The Limits of Tolerance
The Home Secretary, Charles Carde, has disclosed a crackdown. He is going to announce and act on it in the next few days. The crackdown will be on "preachers of intolerance and hatred" and extremists.
Preachers and extremists alike will be Muslims, of course. The crackdown is expected to include "powers to close mosques where clerics are suspected of supporting terror through fiery speeches". One wonders whether anything more than a "suspicion" will be necessary. For example, will it be necessary to show that the cleric in question has actively supported a terrorist group, or will it be enough for him simply to be denounced by someone who doesn't particularly care for him?
Mr Carde is also going to deport those who glorify suicide bombers. He may well deport them to countries whose governments practice torture. Perhaps then they will realise that the great British tradition of tolerance is not a thing to be taken advantage of.
As is customary on such occasions, the Home Secretary quotes the shield and buckler of George W Bush, and invokes that British history of which so many of us are fiercely proud: "The rules of the game have changed, both here and abroad ... We must protect the traditions of tolerance that we have established in this country through centuries of struggle." The centuries' legacy of struggle by well-meaning governments against the blind non-openness of the people must now be protected by refusing to tolerate any use of free speech which the Government finds intolerable. The shield and buckler of George W Bush is not a Muslim, so that's all right.
Protection of our traditions of tolerance, in short, "means cracking down on those who preach intolerance and abuse free speech to justify terrorism, advocate violence or foster hatred."
Well, terrorism is the use of violence to frighten people into doing as they're told, and the shield and buckler of George W Bush is a great believer in that. His response to the London bombings (viz. "The rules of the game have changed", among other things) is only the most recent in a long list of fearmongerings, all designed to increase people's tolerance for the removal of tolerance. But the shield and buckler of George W Bush is not a Muslim, so that's all right.
War is violence, sort of, and the shield and buckler of George W Bush has advocated war on any number of occasions; moreover, he has practiced it, or at least sent others to practice it in the name of tolerance, free speech and whatever human rights he feels able, in conscience, to put up with. But the shield and buckler of George W Bush is not a Muslim, so that's all right.
And as for hatred - well, the shield and buckler of George W Bush is not a Muslim, so that's all right, too, very likely.
Preachers and extremists alike will be Muslims, of course. The crackdown is expected to include "powers to close mosques where clerics are suspected of supporting terror through fiery speeches". One wonders whether anything more than a "suspicion" will be necessary. For example, will it be necessary to show that the cleric in question has actively supported a terrorist group, or will it be enough for him simply to be denounced by someone who doesn't particularly care for him?
Mr Carde is also going to deport those who glorify suicide bombers. He may well deport them to countries whose governments practice torture. Perhaps then they will realise that the great British tradition of tolerance is not a thing to be taken advantage of.
As is customary on such occasions, the Home Secretary quotes the shield and buckler of George W Bush, and invokes that British history of which so many of us are fiercely proud: "The rules of the game have changed, both here and abroad ... We must protect the traditions of tolerance that we have established in this country through centuries of struggle." The centuries' legacy of struggle by well-meaning governments against the blind non-openness of the people must now be protected by refusing to tolerate any use of free speech which the Government finds intolerable. The shield and buckler of George W Bush is not a Muslim, so that's all right.
Protection of our traditions of tolerance, in short, "means cracking down on those who preach intolerance and abuse free speech to justify terrorism, advocate violence or foster hatred."
Well, terrorism is the use of violence to frighten people into doing as they're told, and the shield and buckler of George W Bush is a great believer in that. His response to the London bombings (viz. "The rules of the game have changed", among other things) is only the most recent in a long list of fearmongerings, all designed to increase people's tolerance for the removal of tolerance. But the shield and buckler of George W Bush is not a Muslim, so that's all right.
War is violence, sort of, and the shield and buckler of George W Bush has advocated war on any number of occasions; moreover, he has practiced it, or at least sent others to practice it in the name of tolerance, free speech and whatever human rights he feels able, in conscience, to put up with. But the shield and buckler of George W Bush is not a Muslim, so that's all right.
And as for hatred - well, the shield and buckler of George W Bush is not a Muslim, so that's all right, too, very likely.
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home