Cartoons

The right-wing tabloid press is up in arms with at entirely predictable response to the entirely predictable reaction of the parents of Muslim pupils being shown a cartoon of Mohammed by a teacher.

Why, though, were the tabloids entirely silent when Professor Corinne Fowler, co-editor of the National Trust report on the connections between colonialism and properties in the care of the National Trust, reported three incidents of death threats to the police? 

Additionally, a project she has led to teach school children about the imperial history of buildings in their local area has been investigated by more than 50 Tory MPs of the perversely named Common Sense Group in an attempt at political intimidation, which is essentially part of the established, right wing cancel culture and political correctness gone mad trope, the very things they incessantly complain about.

Professor Fowler said; “Sadly, what Brexit has taught us is that you can make political capital out of dividing people. The most important thing about this is not to weaponise history. These kinds of interventions actually shut down the possibility of having sensible conversations because it all becomes polarised and politicised. I don’t think that anybody of any political persuasion should be using history as a way of manipulating public opinion. It’s worrying when national pride gets mixed up with historical fact. Facts should not be given equal status to opinion. Historians write history, that’s what they do. When new evidence comes to light about East India Company connections or the slavery business and how that, for example, shaped philanthropy and philanthropic giving in this country, we then adjust our view of the past accordingly, as led by the evidence. It’s good to have conversations about how to interpret certain facts that come to light but I don’t think the basic, fundamental facts should be open for discussion. That’s dangerous. Opinion is given too much sway and we end up having quite irrational conversations about history which are not led by the evidence or guided by facts.”

Adding to history as facts are uncovered, or rediscovered, is indeed rewriting history - much like the discovery of Viking artefacts in North America is rewriting history. However, the right uses the term in a pejorative manner, as if it's something bad. What they object to is the entirely legitimate exposing of a sanitised version of history - a version of history they don't want changed as the new information is an embarrassment.

To return to the Mohammed cartoons issue; one must consider that the charge of blasphemy was dropped from the statue book here only as recently as 2008 and it's not that long ago you'd receive not just death threats, but actual death, for being an alleged witch. The last person to go to prison for blasphemy did so in 1921 and, as recently as 1977, which is well within living memory, a court found the editor of Gay News guilty of blasphemy and he received a fine and a suspended sentence at the behest of Mary Whitehouse.

Islam is younger than Christianity by some 500 years and there are signs that a more tolerant, western form of Islam is gathering traction. It has a long way to go yet, but death threats are not the preserve solely of Muslims. Dissing the Union flag or simply adding verifiable facts to a glossed-over history triggers some indigenous Brits enough to persuade them to also make death threats.

Any issue such as this is going to be hi-jacked by extremists on both sides of the fence, but that's wrong with a bit of consideration for people within your community - especially when the South Asian population of Batley is now around 33% in Batley West and 54% in Batley East? The teacher must have known he was doing something extremely contentious, if not provocative, and could have asked any Muslim pupils to leave the room, if he was about to make a point to the class with the cartoon.

The argument has been posited that they cannot possibly determine if a cartoon of Mohammed is disrespectful unless they first see the image and use their rational brains to make that determination themselves. That, however, skirts the fact that ANY image of Mohammed is considered disrespectful, so they don't actually need to see the image to reach that conclusion - whether it's a cartoon or an entirely respectful portrait makes no difference; all they need to know is that it's an image of Mohammed, which it indubitably was.

Then again, they've been told that any image of Mohammed is disrespectful and haven't reached that conclusion themselves on the basis of rational thought. It's dogma that has no basis in the Q'uran, and dogma is dangerous. There was a period in Islamic history, under the Mongols and early Ottomans, when images of Mohammed were indeed permitted, but that was before the hard-liners and dogmatists took control of Islam and started imposing their authoritarian views on the Ummah. Additionally, there's a prohibition of the portrayal of any Muslim Prophet, which includes Jesus, whose image abounds in western art and outside many of our churches, yet there are no Muslims protesting outside churches.