CULTURE WARS: Has political correctness failed?

Chris Kenny thinks that political correctness has failed "the mainstream"-- but what on earth does this actually mean?

Last night was cheapskate Tuesday. I could have seen a politically correct Hollywood movie for half-price — particularly one starring some pathetic left-wing, anti-Trump, pro-Muslim heart-throb. Instead, I headed to Sydney Town Hall for a mass debate on the topic of whether political correctness (PC) had failed itself.

The debate was hosted by the Ethics Centre. As is often the case with mass debates, few debaters stuck strictly to the topic — but, Chris Kenny did. Kenny was introduced by the chair as the associate editor of “a conservative newspaper” — a strange description for a paper whose editorial writers and columnists often spout ideas on cultural matters more appropriate to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

As the first speaker in the affirmative, Kenny said PC had failed itself. Other speakers focused on how PC had (or hadn’t) failed their community or interests or whatever. But now I’m starting to sound like a high school debating adjudicator, so I’ll stop with this line of interrogation.

Kenny argued PC had become self-defeating, largely because it was no longer based on facts, and therefore led to actions and conclusions that were all out of proportion. The Oz‘s associate editor said that, during the Martin Place siege, the New South Wales police (thanks to PC considerations) gave more priority to shielding Muslims from discrimination, than attacking Man Monis’ “terrorist attack”. Kenny described Man Monis as a “jihadist cleric”.

As I’ve written before, Man Monis was more of a fake sheik than a real one. And while it is true that one expert (presumably a psychiatrist) gave evidence at the inquest on Man Monis’ mental state, describing him as a terrorist — there was hardly consensus on the issue. Under Australian law, it isn’t enough for someone’s actions to terrorise their victims to designate them “terrorist acts”. There has to be political, ideological or religious motive. Were this not the case, thousands of perpetrators of domestic violence would be prosecuted under counter-terror laws. (Kenny also speaks of PC attitudes toward border protection and mentions the existence of a “queue” for refugees. What queue? There is none).

Kenny’s most potent argument — that PC is an invention of the political class, which has divorced them from the “mainstream” — again makes little sense. As first negative speaker, Mikey Robins, noted, Kenny and so many of those going on and on about PC are themselves part of the political class. Indeed, if PC has failed, why do conservatives feel the need to constantly protect us from it? Kenny noted the irony that PC started out not as a conservative insult of the left, but rather, as a self-mocking phrase between different sections of the left. Kenny and his allies may allege PC to be McCarthyist, but Joe McCarthy wasn’t exactly a card-carrying communist.

Without meaning to sound PC in a sexist sort of way, the ladies were the stand-out debaters of the night — starting with second affirmative Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, the Warlpiri/Celtic Alice Springs councillor, as well as singer and advocate against domestic violence. She resents the fact that PC practitioners keep telling her and her people what they should call themselves. In her neck of the woods, the lack of PC is an indication that people (both black and white) don’t take themselves too seriously. And this is because they have more serious fish to fry.

Price says that PC is like racism — both are based on untruths and stereotypes. PC means that indigenous people, especially women, find it hard to speak about violence from black family members and community folk. In this case, PC can be deadly. As for white racism, Price says she would rather know who the racists are so she can face them head on.

The final speaker was second negative, Tasneem Chopra. (Disclaimer: I’ve known Tasneem since 1985. Also, I’ve always called her Tasneem and that won’t stop here. Of course, that doesn’t mean I agree with Tasneem on everything).

Tasneem says that for many urban women from “ethnic” backgrounds, PC is all they have to protect them from discrimination. PC exposes privilege and bias.

It allows us to call out bigotry, to stand up to dominant voices.

Tasneem called upon Kenny (or Chris, to be fair) to share his experiences of racism.

If you feel the need to be violent or racist, to threaten rape or other assault, your politics is incorrect.

With this youngish and largely female crowd, the negative side were always going to win the debate. OK, that wasn’t very PC.

First published in Crikey on 29 May 2017.

COMMENT: More thoughts on free speech and hate-speech

Geert Wilders, a Dutch far-Right wacko recently elected to the EU parliament, was invited to speak at a number of synagogues in the United States, his tour partly organised by the Middle East Forum with which this chap is associated. And what is the agenda of Wilders' party? Well, part of it includes ...

The PVV wants to close the borders to people who belong to one particular religion, and ban the houses of worship and schools for one population group. Wilders once told De Limburger newspaper that he wants to "tear down the mosques". He told HP/De Tijd newsweekly that "it is okay for the Netherlands to have Jewish and Christian school but not Islamic schools". In other words: pure discrimination.

Wilders has also said that his utopia is a Netherlands without immigrants, and that it is unacceptable that Dutch cities could one day have a majority of non-white people. He is also anti-democratic. He is the only member of his private party. PVV parliamentarians are not elected by the party but appointed by Wilders himself. The PVV meets behind closed doors in meetings where no one has the right to vote. So the main defining characteristics of an extreme-right party - nationalist, anti-democratic and racist - are all found in the PVV.

The party also likes to flirt with violence. Wilders has referred to his own parliamentary group as a "motley crew marching into parliament". He has said Moroccan football hooligans ought to be knee-capped, and that race riots are "not necessarily a bad thing".

... In the Netherlands, the Anne Frank Foundation researched the PVV and concluded that it was indeed an extreme-right party.

Janet Albrechtsen defended Wilders' right to free speech in a recent column, though she did acknowledge:

The Dutch MP with the flamboyant hair style has opinions that are surely offensive, perhaps hurtful and even hateful. You may say Wilders is wrong. Indeed, feel free to do so.

She didn't feel free to do so. Funny that.

Words © 2009 Irfan Yusuf




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COMMENT: Between free speech and hate speech ...

Some readers will recall the enormous fuss surrounding Michael Backman’s column in The Age column, which contained two questionable remarks:

*That, through its excesses against the Palestinians, Israel was responsible for inciting Muslims across the world to hate her;

*That the West suffered because of this through terrorist attacks by Muslim extremists; and

*That Israeli trekkers were all badly behaved in Nepal.

The first two claims, while dubious, were more political judgments than racist remarks. There was a fair bit of emotion-charged debate at the Crikey website, with media writer Margaret Simons insisting The Age had some explaining to do while other Crikey contributors denied Backman was anti-Semitic at all given Israeli newspapers print complaints about Israeli tourists.

The Australian ran hard on the story, its editorial asking whether editors at The Age shared Backman’s ...

... [u]ndergraduate, ill-informed nonsense.

It continued:

There is no evidence that Backman hates Jews, but people who do will endorse his arguments and continue to cloak their anti-Semitism in a faux concern for the Palestinians.

In the same vein, I cannot claim that Janet Albrechtsen’s recent claims on her blog that ...

... a significant distinguishing feature between Muslim countries and the West has been our belief in freedom of expression ...

... show that she hates Muslims per se, even if she refuses to distinguish between different Muslim-majority states.

(I myself have gone on record about the lack of freedoms citizens in most Arab states enjoy. However, I distinguished between Arab League states (who make up around 15% of the world’s Muslim population) and other states. I also don’t cast aspersions on all 1.2 billion, knowing that around one third live as minorities.)

But will Albrechtsen’s arguments, ostensibly defending a far-Right Dutch politician’s freedom to compare Muslim scriptures with Hitler’s autobiography, be endorsed by people who do hate Muslims and allow them to cloak their hatred in a faux concern for freedom of speech? Read the 7 pages of moderated comments and judge for yourself.

Or to use language Albrechtsen will no doubt appreciate, being the free speech crusader she is, should the rights of a far-Right Dutch MP to offend racial and religious minorities be deemed more important than that of a British columnist? Indeed, the big question in my mind is this: why didn’t Janet Albrechtsen raise her voice in defense of Michael Backman? I won’t bother holding my breath for an honest answer.

Writing in the New York Times on January 29, Dutch journalist Ian Buruma addresses the prosecution of far-Right MP Geert Wilders. He begins with this observation:

IF it were not for his hatred of Islam, Geert Wilders would have remained a provincial Dutch parliamentarian of little note.

(I can't help but wonder the same about Janet Albrechtsen, whose rise to fame was on the back of her rather creative use of the work of European academics.)

Buruma provides the context of the Wilders prosecution, something Albrechtsen finds impossible to do with an equal degree of clarity.

[Wilders] is now world-famous, mainly for wanting the Koran to be banned in his country, “like Mein Kampf is banned,” and for making a crude short film that depicted Islam as a terrorist faith — or, as he puts it, “that sick ideology of Allah and Muhammad.”

Last year the Dutch government decided that such views, though coarse, were an acceptable contribution to political debate. Yet last week an Amsterdam court decided that Mr. Wilders should be prosecuted for “insulting” and “spreading hatred” against Muslims. Dutch criminal law can be invoked against anyone who “deliberately insults people on the grounds of their race, religion, beliefs or sexual orientation.”

Buruma acknowledges that Wilders' supporters are not all far-Right fruitloops.

Whether Mr. Wilders has deliberately insulted Muslim people is for the judges to decide ... When the British Parliament refused to screen Mr. Wilders’s film at Westminster this week, he cited this as “yet more proof that Europe is losing its freedom.” His defenders, by no means all right-wingers, also claim to be standing up for freedom. A Dutch law professor said he found it “strange” that a man should be prosecuted for “criticizing a book.”

Buruma then identifies the method used by Wilders, and in doing so provides an effective and nuanced antidote to Albrechtsen's simplistic linear free-speech rant.

In a bewildering world of global economics, multinational institutions and mass migration, many people are anxious about losing their sense of place; they feel abandoned by their own elites. Right-wing populists like Geert Wilders are tapping into these fears.

Since raw nativism is out of fashion in the Netherlands, Mr. Wilders does not speak of race, but of freedom. His method is to expose the intolerance of Muslims by provoking them. If they react to his insults, he can claim that they are a threat to our native liberties. And if anyone should point out that deliberately giving offense to Muslims is neither the best way to lower social tensions nor to protect our freedoms, Mr. Wilders will denounce him as a typical cultural elitist collaborating with “Islamo-fascism.”

It is tempting to conclude (as Albrechtsen suggests) that Wilders is merely seekng to criticise a religious belief. Followers of that belief need not be afraid of that criticism. But is Wilders really just criticising a religious belief?

Comparing a book that billions hold sacred to Hitler’s murderous tract is more than an exercise in literary criticism; it suggests that those who believe in the Koran are like Nazis, and an all-out war against them would be justified. This kind of thinking, presumably, is what the Dutch law court is seeking to check.

One of the misconceptions that muddle the West’s debate over Islam and free speech is the idea that people should be totally free to insult. Free speech is never that absolute. Even — or perhaps especially — in America, where citizens are protected by the First Amendment, there are certain words and opinions that no civilized person would utter, and others that open the speaker to civil charges.

This does not mean that religious beliefs should be above criticism. And sometimes criticism will be taken as an insult where none is intended. In that case the critic should get the benefit of the doubt. Likening the Koran to “Mein Kampf” would not seem to fall into that category.

If Mr. Wilders were to confine his remarks to those Muslims who do harm freedom of speech by using violence against critics and apostates, he would have a valid point. This is indeed a serious problem, not just in the West, but especially in countries where Muslims are in the majority. Mr. Wilders, however, refuses to make such fine distinctions. He believes that there is no such thing as a moderate Muslim. His aim is to stop “the Islamic invasion of Holland.”

There are others who share this fear and speak of “Islamicization,” as though not just Holland but all Europe were in danger of being engulfed by fascism once again. Since Muslims still constitute a relatively small minority, and most are not extremists, this seems an exaggerated fear, even though the danger of Islamist violence must be taken seriously.

However, a closer look at the rhetoric of Mr. Wilders and his defenders shows that Muslims are not the only enemies in their sights. Equally dangerous are the people whom Mr. Wilders and others refer to obsessively as “the cultural elite.”

Yep, those blasted leftwing university-educated elites who can only be exposed by their exact opposite - rightwing edlites with doctorates in law who get appointed to the boards of national broadcasters.

So what do I think of the movie? Well, I'm still wondering what all the fuss is about. It's rather ordinary, dare I say "undergraduate" and somewhat "ill-informed". The responses of another bunch of Muslim "elites" can be viewed here, and you can also

My Dutch co-religionists didn't exactly feel threatened by the movie.

The lawsuit against Mr. Wilders has been hailed in the Netherlands as a good thing for democracy. I am not so sure. It makes him look more important than he should be. In fact, the response of Dutch Muslims to his film last year was exemplary: most said nothing at all. And when a small Dutch Muslim TV station offered to broadcast the film, after all other stations had refused, the grand champion of free speech resolutely turned the offer down.

I guess that's what happens when you aren't one of the elites.

Speaking of which, feel free to watch the movie here and judge for yourself. I doubt Janet Albrechtsen would have the guts to broadcast this freely-available YouTube clip on her elite blog.



Words © 2009 Irfan Yusuf


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LETTERS: Response to Rushdie article ...

I received an interesting letter in the mail in response to my article suggesting Rushdie isn't being terribly consistent on freedom of speech and freedom to offend. Sue D is of the view that I am part of a patriarchal system where women are silenced. Sue D clearly hasn't met my mother.

Here is the letter in full, with the writer's full name abbreviated ...

11 August 2008
The Age – 9th Aug 2008
“Rushdie no believer in free speech”
Dear Irfan Yusuf,

I hate to see you so vulnerable that you are losing your sense of humour!

(Of course S Rushdie is a hypocrite - no one cares.)

The prophet Muhammad must be turning in his grave – he would not have wanted to be held up as God or as a perfect example of a man!

As long as you attempt to maintain your patriarchal system, you will always accessible to attacks of laughter – accept this! (or change.)

I feel sorry for you poor, gorgeous, deprived blokes – you don’t have the women to speak up for you (obviously they are not guiding you from the wider international community anyway) – I tend to think this serves you right.’’

Meanwhile I’ll be waiting to enjoy ‘Noor’ on SBS (hopefully) – will it match the excellent ‘Silk Market’?

Why should I care if you Muslim-Australians choose not to contribute to civic life?

Sue D
Victoria

Sue D's claim that Aussies who feel inclined to tick the "Muslim" box on their census forms "choose not to contribute to civic life" is laughable. When she runs for local government and in a federal election, and when she has articles published in major Australian newspapers, she can lecture me on engaging in civic life.

OPINION: Rushdie is no believer in free speech

Sir Salman Rushdie is back in the news. His book Midnight’s Children set during the 1947 Partition of India has received a Booker award for being the best book to have been booked for a Booker award. Or something like that.

Rushdie has also threatened a former Special Branch officer with libel proceedings. The officer was one of of many funded by British taxpayers to protect Rushdie after he received death threats in the late 1980’s arising from his novel The Satanic Verses. That novel offended many for its lewd references to religious Biblical and Koranic figures, including Abraham and the wives of the prophet Muhammad.

Jews and Christians were quite restrained in their condemnation of the book. Sadly, a minority of loudmouth Muslims found in the book an excellent excuse to whip up enough hysteria to make their co-religionists into an international laughing stock. The late Ayatollah Khomeini was keen to gain political mileage for his allegedly Islamic revolution by calling for Rushdie to be given a rushed death.

This violently imbecilic response from even some Western Muslims was an affront to free speech, including freedom to offend and collectively lampoon religious sentiment. Overnight, Rushdie became a pin-up boy for a loose coalition of free-speech campaigners and sectarian bigots.

Some less hysterical Muslims tried to use reason, suggesting this wasn't about free speech, but rather about consistency in UK blasphemy laws that prosecuted persons causing offence to Christianity but not other faiths. The majority of us wondered what all the fuss was about.

I was a first year undergraduate when the novel was first published. I found it silly that people who hadn’t read the novel could issue black cheque fatwas. I went to my local library to borrow The Satanic Verses. Within the first 10 pages, I was wondering why hysterical Muslims had turned this literary sleeping tablet into a runaway best seller. Rushdie certainly didn't cause me any offence.

But Rushdie lapped up the hysteria, projecting himself as living martyr of free speech. He happily accepted lavish security arrangements offered by his adopted country to save him from violent religious fundamentalists, at a cost to British taxpayers of millions of pounds.

Now, some 2 decades on, Rushdie has made his own self an exception to his free speech fundamentalism. And his target? Ironically, one of his very own taxpayer-funded Special Branch bodyguards!

One of the officers is about to publish a memoir of his working career On Her Majesty's Service. Part of Roy Evans' memoir deals with the period during which he was assigned to protect Rushdie. The Guardian reports that Rushdie is most unhappy with Evans' portrayal of him as “mean, nasty, tight-fisted, arrogant and extremely unpleasant”. Evans also claims police nicknamed Rushdie as “Scruffy” due to his unkempt appearance , and that Rushdie even charged London police rent for when overnight security was required.

Rushdie’s behaviour toward his former bodyguards would hardly inspire Whitney Houston to sing “And I-i-I-i-I will always love yooooooo-iiii-ooooou”. Moreover, it has also left a sour taste on the tongues of that section of his former backers who were inspired by free speech and not just sectarian bigotry.

Back in 2005, Rushdie was among prominent English writers and artists opposing proposed laws seeking to outlaw “incitement to hatred against persons on racial or religious grounds”. Writing on the Open Democracy website on 7 February 2005 under the headline “Defend the right to be offended”, Rushdie wrote

The idea that any kind of free society can be constructed in which people will never be offended or insulted is absurd. So too is the notion that people should have the right to call on the law to defend them against being offended or insulted ... The defence of free speech begins at the point when people say something you can’t stand. If you can’t defend their right to say it, then you don’t believe in free speech.

The free-speech fundamentalist of yesteryear is now taken it upon himself to delay the publication of a book because he feels offended and slighted by its description of him. The implication of his position is simple – the law should leave him free to offend the sensitivities of millions, but should protect him from offence.

Freedom of speech is a fundamental value to emerge from the violent and bloody historical European struggles that produced the “Enlightenment”. Another is the rule of law. The law does provide remedies to private litigants which impede on free speech. Rushdie is entitled to take action to protect his own reputation, even if it potentially makes him one of this century's great free speech hypocrites.

At the conclusion of his address to a recent Big Ideas Forum hosted by the Centre for Independent Studies in Sydney recently, British sociology professor Frank Ferudi declared that there are no free speech heroes in Europe. He said both the Left and the Right were selective in their support of free speech, especially when it came to discussing anything relating to religion.

I'm not sure which side of the political divide Rushdie falls into. But his threats against Roy Evans certainly prove that Salman Rushdie is certainly no free speech hero.

Irfan Yusuf is a Sydney lawyer and was awarded the 2007 Allen & Unwin Iremonger Award for public affairs writing. An edited version of this article was first published in The Age on Saturday 9 August 2008.

UPDATE I: Someone named Scott sent me an e-mail in response to the article ...

There is a fundamental difference between the freedom to write a novel, and the freedom to assassinate someone's character. You are just trying to make a name for yourself.

So Salman Rushdie's novels have never assassinated anyone's character. Describing Abraham, the patriarch of ethical monotheism, as a "b#st#rd isn't an act of character assassination.

Either that, or Scott believes Rushdie should be free to assassinate the characters of religious figures but no one should have the write to suggest that British taxpayers may have been helping Mr Rushdie pay off his mortgage.

Still, Rushdie should never have been the subject of a death threat from any source. Though I certainly won't be looking in Rushdie's direction for advice on free speech and the law.

Words © 2008 Irfan Yusuf

COMMENT: Ayaan Hirsi Hilali

Former far-Right Dutch MP Ayaan Hirsi Ali spoke tonight at a forum organised by the (right-of-) Centre for Independent Studies on the topic of Enlightenment Values. During question time, I reminded Ayaan Hirsi Ali of an interview I had with her when she was last in Sydney for the Sydney Writers' Festival.

I've written about this exchange in The Age before ...

It was July 2007. I'd almost reached the end of an interview with feisty neo-conservative ex-Muslim Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the main attraction at the Sydney Writers Festival. I thought I'd throw in one last question to see how she was settling into her new life at the conservative American Enterprise Institute. I asked what she thought of the debate about teaching intelligent design (a more
sophisticated version of creationism) in American schools.

Hirsi Ali's answer wasn't exactly diplomatic. People who teach creationism in schools should be imprisoned, she said.

I asked Hirsi Ali whether she still held to that view and what she regards should be the limits of free speech. At first Hirsi Ali denied ever saying this. I then put to her the fact that I had the recording of the interview, she claimed I had quoted her out of context.

I understand that her real name is Ayaan Hirsi Magaan. She used the name "Hirsi Ali" on her application to gain asylum. She was later forced to confess that the application contained incorrect and false information.

I propose she now be given a new name - Ayaan Hirsi Hilali. It's identical to her assumed name, only with three extra letters. Like her namesake, Sheik Tajeddine Hilali, Ms Hirsi Hilali has the habit of claiming her embarrassing remarks really involved her being quoted out of context.

Some may wonder what Hirsi Hilali's views are on the limits to free speech. From my recollection, she said that speech should be free within the confines of the law. She cited a recent decision of the US Supreme Court which apparently stated that it was OK for a defendant to call for Jews to be expelled to Israel and blacks to be sent back to Africa. Apparently the judge in that case said that the defendant had the right to say this because there were no blacks or Jews within earshot.

So as long as you follow the law, you are free to say what you like. The law is supreme, even if ridiculous or oppressive. Pakistan's former military dictator, General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, used similar reasoning. He was asked when he would restore democracy. He said: "We already have democracy. We have the rule of law. I have established the rule of law, and so my government is democratic".

Dr Frank Furedi, who spoke before Hirsi Hilali, ended his talk by suggesting that in Europe there are no free speech heroes. Both the left and the right only support free speech when it suits them. If Ms Hirsi Hilali's views are any indication, Furedi's assessment might be extended across the Atlantic.

(Anyone wishing to receive the unedited copy of my interview with Ayaan Hirsi Ali is welcome to e-mail me at irfsol@yahoo.com.au).

BLOG: The Blair Bitching Project

In an effort to display (or rather, abuse) freedom of speech, a number of neo (I’d prefer to call them pseudo) Conservative bloggers have supported the publication of the 12 cartoons by various newspapers.

Tim Blair, who joined me in an interview with the Triple-J program “Hack” on the afternoon of Monday 6 February 2006, has published all the cartoons in full. He has given the usual spiel about freedom of speech.

At least I think he has. I really don’t know. Why? Because around 6 months ago, Mr Blair decided to show his devotion to freedom of speech by banning me from commenting on his blog.

And my crime? I was being way too critical of a certain non-Arab country in the Middle East whose name is not Iran. Or more specifically, I was being critical of Ariel Sharon.

Mr Blair’s devotion to freedom of speech did not, at the time, extend to freedom to criticise Israeli Likud Party leaders, a right enjoyed by Israelis themselves.

Mr Blair also did not like the fact that I was using genuine conservative argument to show that his positions on a number of issues bore greater resemblance to those of the East German Communist Party than to mainstream conservative thinking.

Of course, those agreeing with Mr Blair’s position have been free to leave anonymous comments on this blog. The fact that they may find themselves unable to use words with more than four letters doesn’t stop me from allowing them some free speech.

Mr Blair also apparently made references to the fact that Arab newspapers had posted anti-Semitic cartoons in their pages. Yes, I agree that they have done this. And this is wrong. But does that make it ok to follow their example?

Naturally, Mr Blair is an expert on racism. Which explains why he allows racist and xenophobic views to be expressed on his blog. You will find him citing Mark Steyn, Daniel Pipes and a range of other persons whose views about Muslims virtually mirror the sorts of views published in German newspapers about Jews during the 1920’s and 30’s. All sorts of strange and wonderful conspiracy theories are attributed to Muslims.

So for proponents of unbridled freedom of speech, all I can say is that with friends like Mr Blair, who needs enemies?

Still, Tim does provide people with food for thought. And he sounds like a nice bloke on radio. I’m sure if I met him in person, he’d turn out to be good for a laugh over a few bottles of (in my case) Maison. Then I could share with him a few Nasruddin Hoca stories. Or perhaps some of the Prophet Muhammad's jokes reported in Shama'il Tirmidhi and other classical works.

Words © 2006 Irfan Yusuf