England ditched its blasphemy laws back in 2008. No longer would it be an offence to engage in ‘contemptuous, reviling, scurrilous or ludicrous’ speech concerning God. No longer would any poor soul be hauled off to jail, far less to the stocks, for the crime of profanity. So you can imagine my surprise when a man was arrested in Manchester on Saturday after desecrating a copy of the Quran. Was blasphemy snuck back on to the statute books without anyone noticing?
Sadly, Manchester’s cops appear to take a different view
Reading about Saturday’s arrest, I found myself wondering what century this is. The man allegedly live-streamed himself burning a Quran ‘page by page’. He executed his supposed sacrilege next to the Glade of Light memorial, which commemorates the victims of the Islamist suicide bombing at the Manchester Arena in 2017. Call me a free-speech fanatic, but is there really anything wrong with him doing that?
Sadly, Manchester’s cops appear to take a different view. Scores of them swarmed the man, handcuffed him, and took him to the cells. He was interrogated over his fiery impiety. Are we free to say ‘contemptuous, reviling, scurrilous and ludicrous’ things about religion, or are we not?
The man was arrested on suspicion of a ‘racially aggravated public order offence’. That’s a lot of words to say ‘blasphemy’.
The Manchester police gave the game away when they said the burning of the Quran might cause ‘deep concern’ within ‘some of our diverse communities’. It might even ‘cause harm or distress’, they said. In short, they took action against the alleged Quran-burner to protect the feelings of those who consider the Quran a holy, unimpeachable text. They apprehended him on suspicion of causing ‘distress’ to those who believe the Quran is a revelation directly from God.
It is a species of tyranny to elevate religious sensitivity over individual liberty, to accord greater moral worth to the feelings of believers than to the freedom of non-believers. The arrest of a man on suspicion of desecrating a Quran should outrage the liberal sensibility every bit as much as yesteryear’s Inquisatorial assaults on the ‘unchristian’. Freedom of speech absolutely must include the freedom to doubt all religious claims, to deny all gods and prophets, and even to destroy their books. To my mind, burning a Quran is as much an act of free expression as reading the Quran is – and people should be free to do both.
The alleged Quran destruction in Manchester came just two days after Salwan Momika was shot dead in Stockholm. He was an Iraqi-born atheist and stinging critic of Islam who also had a penchant for putting a match to the Quran in public places. It is widely suspected that his killing was an act of Islamist vengeance, a religious execution for ‘blasphemy’. Europe’s response to that outrage should have been a loud and unapologetic reassertion of the liberty to speak, of that hard-won human right to mock all gods, prophets, books and beliefs. Instead, we’re arresting people for dissing Islam. It’s such a dangerous game.
No one benefits from this neo-inquisition against ‘Islamophobic’ speech. Islam’s sceptics, including ex-Muslims keen to rebuke the religion they once followed, are silenced. And Islam’s followers are infantilised. The erection of a moral forcefield around all things Islamic treats our Muslim citizens like overgrown children who must be protected by officialdom from ‘distressing’ ideas. It’s racial paternalism masquerading as political correctness. Yes, the sight of a Quran on fire will offend some people, but you know what? Occasionally feeling offended is an infinitesimally small price to pay for living in a free society.
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