The events at Batley Grammar School in Yorkshire, where the showing of a cartoon of the prophet Muhammed during an RE lesson has resulted in angry demonstrations outside the school, a teacher in hiding, and a grovelling apology from the headmaster, are as depressing as they are predictable.
The reaction from local Muslims hardly needs comment. It is the cowardly reaction of the headmaster and the equivocal support offered by officialdom that really stick in one’s craw. Terrified of causing offence to Muslims, bound and gagged by the dictates of multicultural Newspeak, they dare not defend the right to cause offence, otherwise known as free speech, or the duty of teachers to foster discussion and debate in the classroom.
Instead, the headmaster has declared that the school ‘unequivocally apologises for using a totally inappropriate resource in a recent religious studies lesson’. It had ‘immediately withdrawn teaching on this part of the course’. And the member of staff concerned had been ‘suspended pending an independent formal investigation’ and had offered ‘their most sincere apologies’. But for doing what? For brandishing a sex toy, for goading Muslims in the class and ridiculing their religion – or, more likely, for engaging pupils in debate about the places of blasphemy and free speech in a secular society. We have not been told. The teacher caused offence and that is enough to get him cancelled.
The Education Secretary Gavin Williamson’s response was to brand the protests ‘completely unacceptable’ on the grounds that ‘it is never acceptable to threaten or intimidate teachers.’ But on the substance of the issue, he was decidedly ambiguous. Schools were ‘free to include a full range of issues, ideas and materials in their curriculum, including where they are challenging or controversial’, but (and here’s the rub) ‘they must balance this with the need to promote respect and tolerance between people of different faiths and beliefs, including in deciding which materials to use in the classroom.’ In other words, they are not free to address issues that are challenging or controversial – like the right to free speech and to engage in satire in a free society – because they might cause offence to fundamentalist Muslims, and this is not conducive to community relations.
The housing minister Robert Jenrick was more forthright and argued that nothing should be ‘censored’ in the classroom. He even suggested that it ‘must be right’ that a teacher can ‘appropriately’ show images of the Prophet Mohammed, so that children might question and query religions. But the submissive tone of the liberal establishment here is in marked contrast to the vigorous defence of Enlightenment values, including the right to ridicule, being mounted in France, where the beheading of Samuel Paty for the same offence as the Batley RS teacher provoked universal outrage. (Ed. Not quite; see Samuel Paty)
And there is something else in our establishment’s stock responses that deserves comment. It is the constant resort, as in all situations where enduring values are at stake, but moral decadence has rotted the possibility of any action, to the weasel words ‘unacceptable’ and ‘inappropriate’.
In post-truth deconstructive multicultural Britain, where we have abandoned our moral, religious, cultural political bearings, for fear of causing offence to the other, all statements must be value-free. Nothing can be called right or wrong, virtuous or vicious, true or false. Just as the only crime is to cause offence, the only moral or political precept is to avoid causing offence. And we react by expressing our own sense of indiscriminate offence by deploying the correspondingly bland catch-all terms ‘unacceptable’ and ‘inappropriate’. It follows that dropping litter and genocide are on a par as being deemed completely ‘unacceptable’, flirting and rape are equally ‘unacceptable’, and the delivery of an admonitory smack to a child is no more or less acceptable than beating him to death. We know of no distinctions for we have no values, and we take no action – that is, unless a minority group has been offended.
There is no need to address the root causes of the spectacle at Batley just so long as we stand united in opposition to offence. The demonstration is unacceptable. It is unacceptable to intimidate teachers. The teacher’s showing of the cartoon was unacceptable. And it is unacceptable to cause offence. There, all bases are covered.
Let the danse macabre continue.
I have noticed that beheadings, bombings, and slaughter-by-moving-vehicle of non-Muslims by Muslims -acts that that are nominally unacceptable- can be quite common, at times. And the current slow-down must be costing a pretty penny in surveillance, appeasements and special pleadings.
When faced with ones head potentially being chopped off, is it surprising?
Lots of people talk the talk but do not walk the walk when faced with danger.
Many have decried Tommy Robinson and not stood up for him, including some in this magazine (not the editor), but he has also faced constant death threats, had to move house, go into hiding and been scared for his family.
Case to be tested:
That Islam, as it exists in the West, costs wealth-creating, nett tax-paying non-Muslim Westerners more, in both direct and opportunity terms, tangible and intangible, than any other religion.
The offender, and the offended. In cases of offence, it takes two to tango. But the presentation of such cases is invariably that X said something that ’caused offence’. Whereupon we have this horrible thing, ‘offence’, hanging in the air, that ought according to our rulers and legislators never to be, that is so bad that there must be criminal laws punishing those who ’cause’ it. Yet, in fact, the offense hangs not in the air, but entirely in the mind of the offended party. It is his choice to take offence, to generate it in his mind, to keep it and savour it, to wallow in it, to grieve and become bitter and angry over it, even to take violent revenge because of it. And yet there is no law criminalising the taking of offence.
I was Head of English for a time in an east London school with almost entirely Muslim pupils from south Asia. It would not have been dhimmitude to refrain from brandishing a cartoon of Muhammad in front of a class, but simple politeness and common-sense. The big errors were those of white politicians, national and local, who agreed to the import of Deobandi imams rather than letting existing mosques find their own leaders, or who attacked me for racism when I wished to give special survival English lessons to nervous illiterate immigrants from the Sylhet peasant region. On one hand a Muslim girl complained that I shouldn’t be teaching her as I was a man, and on the other there were parents who complained that they had brought their offspring to this country for “a good English education, but all we get is this multicultural rubbish”. These are ancient anecdotes (among others yet unpublished), but the real problem now is to prevent the destruction of English and European civilization, and to restore them culturally and demographically. It can be done, but first we must remove the official “equality, diversity, inclusion” gag from our mouths.
David Ashton, you and I have widely different assessments of the conditions of battle. I see no factors trending in the direction of the retrieval of European Civ from The Abyss. Still, my respect and warm greetings to you -Harry.
Nil desperandum, Harry.
A few flickering candles in the dark: The Spectator (Murray, Liddle , Shriver); Spiked (though somehat race-blind); Conservative Woman; The Quarterly Review; the new Museum of Communist Terror in London; many US & European “right-wing” websites still accessible (e.g. American Renaissance); many activists in the USA, Denmark, Hungary &c; some more awake to woke than hitherto. The George Floyd hoax will not last for ever. The LGBTQIA+BDSM&c versus Islamism…
“The decline and fall of England, which will rejoice her enemies, will not be England’s decline and fall only, but of all for which she stood, and not till then shall we know the extent of our miseries. I, at least, am not of the opinion that humanity, justice, freedom, no, nor Christianity, will be gainers in that fall,” said Professor Macneile Dixon 84 years ago, but we are still here – albeit only just – and best when our backs against the wall. Re-read Tennyon’s “Ulysees” and Kipling’s “If” for inspiration.
Thanks David. Thing is, people writing articles and books describing the direness of the situation will not be decisive in securing Western Civ. Even the strongest poem expressing the Wisdom of the Ages regarding the flourishing life will not swing it.
How to mobilise 10% of the adult population to push, shove, and support elected non-marxist polticians, and their operatives, to get smart and get tough -that inquiry is now urgent.
I am not in despair. I am wondering about how to encourage the 10% to spend their own time and own their money -sacrifice their lives- to save the joint.
I agree, Harry. The problem is to organise and have a political effect, overt and covert. We still need to do what the Communists did in the past with fronts &c. Of course, it is illegal to organise a racially all-white group, and whites, English people and stale heterosexual males are not legally “protected”. The nomenklatura may crack under the strain of reality and sociobiological instinct, but violence must be avoided. The samizdat movement in the USSR had external support from the west; the true west does not have external support. We do have some internet access, though this is infected by disinformation.
From over ten years ago I publicly and repeatedly advised: (1) Have more healthy and bright “white” children ( breed British brats); (2) protect and promote the western heritage in every respect; (3) master the technics as well as content of cyber communication. Maybe a few wise young people got the message.
Yes, Muslim supremacy is hard upon us.
Now, in the USA, the Muslim supremacists have rather a lot of competition.
There are the Black supremacists, obviously-
-Markle and Oprah are merely popular examples. There are many, many more in elective politics, in the education systems, in the entertainment and sports industries in the media, and all through the public services.
(Think the Black security guard at the Capital who shot an unarmed White woman, presenting no threat to any person, in the face, sideways, for no reason at all, and has been presented with a medal for his actions)
Then there are the Hispanic supremacists, with huge presence in the mainstream media, and increasingly in the legislatures.
The Chinese supremacists are being rather more quiet in their infiltrations and insurrections, as one would expect.
And even with all this competition, Muslims resident in the USA are making their presence felt and, as such, their demands met.
A Muslim who killed ten people at a grocery store in Colorado last week was described in mainstream and social media, by Blacks, Hispanics and Muslims, and Whites-as…White.
Better that way eh.
You have missed one supremacist constituency, Harry – and you a man of faith!
GW, I’m more of a curious explorer, open to engaging with the mysterious. And I do make efforts to maintain my faith that life is worth living. And as such, I find it is useful to continue to seek new perspectives from which various conflicts and unpleasant/evil forces can be comprehended and dealt with decisively, in accord with the higher good. That sort of thing, yes. All best, Harry.
“There are the Black supremacists, obviously-
-Markle and Oprah are merely popular examples.”
Imagine thinking either of those women as black supremacists!? Winfrey was born before Blacks [ex-slaves] had civil rights and is just a popular media personality. Markle an ex-acress is half-White. And in looks is closer to being white than black. Well, the kid will certainly pass off as White.
Neither has ever expressed anything close to equally Black supremacy. Clearly, you’re not going to be able to bring up a quote either.
Yes, Harry Black might have this a bit wrong. But Winfrey and Markle are clearly lusters for celebrity and power. As coloureds, they seek to be superior to others, esp whites against whom they hold great grievance. These two, along with many other coloureds, esp those who live in abundant governance/economic systems created by non-coloureds, are very angry and resentful about the nature of their origins. There’s more to it of course, but lust for celebrity and power as antidote to resentment about one’s origins, whatever one’s colour, expalins much. Meanwhile, while Winfrey has helped many people along the way, Markle is a parasite.
“coloureds”
You’re trying too hard, comes off as rather desperate.
“they seek to be superior to others, esp whites”
Not all that hard to do, really. Jews, Chinese, Indians, Japanese, Koreans were all meant to be inferior, until they werent. Even your own women detest you. Political freedom and they’re on some heavy revenge fantasies.
And to top it all, someone called “Mohammed Amin” comes and bests you in the comments section of your favourite blog. You have my sympathies!
@ Mohammed Amin
Can you please clarify and expand on the statement that “your own women detest you”?
It`s the difference between teaching `how to think` and `what to think`. Sadly, over recent years, it`s becoming the latter. Unless corrected we`ll be entering a new Dark Age !
Yes, yet another public example of the extreme degrees of infiltration and insurrection into Western society of a very anti-Western force.
And there are other anti-Western/anti-White/anti-Christian forces also inifltrating successfully here.
Now we must understand:
This is just one public example of the corrosive, destructive effects of these anti-Western forces.
Many, many more such insurrections, by this and other anti-Western/anti-White/anti-Christian groups, are now advancing rapidly, sight unseen.
And there appears to be no remedy.
In fact, the current dominant political-media-education-social culture expects, encourages, and endorses the demise of the White West-
-while often pretending otherwise.
Williamson should visit the teacher and the school to demonstrate solidarity with rational discussion and comparative study (Religious Education, not Instruction). Get the hate crime legislation off the statute book. Get rid of the requirement to impose diversity, equality and inclusion. For info – readers not familiar with West Yorkshire may be interested to know that this school, founded in 1612, is but a mile or two from where Jo Cox was murdered.
Nadine Dorries a straw of hope in the wind, or a pre-election sop to the dying breed of Con(ned) voters?
Schools to change their mames along with streets? I went to the first-class boy’s state grammar school in Waltham Forest, founded by George Monoux in 1527, which was turned into a “co-educational comprehensive” at the peak of its academic achievement in the 1960s. Its traditions have been dumped along with its educational standards. Some time ago gangs of its “sixth-form” Black girls engaged in a violent street fight involving their Black counterparts from another similarly transformed local school, requiring many police cars in attendance. The borough is rife with Somali and Afro-Caribbean gangs, and now has at least 20 mosques. There was once an attempt to close down the William Morris museum which was of little interest to south Asian ratepayers. As Monoux imported sugar from Portugal, I suppose that his name will be memory-holed in due course because he possibly profited from slavery in Brazil. Is my homeland of Chingford, Walthamstow & Leyton a microcosm today of England tomorrow? Or a warning?
I should have put the apostrophe after the s – though most of the boys were first-class, many from “working-class” homes. Our school song had the line: “From England’s shore to India’s strand, a monument of fame.” Irony indeed. Alumni I knew include the distinguished ecclesiastical historian Edward Norman and the poet Professor Ron Tamplin.
DA, far as I can tell, looking over all the Anglosphere, the state education systems have been dumbed-down and otherwise weakened over the past half-century. There are increasing numbers of power-lusting persons who, in their ignorance and/or malignity insist that there are no differences in talents across people, and that if there are, they must be eradicated. And so, systems that once worked well -to raise up and assist bright hard-working youngsters from non-wealthy families have ben destroyed. The marxist-inspired Big Statist people have succeeded. And the hard-working striving classes have been enslaved and forced to pay for the indolent, leisure-focused life-styles of non-educable/non-trainable people of all colours and all creeds.