Blasphemy laws were abolished in England and Wales in 2008 and in Scotland in 2021. But under recent proposals from the UK government, they’re about to make a not so surprising comeback. In this recent Britain you’ll be able to blaspheme all you wish about Jesus and be happy to burn the Bible, but dare to critique Muhammad or burn a Quran as Hamit Coskun did and things could end very in another way for you.
When I wrote about Islamophobia seven years ago there was the standard response from those that see a conspiracy theory or a ‘right wing’ exaggeration in every part. Sadly, even within the church, that is seen as an efficient approach to shut down any discussion. But this subject keeps coming up. And as The Telegraph recently reported, this just isn’t a fantasy threat, but a transparent and present danger.
Sir John Jenkins, the previous ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Syria, has suggested that any criticism of Iran for instance may very well be perceived as hostility towards Islam and invoking hatred against Muslims.
“If you make a degree of criticising the best way the Islamic Republic seeks to oppress women by mandatory veiling you shall be criticised for expressing hostility to a selected facet of being Muslim,” he said.
Let’s take a step back and ask: what’s Islamophobia? How did we find yourself with this word and concept? The term was first coined by the Runnymede Trust in 1997 to explain an ‘unfounded hostility towards Islam’. But what’s unfounded? And what’s hostility? In 2018, the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on British Muslims defined ‘Islamophobia’ as a ‘sort of racism that targets expressions of Muslimness or perceived Muslimness’. This is such a broad definition that it may very well be used to silence any criticism of Islam – especially when combined with the British political and police systems’ penchant for hate crimes and hate speech, being effectively determined by how the ‘victims’ perceive it.
As a result, now we have now got to a stage where, as Niyak Ghorbani, an Iranian dissident and activist, told The Telegraph: “As an Iranian living in England, I can see that a word that is supposed to stop hatred has develop into a tool to silence criticism of ideology.
“In practice, Islamophobia has develop into a word that disarms free societies – protecting Islamists who haven’t yet reached power.”
The government argues that its laws won’t restrict the appropriate to criticise a selected religion, however it is difficult to see how that view might be compatible with the Islamic view that any criticism of Islam, Muhammad or the Quran is hateful. If you doubt this, ask any newspaper or magazine editor in the event that they would ever publish a cartoon of Muhammad! Indeed, would the BBC ever let any of its Sunday preachers, or thought for the day contributors, say anything even remotely critical of Islam?
If you need to know the way far our society has regressed from the liberty of speech, press and religion that was so inherent in our Christian foundations, ask yourself: are you able to imagine Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses being published today?
The government has sought to rebrand Islamophobia as “anti-Muslim hostility” but regardless of the case, the effect of an official definition shall be to silence critics from all sides. Think of the Iranian feminist and dissenter Maryam Namazie who was ‘no platformed’ for daring to challenge Islamic fundamentalism. Or Nick Lowles, the director of the impeccably progressive Hope Not Hate organisation, who was disinvited from a National Union of Students event for criticising Islamist extremism.
If you need to know where that is leading, look across the English Channel to France where the journalist Yona Faedda has been arrested under France’s hate speech laws and likewise chillingly been ‘de-banked’, cutting off access to basic financial services.
The problem with the Islamophobia blasphemy law just isn’t that it’s going to result in a couple of public prosecutions, but the best way that it’s going to be utilized by the press, universities, corporations and government departments to silence any criticism of Islam. It’s not only that Muslims shall be saying ‘you’ll be able to’t say that’, it’s going to be the institutions of the state enforcing that individual Islamic doctrine.
When you mix this with the ‘cultural’ pressure already being placed on police and other civic authorities you’ll be able to see how this can work out. When police ban a march in London because they’re fearful of Islamist violence, or they cancel Israeli/Jewish football supporters from Birmingham due to ‘community concerns’ (i.e. Muslim community concerns), then we’re at risk of seeing not only the ghettoisation of British cities, however the sectarianisation of British politics. Take for instance the alliance between the Greens in Manchester and the Muslim Vote organisation endorsing them within the upcoming Gorton and Denton parliamentary by-election. Given that 30 per cent of the world is now Muslim, this may very well be a troubling sign of the long run for UK politics.
The proposed Islamophobia laws show the growing political power of the Muslim vote. Why else do you’re thinking that that the federal government is doing this? They usually are not planning laws to take care of Christophobia, or the good hatred of our times – antisemitism. Christians don’t riot when Islamists march through the streets or perform the Islamist version of ‘name and claim it’ prayer. And despite the ever present ‘blood libels’ against Jews there isn’t a danger of Judaism dominating UK society.
There is one other concern – and it’s a giant one, one which affects Christian magazines like Christian Today and writers like yours truly. At the moment we are able to publish articles like this, but I can see a day coming within the not-too-distant future when lawyers will suggest that we don’t, and when writers like me shall be prosecuted under the Islamophobia blasphemy law for spreading hate against Muslims.
But preaching Christ and his word just isn’t hatred, neither is it any sort of phobia. It is Christian love. As a Christian I’m compelled to like my neighbours, including my Muslim ones. And if I feel what Jesus says, it’s hardly loving to encourage them to proceed on in a faith that takes them away from Christ and the hope present in Him.
In a very pluralistic society Muslims could be free to declare their faith in Muhammad and say what they like about other contrary beliefs – as would Christians. The proven fact that we’re moving towards government protection of 1 religion only shows just how far now we have moved away from principled pluralism and gone down the rabbit hole of singling out a faith that can not be blasphemed against.
David Robertson is the previous minister of St Peters Free Church in Dundee and a former Moderator of the Free Church of Scotland. He is currently the minister of Scots Kirk Presbyterian Church in Newcastle, New South Wales, and blogs at The Wee Flea.
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