can I get a copy?

Burning cartoonists

If burning books brings on fears of people being next for burning, how much more dreadful it must be to see a burning effigy, and see that it’s an effigy of you.

From the New York Times:

A cartoonist in Seattle who promoted an “Everybody Draw Mohammed Day” last spring is now in hiding after her life was threatened by Islamic extremists.

The cartoonist, Molly Norris, has changed her name and has stopped producing work for a local alternative newspaper, Seattle Weekly, according to the newspaper’s editor, Mark D. Fefer.

Mr. Fefer declined an interview request Thursday, citing “the sensitivity of the situation.” But in a letter to readers about Ms. Norris on Wednesday, he said that “on the insistence of top security specialists at the F.B.I., she is, as they put it, ‘going ghost’: moving, changing her name, and essentially wiping away her identity.”

The F.B.I. declined to comment on the case.

Ms. Norris attracted attention after she published a poster on the Internet in April satirically proposing that people draw figures of the Prophet Muhammad on May 20.

She indicated that the proposal was a protest of censorship by Comedy Central, which edited out references to Muhammad from an episode of “South Park” that month.

More.

Her drawing. Larger here.

Earlier pyromania here.

No cake today . . .

. . . instead a few links:

Spectacles and symmetries, book burners and asymmetries, tyre burners and fatalities, remembering the book bombers.

Added: An author remembers watching his books being burned, and more.
Added: A book is for reading.

Observe continuing categorisation of convolutions and convulsions on the left(s) at Bob’s place. Confused? Never fear, here’s a guide to the players.

“I believe the children are our future . . .”

More cake tomorrow.

Symbolic politics

Some unasked for Airforce Amazons policy positions:

On gay marriage, I agree with this American conservative who sets out his case here.

On The Burlington Coat Factory Mosque, I agree with this American conservative.

And weird and creepy these schmutter fanatics may be, but I’m not for banning the mantilla either.

Ach, I’ll leave the rest. It gets boring before we even begin.

Long live NATO’s anti-imperialism

There has been a lot to blog about on Afghanistan in recent weeks, but I haven’t had the strength, though I’ve read a lot elsewhere and commented occasionally.

Comment trail: on anti-imperialism at Contested Terrain, and on non-Western imperialism in Afghanistan at Terry Glavin’s joint. My argument in short: as the only powers capable of sustaining imperialist policies in Afghanistan are its neighbors, none of whom are reliable allies of NATO, by necessity NATO’s policy in Afghanistan is on the whole anti-imperialist.

Intersectionality

Comment trail: on feminism and war at Pickled Politics.

There, blogger Earwicga seems of a view similar to that heard from Judith Butler & Co. earlier, that feminism is only valid if it’s also anti-war, and anti-Western anti-imperialist. This seems to mean that making too much noise about Islamist theocratic misogyny is bad as that could be seen as pro-war and Islamophobic. In support of this, Earwigca introduces the word ‘intersectionality’.

Now it seems to me that intersectionality can usefully be used to illustrate precisely the failure in contemporary anti-imperialism. Earwigca gives two references to explain her use of the word: Wikipedia and a PDF from the African American Policy Forum, A Primer on Intersectionality. Here intersectionality is used to describe the problem of individuals or groups focusing on one particular form of discrimination, for example sexism, being unable to fully recognise and understand another form of discrimination, for example racism, causing a blind spot when they are faced with a victim of multiple overlapping forms of discrimination.

Where the focus is on just one form of discrimination, these more complex cases can be obscured as the wrong kind of victim, or the wrong kind of discrimination.

Misapplying intersectionality

The AAPF document takes the argument further and talks of the danger that treating different forms of discrimination separately may lead to different groups of victims seeing themselves as being in competition with each other, and not being aware of the vulnerabilities of their fellows who fall into the overlap between groups. Thus there's a danger that those arguing against one form of discrimination may fall into another. A small example of this I once heard in polite conversation: “The French are very racist,” i.e. xenophobic bigotry in the name of anti-racism.

This argument about one group of victims being set against another forms the centre of Judith Butler’s arguments against mainstream German gay rights campaigners (see her mis-definition of double jeopardy for example) and criticisms of Peter Tatchell by some anti-imperialists (see here and here).

So what happens when this argument is misapplied? The sweeping statement “group X discriminate against group Y” is likely to be discriminatory against group X, but what about an analysis along the lines of “some members of group X discriminate against some members of group Y, or against members in the overlap between X and Y”? If this kind of analysis of discriminatory action by a subset of X is made properly, with examples given and mechanisms demonstrated, it should not be dismissed in the same terms as the earlier sweeping statement about X being bad to Y.

If it becomes impossible to look at individuals and subsets within X discriminating against Y or discriminating against the common membership of X and Y, then another kind of blind spot results, not of the wrong kind of victim, nor the wrong kind of discrimination, but of the wrong kind of perpetrator of discrimination.

Thus Islamist misogynists become the wrong kind of misogynists because they are a subset of Muslims who as a group are the target of religious discrimination, and individual immigrants who are homophobic are the wrong kind of homophobes because they belong to a group that is the target of xenophobia and racism. The consequence is that Muslim victims of misogyny and immigrant victims of homophobia fall under the blind spot of those arguing too narrowly against religious discrimination, or too narrowly against xenophobia and racism: precisely the result that ‘intersectionality’ attempts to avoid.

An example of ‘right and wrong kind of perpetrator’ thinking can be found in Judith Butler’s comments at Bully Bloggers, where she expresses her preference for looking at perpetrators on the German right or in the Catholic Church, rather than in migrant communities. If she argued ‘as well as’ that would be fine, but ‘instead of’ is not good.

An intersectionality of blind spots

Now to return to feminism, war, and anti-imperialism. Back to Earwicga’s post where she raises ‘intersectionality’. Here she labels Gita Sahgal’s criticisms of Amnesty International as Islamophobic, and described the recent Time cover photograph of Aisha, a mutilated young Afghan woman, as “yet another manipulation of feminism supported by feminists ignorant of other power structures”.

Earwigca’s problem here is the same as Judith Butler’s. Islamists are the wrong kind of misogynists because they are a subset of Muslims who are a target of religious discrimination. It doesn’t matter that the victims of Islamist mysogyny are also members of that same group of victims of religious discrimination; they fall into the ‘wrong perpetrator’ blind spot.

Looking at it further, there is an intersectionality of ‘wrong perpetrator’ blind spots at work here. Not only are the Taliban the wrong kind of misogynists, but as Muslims discriminating against Christians, Buddhists, and versions of Islam other than their own, they are the wrong kind of religious bigots. As agents of Pakistani and Iranian imperialism fighting against a popular Afghan government allied with Western powers, they are the wrong kind of imperialists.

For those viewing the world with these intersecting blind spots, the only way the abuse of women like Aisha becomes visible is if the cause is traced through a game of degrees of separation to Western policies in Afghanistan decades ago, though not back as far as the Soviet invasion, as that would lead to another blind spot. Having found the only acceptable cause of the abuse, the remedy offered is of course the withdrawal of exactly those Western forces standing in the way of a return to power by the actual, immediate perpetrators of the abuse.

How do anti-imperialists maintain this degree of blindness without poking their own eyes out?

A summer’s day in London

Five years on, Bob writes his own thoughts on today’s anniversary, with links to others, and Martin gives a critical account of rhetoric and remembrance on the anniversary of 7/7.

Relativity

Oliver Kamm keeps himself occupied reading the papers, finding a familiar problem of relativity on the subject of Iraq, and morbid finality on an argument over Kosovo.

Mick Hartley goes to a gallery, MOMA in NY, and encounters a variation on the relativity problem at a retrospective of the photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson.

Martin relaxes listening to music on the radio.

And Lars Vilks stays alive. Here is his blog. Here is Google’s (unreliable) translation.

The above image comes from a Ladybird book, The Story of Newspapers. Copyright © Ladybird Books Ltd. 1969.

Politiken’s Mohammed cartoons settlement

Danish national daily newspaper Politiken “has reached a settlement with the descendants of the Prophet Mohammed, apologising for the offence the Mohammed cartoons have caused.” The settlement was negotiated with Saudi Arabian lawyer Faisal Yamani, representing eight Muslim organisations. Here is Politiken’s version of the story in English and in Danish, and the Associated Press account.

Danish politicians from across the spectrum have criticised Politiken’s action. Defenders of the paper argue that it has made no concession on the right to publish, and that previous expressions of regret for hurt feelings had been issued by Jyllands Posten, the paper that first published the cartoons, and by former Danish prime minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen. The current PM focuses his concern on the point that Politiken acted in response to a threat of legal action, and that it had broken ranks with other Danish papers in its response.

Politiken’s move is opposed by all other Danish dailies, according to Ebbe Dal of Danske Dagblades Forening, the Danish daily newspapers’ organisation. Since autumn of last year, a number of daily papers have been in communication with the lawyer Faisal Yamani. According to DDF, he has threatened legal action should the papers fail to apologise for publishing the Mohammed cartoons.  DDF is supporting those newspapers that don’t wish to make a settlement.

Journalisten.dk reports that there is also disquiet amongst a number of Politiken journalists. Following an internal meeting,  Politiken’s editor Tøger Seidenfaden said “The debate was actually not much different than in wider society. Some think it’s brilliant, and some think it’s less than brilliant.”

See also Francis Sedgemore, who writes an obituary for Politiken.

Earlier posts on this topic here, and here, and so on.