Censorship with a blunt instrument....

hi,
just read THIS . imho it's a crying shame that an artistic work can be bullied from public view.
who was it who said 'i may not like what you say. but i'll defend your right to say it'.
if there were legitimate concerns about the play and it's content than it should have been handled by legal processes not a lynch mob.
cheers


julian

 

I heard this on the news last night, and the people organizing the play were saying they had no intention of giving in to censorship despite the protests.

 

The organisers didnt give in, the theatre did.
Apparently to be reshown at another venue.

 

i think people shouldent mock other peoples faith though , its wrong.

"Christians have picketed a theatre in Scotland staging a play depicting Jesus as a homosexual."

now im not religious , mostly because i grew up in N ireland and tended to shy away from religion but i did learn to respect other peoples religions and its quite clear to me that there isent much respect for other peoples faith here.im all on for freedom of speech and expression but freedom to make a mockery of someone elses faith is another kettle of fish altogether , but then again i spose , if you dont like it you dont have to go and see it.

 

What, even when he's not the Messiah, he's a very naughty boy?

 

Wasn't that controversial at the time

It was my understanding that Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti is herself a Sikh

Stuart

 

and now a tiny little play that would have been seen by may be 100 people is a national news story. Religeous people never learn, keep quiet and it'll go away, do not mob a theatre it might attact attention.

Life of Brian is still controversial yet that Mel Gibson one is a masterpiece. Blood and violence is allowable in the 'correct' context. Comedy isn't.

 

We need freedom from religion as well as freedom of religion. I don't buy the current culture of automatically having to respect other peoples' beliefs no matter how daft. The drive towards legislating against expression that could cause religious offense is worrying - as someone pointed out on Radio 4, under proposed legislation you could no longer publicly query the morality of the prophet Mohamed having married a 9 year old girl, which it strikes me is an interesting area to explore...

 

From BBC News:

Get a clue you idiot, if you don't see the play then you won't get upset by it . As avanzanto pointed out, this kind of uproar has just made thousands more people aware of it .

Michael.

 

mlc,
respecting others beliefs is a good thing imho. however, the play in question is FICTION and the main arguments against it seem to portray the fictional happenings as real! some confusion somewhere i think. certainly the woman who was ranting about it on radio 2 was scary when she said that people shouldn;t be able to say what they want in a fictional setting. down that road lies yellow stars and tattoos me thinks and this could not be further from what sikhissm stands for. a sad day when anger makes you forget the basic tennets of your religon, still most people are guilty of this at one time or another - the pwer of the knee jerk is awesome.....
cheers


julian

 

Julian,

Where do you draw the line? there is a television station called Al-Manar, which is the official mouthpiece of Hizballah, a terrorist organization. This has recently broadcast a Syrian version of 'The Protocols of Zion' a vehemently anti-semitic piece which, although fictional, is depicted as true. The 'Protocols' has been used as an anti-Jewish piece for many years and to this day has spurred the murder of thousands of Jews (many wearing yellow stars and tattoos). This latest Syrian version has the Jewish Rabbi urging his followers to kill Muslim children so that their blood can be used in the making of Matzoh (Jewish passover bread). Previous versions had the Jews drinking the blood of Christian children and were used as anti-Semitic literature in Europe.

Anyway, as a result of this broadcast and other, blatantly anti-Jewish, programmes, Al-Manar has been banned from broadcasting in France (a country with a large Arab voting population that is not reknown for being particularly pro-Jewish).

So where does one draw the line? I haven't seen the play in question and I don't know how anti-Sikh it is. If it preaches hatred and lies against Sikhs, should it be allowed just because it's 'fiction'? 'The War of the Worlds' was a fictional radio broadcast which was widely believed. If Martians had happened to choose that time to visit our planet they would have been torn to shreds.

I am however against the new 'anti-religion' legislation proposed by the government, although I think that this is a tricky issue. 'The Life of Brian' was perhaps disrespectful to Christianity but certainly didn't preach anti-Christian hatred. Any talk of banning it at the time was clearly an over-reaction. Mel Gibson's latest nasty piece of shit is worse but still doesn't merit banning. 'The Protocols of Zion' is worse still, as it is totally untrue yet delivered as the truth. It should be banned. The latest Sikh piece? I don't know anything about it so I can't comment. Let's not rush to judgement.

PS: Another thing about 'The Protocols of Zion' is that it talks about a Jewish conspiracy running the world. A piece referring to Jewish conspiracies that doesn't tell me, a bona-fida Jew, how to join, should definitely be banned.

 

steve,
it's a difficult line to draw and therefore i believe that it's the results and actions that are precipitated that should be judged. for example if a piece incited hatred towards (for example) jews then that should NOT be censored HOWEVER if someone is moronic enough to take it seriously and ACT on it and attempt to kill someone they belive to be a jew then they should be prosecuted - and harshly. in my opinion if you start trying to nanny or second guess people then you could end up with something like the situation in minority report where you are being prosecuted for a crime you might have committed.
it reminds me of another book - tiger tiger which is all about the 'rulers of the world' be they giant lizards, jews, illuminati or more mundanely who they seem to be , being asked to treat people like adults and not children. perhaps if that happened people would actually act like adults and not children.
from what i understand of the play in question it's pretty much what the catholic church undergoes on a slow news day with suggestions of sexual abuse inside the gudwara (sp?). iirc there have been numerous films, books, etc. made about this kind of thing just not directed at sikhism before.
cheers


julian

 

Offensive remarks removed by S&C. Apologies to all.

 

I'm not going to comment on the actual topic because there's nothing useful I can add, but this comment is rather ill-considered IMO

At least find out the reasons for the wearing of "silly hats" before making such statements.

 

And every time you see a mugger on Crime Watch.......

 

Julian,

Surely the Catholic church gets what it deserves in terms of the portrayal of sexual abuse. Not only have such abuses been shown to have taken place but the governing bodies have been reluctant to condemn them and officials found guilty have been 'redeployed' within the church rather than thrown out.

If such abhorrencies as murder and sexual abuse have taken place within Sikh temples, then of course they can be fictionalised. If not, why should they be?

Unfortunately, there have been many successful 'attempts' and this is the danger. We're not talking necessarily about liberal niceties and the evils of book burning. Sometimes we're talking about incitement to murder.

 

steve,
so what you are saying is that all fiction should have it's roots in fact? surely that would make 2/3rds of fiction unacceptible - possibly including those holy books upon which most religons are based. a good story is a good story and should be judged as such.

as to your second point i was referring of course to 'art' and not to bnp rally's. iirc jodie foster made a film which had the effect of someone trying to shoot regan - even though the film didn;t specifically incite this. should the film have been banned? surely by this reasoning all art should be banned as they incite emotions which can cause harm. i know let's put prozac and vallium in the water supply and go through life in a daze.
cheers


julian

 

No, that's not what I'm saying. However, I believe that there are dangers in spreading myths.

For example, if directors made films showing 'Mormon Separatists' blowing up buses full of school children in their quest for an independent Utah, and if such films were copied ('Return of the Killer Mormons') and shown enough times, then many people would believe them, whatever their foundation. This would certainly influence people's attitudes to Mormons, just as Goebel's propaganda films portraying the Jews as rats influenced the Europeans who were exposed to them.

Surely this is a question of degree and judgement, Julian. Is your position that anything should be allowed, no matter what the truth or otherwise and irrespective of the motive?

 

Offensive remarks removed by S&C. Apologies to all.

 

there's no smoke without fire

to the previous note about respecting others' beliefs - I feel that respect needs to be earned, not automatically assigned and that we're on a slippery slope of US-style 'non-judgmentalism' (see my 'recommended book' thread in Chat)