What do Donald Trump and Pastor James McConnell have in common? They both distrust Muslims. Trump’s suspicion of an entire religion takes the form of calling for border closure against all Muslims. Pastor McConnell shows his wariness by saying he doesn’t trust them and that they are a hellish bunch. Both men when pressed will tell you that they have nothing against Muslims; but their actions and words in the past – and in Trump’s case, the present – tell a different story.
At the bottom of all this is the fear of difference. Muslims dress differently, they pray differently, they have different rules for women than Western society. I remember speaking to a taxi-driver in Bristol some ten years ago and he was strident about foreigners: “They come here, dress like British people, eat food like British people, follow British rules – fine. If they won’t, they can go back home. We don’t want them”.
Understandable if unforgiveable. Difference frightens us all to a greater or lesser extent. We don’t know how people could think so differently from us, so we assume they’re wrong at all points and a threat to our way of life. So we deliver sermons or respond to sermons that paint the Other as a threat that must be kept at arm’s length. Or we offer simplist solutions – “Seal the border!” – that appeal to the simple-minded.
If it weren’t rooted in tragedy it would be funny: to think that Donald Trump believes people who don’t resemble him must be a threat. Most of us would have thought it was the other way round: an increase in Donald Trumpites would be one of the worst things to happen the US in its entire history. And don’t think it couldn’t happen. Trump this morning stands with a massive 41% in the polls, with his nearest challenger, Ted Cruz, a Teaparty-tending candidate, with 14%.
Pastor McConnell would be funny too, except that he’s not at all repentant for his words. He’s apologized for any offence he may have caused, but he stands by what he said: he doesn’t trust them and sees their religion as hellish. Is he on his own in this? Far from it. His supporters were thick and vocal at the High Court in Belfast yesterday, with the DUP’s Sammy Wilson lending his gravitas to the group.
When people feel threatened, when they have a basic insecurity about their position, they cast around wildly for another group they can blame and look down on. For decades, that was the Catholic population here. Now Catholics have not so much been replaced by Muslims as joined by them. “Know your enemy” is the catch-call of all dictators. It would appear that on both sides of the Atlantic, there is an audience with an appetite for such bone-headed and dangerous simplification. And there is a deplorable lack of readiness to call it what it is: bigotry.
Taken from Newton Emerson
During last year’s Ardoyne Fleadh, rebel band The Druids expressed a wish for Protestants to “f*** off back to England”. A complaint was made to the police but no action followed. The Public Prosecution Service’s explanation, set out in a letter two months ago to a DUP party officer, was that it could not be proven “likely that hatred would be stirred up” given “the general disposition of the audience”. In other words, the crowd at the fleadh hated Protestants already.
The DUP is now complaining this is inconsistent with the prosecution of Pastor James McConnell for his sermon on ‘satanic’ Islam. As the DUP wanted the Druids to be prosecuted, consistency requires McConnell to be prosecuted. Perhaps the intellectual giants at party headquarters need to give this more thought.
The PPS has rejected the DUP’s complaint because McConnell is not being prosecuted for stirring up hatred. He is being prosecuted for causing grossly offensive remarks to be published on the internet, as if that does not happen 100 million times a day.
The main victims of this so far are the audience at the fleadh, who have become the legally established yardstick of absolute bigotry. If an individual said what the PPS has implied, namely that everyone in Ardoyne is a Catholic who therefore hates Protestants, that would ironically be grounds for their prosecution.
What is most striking about our evolving system of speech control is its arbitrary nature. Stirring up hatred is defined under 1987 and 2004 public order legislation as using or displaying “threatening, abusive or insulting words”, which could mean just about anything. Prosecution guidelines effectively say that a person has been threatened, abused or insulted if they feel they have been, which comes perilously close to automatic guilt by accusation. The 2003 communications law against being “grossly offensive” on the internet makes no attempt to define ‘grossly’ or ‘offensive’ and incidentally is copied wholesale from a 1984 ban on heavy breathing down nationalised telephone lines.
Even the experts have lost track of this mess. The Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission took the extraordinary step of asking the United Nations for “guidance on hate speech and freedom of expression” in the wake of the McConnell case. The rationale for curtailing ‘hate speech’ is community cohesion but arbitrary laws are more likely to feed divisive paranoia. If anyone might be prosecuted, every decision on who or who not to prosecute inevitably looks ‘political’. This week the airwaves have been full of people insisting Christians are being silenced to placate Muslims. In fact, the worst catch-all speech laws of recent years have been designed to silence Muslims, as Muslims are well aware. The 2006 Terrorism Act creates an offence of condoning, encouraging or glorifying terrorism in the past, present or future that is aimed at ‘Islamic hate preachers’, yet is so general it could criminalise most of Stormont.
In the English-speaking world, we owe our assumption of free expression to hate preachers, or at least to preachers judged so extreme by their contemporaries that they were considered a threat to community cohesion. Beginning in the early 1500s and continuing for nearly two centuries, an alternating succession of outspoken Protestants, Catholics and Dissenters were persecuted to an extent that slowly unnerved the general population and sapped the state’s authority to shut people up at its convenience. By the time parliament allowed the licensing of printing presses to lapse in 1695, England had convinced itself it was a bastion of free expression but this was pragmatism reborn as principle. For the first 783 years of its existence, prior to the 1998 Human Rights Act, Westminster passed nothing that could in any way be described as a right to free speech for the general population. It simply upheld the common law tradition that you are free to do anything unless it is specifically banned.
The Human Rights Act adds nothing to this because all it says is that you have the right to free expression except where laws are passed to restrict it. Such laws are now coming thick and fast.
Is it absurd to compare Pastor McConnell to the martyrs of the English reformation? No – most of them were the Pastor McConnells or even the Abu Hamzas of their day. Most were not burned at the stake but merely threatened and harassed, until everyone had seen it happen often and randomly enough to fear they might be next. Do we really need to learn that lesson all over again?
So I assume you would agree entirely with his point Jude?
I am struggling to get the gist of this post – can you simplify if for me! Its reassuring to see the Jude is having difficulty with it too…
Hi Neill,
The extract you are quoting from Newton Emmerson is based on a mistruth!
Although I do not condone the words used by the band the Druids which could fairly be perceived as being hurtful to some people living here, the band did not “expressed a wish for Protestants to “f*** off back to England”.
What Newton has cleverly done to suit his own objectives was to substitute “Protestant” for what was actuallty said which was “British Army and their “Orange comrades”.
I think the Druids are more than capable of putting their own foot in their mouths without Newton’s help!
Neill, was all that piece of work by Newt, and if so, what was your part, were you just holding his coat?
I’ve tried reading this twice now, neill, but when I get one-third way down my eyes get heavy and I look and see how far I still have to go. So what I’ve done is, I’ve skipped to the last sentence – your question – and I get the feeling you want me to agree with the piece (btw, have you checked copyright?), then right, I agree. Was that OK?
Now you know how the rest of us feel when we see Perkins contributions..only joking Perkin.
It was a back handed compliment to your post as for copyright if I have offended Newton by using his article I will apologise to him directly.
So the comparison being made is a supposedly a religious sermon on one hand and with a musical concert on the other . The battle of the …..The Reverand versus this band ,the Druids. I would gather that both audiences for each of these branches of theatrical expression had bought their tickets at the door and possibly had some idea what to expect from each performance before they entered the two rooms.You might say each was preaching to the converted with broad brush strokes. Now, whether or not some crowd-pleasing throwaway by a singer in band with a need to please his listeners and give them an empty soundbite to remember, is of the same emotive scale as a sermon ,preached in a church by a religious leader which condemns another entire religious such as the Muslim movement as ,say, “satanic” might not actually be on the same measurement scale at all.
Many of us could laugh at such language , for example, seeing the very concept of “Satan” as a fantastastical creation in the same league as fire-breathing dragons. Something , only to be believed by children or the mentally unwell . I personally think something like “Brits out” is a little simplistic in any case.It’s the kind of sloganeering that appeared on walls during our conflict but we now live in more complex and complicated times, so it is not really much use to us .”Brits” doesn’t necessarily mean “Protestants” in any case. It might be a sort of shorthand for some but it is not a fact.
The actual fact is….”He is being prosecuted for causing grossly offensive remarks to be published on the internet”,. Newton Emerson makes a fair point in saying “In the English-speaking world, we owe our assumption of free expression to hate preachers, or at least to preachers judged so extreme by their contemporaries that they were considered a threat to community cohesion.” That’s the nub of it here.It’s not some one -off remark by some lippy singer with a few beers in the tank like an insult hurled during a football match…. but it’s a repeated insult by someone with an amount of “standing” in our society who is expected to have a bit of wit …and to shut if he hasn’t. In a back-handed way these crazy buggers are the reason we have laws confronting them at all …because they frightened the life out of society and threaten to make it unstable . In other places , some like Hitler slipped through the nets and created mayhem.
“….with the DUP’s Sammy Wilson lending his gravitas to the group.”…Well Jude , thank you for the first chuckle….nay … outright guffaw, on an otherwise bleary and wintery day.”Gravitas” …ah, yes!
But anyway , these two characters might be cartoons to those of us with a functioning brain ,what with their simplistic one -size-fits- all witterings about race ,but they are very dangerous….more dangerous than the people they decry. There’s racism and bigotry running through their veins, much the same as the rampant homophobia that a whole section of the population equally suffers listening to their blinkered kind.
That all said Jude, I have my own misgivings about gods and religions , as you already well know. I’ll rephrase that …i don’t have a problem with religions but i feel they should be a private pleasure …like sex. I don’t really mind what is done in the privacy of the mind or the individual’s home, but I don’t want it shoved down my throat or anyone else’s throat either. I don’t have to listen to this mad Reverand’s rantings but then the bile was unfortunately released out into the public domain… and that’s where the trouble started .He was wheeled out onto a television show too , to compound the madness and defend his mad rantings.It’s all a sort of showbusiness at that level, but like music, films , books or whatever, we can pick and choose the quality, or otherwise, we wish to imbibe. There’s the responsibility element, of course . Public figures are pressed to curtail their more savage instincts by a set of laws , which is why this boxer Mad Fury ,or whatever his name is , has become a talking point about whether or not he is actually a “sportsman” at all .The same kinds of laws and requirements one Peter Robinson came a cropper with, when he mentioned muslims being good enough to do his shopping ….just about…. and trusted for little else!
The only concession i would give to this kind of bigot-thought would be that the laws of the land have to be abided by , no matter the individual’s religion, creed or ethnic origin. If he wants to practice witchcraft or indulge in cannibalism for example, I don’t really think he’ll find a comfortable berth in the UK or Ireland. It’s the same with something like Sharia law .If you want to live in a country with a different set of laws or values, you might have to change your way of thinking, if you really want to fit in and be part of that new society. if you don’t want to do that, it’s time to ask yourself some hard questions as to whether you’d be happy living in a society like that in the first place and why would you move your family to a place like that with such alien values for you and them.Again …if it ‘s only a matter of religion and not skin colour, that really should be a private pleasure between yourself and your god of choice and should not impinge on anyone else or their sense of secular protection.
The problems start when the fanatics of whatever stripe start preaching and offending others or simply ignore the laws of the land and have their own private little laws inside their own tight little groupings.People might fear that if enough of these religion -driven fanatics outweigh other wiser heads and become a voting majority with very conservative or possibly ultra non-secular ideas and agendas, they might adversely effect our own future society and skew it out of any comfortable shape . We have a democracy of sorts, but it could still be knocked out of kilter. As you say , Jude , Donald Trump is very popular with a lot of very far-right potential voters. A cartoon, to you and me, but a very dangerous cartoon if he had the levers of power in his hands.Every bit as fanatical as an ISiS suicide bomber or any of these other culture destroyers.
ISS
Spare a thought for the manner in which Mr Trump does business in Scotland. He is an opponent of the planned £230m European Offshore Wind Deployment Centre near his development at the Menie Estate, north of Aberdeen. On the one hand, his development at Menie has been hailed by golf course reviewers and praised by local business groups as a boost to the area’s highly oil-dependent economy.
On the other hand, some local residents have accused him of bullying behaviour, including blocking the views from homes with earth mounds or trees, cutting off water to older residents while environmentalists remain upset about construction of the course on dunes that were part of a site of special scientific interest.
Tim Peake will soar into space today in a Soyuz rocket designed to reach orbit in nine minutes and circle this planet four times on its 6 hour journey to the International Space Station. Some children will journey into space in years to come. Many adults here have yet to come to terms with the Copernican revolution. We could do with more science and fewer sermons on this part of the planet.
Pardon my typos ..That should be “reverent” , of course. Apologies to all those of a religious persuasion with a reverence for reverents ,of all shapes and sizes
Another.sad.story.jude.
A.pair.of.sads.Jim.
when people see unfairness in the treatment of their own homeless is when they start listening to these sermons.
I’m not sure what you mean there billy….nothing…not even the unfairness meted out to our own homeless would make me want to listen to this kind of crocked, bile.I’d prefer a nice cup of tea and a good book, any day, meself…..
billy, were these not the type of hate filled sermons that Ian Paisley rose to prominence on, creating his own church, political party & unknown wealth & this before any “refugees” entered our shores. Of course I could mention the plantation……………….
indeed it was the same sort of sermons protestants rose to prominence on to create their own protestant parliament for the protestant people and one thing they dont like is change.just imo this refugee business was badly handled and give mcconnell and his ilk a seat on the bandwagon while on the other side the new charity groups and quangos grabbed a seat too,as we well know here theres no money in peace.
There is no doubt Trump is a big mouth WASP and an egotist, I am unsure whether he is genuinely concerned about the threat of terrorism or whether he is making a conscious decision to use fear as a means to getting elected. I have always regarded myself as a bit of a political liberal taking the Blue Mink approach to immigration (younger readers should google Melting Pot…) but the rise of Islamic Fascism has stretched that quite a bit, I do not want jihadist nut cases swarming into Europe, Islam does not adapt well to western society. As for the pastor, if he wasn`t ranting about Muslims he would be putting the boot into the Catholics, and I am uneasy about my feelings towards Islamic immigration simply because I know what bigotry looks and sounds like. It would be preferable if the people fleeing the conflicts( started and fuelled by western countries of course) were to be rehoused in other Muslim countries. That should be the priority. Better for them and better for us.
Folk shouldn’t be fooled by the farce that continues with Donald trump. He is deliberately being offensive to ensure the election of Hilary Clinton. Although they come from different political parties he and the Clintons are very good friends. By his rants he has successfully taken the spotlight off Hilary and her dodgy dealings over the years. Added to that he has made her out to be a peaceful person when the reality is very much different. Trump is a buffoon but we should also be concerned if Clinton gets to the whitehouse.
Hi Jude,
I made a response to Neill’s contribution about an hour ago. It appeared on my system saying “your comment is awaiting approval by the moderator” or something like that but it has not appeared.
Hi Pointis – thanks for your post. But hey – an hour??? I don’t REALLy spend all day hovered over this goddam keyboard – I sometimes venture out into the bawl and roar of real life. But I’ll get anything that hasn’t been put up, up now…Patience, patience…
Sorry Jude, I am not complaining about the speed at which items are put up on the site but when someone submits an article it appears on their feed with the text below it reading “your comment is waiting to be moderated”. Other contributors will know what I am talking about. When I went on the site later the comment was gone but new comments were up from regular contributors.
I just took a momentary head stagger and thought you did a ‘Trump’ on me and decided to exclude me!
Never, Pointis, never – and I wasn’t being critical. Trying to be witty, actually. Like a fish riding a bicycle…
Donald Trump should be invited into the Orange Order!
He has a lot in common with the Order.
He appeals to only one small section of the community whose influence greatly outbalances their numerical strength.
He wants to build walls between people rather than break down barriers!
He relies on half-truths and myths in order to spread his message!
His views and opinions belong to a previous century.
He has an affinity to another country (Scotland) which is embarrassed by him and wants nothing to do with him.
He is always well dressed so you expect him to say something sensible!
He could do with a bowler to cover that unruly mop!
Personally , I think his head is too big for that kind of hairstyle{!}, Pointis. He should try a “gelled mohican” with maybe a few colours through it{red, white and blue maybe}.It might make him look a little more aerodynamic too!!!!
Paddykool,
I like your idea although I think I can “Trump” it! How about long hippy style like an Aberdeen Angus or Neil from the “young ones” so that people could smell the “bulls_ _t” but you wouldn’t necessarily see where it came from!
Isnt it strange how some people on here have the ability to bring back any issue to Northern Ireland and have a pop at the orange order its a real gift indeed.
Sort of an “orange pop” Neill?
Some might claim that is quite refreshing!
I, UNFORTUNATELY, WASN’T ABLE TO MAKE IT TO THE DRUIDS’ CONCERT SO I DON’T KNOW THE EXACT PHRASEOLOGY USED SO TELL ME, SINCE WHEN DO WE DENY PEOPLE TO EXPRESS THEIR WISHES?
SAYING, “I WISH YOU’D ALL F*** OFF BACK TO ENGAND”, DOES NOT CONSTITUTE HATE SPEECH. IF WE AS IRISH MEN AND WOMEN ARE BANNED BY LAW FROM EXPRESSING A WISH THAT HAS EXISTED (AND NOT WITHOUT REASON) FOR MORE THAN EIGHT-HUNDRED YEARS, THEN WE NEED TO CHANGE THAT LAW.
ON A LIGHTER NOTE (AND JUST SLIGHTLY RELATED TO THIS THEME), A FUUNY THING HAPPENED SOME YEARS AGO WHEN I WAS IN TOWN WITH PADGE – YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE, PADGE!
“WATCH THIS” HE SAYS AS HE APPROACHES A GARDA OUTSIDE THE G.P.O. IN DUBLIN.
“GAAARD”, SAYS PADGE, “IF I – AND I’M NOT, MIND – BUT IF I CALLED YOU A BIG IGNORANT CULCHIE BOLLIX, COULD YOU ARREST ME?”
“CAREFUL NOW LAD,” SAYS THE COPPER, “BUT TO ANSWER YOUR QUESTION, YES I COULD”
“BUT COULD YOU ARREST ME FOR THINKING IT?”
“AH NO,” SAYS THE GARDA, “SURE WE CAN’T TELL YOU WHAT TO THINK.”
“GOOD,” SAYS PADGE…
Cathal – no need for caps. And I didn’t put up your other posts because I saw them as abusive. This one I quite like…
Truly is the rug of Donald Trump one of the ironic wonders of the contemporary world, Esteemed Blogmeister. Ironic, in the sense, that it is just muezzining out for its owner to put a, erm, towel on his head. Even a hot one.
And speaking of poetic justice, it is not the only thing about it which has a poetic dimension to it. One finds it quite impossible to view the yellow rug nowadays without conjuring up a line from Patrick Kavanagh’s mesmeric: ‘Shancoduff’:
‘a sheaf of hay for three perishing calves’.
From what can sense down here in the Free Southern Stateen anti-Islamic feeling, while muted, is undoubtedly there. Much more so for sure since the visit in July 1972 of, perhaps, the greatest Islamic warrior since the halcyon days of Saladin: that would have been Muhammad Ali.
When he fought in front of (gasp) a derisory 17,000 spectators Croke Park in a bout which wasn’t billed Ali v Al, but might have been.. His opponent was a cheerful stumblebum, name of Al ‘Blue’ Lewis whose decidedly downmarket accommodation – the ultimate opponent-friendly Ormond Hotel – added a Joycean touch. It is the location of the Sirens episode, the most musical in Ulysses.
Al was left to sing the plural of his nickname after he was stopped in the eleventh round of a lacklustre scrap, comforted by his biggest ever payday.
The former Cassius Marcellus Clay’s first reaction on arrival in a pale-faced Dublin was; ‘Say, bro, where’s all da n-words in this here town?’. Some one had to take him aside and explain this was the traditional capital of the, erm, Pale.
But perhaps the biggest indication of change is an episode which occurred out at a press conference in M.A’s upmarket hotel, Johnny Openheimer’s in the Scalp (with the pretend sugar and cotton ski slopes) on the road to toney Enniskerry.
This involved the champ’s legendary trainer, Angelo Dundee being addressed as ‘Angela’ by a clearly over-awed and flustered journalist from the(gasp) Irish Dependent. Which resulted in Mr. Dundee taking sever umbrage, stopping only short of his leaving in high dudgeon..
Nowadays, of course, south of the Black Sow’s Dyke, any dude name of Angelo to be thus greeted would be only too chuffed and react with a flutter of the artificial and elongated eye-lashes.
To take umbrage would automatically rule him/ her out of the following: 1. a guilt-edged invitation to take to the stage of the Abbey Theatre; 2. a guaranteed Honorary Doctorate from TCD; and 3. one’s name being whispered in the dovecotes as a (shhhh) possible can-do-date fom the Arsus, oops. Arus.
Yessiree, Ireland has undoubtedly changed since – in Fat Pat speak – Nineteen Hundred and Seventy Two. . But, of course, the more things change the more they whatsit. Bigotry is still big down here; indeed, probably even bigger, as in BIGotry.
It’s just that the bigots don’t wear towels on their heads; in fact, they prefer to go hatless and/ or veil less in bald-headed displays of gobsmacking gauchery. Witness (gulp) the gormless entry of a veil-free President of the FSS into the take-that Vatican.
Yes, indeed, the same Prez who later showed her self-sacrificing contempt for those who elected (and more so, for those who didn’t) by jumping ship for (alas) a bigger and more globalised gig, not.
Though it was not for want of trying on her esteemed part; even as she auditioned for the role of Czarina of Tolerance, by dancing an increasingly more demented dance of the seven veils in various Middle-Eastern .mdinas and rabats, a la Scheherazade.
All, alas, to no, erm, avail.
To end where one begun: with a rug.
Not to be outdone, the current Be all and End all of the FSS, the canny Kenny, PM, pulled the plug on the rogerers and other Toby Jugs of the Vatican who swept things for so long under, the rug.
Thereby, twin-branding Catholicism and Child Abuse in the same ominous manner of the alliterative and doomed twin-branding of (gulp) Waterford and Wedgewood.
There might well be a message there for an Irish Mussalman who might be thinking of going into the mobile MIster Whippy business.
For all good mudslings must come to an end. The time could well be nigh,on Liffeyside, for a different religious persuasion to don the mantle of the n-word (see above).