UCLU has made a statement on Facebook, regarding its recent attempt to force an atheist student-group to kowtow to the over-sensitive religious sensitivities of a handful of Muslim students. Here it is in full.
UCLU (the representative body of UCL students) has a duty to foster and encourage freedom of expression among our members, ensure diversity of our membership is recognised and pursue equal opportunities for our members.
Following a number of complaints from UCL students, UCLU requested that the UCLU Atheist, Secularist & Humanist Society (UCLU ASH) take down a cartoon from a Facebook event page advertising one of the society's regular social events.
The society was asked to remove the image because UCLU aims to foster good relations between different groups of students and create a safe environment where all students can benefit from societies regardless of their religious or other beliefs. UCLU has a duty to ensure students are not harassed because of a characteristic which may make them appear different to others, including but not limited to race, gender, religion, nationality or sexual orientation.
Society Presidents take responsibility for their own publicity, and it is not vetted by UCLU prior to distribution. They are provided with equality training prior to running a society, to help them understand the balance between freedom of expression and cultural sensitivity.
The event in question has now passed and the society has agreed that they will take more consideration when drawing up publicity for future events.
What a weasely, pusillanimous, cowardly piece of claptrap!
Let's take it apart, shall we?
UCLU (the representative body of UCL students) has a duty to foster and encourage freedom of expression among our members, ensure diversity of our membership is recognised and pursue equal opportunities for our members.
Indeed, and whose freedom of expression was curtailed by the picture being displayed? No one's. Whose would have been curtailed, had the group been forced to remove the picture? Right. Seems someone in the student union needs to re-examine their duties.
Following a number of complaints from UCL students, UCLU requested that the UCLU Atheist, Secularist & Humanist Society (UCLU ASH) take down a cartoon from a Facebook event page advertising one of the society's regular social events.
But no one, it seems, gave any real thought as to whether those complaints were justified. After all, its religion, ain't it? Religious people are allowed to say they're offended at the drop of a hat, and the rest of us just have to tip-toe around them so as to not cause offence; whether real or self-aggrandisingly feigned.
The Islamic edict, by the way, which prohibits portrayals of Mohammed, does so on the grounds that displaying them might encourage idolatry. It says nothing about them being offensive, per se. And, anyway, why the hell should those of us who aren't followers of a creed, have to follow the edicts of that creed? That's as silly as me obeying Taunton, Massachusetts driving regulations whilst riding through Taunton, Somerset. (Hmm, I wonder if Massachusetts has a helmet law…)
The society was asked to remove the image because UCLU aims to foster good relations between different groups of students and create a safe environment where all students can benefit from societies regardless of their religious or other beliefs.
Would it not have been more apt to have given the complainers a short course in what freedom of speech means? By giving one group undue privilege at the expense of another, you don't create good relations; you merely create the surface appearance of peace, whilst fomenting legitimate feelings of persecution.
UCLU has a duty to ensure students are not harassed because of a characteristic which may make them appear different to others, including but not limited to race, gender, religion, nationality or sexual orientation.
Who was harassing who, in this scenario? How, exactly, did the cartoon harass the Muslim students? Wouldn't it be fairer to say that trying to curtail UCLU ASH's freedom to say and do what they want to is harassment? Muslim students weren't being forced to do anything except possibly fleetingly view a cartoon on a promotional document. If they cannot abide the idea that non-believers don't have to follow their creed, it is they who need corrective instruction on how societies work, not the atheists.
Society Presidents take responsibility for their own publicity, and it is not vetted by UCLU prior to distribution. They are provided with equality training prior to running a society, to help them understand the balance between freedom of expression and cultural sensitivity.
There is no equality in the fact that religious people are allowed the freedom to express in sermons, speeches and all the rest, their conviction that infidels are hell-bound, morally corrupt and generally evil, whilst the non-religious are considered gauche, at best, for questioning the slightest jot or tittle of a religious dogma. There can be no equality if non-believers in a particular faith are expected to abide by the edicts of that faith.
Why is it the atheists who have to be instructed in 'cultural sensitivity'? I somehow doubt they plastered silly, Daily Heil style, propaganda about all Muslims being potential terrorists, around the place or promoted the use of denigrating terms like 'rag-heads.' That would be culturally insensitive. (In fact, by my observation, it is religious believers who are most prone to using such denigratory tactics, when talking of other faiths.) At the risk of repeating myself, we have, in this country, a culture of freedom of speech and expression. To limit it to freedom to say only what we can be sure won't cause offence or invite feigned offence, would be to place a gag on any conversation concerning anything but generalities about the weather. Ludicrous!
The event in question has now passed and the society has agreed that they will take more consideration when drawing up publicity for future events.
If I were a member of that society, any consideration I would now be giving such matters would be along the lines of wondering how I could make the next flyer actually offensive. Think of it as a social version of Newton's third law.
—Daz
This just in, as I was about to hit Publish: Student-organised talk on Sharia law at the University of London cancelled following threats of violence.
"Five minutes before the talk was due to start a man burst into the room holding a camera phone and for some seconds stood filming the faces of all those in the room. He shouted 'listen up all of you, I am recording this, I have your faces on film now, and I know where some of you live', at that moment he aggressively pushed the phone in someone's face and then said 'and if I hear that anything is said against the holy Prophet Muhammad, I will hunt you down.' He then left the room and two members of the audience applauded."
Seems it's not just pictures that offend these people, but actual use of actual freedom of actual speech. Fuckin' barbarians.
It is that last piece that is truly worrying. Not only do they want to limit any discussion about their religion, they are resorting to intimidation and threats to achieve their ends.
This has been said so many times but we have to keep on repeating it. No-one has a right NOT to be offended and no-one has the right to demand that anyone who does not follow their religion has to obey the rules of their religion.
I saw a comment somewhere about fundies, just the other day: “Proudly marching into the 17th century.” Just about sums up the whole lot of ’em.
17th Century? Surely not. They’re still stuck in the 14th aren’t they?
Er, actually Daz & Graham they have rooted themselves firmly in the 9th Century following the ‘insidid bab al-ijtihad or ‘closing the Gates of Ijtihad’.
This is when they effectively said “OK that’s it. No more progress. Ever.”
http://www.jstor.org/pss/162939
It was meant to apply to sharia and fiq, but seems to have encroached on all aspects of muslim existence..
I was thinking of all the Rule Of The Saints crap during the Protectorate.
Sorry to be OT Daz, but that little turd Hutton has been defiling the interwebs again. But this time it’s a doozy, I actually blew my raspberry daiquirri thro’ my nose as I read it.
Some Xtian is apparently claiming persecution for refusing to judge a pumpkin competition that the poor widdle lamb thinks is evil.
That’s it. I’m now declaring Bob Hutton a poe.
Yeah I saw that. I thought of writing it up but it’s a bit of a non-story really. The chap refused on the grounds that Halloween is satanist and pagan, and got made to apologise to a bunch of pagans. Poor chap had to say sorry, not pay a fine or anything. If that’s what Christians in this country think persecution is, they should try living in the middle-east.
Thing is, one nutter who believes one silly story about supernatural crap apologising to a bunch of equally nutty believers in other supernatural crap; well it’s a bit of a yawn really, ain’t it.
Well I should imagine raspberry daiquirri burns less in the nose than the vodka I did the same with the other day, when this turned up in my email.
(BTW, Bob’s now banned on here. I’ve marked him as spam, but if he eludes that somehow, don’t reply to him. I’ll delete any comments he manages to make.)