Poetry reading cancelled to appease religious fundamentalists

[Sybarite]

Christian fundamentalists in Cardiff, Wales, have succeeded in getting high street bookseller Waterstones to cancel a poetry reading, because they didn't like the subject and claimed that it was blasphemous.

Story

[Stewart]

It would be nice if the article had said what was, risible as it would no doubt be, objectionable to the fundies.

[Sybarite]

Originally Posted by Stewart

It would be nice if the article had said what was, risible as it would no doubt be, objectionable to the fundies.

I've ordered the book, so it might become clear upon reading.

What is worrying is that Waterstones caved in so quickly to the threats from Christian Voice. Fundamentalists from across the board are gaining confidence from things like this – and many people (and organisations, as seen by Waterstones' spineless performance) are terrified of upsetting religious types.

According to Patrick Jones's own website, violence had been threatened. In which case, the police should be arresting the people in question. Preferably to include the nasty piece of work that is Stephen Green – and then locking him up and throwing away the key.

[Ramblingsid]

This Green bloke does seem to be a bit of a twerp. I notice he views God as something that should be feared. Weird.

But you are right, the only intelligent response is to go and buy the book and read it.

[Sybarite]

Originally Posted by Ramblingsid

This Green bloke does seem to be a bit of a twerp. I notice he views God as something that should be feared. Weird.

But you are right, the only intelligent response is to go and buy the book and read it.

Personally, I'm also going to write to Waterstones to raise my concern at why they caved in so easily.

If, as Jones's website asserts, threats of violence had been made, then where were the police?

Green has form. He's a thoroughly nasty piece of work, who rose to prominence in the row over the BBC's screening of Jerry Springer: the Opera, and he has attempted to sue the Beeb on the grounds of the old blasphemy laws that this stupid and religion-obsessed government will not remove from the statute book.

He has actually been banned from having an account at the Co-Op Bank because of the homophobic views of him and his organisation, since these are completely at odds with the Co-Op's ethos on equality etc.

Of course, although he wants to ban lots of things (such as this book of verse), he whinges that his views don't get enough airtime (despite having become rent-a-gob for Christian fundamentalism in the UK; many parts of the media just love quoting him).

So he's not only a bigot a nutter, he's also a hypocrite too.

But this really worries me – we're getting so afraid of offending religious people that things like this are happening with increasing frequency.

[Stewart]

Jones' site has the following to say:

Patrick went down to meet with people who had come along for the reading- not a single protestor was visible!

The British Humanist Society,The Welsh Academi, The National Secular Society, BBC Wales, The Western Mail are all following the story and BBC Wales Radio will host a debate between Patrick and Stephen Green (Director of Christian Voice) tomorrow on Radio Wales at 740am. The reading tour will go ahead and the book still be sold.

If you feel strongly about this abuse of freedom of speech please contact Waterstones, your local news or Christian Voice

[Sybarite]

Cheers Stewart.

I thought I posted a link to Jones's website.

[Sybarite]

I've sent the following to Waterstones MD Gerry Johnson at gerry.johnson@waterstones.com.

Originally Posted by Sybarite

Dear Mr Johnson,

I am writing to express my concern at the decision to cancel the launch of Patrick Jones's new collection of poems at the Cardiff branch of Waterstones earlier this week.

While I fully appreciate that Waterstones has a responsibility to its staff and customers to maintain their safety, in this instance it appears that threats have been allowed to effectively censor the views of a writer.

If, as author Patrick Jones asserts on his own website, the event was cancelled "due to 'threats of disruption and violence' from members of christian voice and others" (his quotation marks), then the first recourse of Waterstones should have been to call the police.

Stephen Green and his ilk have a right to their opinions and the right to voice those opinions – no matter how repulsive. They do not have the right to stop an artist and a company going about their perfectly lawful business or to stop others from accessing entirely legal materials on the grounds that they personally do not like them. That is the antithesis of free speech.

Unfortunately, the decision by Waterstones to abandon the event seems to be a case of caving in to religious fundamentalism and intolerance. And it will provide encouragement, not only to Mr Green and his supporters, but to others who wish to censor.

I would hope that Waterstones will decide to reschedule the event, allowing the poetry-loving public of Cardiff the opportunity to decide for themselves whether or not they wish to hear Mr Jones read from his work.

Yours sincerely ...

I've just found out that Jones is gay – not that that will have influenced the homophobic bigot that is Green.

[Eric]

Sybarite: if I were gay and blasphemous, I would rather be banned from a bookshop than thrown headfirst from the top of a building to ensure that my skull splattered on the pavement below.

[Sybarite]

I would rather think that that goes without saying, Eric.

However, it's not a good policy to cave in to fundamentalists and allow them, in effect, to censor literature (or anything else, for that matter). Once they start – and particularly if they have some success – they won't stop, and they'll want more and more and more.

And it's possibly also worth making the rather obvious comment that the Nazis started by banning books and art that they regarded as 'entartete' (degenerate).

They didn't murder the artists until a few years further down the line.

[Mirabell]

Originally Posted by Sybarite

I would rather think that that goes without saying, Eric.

However, it's not a good policy to cave in to fundamentalists and allow them, in effect, to censor literature (or anything else, for that matter). Once they start – and particularly if they have some success – they won't stop, and they'll want more and more and more.

And it's possibly also worth making the rather obvious comment that the Nazis started by banning books and art that they regarded as 'entartete' (degenerate).

They didn't murder the artists until a few years further down the line.

Not quite true. Historical truth sometimes thwarts these easy Nazi comparisons. Fact is Nazis were Nazis well before they came into power. They did not ban books then but they did regularly beat up "degenerates" and communists. When they finally started doing well at elections, they did so for several reasons, one was the divide on the left, if the social democrats and the communists hadn't hated each other's guts Hitler would not have risen to power. Another was that public rallies for "degenerates" (i.e. everybody on the left, artsy, jewish or homosexual side of things) were difficult, since the SA regularly broke up meetings and broke collarbones. They did not start with burning books. They started with violence, then, when in power, segued into creating a better public order by banning and burning books and marriages etc., and then cleaned up some more by initiating industrial murder.

[Eric]

I think we're getting a little derailed here by the sheer excitement. I have heard of the Nazis, and we all know what they did. I somehow doubt if Christian fundamentalists are the biggest problem for gays, apostates and other minorities today. Harmless blusterers will soon be forgotten. If Christian fundamentalists do start plotting, it will be cheapish to tap or bug their phone calls.

Today's BBC says this:

BBC NEWS | Wales | Poet 'stirred up' storm over book

A quote from this, which suggests a deliberately plotted wind-up for the sake of publicity:

He has confirmed that he e-mailed his poems to Christian and Muslim groups and to the far-right organisation Combat 18 beforehand.

(...)

Mr Jones, the brother of rock star Nicky Wire of the Manic Street Preachers, had initially denied sending e-mails of his work to Christian Voice when he appeared on BBC Radio Wales on Wednesday, following news of the event's cancellation. But he later said he had sent e-mails containing some of his poems to Christian, Muslim and far-right groups, including Combat 18, which takes its name from the position in the alphabet of Adolf Hitler's initials.

I think this is a classic case of a storm in a beer glass. He was just praying for packs of dumb journos to scream in horror and spread, spread, spread the word about the greatest poet ever born in Caerphilly county: Patrick the Self-Promoter.

What a narcissistic phoney!

[Mirabell]

Originally Posted by Eric

I somehow doubt if Christian fundamentalists are the biggest problem for gays, apostates and other minorities today.

I see. Well, not that I would have expected anything better from you, Mister.




Cordiallyandverytired,

M.

[Sybarite]

Originally Posted by Mirabell

I see. Well, not that I would have expected anything better from you, Mister...

I have to agree, Mirabell.

What seems extraordinary (or perhaps not) is that Eric appears to think that he knows better about such matter than those people who are directly concerned.

It is very easy to see certain groups as more dangerous than others – and therefore to ignore some. Which is dangerous itself.

My personal opinion is that all these groups are dangerous – and Christian fundamentalism is growing, not reducing. In particular, Christian Voice has been increasingly successful in not only getting attention, but in having an impact. It's being joined by various other groups – particularly from the evangelical churches. I'm slightly involved in a situation in the north west of England where a large evangelical church is putting out feelers to the council about getting a local bookshop closed down, because it's all 'New Age'/witchcraft stuff. They're dotty people who run it (I've met many of them), with dotty beliefs. But a shop selling rather well-made cake and decent coffee, plus crystals and stuff, is no threat to anyone (for information, I'm helping to advise them on how to use local media if and when the church in question takes things further).

What we have is an increase in the idea that people have a right not to be offended.

There's a history of it in the UK that goes back (at least that I am aware of) to the early 1960s, when Mary Whitehouse launched herself onto the scene as a self-appointed guardian of public 'morality'. Although she's subsequently been viewed as someone who was obsessed with getting sex and violence off our screen (and creating the coupling of those two words, 'sex' and 'violence' in the public mind), she started her campaigning purely on a matter of hearing an opinion voiced that she disagreed with. It was a late-night BBC2 discussion programme, where Dr Alex Comfort, the author of The Joy of Sex, was being interviewed. In the interview he stated his opinion that "adultery has kept the institution of marriage going". Next day, Whitehouse started her campaign.

Censorship is not only about avoiding the propagation of views that one doesn't like – but also about imposing views that one does agree with. In the UK, this has grown in the last decade or so from beyond Whitehouse and her campaign (which could so easily have been dismissed in the way that Eric does – and has been) to see increasing numbers of other groups taking on things that they don't like.

Anyway, on the subject of censorship (and rather than start a new thread), I have just heard (from the owner of my local, independent bookshop) that, last month, Iain Sinclair was banned from talking about a book at Hackney Library, because he'd dared to pen "an off-message piece on the [2012] Olympics".

But ultimately – and here is an interesting question for discussion, I think: does anyone have a right not to be offended?

[Jayaprakash]

I've never understood why people of faith can't simply leave it up to divine intervention to give blasphemers their come-uppance.

[Galatea92]

Originally Posted by Jayaprakash

I've never understood why people of faith can't simply leave it up to divine intervention to give blasphemers their come-uppance.

Yes, that's always puzzled me, too. It suggests a lack of faith to me .

There was an amusing scene in a sitcom here on Saturday (the sitcom is called Outnumbered) . A family are stuck in a foreign airport waiting for their delayed plane, and they find themselves have to explain to their little daughter why some people want to blow up planes with bombs:

Mother: They believe that God wants them to do it
Little Girl (continuing to colour in a picture): That's just silly
Mother: Why's that, darling?
Little Girl: Well, if God wants to crash a plane he can do it himself. God can do anything he likes.

[Eric]

I am a great fan of "Outnumbered" (although its ideology appears to prevail against one-parent families). The curly-girly is already an accomplished actress. I actually agree with her: if God wanted to crash a plane, he would have done it, all by himself. So, why, in many religions, may God be a "jealous God", as it says somewhere in the Bible, but doesn't go around blowing up planes, just for fun? And why, in other religions, do people think they need to help God along a bit?

The theological point is: God can do anything he likes, but because he's a gentleman, he desists.

On another thread, one received the impression that all evangelical males sidle up to ladies at meetings and try to get their leg over. But that is a wholly different debate. Though I am disturbed at the sheer fundamentalism of some utterances I have read here on the WLF threads about both males and about religion.

Witchhunting Christian nutters of a New Age disposition of either sex is no way to attain a better, more just and peaceful society. You can ignore New Age nutters; however, ignore terrorists from other religions at your peril. That's what the intelligence services are for. Similarly, the eradication of males after they have contributed for the last time to the sperm bank is also counter-intuitive, somehow.

As for Mary Whitehouse, I'm sure there are plenty of clergy that are more open-minded and humour-ridden than this grand old lady, who appears to have had a penis in her bonnet.

Sybarite says:

Censorship is not only about avoiding the propagation of views that one doesn't like – but also about imposing views that one does agree with.

Couldn't agree more...

Also for Sybarite, who says:

But ultimately – and here is an interesting question for discussion, I think: does anyone have a right not to be offended?

I shall do my level best to put you to the test.

[Galatea92]

Originally Posted by Eric

I am a great fan of "Outnumbered" (although its ideology appears to prevail against one-parent families). The curly-girly is already an accomplished actress.

Yes, it's an excellent comedy, isn't it? But then, anything by Andy Hamilton does tend to be.

Apparently the writers don't write lines for the children, but just whisper suggestions in their ears. So the children improvise and the adult actors have to react to whatever comes out of their mouths. Then they throw most of the improvisation away and just keep the good bits ;

[Eric]

Thanks, Galatea92 for mentioning the name Andy Hamilton. I'd not heard it before in this context. I had no idea he was the same one as the diminutive and witty man on Have I Got News For You.

The kids are very good indeed. I saw last night the "fundamentalist" scene about God blowing up planes, that you mentioned. (We in the Netherlands can watch BBC1 and BBC2 on the cable.) I'd missed the initial screening.

The adult actors presumably just react as any parents might. But the result is very funny, as well as moving, sometimes. The old codger plays his role well, too (the actor born 1935).

It is hard to believe that Ramona Marquez was born in 2001! The posh and typical clever-little-missy things she comes out with just couldn't have been scripted. The dreadful Ben is also well-played by Daniel Roche.

I have very little contact with children, having none of my own. But I have seen the six-year-old daughter of friends of mine who is beginning to play the piano, can do nice dance steps, and handled the wiggly tooth crisis (the two front milk teeth were hanging on a string) with great aplomb. So I know that children can be amazingly developed in some ways at the age of six-seven. It gives you hope for the future.

I'm glad that there are still people who write comedies that are funny and are not just bouts of 30-year-old adolescent boys showing-off, romping, swearing and cracking tasteless jokes, as can happen of QI and even on Have I Got News For You.

For me, Outnumbered is genuinely one of the most pleasant sitcoms I've seen on TV for quite a while.

[titania7]

Originally Posted by Jayaprakash

I've never understood why people of faith can't simply leave it up to divine intervention to give blasphemers their come-uppance.

Because certain people must "play" God. I've heard of a so-called "Christian" minister who actually encourages his devotees to pray that family members, friends, and other loved ones be removed from the Earth if they don't subscribe to a certain moral code. For example, if a woman's husband is committing adultery, rather than leaving him or letting the situation resolve itself, she is supposed to (according to this minister, that is) ask God to strike him dead. The prayers, according to my grandmother, often begin or at least use the words "whatever it takes". The prayers seem to work at times, too. My grandmother, who was part of the minister's church many years ago, prayed a "whatever-it-takes" prayer that involved a close family member. She wanted the person's behavior to change. And it did. However, in the process, she ended up nearly getting killed in a car accident. To this day, she is crippled. As you see, the teaching of such nefarious concepts is not merely twisted, it can also be downright deadly. I have heard of other instances where, via the type of prayer I mentioned, a person's child or spouse has died mysteriously (and naturally, they had been engaging in some sort of conduct that was not "permissible"). It goes without saying that, if anyone hears these types of prayers, it certainly isn't....well, God.



~Titania