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Lyrical Terrorism
Self-censorship, Islamists and the art world
Rod Liddle writes that the government is keen to stamp out anything that might undermine its claim that Islam is a religion of peace and its followers overwhelmingly moderate.
Hence proposed laws which will limit the freedom of speech, not only of Islam's critics, but of its most crazed clerics. And also the arrest and prosecution of the wretched "lyrical terrorist" Samina Malik, a 23-year old sales girl at WH Smith in Heathrow Airport who was recently found guilty of "having articles "likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism".
Malik wrote cretinous poems praising jihad, beheading and Osama bin Laden. She wrote of her "desire for martyrdom on the back of a till receipt from the shop in which she worked. Police say she was in contact with others who shared her violent extremist views and had tried to donate money to terrorists. Malik claimed she nicknamed herself "Lyrical Terrorist" because it "sounded cool." She said she "stumbled upon" extremist websites, such as that of crazed extremist cleric Abu Hamza al-Masri after hearing about him in the media (EURSOC, too, has visited sites dedicated to Abu Hamza... you'll have to wait for our poetry, though).
She was cleared of having articles - weapons manuals and poisons guides downloaded from the internet - to use in terrorists acts herself.
"I didn’t think anyone would take me seriously, she told the court, in tears", Liddle writes.
"What is quite remarkable about this whole business is the complete and utter lack of outrage which greeted the decision to prosecute Malik and the verdict", he continues, "No outrage from anywhere — least of all the areas from which you might most expect it. The good old liberal Guardian sneered that she’d sort of got her comeuppance — send the ‘ho’ down. This is the newspaper which can employ the pompous IRA apologist (well, in truth, he hasn’t apologised that much) Ronan Bennett to spend 2,000 words eviscerating Martin Amis for his supposed ‘racism’ in attacking Muslims — but when a real and grotesque breach of civil liberties occurs in the courts — the brutal Bruddish courts, remember — the paper cheers from the sidelines. What a desperately confused little rag it has become. In its support for ‘mainstream’ Islam, whatever that might be (nobody seems able to define it; I don’t think it exists, as such), the Guardian and most white liberals feel compelled to join in the co-ordinated state persecution of anyone who might give Islam a ‘bad name’. And if that involves sending them to prison for having written a stupid poem, then so be it. In this they are supported by some of the ‘mainstream’ Muslim organisations, for reasons of self-evident self-interest."
Samina Malik thought no-one would take her seriously. Other British artists are all-too-worried that their work might be taken too seriously, and have avoided criticising Islam for that reason. The EU Referendum Blog comments on how artists "are always boasting or getting art critics to boast about their incredible courage. This goes for writers, cartoonists and comedians as well. They are all so courageous.
"After all, they criticize President Bush and they laugh at the United States; they make derogatory comments about Margaret Thatcher (still) and they produce cartoons that could have been published in Der Stürmer; they write plays and produce works of "art" that mock Christianity and they make fun of the Pope and the Chief Rabbi."
But when it comes to Islam, they clam up. Many Islamists - unlike Christians or Jews - would like to see homosexuals thrown from cliffs. In Iran, gays are executed in public. Similar fates await those guilty of adultery, prostitutes and even victims of rape in other strict Islamic states. And as for blasphemy - the stock-in trade of the shock troops of the British art world, as well as a crucial element in the western tradition of free enquiry... well Theo van Gogh's experience says it all. Ask Salman Rushdie about Islam's tolerance of a novelist's right to investigate or look at the "Cartoon Jihad" which followed a series of Danish images of Mohammed for how many Muslims react to the scurrilous caricatures.
So why are artists so courageous in their handling of the oppressive wickedness of the Church of England, but so shy of offending a system of belief that genuinely threatens their freedoms, even their lives? Even novelist and poster girl for the anti-West mob Arundhati Roy admitted this week that if the kind of people she and her admirers sided with were to win any real power, the liberals would be the first to be hanged from the nearest tree.
Transvestite artist Grayson Perry is admirably honest: “The reason I haven’t gone all out attacking Islamism in my art is because I feel real fear that someone will slit my throat.”
We've touched on these issues before. In February 2006 we proclaimed "the end of the avant-garde" as a London gallery unveiled yet another "shocking", "daring" exhibition challenging Roman Catholicism, not long after another genuinely daring film-maker was butchered in Holland for having questioned a religion "infinitely more conservative and repressive than even the strictest catholic Cardinal."
No other artist has come up with an excuse other than cowardice for failing to tackle the most dangerous reactionary force in Europe today. As Nick Cohen wrote, "You can't be a little bit free. If you are not willing to offend Islamists who may kill you, what excuse do you have for offending Catholics, the families of murdered children and British troops who won't?"
