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Griffin arrested for condemning—not engaging in hate speech, but condemning—Islam
The head of the British National Party, Nick Griffin, has been arrested on suspicion of incitement to commit racial hatred. As far as one can tell from the Reuters article, all Griffin said was that Islam is “wicked” and “vicious”: “This wicked, vicious faith has expanded through a handful of cranky lunatics about 1,300 years ago until it’s now sweeping country after country.” That’s it. For this he was arrested. Under the same standard I could be arrested, since I have done worse than Griffin: I have called Islam a “totalitarian, genocidal tribalism.” Yes, shocking as this is to admit, I sat in a restaurant in downtown Manhattan in November 2001 with several traditionalist conservatives and I spoke those very words. If that had happened in Britain, and if I had been secretly filmed by the police or the BBC, I could have been arrested.
If this news story is accurate, then Britain is under a reign of state terrorism. What is terrorism? A transgressive act done to a society that is so outside the norm, so random (meaning that it can happen to anyone), and seemingly so unstoppable that it demoralizes the society and takes away people’s ability to respond. Email entry |