OFF: Freeedom of Speech

[Paul Mather]

On Mon, 2006-02-13 at 14:09 +0000, M Holmes wrote:

> Indeed, but religions are often populated by idiots who'd rather throw
> their toys out of the pram and threaten others with harm than engage in
> the hard work of trying to persuade others of their cause.

Although that may be a fashionable characterisation, I disagree with
it---at least from my own personal experience.  I can't think of a
single incident in which I have (or anyone I know has) been directly
threatened with harm by a religious person.  In fact, most people I know
who are religious are not even evangelical about it.

That's not to say that there aren't those sort of people you talk about,
but mathematically I'd say they were in the minority.  Also, I'd be
interested in seeing statistics on whether secular society and
institutions differ in the relative number of people "who'd rather throw
their toys out of the pram and threaten others with harm than engage in
the hard work of trying to persuade others of their cause" as compared
with religious counterparts.  I would doubt it.  I'd say that's a
personality trait that manages to work its way out in all walks of life,
be it secular or religious.

I certainly agree that there is a perception of what you state.  I just
disagree whether it is a reality.

>  It may not be
> the case that Islam is more choc-full of this type of person than other
> religions, but the press they're getting of late is certainly making it
> look that way. It's well past time for the sane Muslims to rein in their
> loonies.

How will we be able to tell?  If the newspapers and media keep running
stories of religious extremists, it won't matter what the reality is on
the ground: it will still appear that the lunatics are running the
asylum, whether they actually are or not.  The fixation that the news
has with strife and conflict as a way of selling newspapers and grabbing
viewers airtime (the "If it Bleeds it Leads"/"Bad News Sells" dictum)
means we rarely get a balanced view of most issues.  (Indeed, as crime
has actually been going down, reporting in the media and perception of
crime has been going up.)  If the Daily Mail wants to portray Abu Hamzu
frothing on, waving his hook and preaching death as the archetypal
British muslim, it's not likely that the picture we have of British
muslims will change much.  Is Abu Hamza representative of British
muslims, though?  Sure, he and the likes of the 7/7 bombers exist, but
are they representative of the majority?  I doubt it, just as I doubt
that the country is "flooded" with asylum seekers; most hospitals are
MSRA death-traps; and the average youth is an ABSO-in-waiting; and
similar Daily Mail and red top fare.

> The one thing we can be grateful of in the past couple of weeks is that
> in Britain at least, a start seems to have been made on that project.

I agree when you say above, in effect, that dialogue, not jerking knees,
is what is needed.  Unfortunately, there's been a lot of knee-jerk
reaction on both sides of this issue.  Stereotyping is not a good way
forward.

Cheers,

Paul.
--
e-mail: paul at gromit.dlib.vt.edu

"Without music to decorate it, time is just a bunch of boring production
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