The Sikhs who used violence to prevent free speech in Birmingham yesterday and truly the children of the Politically Correct generation. They see that force, be it of law or of the flying milk bottle, is the accepted way to respond if your feelings are hurt and thus have forced a play that they find offensive to close.
Tolerance for dissenting views would appear to be a thing of the past and obviously the state is not the solution. If it was, it would have responded to this affront by the rioters against the basic right to express yourself by meeting force with force. The correct ‘dialogue’ with the rioters would be to crack a number turbaned heads open in the same manner those people are expressing themselves.
Mohan Singh, from the Guru Nanak Gurdwara in south Birmingham, said: “It’s a very good thing that they (the Rep) have seen common sense on the issue.
And so Mohan Singh demonstrates he opposes a pluralist civil society. Presumably when some people decide they find something he values ‘offensive’ and elect to start throwing bricks to prevent it from happening (for example, say some militant atheists, or more probably militant Muslims, find his religious services offensive to their sensibilities), or perhaps it is decide, as in France, that turbans will not be permitted in school under force of law, Mr. Singh will just shrug his shoulders and accept that being forced not to do things other people dislike is just the way of things. And if he does not accept that, why should he expect anyone else to care about what he wants?
As an advocate of ‘open borders’ and of a multicultural society, could you please explain just how the inclusion in our society, of non-compatible cultures, such as you describe in your post, benefits us, as a nation, or as individuals?
We all seem to be making ever bigger sacrifices to placate these people, yet they want still more. We have the pain, but where is the gain? – or, maybe we should not expect to benefit from their presence in our neck of the woods. Should we be grateful that they have chosen our community in which to settle?
Most are far better off than in their country of origin, why else would they move here? They expect respect for their culture and ‘way-of-life’, yet have little or no regard for ours. Is our sole reward for extending the ‘welcome’ mat, that warm cosy, glow of socialist altruism?
Am I wrong to expect to see some benefit from this current wave of immigration, even a small token of thanks for our hospitality would be welcome, but I have yet to see, or hear, any such thing…
It is the actions of these religious groups, and their repeated insistence on having things done their way, and usually by threats of violence, that may convince the ‘silent majority’, that the ‘open border, everybody welcome’ policy has been one big mistake…
Yup, this is the end game of “multiculturalism” AKA tribalism. The end result of treating people as “groups” rather than as individuals.
The solution: return to treating people as individuals. Equality under the law and social interaction for INDIVIDUALS, not groups. No special favors, no laws or social interaction based on “celebrating diversity.” Individuals, not groups. End of story.
Tribalism always ends up in bloodshed and primitivism. History has borne this out again and again.
I suspect that those who put this play on deliberately courted controversy by putting it on in Birmingham. Yes, I am suggesting that provoked this sort of anger on purpose. I mean this two-bit play by an author no one has ever heard of is now the first story on Newsnight. You can’t buy PR like that…
I agree that its wrong for a mob to shut something down. What would be our reaction if the Sikhs had got it pulled by “negotiating”?
That is the solution Susan, but ernest is right that the choice is essentially between that solution and open borders. It’s fanciful to expect that people who move here simply so they can get a decent standard of living and so their kids can go to school will suddenly give up their culture when there are hundreds of thousands of them each year in the same boat, taking just the same view, and willing to organise and vote against anyone unfashionable enough to say that the prosperity they came to Britain for goes hand in hand with its freedoms, and they will have to accept the latter if they want the former.
Sorry, Susan, for the first time ever, I disagree with you, and heartily at that!
I belong to the British tribe. Britain is my country and I am proud of the contribution my forebears and all of our forebears have made to the development of the human race, including the spreading of our language and our humane laws.
Intruders should watch their step.
There is no American tribe, so you have no way of understanding how it feels to have been born on the soil of your ancestors going back thousands of years, and living among the traditions and customs that have been developed in all those hundreds of generations.
I feel badly about the Sikhs, because they have been undeniably brave-hearted warriors. Too bad the politically correct among those lion-hearted warriors are dragging their internationally unblemished reputation through the dirt. No one will ever feel quite the same about the Sikhs after this. What a tragedy.
Sorry, Verity, I think you misunderstood me. I am talking about legal & social status, not ethnic attachments. I am talking about “set-asides”, affirmative action, “positive discrimination”, cultural relativism — everything that treats people as part of a tribe, with unique and special “favors” demanded therein, rather than as an individual under the law, no better and no worse than any other person.
Your homeland is one of the originators of the concept of individual rights under the law. That is one reason why she and all her children have been so successful in the modern world. It’s the collectivists of whatever stripe who want people governed and treated specially according to “group law.”
PS — I don’t agree with indiscriminate open borders BTW, especially opening them to those who won’t accept the prevailing culture.
I did indeed misunderstand you, Susan, and leapt to the wrong conclusion. I beg your pardon.
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The Celts must be having a good laugh at the lot of you. I know I am. Now you know how they felt. Guess that Empire wasn’t such a good idea after all, hm? Bit of the old blow-back, eh? If only your half-witted cousins now in power over here in the former North American colonies would take heed: World domination is fleeting, but the costs go on forever. It might not be too late for you to go back to Anglo-Saxon Land; maybe you could switch with the Turks. Have to learn German, though. Don’t want them to think of you as unwelcome foreigners who refuse to assimilate. And, about that C of E…
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Ah! Yet another creepy, ‘just-doesn’t-get-it’, democrat. Hey – You lost – suck it up…
Do you want the address of that clinic in Florida? they specialise in the more pathetic cases….
I doubt very much if the Celts are laughing too hard, as the Welsh, Scots and Irish are also experiencing their difficulties with “multiculturalism”.
Verity, no problem. 🙂
A bad day. I was struck at how the BBC Breakfast news channel, to its immense credit, has a civil liberties guy on the show right now saying that liberties in this country are in deep trouble across the board. The presenter looks like he has just pooed in his pants.
The open-borders-or-not question is based on a mistaken assumption, namely that Dover, Heathrow, etc are the borders that matter.
The borders that really matter are those of privately owned property.
If we were not forced to accept non-integrating tribalism in shops, house sales, hiring… then we could have wide open national borders and yet it would still be plainly obvious that those who won’t play nicely had better play elsewhere.
These are the same people, of course, who are also *exempt* from the safety helmet requirements for motorcycles/scooters in the UK.
Sickening.
Eh, James? A religious helmet exemption? Or is it ethnic? I don’t understand.
By the way, free speech is not necessarily sacrosanct, or safe from either side in the US. Some idiot republican has already started the book banning drumbeat
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“Most are far better off than in their country of origin, why else would they move here? They expect respect for their culture and ‘way-of-life’, yet have little or no regard for ours.”
Since we’re on the subject of the Sikhs, then I think you might find that that is a rather misinformed thing to say. Most Sikhs in the UK are either descended from those conscripted to work as migrant labour in the UK in 1947, or who were given the right to British citizenship (coming from a colony/commonwealth country gives you the right to subject status, but not to citizenship) following service in World War 2. As regards their culture and their religion, they do show an enormous amount of respect for our culture and for Christianity, and I have yet to meet a Sikh who “demands” respect for his own religion.
I do wonder though what our reaction would have been to this dreadful little play if it had been about childabuse in a Roman Catholic archdiocese in the UK, or in the United States?
Sikhs are exempted from the British law which requires one to wear a safety helmet when riding a motorcycle. The reason for this is because you can’t fit a helmet over their turbans, so they have a choice of wearing one or the other but not both. Similarly, although Sikhs serve in the British military, they can’t be pilots if they wear a turban.
I think, though, that if a Sikh cut his hair and didn’t wear a turban (and in Britain many of the younger men do exactly this), they would have to wear a helmet on a motorbike.
To be fair, this sort of thing works both ways and indeed in many countries. In much of black Africa, for example, the “white passport” as it is called (i.e. skin colour) means expats don’t always have to wait in line or necessarily follow all of the rules all of the time. Unfortunately, some abuse this & think they can get away with anything – as perhaps some in the ethnic minorities here abuse certain privileges they have & assume it means the law doesn’t necessarily apply to them, or that they can make their own rules.
EG
Open borders are a fine idea… with the understanding that if you actually cross that border, if you start a riot, you will not be offered ‘understanding’ and the people who annoyed you will not be sent to ‘cultural sensitivity workshops’, no… the Boys in Blue will break your heads and heave you in jail. Once that is understood, I really have no problem with people from other places coming here.
ernest, The silent majority already think that the open borders, everybody welcome policy was a huge mistake.
Oh, another crypto-racist who has not though the issue through. The only problem is when you mix open borders with a welfare state. Let everyone come, just do not subsidise the scroungers, religious fanatics and scoundrels.
Amazing! I have said for years that open immigration policies and a welfare state are mutually incompatible, and this is the first time I have ever seen someone else make the same point! I was beginning to wonder whether clarity of thought was dead, especially when looking at corporatist New Labour…
It’s not really that bad.
The most guilty party here is the spineless, cowardly theatre. So what if the a few members of the crowd got a bit violent and broke a few windows? Sounds to me like the theatre can give it but can’t take it.
As far as I can see, the police handled the situation perfectly well.
Things that would have been concerning and did NOT happen here, are:
1. The council or other governing body closing the play / theatre against the theatre’s wishes.
2. The council / police forcibly removing all the sikh protestors on the grounds that a small minority were violent, or on the grounds that there might be some future violence.
3. The police failing to provide the same level of assistance they would provide to a less controversial event
those acts would be curtailments of free speech (and free assembly, in the second case). But they didn’t happen.
I cannot say I am either surprised or upset that when a large group of people are deeply offeneded, some of them become violent. Human nature. Perhaps in months to come some anti-ID card protests will get violent. That will be a shame but it will not invalidate the arguments they have against ID cards, nor will it necessarily be a victory for violence and intimidation if parliament then change their minds.
I hope that another theatre stages the play – I’m sure given the publicity that someone will think it a profitable venture. And I hope the Sikh community continue to use peaceful means such as demonstrations and boycotts to ensure that it is _not_ a profitable venuture, and closes early. In this way will free speech be heared loudly.
I think many in the Sikh community would put their personal safety on the line to defend their faith and their views. It seems few in the theatre community care enough about whatever this play has to say to risk a few shouted insults and the chance of some bruises.
I don’t see the problem here. The truth will out….
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Funny how this sort of incident brings the crypto-nazi’s out from under their rocks, full of irrelevant bleating about their usual bugaboos: “Political correctness,” “welfare cheats,” and such nonsense. The fact is, these rioters were simply acting like real right-wingers: Suppressing free speech, showing intolerance, shoving their religion down everyone’s throats, and “cracking heads” to get their way. You conservatives ought to welcome them with open arms: They’re your kind of people: If only they were white, and Christian, eh, lads?
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Cosa is so wrong it almost looks like satire. I am guessing Cosa does not know much about the British news at the moment or the behaviour of the British government.
Last I checked the government of the day is left-of-centre. This government is also doing a wonderful line on oppressing free speech. No doubt those rioting Sikhs are Labour voters.
So why the mention of right-wingers? Us Conservatives? Last I checked this is a libertarian site and most of the people commenting here are libertarians (or at least libertarian leaning). The only possible reason for the above comment is because Cosa is just a troll with nothing intelligent to say.
Going from the BBC’s Have Your Say – and those with any sense go a long way from it – the Sikhs still do not understand what they have done wrong.
Sikh commentator after commentator makes what he/she clearly considers is the “reasonable” point that a bunch of them had tried “to negotiate” the place the rape takes place with the theatre and playwright. They tried to “negotiate” that it not take place in a temple. It was only after the playwright unreasonably failed to agree to “negotiate” her work with them that they naturally turned violent.
So the Sikhs believe that works of the arts/performing arts are community committee projects where everyone sits around and discusses and negotiates the plot and language. Then, when all the offending passages/images have been deleted, they will agree to it being performed.
It is astonishing that these violent protesters, all of them clearly having been born and brought up in this country, do not understand the meaning of freedom of expression.
They also don’t understand commercialism and that they have turned this play, which sounds really boring, into a nice little money spinner for the playwright and whoever bankrolls its performance.
Hey, Cosa, Take your Celtic pals and clear off. This is a Pictish country and we are sick of you foreign Celts with your ginger hair and weird accents!
As to the Sikhs shouting and protesting, so what? If you are upset, make a fuss so that everyone knows you are upset. If you break laws and windows while protesting then doubtless the cops will be in touch and you will get your chance to explain to the court why you did it.
The theatre company can now, in the light of these new events, renegotiate their contracts like good capitalists, weighing up the increased publicity and notoriety with increased security costs, insurance etc. Few things work out as planned, adapt or someone else will replace you.
Andrew,
I think that ‘Cosa’ is an expat from Wales or Scotland, probably getting on in years, who has a big chip on his shoulder, and a small brain in his head. Whatever, – he comes across as a very sour, unintelligent and uneductaed fool…
J said “I think many in the Sikh community would put their personal safety on the line to defend their faith and their views.”
So it’s OK for them to have views but not for the playwright? (Does the play actually expound the playwright’s views, or is it merely drama?) How does breaking windows defend their faith? How does this play attack their faith?
It’s been done. I’ve seen (some of) one such drama made for TV. The Christians, to their credit, did not feel the need to call for it to be banned or take to the streets in violent protest.
This issue is exactly what I commented on over at Mrs. Du Toit’s blog (see her Free Speech entry). While most of what Cosa wrote is simply bile, he does have a point. Mrs. Du Toit felt that a programme depicting Ben Frankin in a ridiculously impossible (but unfavourable) light should not have been on the air. It’s not that much different from Sikhs taking offence at what they see as “innaccurate” as well as offensive. But that should give neither party the right to remove it from public view.
Once you start talking about their religion or other “sacred” subjects, Conservatives are often quite happy to call for banning things. Something for us all to be wary of.
No one is pointing out that the author of the play and the actors are Sikhs.
Are they “racist”, Cosa?
Regarding the combination of the welfare state and open immigration being incompatible: I’ve been saying that for years too.
Yep.
Get rid of the bait, and welfare rotters won’t immigrate.
Uphold property rights, civil rights, and the right of self-defence, and religious bigots of any ethnicity will face danger when they try to use force.
You don’t need national borders for this.
Julian Taylor
Most Sikhs in the UK are either descended from those conscripted to work as migrant labour in the UK in 1947
Sorry Julian, but you are wrong. Sikh’s have been coming to the UK since the early 1930’s. And just what is all this nonsense about them being ‘conscripted’ to work as migrant labour? Have you been reading some later day rewritten history book? or are you just using emotive language to make mischief?
The majority of Sikhs made the move here in the 1960’s. If you want to know more, – trying using Google or Copernic in a sensible way…
You dont have to be religious to be a bigot.
Bigotry comes in all shapes and sizes, in fact I find that most anti-religious commenters tend to be extremely bigoted in their own right.
In the late 1940’s and the early 1950’s there was a “conscription” of labour in both the Punjab, parts of India (predominantly Kashmir) and what was, by then, West Pakistan. This, at the time, was intended to make up for the labour shortage in the UK and the economic boom following WW2. Most Sikhs were (for want of a better word) recruited under the concept of seva, or voluntary service, where a proportion of their wages would be paid locally to their families – an old British tradition that allows the government to pay someone working in the UK a slightly higher rate than they would receive working in their own country, and still carried out to this day in the renumeration of the Gurkhas.
Your view that they came here in the 1960’s is, I would guess, based upon the massive immigration that occurred prior to the introduction of the Commonwealth Immigration Act in 1962. The majority emigrated to the UK from the Punjab in the early 1950’s, due to the rather biased land reforms against the local populance there, and the shortage of skilled industrial jobs. Unlike immigrants from many other colonial and commonwealth territories the Sikhs were exempted from most of the restrictions on immigration under the Commonwealth Immigration Act.
What is interesting though is that upon arrival in the UK one of the first things they did was to visit a barber and get their hair cut – no mean thing for a Sikh to do – in order to assimilate into our society better.
There are, indeed, innumerable sites on the internet covering this – please do not feel you have to resort to making that sort of remark to me in order to convey this point.
All the Sikhs I know are, without exception, thoroughly decent people who would be horrified at the violence done by some of the protesters.
Earlier today I was discussing this situation with a Sikh who is a work colleague of mine and we were in total agreement that people have a right to express their views regardless of how stupid or offensive they are provided they do not use violence.
This whole thing strikes me as a few hotheads who have been taken in by the PC notion that you have a right not to be offended. I don’t know much about the Sikh religion but I doubt it has the political aggressiveness of Islam and I think it would be a big mistake to confuse the two.
Sikhism is not Islam.
Regardless of that, the clerics who stirred up this violence need to be made to compensate their victims. The perps as well … but if you concentrate on the leaders of the conspiracy to do violence, the conspiracy will fall apart.
Words and ideas are not a valid reason for anyone, either individuals or the State, to initiate the use of force.
“This whole thing strikes me as a few hotheads who have been taken in by the PC notion that you have a right not to be offended”
This is what I think too. They’ve seen other “protected” groups do this kind of thing with little disapproval from the official society, or indeed, outright justification in the name of post-colonial guilt.
I
Julian,
Just interested. If the Sikhs in question were in the Indian Army in the immediate post war period, why were they “demobbled” to the UK? Labour shortage was not an immediate post-war problem; numbers of ex-servicemen were domobbed into unemployment.
Julian,
Conscription means ‘forced into service’. and as you quote Sikhs were recruited under the concept of ‘seva’, – a voluntary service.
I still think that you use the emotive language to be controversial…
Apologies if I sounded snotty re the searching…
The word ‘conscription’ in this case wasn’t intended in a military aspect- my apologies if it was construed thus. Many Sikhs, Hindus, Kashmiri and others were all shipped over to the UK in much the same way, I presume, as many West Indians were shipped to the UK later on. They were then billeted onto locals in the town where their skills would be required often, as has been amply documented, to resentment among the local population.
Certainly a number of servicemen were demobbed into unemployment, but I think the mass immigration was to fill those posts that many considered undesirable – something that became much more obvious as the immigration increased in the 1950’s.
It appears Cosa is just a typical product of the Bay area in the States. Usually you can identify them by the lithium tubes they have embedded in their forearms and lobotomy scars. Welcome to the new PC world.
It appears Cosa is just a typical product of the Bay area in the States. Usually you can identify them by the lithium tubes they have embedded in their forearms and lobotomy scars. Welcome to the new PC world.
I am going to scramble aboard this thread again before it is consigned to archiveland forever … the BBC’s [Don’t, as Susan would say] Have Your Say has airbrushed out all mention of Sikh violent objection to the running of a play by a Sikh playwright in Birmingham. Move along folks. Nothing to see here. Everyone go home. Didn’t happen.
It’s still there Verity — they just hid it under the “England” news section:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/talking_point/4110631.stm
It’s apparently not important enough, however, to be featured in either the World or UK news section, or in the general (Don’t) Have Your Say Section.
OTOH, a (Don’t) Have Your Say thread about a suit filed by the ACLU against Gitmo is front and center in several prominent places, where I’m sure it will stay for days and days to come. The Two Minute Hate must go on.
Susan, well I went back and couldn’t find it.
[Don’t] Have Your Say featured:
Can There Be A Middle East Breakthrough? (with a photo of T Bliar looking eerily like Al Gore);
More inhuman, mad dog jail abuse by Americans in Iraq;
Attack on US Base in Iraq; Your reaction (and make it rabidly condemnatory, please);
The new Harry Potter (because the writer is a single mother who was on welfare before she sold her book);
Should aid agences leave Darfur? (The answer is no if you want your comment posted);
Should Rumsfeld resign (All comments saying Yes will be posted);
Should Bush be Person of The Year (All comments expressing horror and outrage will be posted);
Children in Crisis (probably a further attempt to perpetrate the notion of ‘child poverty’ in Britain);
Women’s football (one of the pressing issues of the day);
Nobel Peace Prize winner (for environmentalists);
Should Turkey join the EU (the most pressing point European countries face today and therefore last on the list);
But nothing about a play in Birmingham being shut down by violence among a formerly law-abiding immigrant minority.
Verity, it’s linked at the link I posted. It’s only just linked to that news article in the England section though; it’s not in the regular “Have Your Say” section. I agree it looks like a very obvious attempt to hide it, probably because the comments they got weren’t the usual multi=culti “can’t we all get along” mish-mash that the Beeb wanted.
C’mon you know me. I NEVER give anything up to the Beeb if I have to. But fair’s fair — they just hid it, not erased it all together.
The hiding of it is still Orwellian enough.
Verity, I apologize. You are 100 percent correct. I checked the link I posted above and I got a 404 error. They DID erase it!
It was working last night when I posted it. I went back to the England news page and looked for it, but could not find it there anymore.
Scotch another one up for the Ministry of Truth!
Susan – Aren’t they a hoot? The serious news that a mob managed to get a perfectly legitimate performance of a play they disagreed with halted and have terrorised the playwright isn’t nearly as critical as encouraging the slavvering hounds to bay at George Bush! They are s-0-0-0-0 transparent.
BTW, I haven’t seen it bruited about anywhere yet, but do we know for a fact that these people who have threatened the playwright’s life are Sikhs? This is simply not the behaviour of Sikhs, who are normally civilised, tolerant and very respectable.
My theory: There are Muslims behind this who are trying to defuse the rising condemnation of Islamofascism by saying: Look! Everyone does it! It’s not just us!
As other posters have said above, this just is not the behaviour pattern of Sikhs. There is something wrong here.
If everyone was truly serious about treating/judging people individually and not as a group, this whole incident wouldn’t be that big of an issue.
Lets treat this incident for what it was: Some idiot Sikh youths got overexcited and caused violence.
That should really be the end of it. Unfortunately, its not.
Those teenagers for the most part have come to represent mainstream UK Sikh thought, and thats what makes this whole incident so troublesome.
The fact is that the vast, vast majority of Sikhs in England are ashamed of their actions. The fact is that even the vast majority of demonstrators in Birmingham were ashamed of their (the minority’s) actions.
It is true that a lot of Sikhs got together to request some VERY minor changes to the play’s script (particularly in relation to the rape scene in the temple), however, their was no intention to use force and therefore to censor or cancel the play. Even if the play went ahead, many Sikhs simply wanted to ‘make their voices heard’ beforehand.
All of that was ruined when some idiotic youths overreacted and used violence… but if that hadn’t happened… the actions of most of the Sikhs were completely legitimate and Okay. I, myself wouldn’t have personally protested the play, as I wouldn’t consider the effort worthy of my time, but I do understand the sentiments of the majority of ‘peaceful demonstrators’ who are now being demeaned and misrepresented.
“And if he does not accept that, why should he expect anyone else to care about what he wants?”
It’s a fair question to ask of any statist because anyone willing to use state force to compel dissenters has lost all moral standing to object to how others wield the state against him.
Great Talk,
Are you ashamed of your actions???? What actions they say???We don ot go around murdering people innocent women, children and men…..emm…
emm……
Why don’t you all set an example kick em out of your country and you get out of there country, how about it?
Make sure you don’t take the resources, oh you can not – oh so you have to stay..in that … country..ohh..thats aproblem..tell you what..lets clear the air with some wmd — lets pretend they have some so we can use ours..emmm..sounds good…..eemmmm..this place is a real live lab…..greattesting ground…emmmm…I love it here…no Geneva convention……..better keep em in line….emmm…democracy sounds good..emmmm…ok they are not readyy..we need some puppetes…..puppyes…emmmm….ok lets have pretend election….freedom is round the corner…emmm…nop…they are stupid…we are so clever…we can kill millions with one bomb..emmmm…we want to protect them from being stupid..lets premetemp…whats that word……..cremete…kill…. them…emmm…….
democracy is around the corner….emmmm…….we are so bright…… how about I come crack your turban… big talk when you fight people who throw stones…you all are cowards….emmmm…….the only thing keeping your big mouth open is your weapons and you know it…do as I say not as I do…….emmmm……I am so clever..emmmm…….you al getting plenty…..