The letter pictured below was published in response to a "Let's keep the flame of free speech bright" article in the Amnesty UK magazine. It is a great example of the well meaning approach of some who actually play into the hands of religious extremists.
As supporters of human rights we must defend free speech at all costs. It is a cornerstone of basic rights for all - especially minorities and the oppressed.
Juliet Chaplin's letter uses the terms "used responsibly", "common courtesy", "common good with responsibility", "the truth" and "common sense and consideration" as somehow being caveats to free speech. This totally ignores the fact that what is "responsible", "truth" or "common sense" depends on personal views. Free speech is about being able to disagree with opinions even (perhaps especially) if they are deeply help. Otherwise no one can challenge perceived wisdom, majority held or extremist views even though they all need to be discussed openly and freely.
I may believe that eating meat is horrific. However, if Juliet or anyone else wants to extol the virtues of vegetarianism then they should be able to do so even if it offends and upsets me. The same goes for religious beliefs. These are beliefs you are choosing to have. It is not the same as your nationality, colour or sexuality which are innate traits that you cannot choose. To attack these is what hate speech actually is. Hate speech is also incitement of violence. It is not hate speech to disagree with the deeply held views of others - religious or otherwise.
To be clear, supporters of free speech do not advocate random unsolicited rants in the face of someone who you might disagree with. We are instead talking about the ability to publish articles and cartoons as well as speak in public forums. No one is suggesting we should be able to randomly approach someone in the street and tell them their beliefs are wrong. to that extent I agree with Juliet's "courtesy" comment.
Juliet also makes the two comments commonly made by apologists for religious extremism. Firstly, "it is well known that the Prophet must not be depicted". This treats all muslims as one group with unified views on this and other matters of islam. It is not true. There are many faith groups within the Islamic religion who are relaxed about this depiction (for example around 6 million alevi muslims in Turkey). In fact, by playing the homogenous card, Juliet plays into the hands of the extremists. It is islamist extremists who have recently created this idea of any depiction of Mohammad as being so horrific to muslims. We need to resist this as defenders of universal human rights for all.
Secondly, Juliet says "religious rights are being trampled on. Several Christians have been persecuted". Total nonsense I'm afraid. Please detail even one case where this is actually so in the UK. The cases referred to are actually cases where Christians have argued that their beliefs should allow them to trample on the human rights on others or generally applied laws. e.g. bakers refusing to bake for homosexuals, bed and breakfast providers refusing to let homosexuals stay and a nurse refusing to conceal her crucifix chain as it was a safety hazard in the hospital. These people are the abusers of universal human rights and we should fight against the bigotry they attempt to promote. Human rights defenders should not help people with certain beliefs impose them on others or receive preferential treatment because of them.
Saturday, 26 September 2015
Free speech, religious beliefs and human rights
The letter pictured below was published in response to a "Let's keep the flame of free speech bright" article in the Amnesty UK magazine. It is a great example of the well meaning approach of some who actually play into the hands of religious extremists.
As supporters of human rights we must defend free speech at all costs. It is a cornerstone of basic rights for all - especially minorities and the oppressed.
Juliet Chaplin's letter uses the terms "used responsibly", "common courtesy", "common good with responsibility", "the truth" and "common sense and consideration" as somehow being caveats to free speech. This totally ignores the fact that what is "responsible", "truth" or "common sense" depends on personal views. Free speech is about being able to disagree with opinions even (perhaps especially) if they are deeply help. Otherwise no one can challenge perceived wisdom, majority held or extremist views even though they all need to be discussed openly and freely.
I may believe that eating meat is horrific. However, if Juliet or anyone else wants to extol the virtues of vegetarianism then they should be able to do so even if it offends and upsets me. The same goes for religious beliefs. These are beliefs you are choosing to have. It is not the same as your nationality, colour or sexuality which are innate traits that you cannot choose. To attack these is what hate speech actually is. Hate speech is also incitement of violence. It is not hate speech to disagree with the deeply held views of others - religious or otherwise.
To be clear, supporters of free speech do not advocate random unsolicited rants in the face of someone who you might disagree with. We are instead talking about the ability to publish articles and cartoons as well as speak in public forums. No one is suggesting we should be able to randomly approach someone in the street and tell them their beliefs are wrong. to that extent I agree with Juliet's "courtesy" comment.
Juliet also makes the two comments commonly made by apologists for religious extremism. Firstly, "it is well known that the Prophet must not be depicted". This treats all muslims as one group with unified views on this and other matters of islam. It is not true. There are many faith groups within the Islamic religion who are relaxed about this depiction (for example around 6 million alevi muslims in Turkey). In fact, by playing the homogenous card, Juliet plays into the hands of the extremists. It is islamist extremists who have recently created this idea of any depiction of Mohammad as being so horrific to muslims. We need to resist this as defenders of universal human rights for all.
Secondly, Juliet says "religious rights are being trampled on. Several Christians have been persecuted". Total nonsense I'm afraid. Please detail even one case where this is actually so in the UK. The cases referred to are actually cases where Christians have argued that their beliefs should allow them to trample on the human rights on others or generally applied laws. e.g. bakers refusing to bake for homosexuals, bed and breakfast providers refusing to let homosexuals stay and a nurse refusing to conceal her crucifix chain as it was a safety hazard in the hospital. These people are the abusers of universal human rights and we should fight against the bigotry they attempt to promote. Human rights defenders should not help people with certain beliefs impose them on others or receive preferential treatment because of them.
Friday, 25 September 2015
RIP great uncle Hugh.
Hugh Burden was killed at the age of 20 around 11am on June 28 1915. His death was unpleasant in both the way and why it happened. Despite this I had the privilege of visiting the site of his death at Gallipoli almost exactly 100 years after the event.I had always been told that Hugh was “killed in the first world war in Germany”. The unlikelieness of this was lost on me (soldiers didn’t generally get to Germany itself) until someone doing some research on Hugh’s father’s Ragged School in Falkirk recently told me that he had been killed at Gallipoli. Hugh’s father (John) had 6 children with Hugh’s mother, Margaret, including my maternal gran. He then married again (to a woman also with 6 kids) and left for the US where they had a daughter. When John returned to Falkirk he was sentenced to prison for bigamy - one of a few family secrets that were never talked about. In fact, my gran never told my gran-pa about it.
Hugh was a volunteer in the 8th Cameronians Battalion, 156th (Scottish Rifles) Brigade (part of the 52nd (Lowland) Division. They did some basic training in Grangemouth, travelled to Liverpool and then set sail from there to Egypt via Devonport (Plymouth) to join the Mediterranean Expedition Force.
On the 10th of June 1915 he wrote his last letter home to his mum whilst on the SS Ballarat ship either travelling from Egypt to Gallipoli or moored there. Luckily we still have it. He tells her not to believe all the media reports of death and destruction - little did he know what awaited him and his fellow Cameronians. He also asks her repeatedly to send fags and cigarette papers!
They landed on Y or W beaches in Gallipoli on 14 June on loan to the 29th Division having had very little training and inadequately equipped with poor information and planning available. Unfortunately they then became part of a campaign that was fundamentally flawed in origin (per Winston Churchill at the Admiralty) and execution in Gully Ravine (per senior officers Hamilton, Hunter-Weston, Simpson-Baikie and Beauvior de Lisle).
On Monday 28th June the Cameronians were part of an attack around Gully Ravine (“Sigindere“ to the Turks). They were on the right-most flank on Fir Tree Spur east of the Ravine. There was virtually no artillery cover from either land or sea for the part of the Ottoman lines they were attacking so Hugh and 472 of his 8th Cameronians colleagues were casualties (with over 300 dead) in 5 minutes in one of 3 ways:
- bombed in the trench before the attack
- machine gunned as they went over the top towards Turkish trenches at 11am totally unaffected by artillery fire
- left injured in no man’s land where the scrub eventually caught fire under Turkish bombing and so were burned to death.
This was a war where the military were the really serious causalities unlike the second world war where civilians were major casualties (through bombing raids of cities and the holocaust). It was a time when people were treated as weapons to be used, killed and injured in massive numbers with no regard to the inhumanity of this. As an example Hunter-Weston said that he “cared nothing for casualties” and commented that the massacre at gully Ravine had “blooded the pups” when the shocking casualties became known including Hugh. Such abuse caused the commander, Granville-Egerton, of the Cameronians when he arrived at Gallipoli to protest so much that he was eventually disciplined.
Almost exactly 100 years after this catastrophe, my wife and I visited Gallipoli to see the locations related to Hugh and the Cameronians. It was an extremely poignant occasion even more so because of the beauty of the peninsular these days and the fact that Hugh’s great nephew was visiting as the first family member since his death and with a Turkish born wife. In addition, nature has reclaimed the area as if to say “I’ll take over again now you ridiculous humans have stopped killing each other and destroying my work”.
We visited the Helles monument where Hugh’s name appears as his body was never found or was unidentified. Through the excellent work of Stephen Chambers in his Gully Ravine book and Battlefield Guide Andy Crooks (who produces www.gullyravine.org.uk) we were also able to find the area where the trenches had been that Hugh died in or near. It is cultivated fields now and the sight of sunflower, melon, tomato and berry crops in an area where such carnage took place in 1915 just shows how insignificant we really are. Some trenches west of where Hugh died still exist and we were able to sit in them. There seemed to be only one appropriate way to commemorate Hugh’s short life - we read his last letter home to his mum and smoked a big Cuban cigar on his behalf. A delivery of nicotine 100 years too late that he couldn’t enjoy himself but the sentiment seemed right.
It was an extremely poignant trip to commemorate Hugh’s life and early death amongst a Gallpoli casualty list of 36,000 Commonwealth, 10,000 French and 86,000 Ottoman troops.
RIP great uncle Hugh.
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