Peace, or freedom?

"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." -- Benjamin Franklin

And they will get neither. The cancellation of Idomeneo in Berlin because of a scene featuring Mohammed's severed head is a sign of the times. Mohammed's head is displayed alongside that of Jesus and Buddha, but no one's about to kill nuns and torch cities over that. Self-censorship in the performance of one of the three greatest composers in human history, and in his anniversary year.

Not that anyone should be surprised. Last year in London, Christopher Marlowe's Tamburlaine was censored over the scene in which the Koran is burned. And the Pope is still being lectured over quoting a derisive statement on the nature of Islam.

When people say the Pope shouldn't have given his lecture in Regensburg, they are making a choice. They want peace instead of freedom. This is the stance (understandable enough) of anything for a quiet life. Most people, after all, want only the peace to get on with their own life. Quietists have to ask themselves first, is there anything worth fighting for? To make peace your priority is to decide on a policy of pre-emptive surrender before any threat.

For those who value western philosophy, art and literature, the need for peace means sacrificing works by central figures. As well as Mozart and Marlowe, Dante puts Mohammed in the eighth circle of his Inferno, so the Divine Comedy must go. Along with it will go illustrations by William Blake, Gustave Dore, Sandro Botticelli, Rodin and Dali. If you doubt it, consider that a cartoon referencing the infernal scene without even depicting it was censored this year and even the supposedly fanatical Opus Dei wouldn't defend the artist.

Or how about philosophy. Here is David Hume, in 'Of The Standard of Taste', one of his most important essays.

"The admirers and followers of the ALCORAN [Koran] insist on the excellent moral precepts interspersed throughout that wild and absurd performance. But it is to be supposed, that the ARABIC words, which correspond to the ENGLISH, equity, justice, temperance, meekness, charity, were such as, from the constant use of that tongue, must always be taken in good sense: and it would have argued the greatest ignorance, not of morals, but of language, to have mentioned them with any epithets, besides those of applause and approbation. But would we know, whether the pretended prophet had really attained a just sentiment of morals, let us attend to his narration, and we shall soon find, that he bestows praise on such instances of treachery, inhumanity, cruelty, revenge, bigotry, as are utterly incompatible with civilized society. No steady rule of right seems there to be attended to; and every action is blamed or praised, so far only as it is beneficiaal or hurtful to the true believers."

That's certainly not going to last long in future collections. And the croissant will be tossed out after it, having been created to celebrate the lifting of the Siege of Vienna in 1683 and being a deliberate insult to Islam's holy symbol, the crescent.

People imply in their arguments that this is a sensitive time and we should respect that, as if things were likely to change and we could all go back to eating pork and drinking beer whenever we liked. But why should they? Why should they when this is acknowledged as a generational struggle and when Islam is on the increase in Europe? Why should those who stir up violence give up on it when they see the success such violence -- or even the threat of it in the producer's mind -- will achieve? We will go on living with our compromises and telling ourselves we have avoided trouble and try to forget the things we are no longer allowed to want.

We have to face the awkward truth that Islam and Christendom were enemies for centuries and that the Christian heritage, which is to say western civilisation, contains plenty of reminders of that fact. It also has ideas at its heart like freedom of expression and religion. But these days, you cannot keep the treasures of your civilisation, or your liberty without a fight. People need to think very carefully before they choose. Or they will be buried in this cemetery.

True or truthy?

Cherie Blair, did she or didn't she? Lie about accusing Gordon Brown of being a liar, that is.

Well, given Tony's joke at her expense in his speech the next day, it seems reasonable to think she did.

We surely know even without her inside knowledge that Gordon was lying when he said it had been a privilege to work with Tony Blair. Never has a private grudge been so publicly displayed as in the working relationship of these two men.

But read this account in the Times and it seems clear that not only did she lie about Gordon's lying, but the whole party spin machine went into action to kill the story with lies. Like an episode of 'The Thick Of It', they tried one unconvincing lie--'oh, no: she just said 'I have to get by'--before getting her minders to lie for her--'we never heard our boss say nuffink'--before wheeling her out to lie for herself.

Where is the outrage? Am I such a foolish old donkey that I miss why this story should be an amusing moment of light relief? Here, in plain light, we see the mechanics that our government is happy to use to mislead us in order to 'impression manage' the news. When no one cares much about the truth of what happened, or people simply accept that they will be retailed a transparent falsehood, civilisation totters. For an interest in truth is a rare thing in human history, really a purely western concern. Give it up and we give up one of the pillars of our success.

Spooks: sspookily untrue

I wonder just how much damage it does to the average bear watching something like Spooks. I accept it's done well: pretty actors, fancy editing, fast plots and so on. But it's just not true. I mean, a TV show about terrorism that presents the primary threat to Britain not as Islamofascist terrorists but as the enemy within: rich powerful white men who are just itching to run their own fascist dictatorship is just silly. It's wrong. And, being wrong, it misleads. Because people watch this paranoid, chippy class hatred and think it's seeing things under the hood they don't know about. The best of western art is like Holbein's clump of grass: it looks out at the world and shows it how it is. But we forget how to do that and we forget how to look from the world to a piece of art and criticise it as unreal. Iris Murdoch said that it is one of the most damning criticisms one can make of an artwork to say that it is not true. Spooks isn't true. And all the production values in the world don't stop it from being bad.

Muslim world in 'disproportionate' shocker

Anyone notice the strange silence around the disproportion in responding to a few carefully chosen words within a tightly-reasoned lecture with threats, firebombs and the murder of a nun? But that must be because they all took the weekend off. Now it's Monday, I look forward to hearing David Cameron opining on this one in a bulletproof vest -- or anyone else from the commentariat. Or is it just the Jews and Catholics who get blamed for their behaviour these days?

David Cameron losing his election?

Is David Cameron losing the election that seems his for the taking? His criticism of Israel today sets him at outright odds with his party. More to the point, it puts him in the wrong over one of the most important issues of the day. He relies on truthiness, tellingly, speaking of how the photos at Qana made it clear because of how one felt on viewing them. Well that's no guide, David. And even if it were, and sad feelings in your tummy are to become the basis of Conservative policy in the UK, many of those photos appear to have been faked. You would hope that someone as young and cool as Cameron claims to be would know about the blogosphere by now and at least have some junior intern watching out for its discoveries.

My point is, David Cameron used the 5th anniversary of 9/11 to criticise American foreign policy and is now following it up with an attack on Israel. Both of these will indeed play well, as I'm sure his poll-monkeys have told him. But they will lose him the party. More importantly, he is playing politics with the central issues of our time. This war is the calling of our generation, as President Bush said last Monday. You can't walk away, or score points by siding against it when it is unpopular. That's not leadership. Tony Blair, slave to focus groups on so much else, saw after 9/11 that he had to make a stand and convince the country of his case. It cost him a great deal. But that is leadership. The irony is that Gordon Brown is pretty sound on foreign policy and maybe not so reforming at home (in a socialist direction) as people once thought. So has Cameron started conceding defeat to Gordon by chasing anti-American, anti-semitic votes at the expense of his core supporters and his own good sense? If this is his clause 4, he can keep the rump party he has left. Who wants to provoke outrage and seem touchy-feely if you're on the wrong side at the end of it?

Death of a Fearless Voice

Oriana Fallaci is dead. She was a fearless journalist, who believed in speaking truth to power whatever the consequences. Perhaps it is more remarkable that she was killed by cancer rather than murdered for her views, for La Fallaci spoke out against Islam and its, as she saw it, invasion of the pusillanimous Europe of our post-secular, post-modern west.

She was threatened with several prosecutions for her views, but disregarded them all as readily as she did her own disease. Oriana Fallaci shows how a life ought to be lived: courageously, passionately, unafraid of death, unafraid of loneliness; standing up for the truth your reaason forces upon you. she could not see the world another way and would not shut up because others found it upsetting.

Oriana Fallaci saw herself as Cassandra: wailing into the wind; right but unheard. We will see if she was right. We are left to our fate, and no one else will speak on this in quite the manner she managed. Yet it is a tremendous irony that even as she died, Benedict XVI should be tangled up in Islam and under threat of death for his critical comments. Oriana Fallaci had a long interview with the pontiff before her death, and she had great hopes in him, although herself an atheist. Now he has confirmed for himself just how impossible a dialogue with Islam is, will he take on her mantle. He will, at least, one hopes, say a prayer for her soul. She wouldn't have thought it necessary, but would have appreciated the honour.

Truthiness: a word whose time has come

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truthiness

'Truthiness' hasn't come into use in the UK much but boy does it need to. Thing is, it was invented (or, actually, re-invented, as the word seems to have existed before) to critique a Republican government who seemed unconcerned with providing rational justifications for their actions. But anyone of the Left simply has to rely on it far more than Conservatives do. The facts of life turn out to be Tory. That's because Toryism is concerned with abiding truth. Socialism and so on lookss not to the reality of people and works with the grain of human nature, but says people ought to be thus and so and then squeezes us poor misshapen actual real people into the cookie cutter. Truthiness: because truth can only give you one answer. That's what's wrong with 'compassionate conservatism': Conservatism is all facts, no heart. That's its beauty. And it still leaves room (far more room) for real charity and compassion that big government and limited personal responsibility.

After the summer: truth hurts

While I have been off munching greener grass than normal, it seems the world is going to hell in a pair of fetching wicker panniers. Benedict XVI says Islam has a problem with its lack of interest in reason and its acceptance of violence as a legitimate means to its ends, then to prove him wrong (like the man said, trouble with reason as well) the Muslim world explodes into violence.

Ho-hum. No answer to that. But clearly no dialogue is possible with people - or a religion - that can't take criticism or use right reason. But bravo to Lord Carey, for a comment which has been buried in the excitement of the press at finding anti-Catholicism a useful get-out from having to condemn the Religion-o-Peace(TM). He's stood up on this one before. Would be nice to see some courage from the Anglicans who are actually in office, but there you go. Nothing like the threat of violence to close down debate.