I'm sorry but I don't agree to that in principal. You can't justify extreme reactions (not talking about this case specifically but in general) based on whatever someone wishes to take an offence for. There are loads of things that are actually offensive, like the other examples you have written there, and as a society they have been agreed upon to be censored/excluded from language or public usage. Race and religion are two completely different things to start with. An event like a holocaust that led to murders of millions is a totally different topic to a personal belief. It depends from topic and topic, and what can be tolerated and what can't be depends on that. There's absolutely no way people are going to be allowed to create public unrest based on anything they deem offensive.
Prophet Muhammad cartoon sparks Batley Grammar School protest
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I've made this point from the start.
There's nothing wrong with challenging beliefs. There's nothing wrong with this happening in the classroom. However, this should be done in a way that is respectful, and fosters a environment for intellectual honesty and discourse.
The way the teacher did it was just plain wrong. Batley is a community with a lot of Asians, and a lot of Muslims. He's either tone deaf or incredibly stupid trying to teach the way he did. This is why context matters.
To your first point, I don't think satirical cartoons, offensive or otherwise, have contributed much to society if I'm honest, and I'm not even sure how one would measure their contribution to society being taken further.
Most muslims I know were probably more horrified with the attacks on individuals as they were by the actual cartoons.
However I think the "anger" later wasn't based on the initial cartoons but the nature of those arguing or presenting the images.
If I can use an analogy/example here I know military lads who had the "kaafir" tattoo done in Arabic. I may not be enamored by this but my reaction to them would not be the same as that same tattoo on a NF members arm.
Point being it has to have context. A media outlet showing the images as a way of news reporting is different to a right wing paper doing it to rile folk up
I think you're issing the point, it has been said again and again in this thread, no one is saying it can't be talked about, no one has said discussion, debating it or challenging it is wrong. There's no real issue with that. It's (if Baroness Warsi has it correct) showing a picture of the prophet wearing a bomb vest to a group of school kids that's offensive. If you want to discuss free speech you could easily say what do we think about the Islamic prohibition on depictions of the prophet and what Charlie Hebdo did? what do we think about Germany's laws around the displaying of Nazi symbols? What do we think about Facebook taking down QAnon posts?
Easy to have the discussion, you just don't need cause offence to spark the conversation.
WWII is a common history subject as school surely?
My personal belief is simple: you have freedom to practice your religion as you see fit. You have freedom to be overjoyed, angered, offended or any other personal emotion with regards to exogenous things that happen. You have the freedom, in this case, to write to the school and say this is unacceptable, and to protest, and to ask that it not happen again.
You do not have the freedom to decide the curriculum of - say - a class on censorship because of how it makes you feel.
You do not have the freedom to threaten (or as in CH, kill) people because of how you feel.
You do not have the freedom to demand that your feels trump all other peoples' feels, because of your feels that you're divinely correct.
I think a serious discussion about religious censorship absolutely should include the prophet cartoons.
Academic institutions have to be permitted to ask hard questions, and offend people. It's the only way we move forward as a society.
This is, admittedly, less ridiculous than the Chinese language fiasco in the states. (https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-54107329)
You do not have the freedom to decide the curriculum of - say - a class on censorship because of how it makes you feel.
You do not have the freedom to threaten (or as in CH, kill) people because of how you feel.
You do not have the freedom to demand that your feels trump all other peoples' feels, because of your feels that you're divinely correct.
I think a serious discussion about religious censorship absolutely should include the prophet cartoons.
Academic institutions have to be permitted to ask hard questions, and offend people. It's the only way we move forward as a society.
This is, admittedly, less ridiculous than the Chinese language fiasco in the states. (https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-54107329)
Seems a rather limited discussion without being able to see the actual reason for the discussion. I get the discussion for perhaps not discussing the actuality of the cartoons until after secondary / high school, but I view the church’s request to never show the cartoons as a bullying tactic that shouldn’t have merit simply because the cartoons are satirically defamatory of the religion & the religion wants to control the narrative as much as possible.
But any semi-curious student would - after being told how offensive the cartoon is - simply ask to see it? And if they're denied, correctly demand why this particular cartoon cannot be viewed, even in context of understanding why it can't be viewed. At least, that's what I hope would happen.
There is a word that is so offensive, so taboo that even typing it would cause uproar. What is that word? Well I obviously can't tell you. But it causes uproar. What is so offensive to see it written down? Well let me attempt to describe it to you...etc
We were certainly taught it, at length in our history class. Swastikas and extracts from Mein Kampf included. Now if those swastikas has been hung from the school gates while Mein Kampf was read on a loop via the tannoy system, that would have been a very different experience. As always, context matters.
Ok, there's no extreme reaction here other than parents protesting, so we can put that to one side.
There's a reason I included the word demographic in my original post. We're talking about a sizeable community. The number of Muslims worldwide is close to 1.5 billion people, so drawing it down to 'personal beliefs' removes the context from the discussion. Even in the UK alone, if Muslims make up 5% of the UK's population, that's still 3.5 million people. It's hardly an individual, or one or two people deciding this. It's why I find your larger argument somewhat disingenuous. Furthermore, this is hardly some new discussion. Islam has been around for ~1430 years, and this belief has been there since time immemorial.
You can't decide what a religion, demographic, sizeable group of people can or can't find offensive based on your own personal opinion.
I'm not missing the point, if he didn't know that's exactly not what a teacher should say, or if he cant teach an inclusive class then he should find a different profession. My point was, if he didn't realise there would be kick back from this, he is a dullard.
That is the point though. If you can only discuss the subject without showing the cartoons themselves then all you are doing as backing up the idea that religious beliefs and the offences attached take precedent.
With regards to the nazi symbols, I don't agree with the idea of them being banned no. I don't know anything about Qanon posts so I can't comment on that.
I believe context is important, as other have said.
I don't agree that a blanket right should be there to offend people. I don't believe that this is what education is about. And I don't believe it moves society forward if that is the aim.
Critical analysis and thinking isn't about causing offence.
The aim of education should be to inform and to question. And I believe we do have this as an outlet in the various subjects we have at schools/colleges and universities.
As someone mentioned earlier in a law course I can absolutely see the need/reason to bring up the CH cartoons as it potentially has an impact on future legal rulings and even current precedents.
Similarly other courses would not need to approach the subject as it's not fulfilling the aim of the course
But how can believers in oversion of a story get to dictate the narrative based on their adherence to their specific story?
You discuss sizable groups of people, wouldn’t non-adherents to one particular flavor of religion get more ability to determine narrative than adherents, just going by size of numbers?
But actually most media outlets have generally refused to show them out of security concerns. Even a book done on the cartoon crises ended up omitting the cartoons themselves out of security cartoons. JP did it to trigger a conservation about free speech because a person who wanted to write a book about Muhammed could not find any willing to make an illustration for fear of the own life after The Satanic verses affair. Charlie Hebdo is itself a left-wing magazine.
Of course you can, and that applies to every single group of people. We are talking about respecting and accommodating a demographic which in case is defined by the religion they believe in, and there are plenty of things that would be considered offensive based on that if they were done - say not allowing construction of mosques/place of worship for that demographic, not allowing them to celebrate events or festivals based on that religion, targetting that demographic and using violence to push them out, etc - which are all valid grounds for any kind of protest.
Anyway without digressing further, sticking to the topic in hand which is whether showing a cartoon/making a joke about someone's religion - any religion of course - being offensive, and for me that action specifically simply cannot be deemed offensive, that's all. In my opinion, obviously.
You're saying that, not me.
Nearly all the world's problems originate from people taking themselves or their beliefs too seriously.
It's not something limited to religious people either. It's just our dumb herd mentality and the lines we set up for ourselves. It's a fecking drawing, give your head a wobble. This also goes for people whinging about flags, borders, national anthems or someone kneeling before a sports match.
Why so fecking serious. If only everyone were like me. The world would be a much nicer, albeit very technologically inadvanced, place.
It's not something limited to religious people either. It's just our dumb herd mentality and the lines we set up for ourselves. It's a fecking drawing, give your head a wobble. This also goes for people whinging about flags, borders, national anthems or someone kneeling before a sports match.
Why so fecking serious. If only everyone were like me. The world would be a much nicer, albeit very technologically inadvanced, place.
Showing a picture of the prophet wearing a bomb vest? Ffs
Those that are arguing that it was needed to have discussion on religion....really?Exactly.
Challenging beliefs is fine. Windmilling your arms and saying "if you get hit it's your own fault" is just being a dick for the sake of it.
If the point is to change views or make people think a different way, this is the right approach. All it's doing is causing an already oppressed minority into digging their heels deeper.
Maybe, but offence is not an objective or static thing. It's also a choice to take offence and that has developped within muslim communities while growing more numerous in the West and stretching islamic religious rules out over the public sphere. Claiming offence has also become an instrument of power because 'my feelings are hurt' is not answered with 'so what?' anymore. Imagine muslims claiming you can't draw any cartoon you want in the seventies shortly after the first wave of muslim immigration into continental Europe. The West and Western values are in a process of giving in to religious fanatics.
Also there's the question in what religious feeling they are hurt or offended exactly. This is not about people disturbing religious practices or sneakily feeding porc to muslims. It seems to me the fact they don't want Mohammed cartoons to be shown or exist and made at all is because they're hurt in their religious feeling that islam should rule supreme over the public sphere. And that's not a religious feeling we should respect. The feelings might be real after decades of development, but that doesn't necessarily make it about anything else than power.
The idea that infidels should respect a religious rule seems pretty radical to me. It's not that nice peaceful people can't have radical or extremist ideas.
Sorry, I'm not following you totally here.
There is no story or version of a story here. What I'm saying is we individuals can't decide what religious demographics find offensive or not offensive. The size of numbers was just to illustrate how absurd it is to think we have that right over that many people.
Infidels? Religious rule? Radical?
I don't know what idea you're trying to crowbar in this discussion.
We're talking about parents at a school gate protesting. There's nothing in there about radical, infidel or whatever other agenda driven nonsense you want to include.
I think the point is you can't be blasphemous if you're not following a religion. Should go without saying, obviously.
Depends on the context in which it was shown. Was he showing it to highlight how there has been controversy of whether the Prophet should be depicted via cartoons and generally discussing blasphemy - or was he just doing it to take the piss and make fun out of it, in which case it is totally unacceptable for a teacher to be doing that regardless of which faith was the butt of his joke.
Showing a picture of the prophet wearing a bomb vest? Ffs
Why is that so wrong? It’s a cartoon that’s subject to discussion in a class room. Nobody is saying everyone should like the cartoon. Personally I don’t think that’s a great cartoon so I would say that in a discussion. Maybe someone else finds it a great cartoon and he can pose his view. Someone might find it offensive and he can say why he finds it offensive.
Hence a reasonable discussion about how religion and free speech relate to each other if that’s good English?
Maybe in the end some people who thought it was a great cartoon will be convinced by those who find it offensive. It’s a free discussion after all. That’s much healthier then to ban cartoons. I had many discussions like this on Christian cartoons in high school with my Christian teachers.
Maybe I remember the Satanic verses affair differently than most.
I was young at the time and did go on a protest initially. Not because of any understanding about why but simply as it was happening and I was with mates.
Later on when I started to look into Islam the general consensus I found was the whole "fatwa" thing was nonsense and no one, I as a Muslim associated with, gave a stuff about khomeini and what he thought.
My post wasn't about CH but the subsequent follow up by various media. My analogy/example was to show that. Sorry if it came across different.
I also, as a Muslim from Kashmir growing up in Britain, would say that the situation in different countries is specific to those countries due to a political or societal back drop.
What I mean is that khomeini's fatwa was more about him and his relationship with the west (and his showing his own people, who didn't have any love lost for the west) over anything religious as such. Many a scholar from the sunni sects (khomeini being shia) criticised him for his fatwa but it never received any publicity as far as I saw.
Similarly with France I think the issues go further than CH. My understanding is that some of the muslims there have felt a particular "attack on Islam" and some groups there.
As far as I am informed it was this.
Then no issue from where I am standing. Yes it may be offensive to some to even see it, but that is just being super sensitive. If it is part of a mature, educational discussion they should back the teacher (and I am muslim).
Well said.
He was teaching a class with children who he knew would find it offensive, it was a fecking stupid thing to do, if he didn't know that I really would question his social skills. Has the year group been identified?
Islam is a different flavor of religion, just like Christianity is, Judaism is, etc. It’s a different version of a story that has been told for millennia than the rest, a manmade story at that.
And one flavor of a manmade story can use its size to shape a narrative over a far larger demographic? That’s just insane to hold as an opinion, no matter the size of the religion.
The cartoon saga is a tangible part of recent history, why not try to discuss it with context in a place of learning? If such a saga cannot be discussed in such a place, where should or could it be discussed? Should a discussion not take place?
What if the showing of the cartoons was prohibited in places of learning until the university level? Would that settle some of the offensive nature of this issue?
I doubt anyone but the worst of teachers would flip off the JP or Charlie Hebdo cartoons just to rub it in their face.
You can bet your arse there were chinese whispers on social media which MASSIVELY exaggerated exactly how offensive his actions were. So, in a way, he was screwed whether or not he dealt with the topic as sensitively as possible. And to me, that’s a problem. Having to completely avoid some issues when educating kids on current affairs in case someone could twist what you said/did to create this level of outrage.
That’s a shitty state of affairs and the problem that needs to be fixed is the level of outrage. If you have issues with a teacher or the curriculum write a letter or arrange a meeting. Don’t turn up in a mob at the school gates ffs.
Yes but part of being a teacher is to challenge and grow minds. If he is exposing them to discussion on it and doing it in a way where he was being neutral, not taking sides or taking the piss - as a civilised society we should enable that rather than a blanket ban.
Would you have the same take if this was being taught at a university if students there took offense?
Without context it's difficult to know.
I can imagine though that if I used the mural that showed bankers with big noses etc in an RE lesson on Judaism questions would be asked.
Same picture in a class discussing stereotypes and discrimination maybe not as much
Agreed.