“In this job, you will make enemies,” warned the then editor, John Maddox, not long after I started in my career at Your Favourite Weekly Professional Science Magazine Beginning With N. This isn’t surprising, given that almost everything I receive as an editor gets rejected.
I wish I could tell you the story about the academic who wanted me fired after I’d rejected his paper, but I can’t, because it’s confidential. I’d like to tell you all about things I’ve published that have engendered varying degrees of outrage, whether genuine or synthetic, but I have been advised not to. People are so easily offended, you see, to the extent that they would deny the right of free expression by others, even to deny them liberty, livelihood, even life. But when one wants to discuss things that might have happened at one’s work, one cannot, because of corporate confidentiality. So, in an age of freedom, when one would think that one could say and write what one likes, one finds that one cannot, fearful as one is of the consequences, which range from legal to lethal. So we end up censoring ourselves. We have freedom of speech – provided that we don’t say too much. And things are getting worse.
‘No young artist of [Salman] Rushdie’s range and gifts would dare write a modern version of The Satanic Verses today, and if he or she did, no editor would dare publish it,’ says Nick Cohen in You Can’t Read This Book: Censorship In An Age Of Freedom, as recommended by fellow Occam’s Typist Professor S. C. of London.
Cohen starts with the easiest target – God – and the propensity of the religious to be offended by any perceived slight on their faith. In itself, blasphemy is the closest one can ever get to a victimless crime. Zounds! (There – did that hurt?) Cohen asks precisely who the victims of blasphemy laws really are, and notes that reactions are often out of all proportion to the perceived slight. So, whereas one can highlight the completely bonkers proscriptions that ultra-religious Jews can put upon themselves and others (these choice examples from the robustly free press of Israel furnished by fellow Occam’s Typist Professor S. C. of Omaha), one is less likely to dispense criticism about similar actions by the fanatical followers of some other religions, because they might kill you. If we censor ourselves against such eventualities, says Cohen, we should be honest about the reasons why – and not, as happened with Salman Rushdie, Ayaan Hirsa Ali and others, ostracise critics of religion for having dared to speak up against bullies.
Twenty years ago, the writers of the TV comedy show Not The Nine O’Clock News engaged in much trenchant satire about the then-new theocracy in Iran. Against a picture of Moslems prostrate in prayer in a mosque, the voice-over read ‘The Search of The Ayatollah’s Missing Contact Lens Goes On’. Who would dare screen that nowadays? And if not, why not? Because we have adopted the contorted, patronising and somewhat phoney excuse that we ‘respect’ other peoples’ religions more? Or because we are, quite understandably, cowards who are afraid of the consequences? I know which one I am.
From such contorted dishonesty springs the kind of identity politics with which the Left is so easily suckered. ‘Oppression’ is what we do in the West. But religious intolerance; enslavement of women; legitimized rape of under-age girls by old men; legalised incitement to murder; female circumcision; ritual murder; ‘honour’ killing; discrimination against homosexuals; beheading of people for the ‘crimes’ of dancing, or educating young girls; and beheading of apostates in countries far away – well, we can’t criticize such things because such is ‘their culture’. From this craven position comes the shameful ostracism of people from those cultures who run into trouble for pointing out such horrors, or even just poking gentle fun at them.
Leftists could not make a stand [against the critics of The Satanic Verses] because to their minds defending [Salman] Rushdie would at some level mean giving aid and comfort to racists and strengthening the hand of the one enemy they could admit to having: the imperialist warmongers in Washington DC.
And, more directly:
[L]iberalism in Europe has turned septic. In the name of tolerance it is happy to abandon its friends and excuse its enemies.
Hence the remarkable sight of Left-wingers such as former London mayor Ken Livingstone giving a platform to clerics who professed the kinds of views to which anyone, particularly on the Left, should find abhorrent: the curious common cause of anti-war protestors and Islamist militants; and the upswing in antisemitism in the UK every time there is a war in the Middle east. Hence an itch you’d expect me to scratch: I have often contended that the Left, particularly British academia, is institutionally antisemitic. I was therefore refreshed, if somewhat startled, that Cohen describes antisemitism by the Left in such a casual manner that one can only assume that it’s generally known. The political slant of news media means that ‘readers can rarely find … a sympathetic article about Israel in a left-wing journal.’ And, more tellingly:
Left-wingers inflame prejudices against social conservatives, Jews, and all members of the upper and upper-middle classes except the public-sector great and good.
And on the general Leftish suspicion that Western democracies are the prime source of oppression:
If you think that Israel or the West is the sole or prime source of conflict in the Middle East, your defences against anti-Semitism are down, and ready to be overrun.
I’m not paranoid, then. The Left is institutionally antisemitic. People really are out to get me.
From religion Cohen then turns to money, and in particular how the widening gap between rich and poor has created a plutocracy that has the means to buy off criticism and squelch dissent. Now, I don’t mind people being rich, per se. What worries me is that the widening gap between rich and poor very likely has a toxic effect on economies as well as on democracy. Cohen highlights this staggering statistic: in 2003, around five million people raised more than £35m towards Comic Relief … a sum dwarfed by the £157.7m pocketed in 2002 by retail tycoon Sir Philip Green. And things have gotten worse. ‘Between 2002 and 2007,’ says Cohen,
65 per cent of all income growth in the United States went to the top 1 per cent of the population … The richest 0.01 per cent (the fifteen thousand richest families in the US) saw their share of pre-tax income rise from 1 per cent [of the US total] in 1974 to 6 per cent in 2007.
Now, I don’t mind people being rich, but one is entitled to ask whether riches are deserved if they fall into one’s lap, rather than having be earned by one’s toil, and if the incredible rewards on offer in some sectors of the economy are good for the economy as a whole. The financial crisis, in which ordinary people bailed out the banks (what the then Labour Prime Minister Gordon Brown thought was saving the world) removed the enormous risks that were meant to have justified the enormous rewards reaped by senior investment bankers and hedge-fund managers. And yet the crisis was just a temporary interruption in the growth of plutocracy.
From plutocracy to corporate governance, and how even in a free society, whistle-blowers are effectively defenceless. ‘If people criticise their employers in public,’ Cohen says, ‘they will face a punishment as hard as a prison sentence, maybe harder: the loss of their career, their pension, and perhaps their means of making a livelihood.’ Managers, like plutocrats, and unclad emperors, says Cohen, have no incentive to trust their subordinates:
But the cooperative approach based on openness and trust undermines the status of managers, whose wealth depends on the ability to create the impression that they have knowledge that their subordinates cannot be trusted to share.
As Tevye says in Fiddler On The Roof, ‘if you’re rich, they think you really know’. Perhaps best to keep Mum.
The greatest Satan, though, is the peculiar English law of libel, in which a person in the Khanate of Khanestan can sue another person in the Duchy of Mecklenburg-Schtrumpfhosen in the English courts if they suspect that the latter has said something offensive about the former in any publication that might be read in England, even if nobody else has noticed. I needn’t rehearse this question here. Just key ‘Singh’ and ‘chiropractic’ into the search engine of your choice. And while on that subject, Cohen warns that the internet is a double-edged sword. The so-called ‘Arab Spring’ might or might not have been made possible by Facebook and Twitter – but repressive regimes have access to the same tools.
The main lesson is that western liberalism has been compromised by identity politics, flawed logic, and fear. ‘Once one did not write the word ‘liberal’ and add ‘hypocrite”, says Cohen. But no longer.
All of these human rights abuses are routinely (and rightly) criticised – even by the ‘left-wing’ press.
Is it significant that you excluded male circumcision?
Richard, is that really all you took from this piece? To want to mention male circumcision in the same list as beheading, honour killing and the process euphemistically described as female circumcision is to posit a moral equivalence that stretches credulity, and, is, more than that, repugnant. The fact that you have glossed over the several places where I show the unarguable antisemitism of the Left, as instititutionalised as racism was found to have been in the Metropolitan Police after the Stephen Lawrence case, is very telling.
Spot on Henry – I agree with the vast bulk of your piece. The only thing I’d question is the suggestion (admittedly by implication) that to disagree with Israel’s actions is to be anti-semitic. It’s perfectly possible to separate the often questionable actions of the Israeli state and an attitude to Jews. I know that many on both sides of the debate don’t make this distinction, but I think it’s an important one.
Yes, it is an important distinction, but that the criticism of Israel in many quarters verges on the obsessive is deeply suspicious and suggests an ingrained underlying antisemitism. It’s oh-so-fashionable among the chatterati to have a go at
JewsIsrael, while ignoring the human-rights abuses of any other country, many of which aren’t even democratic, nor have a free press.Here is a very good example, pointed out by Mrs R. R. of Cromer.
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/brendanoneill2/100178498/the-demand-to-ban-an-israeli-dance-company-from-performing-in-edinburgh-is-bigotry-dolled-up-as-politics/
What’s worse than the antisemitism is the hypocrisy. The Left manages to be antisemitic while loudly trumpeting the ‘rights’ of every other group (especially if it is a group that can be patronised.) The BNP and EDL are bigots, but they have the decency to be honest about it.
hm, I’m left with thinking yet again about that famous line “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it”… which of course is usually very messy, bothersome and quite annoying yet still so very important. I mean, it’s isn’t easy to “protect” people who want to hurt others with their words, however – it’s part of the democracy deal though, isn’t it?
And I think we are moving, as society/western europe/generic, more into the “easy spoon-fed quick comments and snippets” land, where longer or more complicated arguments and philosophical/artsy discussions are moved to dark rooms on the side where people feel disenfranchised (both the so called intellectuals as the undereducated high school drop outs with limited options, the ones not fitting into the “we want an easy clean non complicated world” <-very condensed hopefully making sense?)
As for the leftish and the anti-Isreal or anti-semitism… I can only agree that it is usually a very black and white way of looking at the complicated issue from the point of the left (where I used to hang out). Although, it's a sort of problem from others too – since everyone seems to eager to go with "They are evil" only shifting the 'They' to the group most hated at the moment.
Henry, you make some good points but I think it is unfair to label the Left as institutionally anti-semitic because of the behaviour of a few politicians. Yes, Livingstone did behave abominably, but his reason was to try to get the muslims to vote for him and there are far more muslims (8% of the London population according to Wikileaks) than jews. Thankfully, he didn’t benefit from this cynical approach.
It is difficult for a Gentile to criticise the Israeli government without running the risk of being accused of anti-semitism. I have Jewish friends (also on the Left of politics) who will freely criticise the Israeli goverment in mixed company, yet simultaneously regard exactly the same criticisms by a Gentile as anti-semitic. Similarly, I have found support for Israeli human rights organisations like the New Israel Fund, being branded as anti-semitic by commenters in The Guardian.
I think the apt phrase is “Freedom from speech”.
I agree with Brian, the Israeli state does not represent all jews, actually it probably represents a minority of jews worldwide. So in my mind at least criticizing the Israeli state does not equate to anti-semitism. That said though, as you quite rightly point out, criticism of Israel is often unbalanced and not contextualized at all. Also the left seems to be completely oblivious to the other religious tensions that exist in the middle east – sunni/shia/sufi/alawite muslims for example.
Livingston is an abominable character, never mind his highly questionable attitude towards jews, the man is an apologist for fascists like Hugo Chavez. Not cool.
I am finally backtracking to read older blogs, so apologies for the belated comments.
Unfortunately, I have to agree with the analysis that Henry has put forth: the British (and European) left are rabidly anti-semitic, and there is no question that Israel is used as an easy target for this outpouring of hate. Of course, “the left” is not everyone, but I do think Henry is correct about institutionalized anti-semitism.
The issue of criticizing Israel is indeed tricky. Myself being from the Israeli left–supporting peace, compromise and a two-state solution–I myself am a frequent critic of the current Israeli government. The problem, as always, is the context. In Europe, there is a tendency to support the “victim,” and the Palestinians are seen as victims and Israeli’s are seen as aggressors in a simple black-and-white manner. The Palestinians are certainly victims, but as much to their own failed leadership as to Israeli oppression.
As an example, take the matter of the Golan Heights, conquered by Israel in the 1967 war: In 1947, a two-state solution was approved by the UN. It was accepted by Israel, but not by Syria and neighboring Arab countries. For 20 years, Syria parked its artillery in the Golan Heights and fired shells on Israeli civilians living within the UN-approved Galilee region. When Israel captured the Golan Heights in 1967, suddenly Syria cried out that this occupation of their territory was the barrier to peace. As though there had ever been peace when Syria controlled the Golan Heights. So while I am in favor of eventually yielding this territory back to Syria when some kind of entity exists that can make peace with Israel, I do resent the many barbs that Israel receives from people who completely ignore the CONTEXT of this dispute.
I think the issue of proper context, and ignoring the complexities of the situation in the middle-east are at the heart of Henry’s post. An example of complete absence of any context bordering on the absurd is the comment above questioning why Henry did not include male circumcision among the horrendous crimes listed above. As much as one may consider male circumcision an unnecessary rite, to compare it with beheading and rape is like comparing a traffic ticket violation to a murder charge. And the use of the word “circumcision” for the horrific genital mutilation done on baby girls to purposefully prevent them from ever being able to enjoy sexual intercourse is a misnomer with no relationship to the Jewish ritual practice. There’s a perfect example of misuse of context and viewing everything in a simplistic black-and-white manner.
What you said, Steve.
Antisemitism is deep-rooted in Europe. I use the word ‘institutionalized’ advisedly – antisemitism is as institutionalised in the UK Guardian-reading academic intelligentsia as racism was found to have been in the Metropolitan Police at the time of the Stephen Lawrence inquiry. (For those who don’t know, Stephen Lawrence was a black teenager murdered at a bus stop in London by white assailants. Racism is now believed to have contributed to the Police’s allegedly poor handling of the case.)
This means that the people concerned either don’t know that they are being antisemitic and/or will loudly challenge assertions that they are with arguments of the ‘criticism-of-Israel-isn’t-antisemitic’ variety. At the same time they will, with much self-importance, champion the causes of (say) women, or other minorities. I suggest that antisemitism is as prone to unconscious bias as some of our colleagues claim misogyny to be.
Here is an example – theatre companies trumpet with great self-importance that they have a black person playing Othello. But as far as I know, nobody makes a fuss that no Jew has (as far as I know) played Shylock in a major production of the deeply unpleasant ‘Merchant of Venice’, and if so, nobody has made a fuss about it. Why might that be?
Henry,
Can I draw your attention to Arthur Horowitz’ article “Shylock after Auschwitz: The Merchant of Venice on the post-holocaust stage – subversion, confrontation and provocation”
http://www.jcrt.org/archives/08.3/Horowitz.pdf
Quoting from it:
“Similarly, the Holocaust has rendered ‘traditional’ Merchant of Venice productions so problematic as to make them virtually extinct everywhere but in the United Kingdom.”
and
“It is certainly noteworthy that the most confrontational and provocative interpretations of The Merchant of Venice have been staged by European and Israeli Jewish directors—with Peter Zadek and George Tabori very much in the vanguard.”
I suspect that it is the status of the RSC that has led to the persistence of the traditional production in the UK. The latest Stratford production, with Patrick Stewart as Shylock, did not depart from tradition, even though updated to end-20th Century America.
I was born in a time and place perhaps unique in history – my generation here in England has not been physically touched by war. – I can say love thy neighbour as thyself in ignorance of any neighbour’s hatred to me.
My father died soon after Hitlers war. He had a heart condition and I assume that is why he was not in the services but a lathe operator in a munitions factory. His legacy to me was three or four books and a few wartime magazines – he followed the progress of the war. One of the books was a slim volume on Auschwitz and at the age of eight or nine I read the account of one woman’s survival. The centre pages were photographs. Another book was Teach Yourself Logic.
I have never fathomed the logic of how a politician can induce a hatred of such proportion that entire countries are blind to the horrors they perpetrate for an illogical cause. – I can only think that the less logical the proposal the easier it is to posit.
There are two illogical concepts inextricably linked to the Israel problem. The first is Hitler’s proposition that an Aryan race, blue eyed and blonde haired. should rule the world – based on some outlandish evolution concept that excluded his own black hair and moustache. The second is the idea of a God-given Promised Land, the dream of a Hungarian Jew. – Those two have a lot to answer for.
Israel, as a concept, is as illogical as giving Asian immigrants Wales to live in.
Truly absurd is that in 1948 the rest of the world passed on the problem of housing close on a million Jewish refugees to Palestine. – The rest of the world created a problem then sat back to watch, like an audience at a wrestling match, condemning one side or the other for being a troublemaker.
Is it a fair fight? – Can it ever be a fair fight?
On the one hand, all Jews world wide support the idea of their promised land and in numbers and wealth far outweigh the Palestinian population. On the other hand Muslims world wide presumably support Palestine but without direct personal ambition to be part of any promise- so offering a less whole hearted support.
If find it hard to support any side in what seems a religious war based on illogical premise. – I sympathize though with both sides who have somewhat innocently found themselves at a fulcrum of history between east and west and Bible and Koran. – Each have behind them two disparate worlds egging on either side to show the way, yet standing sufficiently in the rear to escape the flack.
Israel and Palestine would fare best together – accepting their unique common illogical history and rebuilding a unique common country – and let the rest of the world go hang itself.
“Israel, as a concept, is as illogical as giving Asian immigrants Wales to live in.”
Historically, this is absolutely FALSE. Never mind “god-given;” Jews have inhabited the state now known as Israel for over 2000 years, so as much as any group of people can lay claim to a piece of land, the Jews certainly can. The destruction of the 2nd temple scattered the Jews to Europe and Africa (mostly) where they have been persecuted almost continuously–through expulsions from Spain and Portugal, through pogroms in eastern Europe and the Holocaust. Nonetheless, it is important to point out that there has ALWAYS been a Jewish presence in Israel (in Zefat, Jerusalem, Tiberias and so on) even after the Roman conquest.
This is not to say that the Palestinians don’t also have a claim to the land (hence the two-state solution), but please check your facts!
Forgive me Steve for not being as clear as I would like to be. I try to point to the difference between what might be seen as normal traffic of people across the world – journeys of migration for whatever reason good or bad – jouneys away from or back to a place, Certainly Jewish people have made such jouneys for thousands of years. My point is that the events 1947 and 1948 were somewhat unique and the politicians involved world wide surely failed to foresee the trouble thieir actions would cause. It grieves me that people who suffered immensly in one war should still be faced with what must seem interminable war. At rock bottom though, if we continue labeling ourselves as different tribes races groups clans, whatever, rather than as people of the world – friends maybe – there will never be peace. – The horrors and consequences of war will continue.
Israel, as a concept, is as illogical as giving Asian immigrants Wales to live in. No it’s not. The earlier idea, to house all the Jews in Uganda, was illogical. At least the area of Israel has a historical connection with Judaism.
Once upon a time I lost the plot, you understand. The experience taught me that we have a plot to lose. – The plot we each have is a storyline built on our own experience. As a child I learnt that strawberries taste good, hot things burn fingers and Jesus wants me for a sunbeam. – With age we add all sorts of things to our plots – most of what we add is a product of other people’s imagination. – Our plots become our beliefs. – Until we lose the plot though, we do not know we have one.
Those with experience of losing the plot can ask of someone, “What’s his plot?” – What is David Cameron’s plot for instance. – We live in a world where people kill and maim each other because all our plots are entwined with those of politicians, arms dealers, religious fanatics, oil barons and so on.
My plot is that of an atheist plumber who has strayed no further than the British Isles except on a trip to Italy at the age of seven. Your plot Henry is that of a Jewish scientist and writer who regularly flies round the world. Our plots crossed when we each met evolution.
I can imagine the lives and plots of people at the end of the last ice-age migrating east and west along the ice margin, eventually to become the assorted northern tribes – making a tentative genetic connection between Asia and Celtic Wales. I can also imagine the lives of the people of Ur of the Chaldees – and from what is known of their beliefs and its subsequent history, I can make connection between them and the migration of Judaism to the Welsh marches and beyond. Much of that migration is written down.
Migration is a real part of history and evolution – often forced migration. – Few peoples though have been been halted in their migrations to be dumped, for want of a better word, back where their ancestors came from, as happened to survivors of the holocaust – largely because the politicians of the day had no answer other than not in my backyard – the exercise was given feasibility by some universal belief in a promised land with the whole thing fueled by a peculiar intrinsic combination of historical mistrust allied to heroic admiration – both of which may be unreal except as part of people’s plots – plots not of the animals we are but of the imagined superior being some would have us be.
To get the gist of that unreality, simply mix Dafydd with the house of David and throw Goliath, Sampson, Delilah and the jaw bone of an ass into the plot – then head for Mt Zion Chapel in Merthyr Tydfil, passing Canterbury Cathedral on the way, scourging yourself with a dead cat and chanting ummm monotonously. Include if you want my friend Sandra who is both Scottish and Jewish – but I’m not going there. The whole plot is kind of, you can be in my wardrobe if I can be in yours.
Its all down to what is real.
As a farmer, I can see some reality in being an animal that has learnt to grow food instead of hunting and foraging. – Food seems a real part of anyone’s plot even if it crosses a Macdonald’s counter. – I fail to see much reality though in people killing each other over a promised land when both sides are surely the victims of historical imagination. – I see no end to the Palestine Israel problem till both sides face the unreality of the situation in which they have found themselves. – They might then rebuild together a new reality – but that is probably a far-fetched figment of my imagination. – Peace may be a long time coming – because, until people lose the plot, each person thinks their own plot is the real one, and so follows it to the bitter end.
Our plots, the ones we can lose, are an evolved trait thing (The relationship between having a plot to lose, its losing, and how that fits with evolution might make another post perhaps.) in short – if you are a dog keep barking if it worked yesterday. – I survive today so I’d best keep barking tomorrow. – Don’t change anything – I’m frightened of what might happen if we do. – That’s-the way we tick.
Peace can be frightening – it has rarely been what we did yesterday – we human animals have been warring so long.
Fear seems to be the key – we are all frightened of not having enough space and resource – so we defend what we have and loot that of others.
Of course when I die I will make space for another person in the world. – The problem is though that when I die I cannot make space for two – or six, eight or ten. – The city of Ur had an estimated population of 65,000 – London has a population of 8,000,000. It’s time we included restraint in our plots. – We might then become less needful of war.
As a reality check, consider that today, only 0.5% of the UK population is directly employed in agriculture – which means that for every hundred people, half a farmer grows their food. – Then type ‘Panhandle Texas’ into Google Earth and zoom out to see where the buffalo used to roam with the dear and the antelope at play. – It’s all a bit iffy if you ask me.
So what’s your plot like these days Henry – in fine fettle I trust.