Do Jews matter? Or Muslims?

Martin Niemöller, imprisoned by the Nazis

Denmark, once a beacon of tolerance and inclusiveness, has banned the Muslim full-face veil. It also now operates a system of officially designated ghettos, mostly inhabited by immigrants.

The Danish example has animated the far right in Britain, with Boris Johnson, contender for the leadership of the Conservative Party, claiming that, while he doesn’t back a ban, he feels the niqab makes women look like letterboxes or even bank robbers.

Many, even Tories, have denounced the ‘morally empty’ Johnson for encouraging Islamophobia in this way. But he has received outspoken support from Jacob Rees-Mogg, from the hard-right, hard-Brexit wing of the Conservatives. That link between Brexit and Islamophobia is no accident: whatever people may say about ‘taking back control’ or Britain assuming its rightful place in the world, the main motive behind Brexit was xenophobia, and the first target of British xenophobia is Muslims.

The rise of xenophobia is creating a toxic atmosphere in which fundamental values of human rights are rapidly receding. We badly need a force capable of resisting that trend, which is why it’s a tragedy that the British Labour Party, far from fighting this crucial battle, has undermined its own position by failing to refute the charges of antisemitism under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership.

Now, I agree with his fans that the scandal is being sustained by right-wing propaganda against Corbyn and Labour. Where I disagree with them is in seeing this as in any way unprecedented or even unusual. Why, in 1924 the first ever Labour government faced a scurrilous campaign of vilification, including the publication (by the Daily Mail, a sewer then as it’s a sewer now) of a forgery, the ‘Zinoviev Letter’, which suggested that the Communist International was working for a Labour victory.

Attacks on Labour come with the leader’s territory. The hallmark of the leadership is its reaction to them. Sadly, the reaction of today’s leadership has been lamentable.

It could have adopted the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of anti-Semitism, with all its examples, immediately and in full. It didn’t. It decided that four of those examples would have limited its freedom to criticise the state of Israel. It’s hard to see how: nothing in those examples means that one can’t say, for instance, that the Israeli government’s attitude towards Palestinians is racist and abhorrent.

Corbynistas, however, objected to the four examples as a matter of principle. It had to be principle, since pragmatically it was a senseless decision. Ask most British voters about the Israel-Palestine conflict and it’s likely you’ll be met with ignorance. Those who do have an opinion are likely to come up with a ‘faults on both sides’ kind of argument. They might even say ‘well, Israel has to be able to defend itself against terrorists’. Persuading them that Israeli action goes way beyond legitimate action against terrorism would require a long process of education, and I’m not convinced many voters would be prepared to submit to it.

Oddly, though, the rejection of four examples was not, it turns out, a matter of principle after all. Corbyn has now decided that actually he can accept three of the four examples, so clearly they weren’t that problematic to start with. The suspicion has to be that in time he’ll accept the last one too.

Had he done that at the beginning, the attacks would not have stopped, but at least with swing voters he might have been given the benefit of the doubt. ‘Look, he’s accepted the international definition of antisemitism,’ they might have said, ‘and done it immediately. What more can you ask?’

By doing it late and reluctantly, he just looks truculent and unprincipled. He forfeits the credit he might have won otherwise.

Lousy politics.

The implications are more serious than that, however. After all, it isn’t antisemitism that is the most virulent form of racism in Britain today. It is far less widespread or intense than the Islamophobia which permeates society, as exemplified by Boris Johnson and Jacob Rees-Mogg. That’s what needs to be resisted before we follow Denmark down the ugly road it has taken.

But how does one resist racism by others when one’s own track record isn’t spotless? Until we’ve cleared ourselves of the charge of antisemitism, Labour can’t claim to lead the fight against racism. Boris may be morally empty, but a counter attack would be far more effective if we’d first secured the moral high ground ourselves.

The toxins run deep. A minority of Labour favours Brexit. Sadly, with his talk of the benefits of a ‘Labour Brexit’, the suspicion is that Corbyn is with that group. That gives it disproportionate power. So it’s unsurprising that the leadership is resisting, despite powerful pressure from the membership, attempts to have the forthcoming Labour Conference debate backing for a second referendum on the EU.

The French equivalent of the saying ‘birds of a feather flock together’ is ‘tell me who you hang out with, and I’ll tell you who you are’. Labour Brexiters are rubbing shoulders with the xenophobes they should be opposing. If they help reinforce racists’ views, they shouldn’t be surprised when they become tarred with that brush themselves. Backing Brexit lands them in the xenophobe camp.

Sadly, while it may only be Jews who are upset with Labour now, it’s Muslims who are facing general hostility. We should be strong in our defence of their rights. And not just for their sake: allow discrimination against the Jews or Muslims today and, who knows, in the long run you too could be the victim of your short-sightedness.

Niemöller adapted to our times

Under and over dressing in Luton

Wandering back towards my car through central Luton yesterday, I was surprised to hear a woman shout at a figure further down the road, “oh, put some clothes, why don’t you?”

I looked up and there, indeed, was a man coming the other way, stark naked. He wasn’t even wearing shoes. And yet it wasn’t as though he had no clothes. On the contrary, he was carrying shirt and trousers and, as far as I could tell from a quick glance, other items of clothing, neatly tucked under his arm. In the other hand, he was dangling a pair of shoes.

He seemed to be providing something of a public service. People had stopped to comment on his passage, giving them a moment’s distraction from their usual chores. Though, mostly, they were expressing disapproval.

“There are kids around. They might see him.”

It was difficult to understand what harm the sight might do them. I don’t like to stare at people’s genitals, especially if they’re not wearing clothes, but even a glance was enough to establish that he had some. They were, however, in a perfectly – how shall I put this? – quiescent state. Nothing about him suggested sexual appetite, let alone sexual threat.

Further up, his body, though not that of a young man, was in exceptionally good form. Abdominal muscles well delineated, good pectorals. A matter not of condemnation but of envy. I suspect I couldn’t have come near that level of bodily fitness had I gone far more regularly to the gym than I ever have, even starting from a lot younger than I am.

Still, all around me I heard disapproval being voiced. Some, like the woman I first heard, were shouting advice at him. Much of it was ribald.

It all strikes me as bizarre. Surely none of us can be unfamiliar with the structure of the human body. What’s our problem with seeing it? It was unusual, certainly, to put one on display in that way, but why should it be shocking? To me, it seemed the man was more to be wondered at than condemned: I certainly wouldn’t have wanted to lay aside a single stitch of the clothing I was wearing, on a cold, grey February day. Nor would I want to walk the streets of any town in bare feet.

Besides, given the weight of disapproval any such act of non-conformism with common standards is likely to attract, I’d have to wonder about the mental state of a man who willingly incurs it. If he’s deliberately, rationally attacking convention, good luck to him. If he’s making a desperate plea for attention out of a place of unhappiness, he deserves sympathy, surely, far more than reprobation.

I’d have liked to illustrate this post with a picture of the man, if only to prove that the incident happened. But to have taken a photograph would, I felt, be to line up with those who felt it was strange. Or possibly to attract attention to myself for entirely the wrong reasons.

So instead I’ve picked a picture of some who are more heavily dressed. I’m not sure, however, it would appeal much more to the shocked observers I saw yesterday than he did. But then, there’s no pleasing some people.

What are you complaining about? They're fully dressed.

Banning the Muslim veil to protect Western values

On 29 November, the lower house of the Dutch Parliament voted for a partial ban on the burka, the full-face covering veil worn by a minority of Muslim women. If the vote is confirmed by the upper house, the veil will be banned on public transport, in government buildings and in schools.

On 6 December, Angela Merkel, preparing her run for a fourth term as German Chancellor, told the conference of her party, the Christian Democrats, that she too favoured a partial ban.

“The full veil must be banned,” she declared, “wherever legally possible. Showing your face is part of our way of life. Our laws take precedence over honour codes, tribal customs and sharia.”

Angela Merkel at the CDU Conference

Holland used to enjoy a reputation as one of the most liberal countries on earth and, despite the irruption on the scene of a number of hard right-wing parties and individuals – none more so than Geert Wilders, now leading in opinion polls – it retains much of the structure of a highly liberal nation. Merkel has also emerged in the last few years as one of Europe’s most liberal leaders, most notably with her decision to allow a million refugees to enter the country – a decision, incidentally, which she now says will never be repeated.

France and Belgium have already banned the burka and even the niqab, the form of veil which leaves the eyes exposed. Such veils are, it seems, deeply disturbing to Western societies. We are used to seeing faces (part of our way of life, as Merkel says). A covered face is hostile or even sinister, marking the criminal covering his features to avoid identification and capture. During the Northern Ireland troubles, an icon on both sides was the man in the balaclava, the clothing of choice of killers in either camp. 

Faces hidden from sight make us uncomfortable. Discomfort is never easy to bear. It seems that even liberalism finds it difficult to withstand. The developments in Holland and Germany suggest it has a fatal tendency to give way when made uncomfortable. 

That, however, leads to the heart of the Muslim veil conundrum. If liberalism backs down as soon as it’s faced with a perturbing difficulty, what is liberalism worth? Or, putting it another way, it’s easy to tolerate things we’re comfortable with; it’s when we deal with things that make us uncomfortable that our tolerance is truly tested and we have to prove whether it’s genuine or not.

These matters all became personal to me a few weeks ago at a badminton club where we play most weeks. A new, beginner joined. And she came in a niquab.

She’s covered head to foot. Her sleeves are held in place by loops over her thumbs. Her leggings reach down to her shoes. Her only exposed flesh is on her hands and a strip around her eyes. 

Playing badminton with someone dressed that way was certainly a new experience. I suppose it initially felt odd. But it quickly became commonplace. We were all struck by her speed around the court, by her accuracy, by the strength in her wrists. She plays a great deal better than most people who’ve played as little as she has.

When we shake hands at the end of a game, as is the convention, she won’t shake mine or that of any other male player. So what? She smiles (a smile with the eyes is far more telling than one just with the lips). She repeats the usual compliments we all give each other – “good game”, “well played” (the latter always with the subtext, “not quite well enough for us”).

She is, in fact, one of us. If we feel uncomfortable about her dress, what gives us the right to inflict our feelings on her? Her dress codes does us no harm, and it doesn’t hold back her game. What on earth business is it of ours?

I’d go a step further. If we imposed a Muslim veil ban in Britain, she would no longer feel she could come out and join us. She’d be forced to stay at home and give up on a form of exercise which must do her good and which she evidently enjoys. While she’s with us, incidentally, her husband’s looking after the children. That’s a form of equality between the sexes that we, in the West, generally criticise Islam for not displaying enough.

In fact, banning the veil far from integrating our friend more closely into Western society and into an adoption of its values, would hold back her assimilation. In other words, it would produce precisely the opposite effect of what we claim to seek. I fully understand the need, for security reasons, to be able to demand that burka-clad people show their faces to suitably empowered authorities such as the police; I see no reason why Muslims should be forced to abandon the veil generally in public.

One right no constitution in any country guarantees, is the right not to be made uncomfortable. If learning to overcome some slight discomfort in ourselves protects important rights in others, and helps to assimilate different communities better into our society, why shouldn’t we make that effort?

It’s my feeling, and I have personal experience to back it up, that a Muslim veil ban would be a completely unnecessary, illiberal and intolerant measure that would undermine, rather than upholding, Western values.

Charming traditions

One of the high points, or at any rate one of the points, of the recent Christmas break was that great English tradition of the Boxing Day hunt. 

On the 26^th of December, some hundreds of those who like to think of themselves as superior, turned out with pretty red coats and large horses to go careering across the countryside after a bunch of hounds, while some hundreds of thousands of people with no more sense but far less money turned out to support them. 

It seems that this year the supporters numbered about 250,000.

Oscar Wilde had it right. Fox hunting is the unspeakable in full pursuit of the uneatable.  

The unspeakable at play

Well, the uneatable has been illegal game since 2004, when Parliament decided that having dogs tear a fox to pieces at the end of a hunt wasn’t acceptable behaviour in the twentieth century, however much fun the unspeakable may have got from the process. And however time-honoured the tradition.

Of course, there have been a few accidents when hunts have actually led to the death of a fox but, hey, accidents happen. 

Remember Apartheid South Africa? They used to happen to activists who got too close to windows on the upper floors of police stations. 

What about these days in Russia? They happen to journalists who get to close to uncomfortable facts. 

At least in Britain, it’s foxes who tend to be the victims rather than people. Where Britain resembles the other two countries is in the fact that the police don’t waste their time or anyone else’s investigating these unfortunate incidents. Sorry, accidents.

So the unspeakable are still going strong, heavily supported, galloping around the countryside as though they owned it which, come to think of it, they probably do. And with their friends now in government, there’s some pressure to get the hunting legislation repealed.

It’s a curious business, that. I never liked the ban. Not because I’m fond of the unspeakable of lack sympathy for the uneatable. More because I just don’t like bans.  I reckon they ought to be kept to the bare minimum needed for a civilised society. 

So, murder: yes, ban it (much though I’d like an exemption made for certain individual victims I could name). in a week which saw the conviction, eighteen years on, of two of the men who killed the teenager Stephen Lawrence for daring to be black in a public place, it’s hard not to feel that certain bans are highly desirable. Ban rape, ban violence against the individual generally, ban burglary, theft, fraud, and so on. 

But can’t we keep bans down to the strict minimum necessary? 

Take cannabis, for instance. It seems that at least three million of my countrymen smoke it on a regular basis. That suggests that we have at least as many dope smokers as we have churchgoers. So just how useful is that ban?

It’s easy for me to oppose the ban on cannabis: dope doesn’t bother me. It’s easy to tolerate things I have nothing against. The real test of tolerance is when we have to apply it to things we don’t. It’s more of a challenge to oppose bans on things that make me uncomfortable. For instance, I don’t like the wearing of the niqab, the full face veil, but it’s not clear to me that entitles me to call for it to be forbidden?

Equally, I dislike fox hunting pretty intensely. But I’m not convinced it should be banned, principally because I dislike the idea that a majority, just because it is a majority, should be able to impose its will on a minority that is no threat to its wellbeing. 

What’s more, I’m less uneasy about hunting than I am about our knee-jerk tendency to reach for the statute book to deal with any problem. That’s another of our traditions in our great nations of the rule of law: faced with a problem,  legislate, if only to make it look as though the government is taking action.

I’d much rather see certain things wither away than be banned. Reading toxic newspapers. Binge drinking. Believing in things because a few centuries go someone claimed, without a shred of evidence, that they were the word of God.  

So where does that leave fox hunting?

Well, there’s pressure for the ban to be lifted. Will it be? No, it won’t. Polls show a hefty majority in favour of keeping it. No politician who wants to ensure his re-election is going to go out on a limb on this one.

So what will happen? Another great tradition will be respected: the unenforced law. On the one hand, the law will stay on the statute book, and those who loathe hunting will feel self-satisfied on that account. On the other hand, those who want to tear around tearing a little animal to pieces will go right on doing it knowing the police will do nothing against them. At the price of a little hypocrisy, everybody can get what they want. It’s win-win. Except for the fox, of course. 

Ah, traditions. Charming, aren’t they?