Bremner, Islam…and fear

June 18, 2010 at 8:06 pm (BBC, Christianity, Free Speech, Guardian, Islam, islamism, Jim D, religious right, SWP)

Rory Bremner, a leftist satirist, was interviewed as part of a Channel 4 show on “satire” that appeared last night. He said this:

“With Islam, you’re in a situation now, which I’ve never been in before, which is that when you’re writing a sketch about Islam, I’m writing a line and I think ‘If this goes down badly, I’m writing my own death warrant there.’

“‘Because there are are people who will say ‘Not only do I not think that’s funny but I’m going to kill you’ – and that’s chilling.”

I’ve been thinking about Bremner’s words ever since, and reckon they’re quite important. At one level, he’s merely stating the obvious: that the willingness of Islamic fundamentalist extremists to kill people creates an atmosphere of fear that western satirists are not used to dealing with. When I first got involved with the far left, in the 1970′s, hostility towards religion was taken as read; satire (like Monty Python’s ‘Life of Brian’) was unquestioned; the idea that we might possibly, under *any* conceivable circumstances defend religion or have  ”respect” for (as opposed to *understanding* of)  the feelings of religious people, was unthinkable. Socialist Worker and the International Socialists, in particular,  were vigorously secular and anti-religious.

The tide turned after the Salman Rushdie / ‘Satanic Verses’  row in 1988, when some elements on the ”left” (noteably the SWP who had initially defended Rushdie, then changed their mind) turned against free speech and in favour of “respect” towards religion. This was the beginning of relativism as a force to be reckoned with in “left” politics in Britain.

The SWP, in particular, championed an unprecedented leftist softness towards religion and expended great efforts to misrepresent Marx and miseducate young comrades on the question of religion, up to and including what he meant by the “sigh of the oppressed.” The SWP’s bastard offspring, “Respect”, led by the shyster/poseur Galloway,  a proclaimed, political Catholic who hinted at a forthcoming conversion to Islam, further challenged the internationalist left’s traditional secularism.

We all know that the BBC and other mainstream media from the Sun to the Guardian, have long avoided any criticism of Islam. The sort of attacks on Christianity, Judaism and Hindusim, that are acceptable, and indeed, welcomed, by leftists, are now deemed “unacceptable” in “left” circles, when applied to Islam.

The reasons for this are mixed; as is so often the case there is a “good” reason:

Muslims are amongst the poorest and most disadvantaged people in Britain today. The left, quite rightly, wants to support Muslim people. Islamist radicals have been fostering a sense of victimhood within Muslim communities for some years. No reasonable person would want to increase the sense of victimhood by gratuitously insulting Islam. The “left”, in particular, wants to be seen as defenders of the oppressed. But our true role must be to champion working class people in the workplace and , and to fight for equal rights in the communities- not to defend religious and social backwardness.

But there is a “real” reason: the “left”  (which for the purposed of this article, includes the “establishment” liberal/left of the Guardian and the BBC) is afraid of the virile, aggressive religion of Islam, in a way that it isn’t of liberal, decadent Christianity.

And the establishment liberals are afraid because they’ve been told, by Muslim fundamentalists, “Upset us and we’ll kill you.”

Rory Bremner has acknowledged that simple  fear  often lies behind the reluctance of  the mainstream media, comedians and satirists, to treat Islam as they treat Christianity and all other religions.

We on the left need to reassert what used to be a trusim: that it is possible to defend immigrant communities against attack, whilst not defending their cultural traditions – especially when those traditions are thoroughly reactionary. And we must defend the right to attack and ridicule religion and defend free speech . “Leftist” like the SWP who have equivocated on any or all of that are, quite simply, traitors to the enlightenment and to Marxism.