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Jihad - The Musical: less fallout than a Danish cartoon

Jihad – The Musical is causing an uproar I really didn’t predict when I posted this video a couple of weeks back. In that time I’ve heard a number of heated discussions about it on radio phone-in shows. The existence of a petition on the Downing Street website denouncing the musical is used as evidence of deep-seated rage.

The petition fulminates that:

The idea of making light of muslim extremism is extremely offensive, most especially for its victims. The Edinburgh Fringe Festival promotes such 'artistic license' without due consideration for those parties who may be offended by this 'musical.'

So incensed is the petition creator, he refuses to recognise the show as part of the genre - putting the word musical in quotation marks. A bit like the way Saudi Arabia doesn't recognise Israel as a state. It's that level of anger.

But as Joanna Sugden reports over at the ever-readable Faith Central:

The 25 people protesting against Jihad - The Musical include "Osama Bin Laden", "Abu Hamsa" "The Prophet Mohammad", "Ayman al-Zawahiri",  "Mahmoud Ahmadinejad" and "Osama Bin Laden's goat"

Some of the other signatories, I should warn you, are even more offensive. I know I shouldn’t laugh but...

Murad Ahmed

The Downing Street Rushdie petition is now online

Tony Parsons, a columnist I often enjoy, completely missed the point this morning with his blast against Salman Rushdie's knighthood:

I have never finished a Rushdie, although I have started a few of them. If the ultimate praise for a page-turner is, "I couldn't put it down," then surely Salman's most frequent review would be: "I couldn't pick it up."

I tried with Midnight's Children because I felt I was missing something by not reading Rushdie's most famous novel. But it was like jazz or cricket - no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't learn to love it.

This is mildly interesting, if "Books I haven't enjoyed, by Tony Parsons" is what you look for in a newspaper column. But it isn't exactly a slam dunk argument against Rushdie being knighted, I think you'll agree.

Parsons continued:

I have shared a few publishers with Rushdie, including William Nygaard of Norwegian publishing house Aschehoug. He survived an assassination attempt in 1993 for publishing The Satanic Verses. He was luckier than Hitoshi Igarashi, the Japanese translator of The Satanic Verses, who was knifed to death in July 1991. Ettore Caprioli, who translated the book in Italy, was also stabbed the same month.

I imagine William Nygaard will smile wryly and raise a glass of champagne at the news of Rushdie's knighthood.

Strangely, he regards this as a strike against Rushdie. It was Rushdie's fault, you see, for insulting Islam. But Rushdie didn't kill anyone. He wrote a book.

And what's at stake now is his right to do so. In addition to his literary contribution, he has become a symbol of free speech. And he has suffered for it.

If you agree, then you will be pleased to know that the Downing Street petition supporting the knighthood is now online.

If you are a UK citizen you can sign it, if you aren't, then sign here.

Iran makes the case for Rushdie support

Disturbing news this morning from Iran:

Iran said today that a fatwa ordering the death of British writer Salman Rushdie issued by its revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini still stands after his knighthood by the Queen.
"The stance of the Islamic Republic of Iran with regard to this issue has not changed from what was put forward by the Imam Khomeini," foreign ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini said.

The Indian-born Sir Salman, 59, was forced to go into hiding for a decade after Khomeini issued the 1989 death sentence over his book The Satanic Verses, saying it insulted Islam.

Khomeini's successor as supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said in January 2005 he still believed the British novelist was an apostate whose killing would be authorised by Islam.

It is extraordinary that some people are arguing whether Shalimar the Clown is a good novel or whatever, instead of seeing what is at stake.

The need for a show of support grows stronger.

Support Sir Salman

The decision to recommend that Salman Rushdie receive a knighthood was a bold and correct one. In addition to the merit of his literary work, the author is a symbol of free speech.

The counter-attack was bound to come, and it has.

I think it is important that we show that we are not prepared to be cowed by this sort of threat. I have therefore submitted a petition for the Number 10 Downing Street website that reads:

We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to accept our congratulations for recommending to the Queen that Salman Rushdie receive a knighthood

Only UK residents can sign this petition and even they must wait until the petition is accepted.

So if you are from another country or can't face waiting, please leave your support in the comment section.

(UPDATE: Rushdie vs Wallace and Gromit - Pakistan is keener on some honours than others)

(UPDATE: Iran's intervention)

(UPDATE: Petition online now)

Dealing with psychic conmen

Until about half an hour ago, when Hugo Rifkind sent me an email, I had no idea that it even existed. But since I found out about the Fraudulent Medium Act 1951 I have had time to form a very definite view of it. Twice.

Version 1.0: It's good news that we have such an act and the BadPsychics website is right to wish to revise it in order to make it more easily useable. Psychics are conmen. If you amended the get-out clause in the Act - which allows psychics to present themselves as mere entertainers - there would be more prosecutions. I'd better sign the Downing Street petition calling for a revised act.

Version 2.0: I'd better not sign it. Yes, psychics are conmen. Yes, there are real victims of their cons. But do we really want more laws restricting people from doing things. We ought to be moving in the opposite direction, with less laws and more cons.

Or perhaps I'm wrong. What do you think?

Who's petitioning whom?

I'm not sure that the Government has quite got the hang of this petitioning business. I rather thought that the point of petitions was for the citizenry to tell those in authority what they think, rather than vice versa.

Here's an example:

E-petition: Response from Margaret Beckett and Des Browne

The e-petition asking the Prime Minister to "champion the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, by not replacing the Trident nuclear weapons system" has now closed. This is an email response from the Foreign Secretary, Margaret Beckett, and the Defence Secretary, Des Browne.

Thank you for signing an e-petition on the 10 Downing Street website, in which you asked that the UK reconsider replacing the Trident nuclear weapons system, and instead champion the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

We believe the NPT continues to offer the best hope of achieving the goal we all share - a world free from nuclear weapons. But deciding to maintain our deterrent is completely consistent with the NPT, and will not stop us playing a leading role in international efforts on non-proliferation and disarmament.

We know the British people want us to lead by example - we already do, and we intend to carry on doing so. Our weapons stockpile is the smallest of any recognised nuclear weapons state, less than 1% of the world total. We are the only recognised nuclear weapons state to have reduced our deterrent to a single submarine-based system. As part of the decision Parliament is voting on this week, we plan to reduce our stockpile even further - dismantling around 40 more warheads, or 20% of our remaining stockpile.

We are leading the way on non-proliferation and disarmament. We led international efforts on the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. We continue to work hard for the immediate start of negotiations on a Fissile Material Cut-Off Treaty. Kim Howells, Foreign Office Minister, recently attended the Geneva Conference on Disarmament to urge faster progress and re-energise multilateral negotiations.

We realise that some would like us to go further than this. But it just isn't realistic to think that if we decided to let our deterrent lapse, or even completely disarm unilaterally tomorrow, this would make any difference to the efforts of countries like Iran and North Korea to acquire a nuclear capability. We believe in total nuclear disarmament - but multilateral rather than unilateral disarmament. We face an increasingly uncertain world. Given that we cannot expect others' nuclear weapons to disappear for the forseeable future, the question we face is: should we retain them, to deter others from using them against us? Are we prepared to tolerate a world in which countries like ours lay down their nuclear weapons first, leaving extremist or unstable countries to threaten the rest of the world or hold it to ransom?

Any decision involving nuclear weapons is a difficult one, with strong views on all sides. We respect these views and believe it is important to have a full debate. But, as we said in the White Paper, we believe the plans we are asking Parliament to endorse strike the right balance between our commitment to a world in which there is no place for nuclear weapons, and our responsibilities to protect the current and future citizens of the UK.

Robbie Millen

(Hat Tip: Tom Whitwell)