Here we go AGAIN – London School of Economics student Atheist Secularist and Humanist society members Chris Moos and Abhishek Phadnis are being threatened with expulsion from LSE’s freshers’ fayre for…wearing a Jesus and Mo T shirt.
I saw it first via a tweet by the NSS (the National Secular Society):
Secularism UK @NatSecSoc
Not again! LSE Student Union
@lsesu are throwing@ahsstudents group out of freshers’ fayre for wearing@JandMo Tshirts#Freedomofexpression
And a follow-up tweet:
Secularism UK @NatSecSoc
@bma@ahsstudents We’ve heard it from the LSE Atheist, Secularist and Humanist Society President. They’re being told to leave right now.
Listen up LSE: I am coming to your university for a debate on 15 October on the burka, and guess what I’m wearing? A Jesus and Mo T-Shirt. Now where can I get one of those quick?
By the way, below is the offending T-Shirt and also the latest Jesus and Mo comic. I’d suggest you look away or call the guards now if you are one of those pathetic people who is so afflicted with cultural relativism and multiculturalism that you can no longer tolerate anything that is deemed offensive to Islamists. I say Islamists because “Muslims” are people just like you and I (shock, horror). Some will be offended by Jesus and Mo; others will find it funny. Most will not threaten or kill for it. It’s the Islamists that do that and who silence criticism and dissent day in and day out and evidently also today with the help of LSE guards. Shameful don’t you think?
I’ve invited Author (of J&M) this space if he wants to say something.
Meanwhile, I will say that this is ridiculous. It’s contemptible. Here’s a timely fact: I just received my copy of 50 Great Myths About Atheism, by Russell Blackford and Udo Schüklenk, a couple of days ago. It’s a wonderful book, and all the more so because it includes many…
you’ll never guess
…cartoons from Jesus and Mo. Why? Because in four panels they neatly make the point that is being made in one of the fifty chapters of the book, that’s why. Philosophy illustrated. It’s revolting that LSE wants to exclude that.
You should probably define LSE, which I am guessing means London School of Economics. Or maybe it’s the Lahore Stock Exchange.
Done. I tend to think it’s more familiar by its initials than its full name, like NYU or UCLA, but that’s probably very solipsistic of me.
Some peoples’ faith is so brittle it can’t stand the slightest bit of criticism or ridicule. They loudly object to any form of satire made towards their faith. There’s a word for these people: whiners. Right now the whiners have a louder voice at LSE than atheists do.
I would say that whatever’s legitimate about the term “Islamophobia” is already covered (better, because less ambiguous and confusing) by expressions like “anti-Muslim bigotry” or, even better, “racism against people of Arabic/Middle-Eastern/North-African/South-Asian (etc..) decent. These are very real problems indeed. In fact, anti-Muslim bigotry (in combination with some truly spectacular delusions of grandeur) motivated some guy to blow up a bomb and gun down a lot of teens in my country a few years ago…
But conflating bigotry and hatred towards people with a phobia against Islam, i.e. the alleged teachings of the prophet Mohammad as revealed by the Quran, the Hadith or the Interpretations of later Islamic scholars, only, only, only serves the Islamists who want to exploit the phenomenon of “white guilt” to delegitimize any criticism of their own bigotry, oppression, hatred, and violence.
Unfortunately it turns out to be very difficult to get western liberals and progressives away from their traditional “white imperialists vs. everyone else” mode of thinking, when, in fact, “non-whites” are not a homogeneous group that collectively accepts the Islamists as their true representatives. Rather than “whites vs. non-whites”, what we have are some non-whites against other non-whites, with white supporters on both sides. There is no “side” that includes all non-whites, so by supporting one group you are by necessity taking a stand against another.
So the question western liberals need to ask themselves is “Which non-whites do I support?” The ones who share your values (feminists, LGBT rights activists, secularists etc.) or a far-right movement that you would be the first to condemn if they happened to be white? You cannot support them both at the same time.
Yet another instance where a student union (LSE) has taken upon itself the role of thought policeman and physically tried to prevent free expression. If a student has won a place at the LSE I somehow doubt that a humorous cartoon will really be so very daunting – when I last checked it was a University not a nursery. Is the real purpose of a university to turn out graduates who think as we thing and do as we do – or to produce graduates who dare to think. Kindergarten level mollycoddling should not take the place of debate – and Student Unions remember when they used to support students not police them. http://www.secularism.org.uk/news/2013/10/lse-student-society-intimidated-at-freshers-fair-over-offensive-t-shirts