I normally have a fairly happy outlook on life, trying – not always successfully, but trying – to see the funny side of even the darkest situations.
These past days have been different, though. What happened on the streets of Paris this week would strain the efforts of most people who hope that sanity and reason will win through in the end.
Perhaps it’s because many of us have walked those same streets; and even for those who haven’t…well, it’s a little too close to home.
Let’s take a look at something even closer, shall we?
In the aftermath of the Paris atrocity Dr. Ali Selim, one of the leading lights of the Islamic Cultural Centre of Ireland said that he would use Ireland’s archaic blasphemy laws in order to prosecute anyone reproducing the satirical cartoons that were first published by Charlie Hebdo. Well, if you leave weapons like that lying around then slippery customers like Dr. Selim will pick them up and use them against you.
He was careful to condemn the killings, which surely proves that he has learned the art of stealth because he hasn’t always been quite so accommodating. Despite the fact that people are reacting as if this was the first occasion in which the good doctor had offered an opinion, he has been around a long time. He is a lecturer at Trinity College Dublin and at the Mater Dei Institute, as well as being the author of Islam and Education in Ireland.
As long ago as 2003 he was a guest on the Late Late Show where Pat Kenny tackled him on his qualified remarks concerning the destruction of the Twin Towers. Attempting to elicit an unambiguous response, Pat Kenny asked him: “So there is no justification for September 11th?” to which Selim replied: “That is another political issue I do not want to touch.”
Another one?
He was less hesitant on Vincent Browne’s then RTE radio programme where he helpfully suggested the introduction of Sharia Law. He has also spoken of ‘long cherished Muslim ambitions in Ireland’.
He now talks of entering Irish politics –surprise, surprise – and expressed interest in talking to Lucinda Creighton about her new party. In fairness to Creighton, she has stated that she has no interest in talking to anyone who is all for curtailing freedom of the press.
He has previously refused to condemn the stoning of women for adultery in Islamic countries as he considers it ‘symbolic’. At which point words, uncharacteristically, fail me.
I tend to be wary in general of grinning men in suits who assure me that they only have my best interests at heart; but I think that I’ll reserve a special level of skepticism for anything that comes out of Dr. Selim. He may not be as blatant as the obnoxious Khalid Kelly, but he’s far more dangerous. It’s always the quiet ones you watch out for.
Incidentally, the charming Kelly this week accompanied an image of the policeman in Paris being shot by retweeting: “We will cut every lying rotten tongue and kill every liar that dares to insult our Prophet.”
Well, with that fool, what you see is what you get. I suspect –well, hope-- that most Muslims are embarrassed by him. Much more insidious is the fact that the Muslim Brotherhood has quietly but very effectively insinuated itself into Irish society over at least the last twenty years. (And I don’t mean by joining us for a pint in the local.) There are those ‘long cherished Muslim ambitions’ to consider, after all.
I don’t know anyone who laughs harder than the Irish at Father Ted or Monty Python’s Life of Brian. It’s called having a sense of humour. And the ridiculous is always fun to laugh at. Nor to my knowledge has the Jewish community ever gotten up in arms over a performance of Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice with its stereotypical Jew as a main character.
Yet instead of getting over themselves, people like Dr. Selim would stop us from having a wry smile at a couple of cartoons.
Normally an image of the offending cartoons would have accompanied any article on what happened in Paris this week. However, the newspapers in both Britain and Ireland have played it safe. And I don’t blame them. Publishers and editors have their staff to think about. I may not be happy at seeing an article presented differently because of fear, but that’s the reality of the situation as these extremists have created it. (And by the way, I’ll listen to the ‘moderates’ when they have organised marches of Muslims in their thousand to condemn those extremists.)
However, since I’m the writer and editor of this little blog, with a total staff of one (me) I feel no such reticence. I dislike being told what to do at the best of times.
On prosecuting writers, Dr. Selim says: “If the law gives this right then definitely reproducing these images would be against the law and would be breaking the law.”
Here is an example of the offending cartoons, along with some others that make me smile.
If Dr. Selim should see this and feel the need to prosecute me, then so be it; because it’s the only way he’ll shut me up from saying what I feel. And I don’t even think that will do it.
Good on you Charley for having a backbone. Blasphemy laws? Jesus H.(holy shit)Christ, they are still on the books? I guess the one about having to walk in front of a motor car waving a red flag to warn horse riders and others is still good too. It’s time for the Dail to learn that it is the 21st century.
That is one of those laugh-out-loud, funny-because-its-true comments, Kermit.
I think that you might be getting ahead of yourself, though. I sometimes wonder if our lot are even into the TWENTIETH century yet.
Don’t forget that it’s not that long ago that Dame Edna was surprised to find that a pesky reporter had used one of those new-fangled tape recorders on him!
Truly, the children of Ireland had cause to rejoice when he discovered that he couldn’t hack it as a teacher.
Charley
I hope more people have the courage of their principles and beliefs to reply to a well constructed point of view – that most Christians welcome. Thank you
Paula
Agree Charley a Muslim intellectual in a suit is much more sinister than the barely educated flock of ignorant barely educated easy to manipulate sheep.
I remember back in the 70’s my father a devout Catholic falling on the floor laughing at Dave Allen who took the piss out of the catholic church and Ian paisley with reckless abandon at a time when the Church still had a vice like grip on your proverbials and the troubles were at one of its darkest periods.
The poor poor sensitive precious Muslims cause mayhem over a simple cartoon from a Danish newspaper, time to stop mollycoddling to their precious sensitivities and get tough too many lives are lost by pandering to this sick religion/dictatorship.
Many thanks for taking the time to write, Paula, Patrick.
Ah, you’re bringing back memories there! In the late ’60s, early ’70s my mother and father would let a couple of the ‘older boys’ stay up to watch Dave Allen with the warning that he had a section where he dimmed the lights and told a ‘scary story’ — which always has such a ridiculous punch-line that we would be falling around laughing.
Come to think of it, he was probably my introduction to the Irish story-teller. I still recall that when I moved to Limerick around 79 I would go out to John’s Castle — hope I’m remembering this right –to hear these story tellers practice their craft; and a genuine craft it was! These guys were naturals at holding your attention and have you waiting breathless for the conclusion. “And the hairs did stand on rows on the back of me neck!”
I suppose that what I resent most about these people who would dictate to us how we should live, is that the pleasures that they want to remove are such simple ones: an evening like that, a visit to any film we want to see; a drink in the pub with some convivial companions — and yes, sometimes even a heated difference of opinion in a country where that is allowed.
And it is because of those simple pleasures that I hope we NEVER back down to them. Sure, it’s a cliche — but some things ARE worth fighting for!
Thank you Charley, for having BALLs to call it as it is. Pity the politicians were born without them. The world needs people like you, who have the guts to call a spade a spade and NOT a shovel. Long may you be with us to call it as it. Mike Bowen. In Australia
Spare my blushes, Mike, but thanks. Just checked my testicular region and they still seem to be there. For the moment, anyway. Life has a habit of continually kicking them, mind.
As a long-time admirer of grumpy American gadfly Gore Vidal’s essays (not his novels which I’ve always found impossible to digest) I find myself these days often thinking of the image of himself when he ran the political race in the States. It’s of him, looking rather handsome, young and dashing, standing beneath a poster that says: YOU’LL GET MORE WITH GORE. He later said that he had no idea of what you would get MORE of but since it rhymed with GORE they ran with it.
An early example, perhaps, of the ubiquitous ‘sound-bite’. Unfortunately, our politicians run entire campaigns on sound bites now.
If they could just for once drop their guard and say ‘this is what I’m really thinking’ instead of hedging their bets and saying ‘this is what people want to hear’, then I think that they would be on a winner. But no: far too many are getting involved in politics because they have the glad eye on what it can do for THEM, rather than what they can do for US, the people who elected them.
I’m constantly amazed that WE — no one else, this one is down to us — have allowed them to forget that they work for US! They seem to think that they have it down to a fine art, where they can promise back to us a pittance that we have already paid for ten times over and make it sound as if they are doing us a service.
There will be another anti-water protest march on the 31st and they STILL don’t get it that this has stopped being about water charges, to a huge extent. This is a freaking primal scream that is saying: ‘don’t sneak in the back door of hotels, don’t seal off the streets that lead to our own Dail, come out and listen to us.’
There ARE good politicians out there, but they have been swamped by the sheer volume of ‘jobbing politicians’. And that’s just not good enough. In fact 166 TDs and 50 Senators in a county this size isn’t good enough either, but that’s another day’s work.
As to the subject at hand, we as Christians haven’t exactly covered ourselves in glory either in past centuries — but hell, I have to believe that we have moved on. The fundamentalists in the Muslim faith seem to be stuck back in 1430 or something. And since there HAVE to be Muslims that don’t agree with that, it’s down to them to disassociate themselves COMPLETELY with what is being done in their name.
It’s time for all religions to grow up. Anyone who has had the cast-iron patience to have read me over the years knows that I’m as confused as the next guy and that I really don’t hold with religion at all.
Yet the basic tenets are good: You DON’T steal, you don’t MURDER because the next guy doesn’t agree with you; you try your damndest to make this planet -and it’s the only one we have — a better place to live in.
That just seems to me to be such a basic that I can’t get why more people don’t see it that way.
On a much lighter note, since you’re writing from Australia, Mike, I’m going to say that 2015 saw me watching one of the best films I’ll probably see this year. And it’s from Down Under. It’s called ‘Predestination’ and is too deep to encapsulate in a few throw-away sentences, but I will say this: it is about trying to address the past and learn from it — and perhaps even just do something about it.
It is, quite simply, a masterpiece that demands multiple viewings. In a saner world it would be sweeping the Oscars but since we don’t live in one, I’ll be pleasantly surprised if it even gets a mention.
And on that note…