And welcome to the second annual Don Deflection Colloquium,
which commemorates Ralph Don of the third warden of this college, or the great liberal European thinker.
We're delighted to have members of the Dando family here and also very pleased to
welcome Professor Michael during the president of the Site Foundation in Hamburg,
a foundation with which Ralph Dondo was closely associated and which has generously supported this colloquium.
Rose standoff was not a religious person.
He was quite unusually brought up in an entirely secular way by pre-war German social Democrats.
And I think it's fair to say he hardly had a religious nerve in his body, but he was very interested in religion as a social force.
And above all.
Central to his concerns with the theme of diversity difference and conflict conflict which he regarded not as something to be resolved or stopped,
but as an essential feature of a free society and an essential source of human creativity.
Jobs and the job was not to stop it, but to civilise it, to harness it as a force for civilisation.
And of course, in our time, religious differences are among the main sources, or at least occasions for conflict,
not least around free speech, which is one of the major subjects of research in our Don Dorf program for the Study of Freedom.
Hence our topic today. Is nothing sacred.
Religion and free speech. And I've asked speakers, at least initially, to concentrate on two main areas.
Firstly, the question of what the law or the policies of a state should do about the question of religion and free speech.
Should we not be free by law to say anything about religion?
Or should we not be free by law to say anything about the religious?
That is to say, the believers, rather than the belief. Is that distinction, in fact, at all sustainable?
There are, in fact, across the world a huge.
Range of laws of this kind.
We ourselves in Britain have on the statute book a law on incitement to religious hatred, fortunately an effectively emasculated and neutered law,
but nonetheless on the statute book and this ranges and all the way to Pakistan
where to make derogatory remarks about the Prophet Mohammed is punishable by law,
by death. But this is only half the story because the most effective.
A constrained limit on free speech about religion in our own countries and so-called free societies at the moment is nothing in the law.
It is strictly illegal. Violent intimidation.
It is people saying, if you say that we will kill you.
And then sometimes they do. As you know, the governor of Punjab and the minister for minorities have been assassinated in Pakistan only this year.
They often go in the Netherlands. Salman Rushdie and Ayaan Hirsi Ali living under death threats.
But it's not only atheists and freethinkers.
Many Muslims also live under death threats.
One of our speakers today, Dr. Osama Hasan,
has himself received death threats quite recently for arguing that the theory of evolution is compatible with Islam.
And it's not just Muslims. The intimidation of the play about the Sikhs based.
M.F. Hussain, probably the most famous Indian painter who died just a few days ago, died in exile because of intimidation by Hindu nationalists.
Mark Thompson of the BBC, who's with us here today, could tell a tale of perhaps not quite so extreme,
but nonetheless quite nasty threats relating to the BBC broadcasting.
Jerry Springer. The Opera.
The problem is, of course, if we ask the question, what can the law or the state do effectively to stop such violent intimidation,
then very soon you get to the point where those laws themselves like that on the glorification of terrorism are becoming a limit,
a restriction of free speech. So that's the first area.
The second area is, I think, at least as important.
So much of the free speech literature is about what the law should or should not allow.
But actually there's a vast area. Of social and cultural and educational norms.
Editorial standards. The right to offend does not imply a duty to offend.
And it seems to me at least as important to examine those sort of judgements which we make voluntary in a university like this.
I hope Charles can talk, for example, about the choices he had to make as editor of national newspapers.
What is a social practice? Of a neutral or secular public sphere.
What does it mean in reality?
Is there not perhaps some special respect that we might want to give voluntarily to religious beliefs not imposed by law,
if only because these are the beliefs people hold most sacred?
Or is it rather the case that the claims of religion should be treated exactly the same as the claims of mathematics or sociology or history?
Why should the claim for the virgin birth of Jesus Christ be treated any differently from the claim that two plus two equals five?
These are some of the questions that I hope other speakers will address.
We have a supremely well-qualified panel. Our first speaker is a philosopher and atheist.
Our second speaker, a scientist and Muslim. Third speaker, a journalist and Christian.
I leave it to them to describe how they see the relations between these two sides of their beings.
If anybody had not heard of Anthony Grayling at the beginning of this week, they certainly have now because he's been all over the papers.
You may have noticed a little noise outside the front gate as the founder of the New College of the Humanities,
not to be confused with New College Oxford.
This is a very interesting subject for debate, but I should stress it's not our subject this evening.
Anthony is here as a philosopher and public intellectual. He has published extensively on philosophical themes.
He was until recently, professor of philosophy at Birkbeck, and he is the president elect of the British Humanist Association.
And his most recent publication is The Good Book A Humanist Bible.
Dr. Osama, whose son is a scientist, he studied physics and artificial intelligence at Cambridge and London universities.
He is senior lecturer at Middlesex University, a fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society,
but he is also a trained Islamic scholar and imam who actually comes out of the Salafi tradition,
which as many of you will know, has been the source of,
or at least from which has come many fundamentalist and extremist tendencies which he knew about in his youth.
But more recently, he has become a very brave and clear critic of extremism, pleading for an Islamic version of the secular public sphere.
And as I said, by arguing that the theory of evolution is compatible with Islam.
He has earned himself. I think that's the right phrase death threat and is in fact unable to preach in his own mosque as a result.
Charles Moore is one of our most distinguished conservative journalists and commentators.
He's been an editor for nearly 20 years of the Spectator of the Sunday Telegraph of the Daily Telegraph.
He's the official biographer of Margaret Thatcher.
He's also a convert from the Church of England to Catholicism and has written often and very thoughtfully about religion in public life,
about the kinds of issues we're talking about today, not least in relation to Islam.
Each of our speakers will speak for just 15 minutes and then we'll have some time for discussion.
So please join me in welcoming our panel. You're listening to Talk.
And well whenever there is a philosophical aspect to an occasion and are very much so is one of this occasion,
it does no harm to brandish the name Wittgenstein.
And I thought I'd do it early and get it over with because Dickinson said it's always worthwhile assembling some
reminders in order to clarify matters and to remind us that we need to assemble for this discussion on these.
At first, it's worthwhile using the expression freedom of expression rather than just freedom of speech,
because we do want to include other forms of expression, then speaking and writing and indeed one.
One of the people mentioned by Timothy in his exhort him was a very substantial, considerable artist who recently died in exile,
as Timothy says, precisely because he wasn't allowed to express himself in his own culture.
And the second thing that we do well to remember is just why it is that freedom of expression is so vital.
It's not a mere piety. It's not possible to have others of our civil liberties unless we have freedom of expression.
We cannot have a democratic order unless people can advance ideas and policies and compete for the attention of the electorate for them.
We can't have a proper educational system unless people can put forward ideas and make a case for them and contest and criticise them.
We can't defend or assert our liberties unless we are able to explain to people that
we feel they're under threat or lay claim to them or go to law to defend them.
And we can't indeed have a proper due process of law unless things can be aired and discussed and tested properly.
So freedom of expression lies at the very heart of the indivisibility of our civil liberties.
It's a very crucial one and the great importance of it to the well-being of a policy,
the well-being of the society in order to different aspects, can't be sufficiently often enough stressed.
Having said that, we have to distinguish two constraints that very often are invoked when we think about the reach
that freedom of expression has across the range of our social and political and educational lives.
And these two constraints are sometimes thought of in terms of pragmatic considerations and of practical ones.
There's an important distinction between pragmatic and practical considerations in the following way pragmatic considerations of invoke.
When people think that it would just make things work a little bit better.
Maybe life would be easier if we were to compromise a little bit.
If, when we write our newspaper articles, we decided not to provoke too much hostility or criticism.
But the practical considerations are the ones that I think Timothy had in mind when he talked about the fact
that having a right to free expression doesn't entail that one should exercise that right at every opportunity.
I mean, famously there is the cliche which, like most cliches, has to match being true,
that it is to do a wrong, to shout fire in a crowded cinema when there isn't a fire.
And so we understand that there are practical considerations that have to be borne in mind in the exercise of the right to freedom of expression,
as in the exercise of any of our rights.
And I think the debate that we have in our contemporary society about the place of religious voices in the public square and of the
effect of religious influence in our educational system that is very much on this practical rather than on this pragmatic measure,
not for itself, a practical reason, but for a reason principle, namely,
that we should not seek the pragmatic option of saying, Look, let us keep the peace.
That's just not rock the boat. That's temper what we really think or feel about things and what we're going to say about things just in order that we,
we, none of us get into trouble or have any ructions.
Because if you did that, it would ultimately prove corrosive, ultimately systematic self-censorship.
Ultimately, the a yielding to a temptation not to accept that there is a cost and a burden
to having a very important right like free speech is corrosive in our society.
But what one can do is that one can be practical about it, as one is when one strains oneself from shouting fire in a crowded cinema.
One recognises that there are in given circumstances and for specified reasons,
that there is a logic in those circumstances and for those reasons to not doing something,
to exercising a certain kind of restraint or just falling back on common courtesy.
It doesn't mean that one is one does temporise one's commitment to freedom of expression, not to shout fire in a crowded cinema.
It means that one recognises that there are other birds and other homes that are at stake,
and one might want to respect those in those circumstances and for those specified reasons.
Just providing that one doesn't make it a principle that one does it always, which is what being pragmatic about it results in.
So this idea of of exercising what an Aristotelian might call the judgement about the right course of
action in a given situation is the one that if people are thoughtful and if people are responsible,
and I think ethical responsibility has become that aspect of our action in the society,
which most importantly I think helps to govern relationships with other people in that society.
If we think about what the responsible thing to do is in a given situation, even with the exercise of fundamental rights,
that's freedom of expression, one is able, while maintaining the principle, holding to the principle, nevertheless using it responsibly.
And the particular application of this to the question of religion in the public sphere is in a secular society,
in a mature, liberal democratic order,
one must be committed to the thought that every point of view, providing it is not a point of view that does incite to violence or to harm that.
Every point of view has to be judged on its merits as to whether or not it should be subject to some kind of social control.
And that's the default position, is that very few such points of view should be.
But there are some importantly, I think, that in connection with a person's disability,
if he or she has one in connection with the gender of a person,
the connection age of a person, connection with the ethnicity and the sexuality of a person,
all things that people don't choose don't choose your age or ethnicity or sexuality.
With respect to these things, you should be protected from all forms of discrimination,
including the discrimination that arises from hate speech and from criticism and attack.
On the basis of that unchanging feature there there can be laws, seems to be quite clear,
but it must be possible to respect the possibility of freedom for the individual who
might otherwise be attacked by protecting them from unbridled freedom of expression.
And those cases seem to be justified. But with respect to things that you can choose, even if it might be hard to choose some of them,
maybe because you were brought up in a particular religious faith or in a particular political tradition,
it might be very hard to break ranks with the people you've you've belonged to all your life.
Nevertheless, in principle, you can you can leave a religion, you can leave a political movement.
You can give up a certain kind of fashion.
You can change your has to there there are various things that you might not wish to do, might find it very hard to do, but in principle can do.
And these things ultimately, therefore, of choice. And with respect to those things, why should there be a law that protects you from criticism,
even if the criticism, the ridicule, the commentary is offensive?
Here we are not properly at all in the realm of law here.
There is no demand, I think, for raising legal fences around people because they choose to be Lib-Dems or because they choose to be Mormons.
Yeah, I think we should accept that when people make and leave these choices that they at the same time accept the cost of doing so.
And that is that they might be criticised, they might be ridiculed, they might be offended by what people say.
And that is just par for the course in a society where other people may very
well disagree with you and have an entitlement to express that disagreement.
But this is the realm also where considerations of practicality arise.
If we live in an enflamed period where people have violent attachments to one or another view.
If, for example, we found that poking fun at Mr. Cameron caused massed ranks of Tories to rise up and set fire to public buildings,
then we might consider what, in what circumstances we would offer criticisms of Mr. Cameron.
We might consider the practicality,
and that practicality is measured in terms of the consequences either of good or harm for other people and for uninvolved third parties.
There is, in other words, a demand here for responsibility.
And the case that I think we've we've got to be able to articulate if we've got to make this case up for ourselves,
is that it has to be possible to live according to principles and to adhere to those very,
very central and important principles which govern the whole array.
The whole framework set of of five is that the constitutive of our society and how we organise it.
But to do it in an in an intelligent and thoughtful way and sometimes in a responsible way,
that it shouldn't be impossible to make those things consistent.
And really the debate that we've seen this rather bad tempered quarrel which has been going on now for a decade and a more,
I think, prompted into a whole new register by what happened in 911 in the United States of America.
The bad tempered problem between people on opposite sides of the religious argument has been
one which I think quite rightly has allowed for a good deal of very thorough criticism,
a good deal of airing of of views, a good deal of of opening of wounds that should be allowed to breathe.
There's no question about that. But on the other hand,
the norms of a society which respects itself and respects open debate and respects
the opportunity to answer criticisms and affronts should also be part of the story.
I had the great pleasure of being invited by the United Nations Development Agency Education Bhutan the year before last.
Whereas, you know, against the will of the people,
the last king imposed democracy and this democratic experiment, which was just warming up at that time,
was being conducted quite thoughtfully by the people who had had to choose which political party
they were going to be in and submit themselves to the first voting procedure that they had there.
And they were very interested to think their way through and to get from other people who were
interested in these matches some perspectives of what it is to occupy a democratic order,
in particular how they conducted themselves with respect to civil liberties.
Given that we live in an era where security considerations bear down rather heavily on some of our civil liberties, including freedom of expression.
And so they invited a group of people to come and talk.
And the point that I felt that I should like to offer them was that a democratic order is a noisy order,
that democracy is not just elections periodically, but in between them.
A lot of arguments in parallel and dissension and discussion and criticism and
offensive remarks and jokes and cartoons and private eye and that this noise,
this tumult, if you if you like, is a mark of health.
That silence of of tyranny is this that that silence is a mark of tyranny,
that when there seems to be peace, what you have actually is a kind of civil liberties wasteland.
So the the anxieties that people felt about criticism and noise and people shouting their opinions
and actually that actually it is a sign of health in a society and should be accepted as such.
And just recently, I was telling some of our number that having begun to speak in a in a circumstance rather like this,
somebody shouted out, You have no right to speak. And his neighbours in the auditorium turned on him and told him to shut up.
And I felt moved to defend his right to tell me that there were providing providing he would make a case of that being said.
And I think that's the important thing providing is an opportunity for a case that in all those matters where we've we
should lift the constraints of everything other than responsibility and thoughtfulness about how we use our rights.
And then all these cases, what we should be trying to do, however uncomfortable it is now, over the difficult.
Sometimes it proves that we should defend freedom of expression and more or less to the last.
Thank you very much. Thank you.
Well, thank you very much, professors. I'm very honoured to be addressing you today.
I'd like to talk about this idea of Islamic secularism, which I had promoted.
What I meant by it, actually, it was one of the reasons I received death threats.
The main reason was whatever the evolution issue that the people who handed out leaflets in
my mosque and those leaflets are available on the Internet if anybody wants to read them,
had a charge sheet of four main crime, but I had apparently committed that the first and most important one for which they said.
And they shouted out in the audience, they didn't say, You have no right to speak. They said you should be killed.
What you said was over evolution, of course, that one of the others was they call it belief in secularism.
And I'm sure, like many of you who who find it easy to reconcile issues, you know, you think this is all a big misunderstanding.
And that's how I often feel about the issues of conflict, of political conflict,
religious conflict, etc., and for people to just sit down and talk in a civilised manner.
So what did I mean by, you know, Islamic terrorism?
So and I think Professor Garton Ash hinted when he talked about people being brought up in a secular world,
but for many people, the secular and the religious don't co-exist.
They don't entirely separate. And that is one of the sources of conflict in the world also at the moment.
But for me there is no distinction between the sacred and the secular in the sense that the word secular from the original Latin is meaning the world.
The world is sacred because it is God's creation. And in the end, whether you accept something is a secret or not, it depends on your faith.
Prince Charles some years ago argued that. The Western world has to relearn a sense of the sacred from the Muslims, he said.
This is some ten or 15 years ago he gave in a public lecture and that's something that was very close to my heart,
which was I do have a strong sense of the sacred. As a scientist, I don't have the honour of discussing this with Professor Dawkins earlier.
Everything in science I see as God's creation, the way God is created, it is sacred.
Many people have written on to say the saints or in others, the idea of sacred science.
However, you cannot force people to have faith. I mean, that's just the nature of faith itself.
I can't face forced my faith on you and vice versa.
And some people have no faith in any religion whatsoever.
They can't be forced. And therefore, it seems to me that in practice we arrive at a neutral place.
So, for example. Science Professor Dawkins rightly says, is it a purely neutral activity or could it be?
He probably didn't say that. But I believe believing that non-believers can do science together and we can discover the
secrets behind the black holes or behind DNA or any other wonderful phenomenon of science.
But the interpretation of that is left to the individual. For a believer, this is something sacred and majestic.
I think it's a reflection of God's name in in the laws of science.
For a non-believer, it's not looking to God. It's beautiful and majestic and inspiring, etc., but it is nothing to do with God.
Now something similar goes on in the public space, I believe, when it when it comes to living together, just learning to live together.
And this is not a new idea because I read an Islamic tradition in Islamic law.
Centuries of this kind of thinking and when I talked about Islamic secularism,
this was based on something from Ibn Khaldun, who lived six centuries ago in North Africa.
And his book, The Ultimate Introduction to History, is incredible book.
Arnold Toynbee said it was the greatest book that had ever been written by any human mind anywhere.
And in that, he comments on the teaching of the Prophet Muhammad, peace upon him, who said to his people, You know your worldly affairs better.
When he commented about too matter of agriculture, actually cross-pollination and his disciples listened to what he said and the yields went down.
And then the complaint in the complaint to the prophet who said, you know, we followed your advice and things went wrong.
And he replied to them saying, you know, your world, your face better.
I'm here to teach the way to God, spirituality, etc. but you can put that aside for thing that you know better.
And the the mention of the word world in there with what led me to the idea of Islamic secularism,
you know, the word secular itself, as I said, in the Latin meaning worldly.
Meaning that again, I even had some comments.
He say The prophets of God and for believers, you know, the prophets of God, Jesus, Muhammad, Moses, all the other Buddha, etc.
And in many Muslim countries, by the way, it's not just the Prophet Muhammad through reputation, which is protected by faith.
It's actually Jesus Christ and Moses and Abraham and everyone.
And even though I don't say that the prophets of God were sent to teach people the way to God.
You have to believe in God, of course. Again, discussing this idea with the professor.
If you believe in God, then. Then that follows. If you don't believe in God, then there's no concept of of getting closer to God, etc.
But that for believers there is an issue how do you make contact with God or with that unifying
principle or that transcendent and imminent being or principle or whatever you want to call it in life.
So even if I don't say that, that the prophets teach you way to behave in including prayer and fasting and saving the poor,
etc., which humanists agree with as well, of course, in terms of serving people, not not the prayer, etc.
But he says this is Ibn Khaldun is that the human crafts, the technology, the architecture, the science, the agriculture.
The art of war, the craft, the.
The craft of government, of civilisation, etc. These are purely left to the human intellect,
and the human intellect is one of God's great greatest gift, of the greatest gift to us.
It is what distinguishes us from the rest of creation, of the rest of nature,
and what gives us mastery over the rest of of nature or so much of nature and nature, at least on the earth.
And historically, of course, the Islamic civilisation, like the Christian and others,
celebrated the power of reason and logic as this great divine gift.
And of course, Muslims and Muslim universities led the world for centuries.
But the first universities and hospitals, etc., were in the Muslim world, and there was this immense passion for learning.
You had the house of wisdom in Baghdad in over a thousand years ago,
which translated so many of the Greek works into Arabic, and those eventually reached the West through that.
So much of our scientific heritage had, as part of its story, the Islamic period,
of course, and the modern world in that sense has those Islamic groups.
But, you know, they've been long forgotten, especially as the Muslim world has has descended into the well into the state that it is now.
So that particular idea that you you develop learning and argumentation.
Islam itself had dozens of philosophical schools earlier on,
dozens of legal schools still now many interpretations of Islamic law and the faith itself.
But very early on, there was immense flowering of learning and dialogue which went on,
and people generally didn't have this kind of inquisition, inquisition or approach to things.
There were exception, of course.
There were one or two Muslim inquisitions in the 20th century and seen been had been a century of fundamentalism in all religions, perhaps.
So we've come we've come to a very terrible place there with the religions.
But I see in the reading of Islamic civilisation an immense opportunity, immense spaces where things like freedom of speech, etc.,
that we've been talking about were kind of assumed taken for granted and also had a very strong Democratic character to it.
One example is the treatment of minorities, for which I recommend Zachary Campbell's book,
The People of the Book, about how Jews and Christians lived within the Muslim civilisation.
He's a student of Professor Richard Bulleit, who, of course wrote the Case for Islam, a Christian civilisation.
And of course, in India, where the Mongols ruled for four centuries,
over a majority Hindu population, Hindu and sea population, there are again different examples.
There were one or two of the Mughal emperors who persecuted some of their subjects.
There were also other centuries ago who who had Hindu and Muslim wives and attempted this kind of great syncretic.
Project in terms of bringing the relations together and getting to the essential mystical truth or the central truth,
which like the core of all religions.
And that particular may or may not have failed with the point that it was tried by the emperor of Muslim India at the time.
And in fact, it still has enormous influence, especially in the various bodies of Sufism.
Now, relatedly, just like you talk about law and experience, because, again, for Muslims, Sharia is very important.
Sharia law and because I've studied Sharia is looking at the demand of actually less concerned about law.
For me, law is the basis.
It is the basic minimum that you expect laws related to justice, which is which is, again, the basic you expect or we should expect in society.
But there's something far beyond justice then, which is, you know, the higher thing in life, like mercy, for example,
in traditional Islamic discourse, you would talk about minimum being justice and the highest level being mercy is what you aspire to.
Of course, that's found in Western discourse as well.
Of course, I was very struck by the Scottish Minister a couple of years ago when he the release of al-Megrahi,
the the Libyan was convicted for the Lockerbie bombing.
He talked about the same thing. Of course, he talked about justice and compassion or what you would call mercy.
And at any moment, I'm more interested not in explaining to people the the dos and don'ts of the law and which
can often degenerate into just mere ritual observing observance without any spirit of soul.
And it is a problem which plagued Islam and Judaism, I believe, and other forms of of religion.
But I'm more interested in inspiring people with a spirit, you know, to do it to to aspire to the highest.
And therefore it becomes it becomes a question of good manners.
In the end, as Professor Grayling said, you know, etiquette and what should you do rather than what you're allowed to do?
In a muslim society. It's it's very different. And, you know,
people I'm sure people will challenge for centuries there were and there are laws in Muslim countries which are not upholding freedom of speech.
In the sense that, you know, the character of the prophet, for example,
or the person of the prophet or of Jesus Christ or others, are not seen as decent people who who no longer exist.
In a sense, the Prophet Muhammad is very real and even more real than than people ourselves.
And for example, listen, I talk to love the Prophet Muhammad more than they love themselves or their families.
And I think that brings us to the point which Professor Grayling was talking about. What do you do in such a situation?
And as for Muslim society, the situation is different. And I think I think that's where the principle of democracy comes in, because I see, again,
Islam originally as having very strong democratic roots there, the chapter of the Koran in entitled Funeral Consultation.
So the whole political structure, structure of Islam,
who is thought to be inspired by the principle of consultation, which for me, democracy is one form of.
Of consulting people. So what can Muslim countries in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia this in that you know, I like to leave it to them.
What I do know is that most of the cases brought under the blasphemy laws are usually brought for other reasons,
political reasons, and people settling scores against each other.
And and generally people, you know, don't go under in Muslim societies.
They have a sense of the sacred. They don't go around and.
Insulting the great religious figures of the past.
It's not actually a big issue.
The Muslim world has far more serious issues in terms of basic human rights and the lack of democracy now with dictators and tyrants.
And we've seen the Arab Spring and brought all of that all of that out.
But as I said, it comes to basic etiquette etiquette into the spirit rather than rather than the law.
So, for example, when it came to the cartoons and things, the Danish cartoons.
You know, they didn't bother me. I didn't look at the cartoon. In fact, I'm not interested.
I didn't want to look at those cartoon because the prophet is sacred to me. But I understand why.
I met one of the Norwegian editors. He told me why he felt it's very important to uphold the freedom of speech and to print those cartoons.
And I tried to reason with them as to as to why I tried to help it,
help them to understand why Muslims took such offence and the interpretation of Islamic law, the philosophical basis to which I subscribe.
And it is very dominant in the history of Islam. For the theory of democracy, the theory of the objective of law is all about benefits versus harms.
Good versus. Good versus mischief in society.
And I believe it actually upholds this reading of law as an instrument for social order and social justice,
and the issues of faith, etc., and spirit are left to individual faith.
And that's the voluntary thing which faith communities, you know, imams, priests, rabbis and others will teach their congregations.
And the communities of believers need to deal with this.
And in the end for me, I agree it is entirely a matter of pragmatism in practice.
What do people hold sacred? So when Professor Garton Ash also questioned, is anything sacred in the mind?
Somewhat, actually everything is sacred. For me, as I said. But we have to apply the principle of democracy.
Any, any, any society has to agree democratically. What we are going to protect, what we are not going to.
And often you have you have to take the practicalities and pragmatism into account.
So for example, you know, Ring is a Celtic recently and it has become a big issue in Scotland,
the whole nation gripped by that issue in the Parliament. Is it is it okay to to badmouth Celtic or Rangers?
Most people would say, yeah, that's fine.
But not on the big day of the old, old firm Derby, where there are thousands of people ready to kind of start fighting.
Most people accept that's not a good time to dish out obscenities against each others figures or clubs, for example.
And there is an intriguing question, which you mentioned about the shouting fire in the cinema.
Interestingly, one of the young bloggers who launched a vitriolic attack on me recently over several issues,
he actually wrote anti the young western British born blogger.
She said someone should should learn that you cannot shout evolution in the mosque just as you cannot shout five kind of theatre, you know.
So I think my time is finished now, but I hope I've tried to convey some of the issues which arise out of this.
And I'm very grateful for the opportunity to perhaps contribute to the dialogue around free speech, especially from a perspective is also.
Thank you very much.
It's an honour to be here and I come because I would always be honoured to be asked to sit on his behalf, particularly because Tim asked me.
I first came across Tim when he was reporting for The Spectator from Poland at the time of martial law and solidarity and all of that.
And I mention that partly because what Tim wrote was very marvellous and also because it was an early example,
the experienced in my journalistic life of a time when Christianity and in this case
specifically the Catholic faith produced was in the in the forefront of fighting for freedom.
And they were confronting an atheistic state which had a law which was entirely secular and which theoretically guaranteed all rights.
I think that's a sort of important example to bear in mind.
And what we're being asked to consider today is the idea that insults to religion should be forbidden by law.
That's that's the first piece of what we're being asked to consider.
And I think I'm going to end up agreeing with what I mentioned is the majority view here that it should not be forbidden by law.
But before I do that, I just do want to remind everybody why it is that people might think that religion.
I have thought historically that religion should be protected by law.
And the fundamental answer is that law in the history of the world has largely grown out of religion.
And therefore, what the law of the land is has is based on the people's idea of what the truth about everything is.
And the truth about everything has been revealed to the people through religion
and therefore the state and the law is constructed upon the truth of religion,
and therefore, in a denial of the truth of religion, is not merely upsetting for religious people.
It is an attack on the idea of law itself.
Itself. On the idea of the state itself. On the idea of the public order as it is understood.
This is people must understand this in order to see, as it were, where people are coming from.
And that seems to me at the time that it developed and understandable, indeed an almost universal fact.
And if you think of it, for example, in this university,
it would now be thought anathema for this great university to express collectively a religious preference.
But of course, this great university was for hundreds and hundreds of years,
exclusively a religious institution, first a Catholic one, and second an Anglican one.
And I think it's true, isn't it, Tim? That only is only in the middle of the 19th century that dons were permitted not to be Anglican.
And I think they all were. And you can clergy until that time and however monstrous one might think that
now on the whole freedom was advanced by this great institution in that time.
So I think it's it's important to see this historically rather than just to lay down absolute principles.
And I'd also say that when Anthony Grayling set out the various things that should be protected by law,
I'd be very sympathetic with much of what he said. But I would point out that he is, in a sense, when he does that, expressing his religion,
because he is saying that choice is the only thing that matters and what you can't choose.
People would not historically have said that. People in many places would disagree.
For example, he seemed to be saying that there should be no distinction between the rights of the two sexes.
Many people, most people in that room would now agree that. But it is a legitimate point of view to argue otherwise.
And it's a point of view which has been held by most people throughout history that
women and men have different characteristics which may issue in different legal order,
educational and so on. And I'm not asking anybody to think that that's right.
I'm merely pointing out that he's expressing a set of beliefs which he thinks should be protected by law.
And religious people have expressed another set of beliefs which they think should be protected by law.
However, we live in a society today, at least in the West, where our law, though it is derived from religious belief, is not precisely religious.
And I think we don't want it to be for a whole variety of reasons.
We do not want it to be, and we would regard it as regressive or oppressive if it were so to be.
And so whenever somebody now says that religion in this country should be protected by law.
I find myself strongly against it. And the odd thing that's happened is it almost at one point became politically correct to say
that it should be protected by law because the old protections which had been for Christianity,
because that was the foundation of the state of the culture, of the political order.
And that seems to be the argument.
And the argument was that it was the sort of aspect of multiculturalism and ethnicity that your religion should be protected by law.
And I would argue that that was a very dangerous pastime which to go, because when people are arguing for the protection of their religion by law,
what they're actually trying to do is grab a certain amount of power.
They're trying to capture a bit of the public space.
So that and I think without wishing to be sectarian about it, I would accuse Islamists not not Muslims in general,
but Islamists of arguing that specifically, because what they what they are thinking of is the idea that Islam should rule in a temporal sense.
So they're trying to acquire sacred space and they're trying to acquire it in in this country, among others.
And that should be very much resisted. The blasphemy law in Pakistan was mentioned.
One of the things I observe, without being at all knowledgeable about it, about the blasphemy law in Pakistan, is that it is, of course,
an instrument of power being used against people who various politicians don't like, and it can be used in terms to attack the Christian minority.
For example, one thing you often read about in Pakistan is that it is alleged that a Christian has desecrated the Koran in some way,
and it's not proved, but it is alleged. And then persecution starts, a court case starts, and it's also a riot often starts.
And often that involves doing things like smashing the windows of Christian shopkeepers and all that.
And all that has to do with, oh, here's professor.
Greetings, friends, again, I think by the way on that point.
So that reminds me I mustn't divert for too long, but when, when they were standing there, you might not be able to see it.
But they were what they were doing is they were waving wallets because I think they were complaining about
the idea that Professor Grayling's University would only be available for people with large sums of money.
And it makes it it's a point I want to make, which is a slight criticism, not of your university.
We're not talking about that, but about a view argument today, which is that when you express yourself very freely, was only exercising a right.
But you're often if you're like me, a journalist in a national newspaper,
or like Professor Grayling, a distinguished professor, often speaking from a position of power.
And I think one just has to bear that in mind when once insulting people that
it's quite frightening to be insulted by somebody who you think are powerful.
And anybody who's ever been insulted by the Daily Mail, for example,
will know that one of the things that's so vile about it is they're very powerful people.
And yes, they do have the right to insult people.
But let's just remember how what a very formidable thing that can be when The Daily Mail is on your tail for whatever it thinks you've done wrong.
So I'm not going to defend the a restriction on comment on religion by law, but sorry, can you hear us?
But I do want to talk a bit about the question which Tim asked you to about,
which is what should be said and what should or should not be said, which I think is a more difficult question.
And the fact that human rights talk and provides for freedom of religion surely implies that religion should be respected.
It's obviously considered to be a very important aspect, even by people who draw up human rights codes who are completely irreligious themselves.
They surely believe that this is a very important thing, that religion should be and should be freely practised and freely express.
So what that implies is the idea that religion itself is important and also perhaps.
That it goes to people's hearts. And in this respect, the question of is it like mathematics?
There's some aspects of religion that are like mathematics, but there are other aspects that aren't.
And. I think another thing that a religious person tends to observe about.
Irreligious people is that they really don't know much about religion.
Now, this is often our fault.
It may be said we don't explain it well and we seem so revolting that people are not attracted to what we're arguing or whatever it may be.
But nevertheless, it is a fact that religion is extremely hard to understand from the outside.
It's pretty hard to understand from the inside to but from the outside, particularly so.
And therefore, it's a foolish person who starts rushing in an attacking.
Let's take the Jewish customs of diet, for example.
They are, to me, I must say, perplexing. And I wonder why such brilliant people spend so much time worrying about them.
But I bite my tongue when I start to think about that sort of thing,
because I know that this is a very complicated set of arrangements which relate to all sorts of other ideas about law,
about about a people in a tribe, about people living together, about climate,
about what's decorous, about how animals are best looked after, and so on.
And so basically I shut up and I don't start saying, Oh no, there shouldn't be kosher restaurants,
because I know that there's actually a lot of things going on here that that matter very much, but which I didn't understand.
And speaking as a Catholic, I find that literally every single person who's spoken to me, ever who's not a Catholic,
about the doctrines of the mass of Holy Communion in some respects doesn't understand them.
And by the way, most of us Catholics don't either.
But and but this just illustrates the the importance here of recognising that something very complicated and deep is going on.
And this is particularly true, of course, of great religions.
Now, one of the things difficulties now is that almost anything can be defined as a religion.
And of course, without wishing any disrespect to the Duke of Edinburgh on this, his 90th is very day, his 90th birthday.
I would just remind people that there is a religion in the South Seas where they worship the Duke of Edinburgh.
There's an island in the South Seas where he is considered to be God and penis goods are issued in His honour.
And while I think this is very sort of rather touching, actually,
I'm I'm not claiming that we should all automatically issue equal respect to absolutely everything else that calls itself a religion.
And I would tend not to give a great deal of intellectual time to the idea that the Duke of Edinburgh is divine.
But when you talk about a great, widely believed, long established religion Hinduism, Judaism, Christianity, Islam and so on,
you are talking about an immensely complex set, set of thoughts, feelings, laws, history, art, poetry, scripture, and so on.
And therefore, it's highly unwise not to recognise the importance of that test of time, and therefore it's usually unwise to be plain rude.
It would be absurd not to be critical. It would be absurd not to express your disagreements if you felt them.
But it would be dangerous just to say this is all revolting piffle.
It's most unlikely that none of it will be revolting piffle.
But it's also even more unlikely that it's all revolting piffle.
And I don't agree with the idea that's now put about by those who wish religion to be protected by law,
that the biggest problem is the offence caused to the believer.
One reason I disagree with is I see the consequences of this,
which is if if people think that offence that they will get some power by being offended, they decide to get even more offended.
So say the most disagreeable people, make the most fuss about how everything is being.
You know how well I'm taking terrible off. Oh, yes, this really hurts me and I'm very suspicious of that.
And indeed, as a Christian, since one's taught to turn the other cheek,
it would be an un-Christian act to take tremendous offence even when an offence is given.
So I would be I would be very careful about that.
I don't think the issue is, are some people offended?
I think it's more that if you have a just understanding of what it is to have to follow a faith, you wouldn't actually want to offend people,
you would you would respect it because it is something of such importance and depth and interests.
And I would say reality and I would I would argue reality.
I would argue the point about reality, even to those two atheists who say that it's totally unreal.
A comparison you could make, for example, is the idea of what people feel about a family.
Quite a lot of people in the modern world who don't really believe in the idea of family.
But to most people throughout history and in most parts of the world and even most people in this country,
family ties are in some are vitally important and in some sense sacred.
And we all know that to insult someone's children or parents or spouse is to do them a very grave injury and is a contemptible thing to do.
And I think if you were to understand what what it is to have a religious sentiment,
you have to think of it rather like the love that is felt for a family.
When Muslims speak of Mohammed, they always Osama mentioned this point that they love that they have that strong idea
of loving the prophet and they always say peace be upon him whenever they mention him,
because that's an expression of that love. And Christians are brought up to have a special love for Jesus and to feel, of course,
that He loves them and they love him in return, and that God is their loving father.
And if they Catholics, they also think, have a special love for the Virgin Mary, and they would often speak of her as their mother.
So he's in it for the believer, Christian, believe Jesus is in your head and your heart and he's sort of by your hearth.
He's in your home. He's he's with you. And once those things are clear,
you said he recognised it would be a strange and brutal person who wanted to just chuck a whole load of order and all of that.
They wouldn't have to accept any of the doctrines, but it would be strange and crude and unpleasant.
Once upon a time, the evangelical movement, if anybody exclaimed with the name of Jesus by by way of swearing,
that you would say, Don't say that he happens to be a friend of mine.
I personally find that runs an awful twee way of. But.
But. But the point is that the idea is real in people's minds that Jesus is their friend.
Is they him? What a friend we have in Jesus. And you don't you you should not try to insult people's friends without very good reason.
And this is also very important in all religions, the idea of the image.
Of the divine and the word of the divine, and the idea of the image can cut both ways.
So in Islam, as I understand it, you cannot depict a muhammad or any muhammad is not divine.
But do you see the point? So some regions do it by by thinking the image is so important that you can't even depict it.
And others think. Most Christians, for example, they not all would say you should depict, but you should depict it beautifully.
And similarly, the word is so important. So a great, great attachment is given to these things.
And these to you too should surely be respected because they are expressions of truth,
expressions of beauty, and they show the way in which people think about their beliefs.
So for example, it's much easier and better. I mean, morally better.
I think to say that Christianity and Islam and so on are all untrue than to say things like Mohammed was a paedophile.
I have written in print defending the proposition that people should be allowed to say that Mohammed was a paedophile.
There are specific reasons why people do say this, but nevertheless,
I think people should discourage themselves from saying it unless they really feel they can prove it.
It's not fine. It's fine to argue against a set of beliefs, but not, I think, to impugn the motives of those who held who hold them and.
Now, however, as having said all that, when one shows disrespect, it must be real respect and it must not be governed by fear.
And one of the things that's happening now in being polite about religions is that people are politest about the ones they most frightened of.
So that means they all suck up to Islam now and are very rude.
And you see all these alternative comedians who do who do build brawling things where they sort of mock The Last Supper or something like that,
because they know in the end nobody's going to come and threaten them and they're not so sure about that.
I actually heard one comedian justify this on the grounds he's one alternative comedian said,
yes, well, Muslims are better at protecting the brand, was how he put it.
And but this is a very, very alarming state of affairs, if really all it is is you're frightened of attack.
And as a former editor, I do understand this because, of course, you do respond when people get very, very angry.
Once I was editing the Sunday Telegraph and I inadvertently allowed a Hindu journalist who worked for us to write a little item about Sikhs,
and I'm afraid we just weren't paying attention to it. And he said something about how Sikhs had extraordinary strong libido or something like that,
and it was way out of order and it just hadn't been noticed.
And what happened, of course, was that the Sikhs protested.
That in itself was perfectly entitled to do.
But I'm afraid we were moved by the fact that they threatened to march on our building, waving ceremonial swords.
And at that point,
we were somewhat more attentive to their complaint than we would have been if a similar rudeness had been offered to the Methodists.
And so there I think that if one's being bullied, the journalist in me would immediately come out and say,
you know, if if we're being bullied, then much better to be rude than to give in.
And so that's the that's the balance.
And I think one must risk offence rather than capitulation.
But nevertheless, offence is not something which one should automatically be proud of.
And I think it's a particularly male thing and a particularly thing of a highly educated person to think that you've done something wonderful,
if with your words, you have offended some somebody, but actually you might just have done something pretty stupid, I think.