Category Archives: Freedom of Expression

Remembering Maqbool Fida Hussein

By Effendi | Published: June 10, 2011

Maqbool Fida Hussein, India’s best known painter, died in London on Wednesday, aged 95.

M F Hussein. Photo Courtesy: Continuum/Delhi Art Gallery

Here are two thoughtful, though not uncritical, assessmentsof his life.

The first by Girish Shahane in Mint:

He studied at the JJ School of Art, though the myth of M.F. Husain, as it later developed, excluded this formal training. By the late 1940s, he was widely recognized as one of India’s leading talents. He reached the peak of his creativity in the 1950s and 1960s, crafting seminal canvases such as Man, Zameen, and Between the Spider and the Lamp. Having come to believe that shakti, the female principle, was the essence of Indian culture, he fell under the spell of Indira Gandhi in the 1970s and Mother Teresa in the 1980s. By this time, he was, by some margin, India’s most expensive painter. His prolific output was as crucial to the nascent market as Amitabh Bachchan’s films were to the movie industry. Well past his prime as an artist, the complex interaction of figure and colour of his best work increasingly replaced by easy symbolism, Husain became a media star, and enjoyed the attention. His flowing hair and beard, preference for walking barefoot, and humble background as a hoarding painter made a winning combination.

Also posted in Hindu Fundamentalism | 12 Comments

Defend Usama Hasan Group on facebook

By Effendi | Published: March 9, 2011

A new facebook group has been set up to shore up some much needed consensus and solidarity for Dr Usama Hasan, and to “Support Freedom of Conscience and Oppose Intolerance”.

In the case of Dr Usama Hasan, an imam at Masjid Tawhid in Leytonstone, London, who has been persecuted and victimised, we call upon religious scholars, imams, mosque committees, Muslim community organisations and Muslim communities as a whole to affirm the following principles so that we may reaffirm the basic conditions for civilised and principled Muslim community life:

1. No imam or member of the Muslim community should be subjected to hate speech, intimidation or threats of violence on any matter regarding beliefs or religious rulings as this is contrary to the law of the land which British Muslims are bound to uphold, and most essentially that, under Islamic teachings and etiquette, mob rule has no legitimate place within our community life.

Also posted in Freedom of Religion | 7 Comments

The Hounding of M F Husain

By Effendi | Published: December 22, 2010

India's grand master: forced to flee his homeland due to Hindu extremism and state censorship

Nick Cohen has a remarkable piece on the continuing suppression of freedom of speech and the glorification of “offence taking” by the far-right Hindu extremists in India, led by Bal Thackeray and the army of thugs from the Shiv Sena:

Why pick on Husain for sketches no one found disturbing when he first released them? Read his accusers, and they cannot justify their charges of blasphemy or obscenity. How can they when Husain’s paintings are not remotely pornographic but part of a deliberate attempt by the artist and his contemporaries to continue Indian traditions?

Also posted in Hate Speech, Hindu Fundamentalism | 1 Comment

Irshad Manji’s Questions for Imam Rauf

By Faisal | Published: August 27, 2010

Irshad Manji attempts to re-centre the raw, emotional polarised sentimentalism of Park51 here. The underlying point is that offence or sensitivity is not a basis for what can or cannot be built nor for criticising aspects of religion or religious customs.

The Park51 debate has now spilled over into the doomed territory of visceral offence taking. The opportunity to have this debate on issues such as the American Constitution’s provisions for freedom of religion and Islam’s obligation to universal principles in the USA may have been lost for good. Nevertheless Manji takes a crack at articulating a set of questions and demands expected of Imam Rauf should Park51 ever get built.

But for all the restless offense I feel, I step back and force myself to think. As I wrestle with the issues, I realize that an opportunity exists for something more constructive than anger.

Also posted in Freedom of Religion | 6 Comments

religious people need to recommit to and engage with critical thinking

By bananabrain | Published: August 23, 2010

following an unusually thoughtful broadcast last week by richard dawkins (he’s obviously trying to take on board how much his militancy turns people off by some of the pleas he made on behalf of sacred texts as fine language, cultural literacy and so on) i am grappling again with some of the issues raised by faith schools in the critical thinking debate. dawkins, as per usual, lumped all faith schools together as a) proponents of segregation (for which there is some justification) and b) closers, rather than openers of young minds – the segment in which he, somewhat exasperatedly, grappled with the islamic school science class with an apparent 100% rejection of evolution was a powerful statement. however, also as per usual, he implied (by saying that he “worried that”) this was inevitable in a situation where the parents’ wishes about what they wanted their children exposed to overruled the presumed human rights of children to make up their own mind about what they thought was interesting or worthwhile. this argument was given short shrift by a catholic educationalist from northern ireland, who told him he was simply imposing his own expectations over those of the parents concerned; i personally thought they struggled with the editing a little if they were seeking to show that the wishes of parents were unreasonable; this wasn’t the strongest argument i’ve ever seen against faith schools. in my opinion, they’d have done better to concentrate on the ethos of these schools as exclusivist and contrary to “community cohesion”, but then again, what do i know?

Also posted in Anti Muslim bigotry, Antisemitism, Blogosphere, Christian Evangelical Nutters, Democracy, Exegesis, Freedom of Religion, Hate Speech, Hermeneutics, Human Rights, Interfaith, Islamism, Jewish Extremism | 17 Comments

“So, you’re offended? So fucking what?”

By Faisal | Published: August 20, 2010

I am amazed that the Park 51 Community Centre or the so called “Ground Zero Mosque” debate in still chundering on, with no end in sight, despite the paucity of cogent arguments on why it should be opposed by those who oppose it.

Alex Massie’s comment on the “Ground Zero Mosque” is spot on:

One of the recurring arguments against the plan is that, however well-intentioned its backers may be, it represents an unfortunate and unnecessary “provocation”. Even if those involved mean no harm and don’t mean to “provoke” they should have been wise enough to appreciate that their proposal was bound to provoke a hostile reaction. Which means they should think again.

Also posted in Anti Muslim bigotry, Freedom of Religion | 76 Comments

Is this the “counter-Enlightenment”?

By bananabrain | Published: August 6, 2010

i’ve not posted for a while, mostly because of pressure of work, but there are a number of things which are currently causing me to more or less lose sleep.

recently, i gave up posting on pickled politics, partly because of the level of personal animosity i was facing, but mostly just in frustration at my apparent inability to get my point across. now, i suppose i have nobody very much to blame for that apart from myself, but i’ve never felt that was a problem before now. now, i think i’m starting to work out what it is that is bothering me; certainly, it’s not about the denizens of one blog, or even the blogosphere, or even the media. it’s not any one set of views, not any one person, but a set of trends, a collective movement i sense in wider society.

Also posted in Anti Fascism, Anti Muslim bigotry, Antisemitism, Blogosphere, Christian Evangelical Nutters, Civil Rights, Democracy, Entryism, European Fascism, Freedom of Religion, Human Rights, Identity Politics, Interfaith, Islamism, Jewish Extremism, Moral relativism, Multiculturalism, Obscurantism, Sectarianism, Secularism, The Far Left, The Regressive Left, UK Politics | 37 Comments

It is wrong to ban the good, the bad and Maududi

By Faisal | Published: July 17, 2010

The Bangladeshi government has banned the works of Maududi and has ordered mosques and libraries to remove all books written by the Islamic scholar and South Asia’s pre-eminent formulist of Islamic clerical fascism.

From a BBC news report:

The Bangladeshi government has ordered mosques and libraries across the country to remove all books written by a controversial Islamic scholar.

The chief of the government-funded Islamic Foundation told the BBC that the books by Syed Abul Ala Maududi encouraged “militancy and terrorism”.

The chief of the government-funded Islamic Foundation told the BBC that the books by Syed Abul Ala Maududi encouraged “militancy and terrorism”.

Mr Maududi – who died in 1979 – is the founder of the Jamaat-e-Islami party.

His works are essential reading for supporters of the Jamaat-e-Islami party in the region.

Also posted in Islamism | 12 Comments

When Hate speech Trumps Free speech

By Faisal | Published: June 21, 2010

This is a very interesting article by Sadanand Dhume in the WSJ.

Dhume commends Britain’s decision to ban Zakir Naik and criticises India for failing to do the same in regard to his record of hate speech. Dhume identifies two reasons why the Indian Left has failed to apply its own rules on the boundaries between free-speech and that which can be considered hate-speech.

1) The unthinking readiness to deferentially accept hate speech as free speech when the speaker claims the specious title of being a “religious figure”.
2) The inability to criticise proponents of hate speech by Muslim extremists, because they are loathe to be misinterpreted as “Islamophobic” and sympathetic to the far-right Hindutva interests.

What Dhume may not realise is the situation in Indian is very similar to the situation here in Britain. Islamists are treated with all the deference they demand and allowed to hold objectionable views which they are often allowed to propagate publicly with impunity. Any criticism of this practice is shut down by invoking “Islamophobia” as an outrage to “Muslim feelings”.

Also posted in Anti Fascism | 5 Comments

Zakir Naik is Banned from the UK

By Faisal | Published: June 18, 2010

The Spittoon’s sources tell us that the Home Office has issued an exclusion order on Zakir “Every Muslim should be a terrorist” Naik. This decision pulls the chain conclusively on the controversial PeaceTV tele-evangelist’s lecture tour in the UK. The itinerary included Sheffield Arena, London’s Wembley Arena and Birmingham’s LG Arena.

We discussed the nature of Naik’s hate incitement here. We also discussed the agenda of certain centre-right Islamists who support, for extremist muslim clerics, the right to preach religious hatred under the pretext of free speech and liberal values, but subvert those same values by employing lawfare to silence their critics by libel action here.

You can get a taste of the type of racist material and conspiracy theory dressed up as theology that Naik would have delivered had he been allowed to lecture here from this video snippet: