On the evening of January 31st, 2006 the Blair government suffered a shock defeat over its plans to combat racial and religious hatred with the aid of its controversial Racial and Religious Hatred Bill.
With a lethal mixture of Labour rebels, celebrities, hundreds of demonstrators, abstentions and absentees from Westminster an unexpected triumph was delivered to the combined Opposition in both Lords and Commons.
Ironically, Tony Blair contributed personally to the passing of the amendments by missing the night’s second key vote, which was lost by just one vote – most probably his own. The two defeats mean that the Bill will now be passed in its substantially amended form.
In the lead up to the votes critics of the Bill maintained that ministers had needlessly pandered to Muslim fears and pressures since the 9/11 and 7/7 attacks.
The National Campaign for the Arts (NCA) was relieved and delighted by the announcement confirming acceptance of the Lords amendments. The Lords had incorporated changes to the Bill that the National Campaign for the Arts had actively lobbied for. The NCA specifically sought to include a section to significantly safeguard freedom of speech and expression for artists of all disciplines.
The NCA has rejected claims that the Government’s defeat on the Bill amendment was a political point-scoring exercise. The NCA maintains that its activities have been firmly based on issues of principle. The most important being the desire to protect artists as citizens from potentially harmful consequences as a result of “breaching” the Bill. The NCA felt that there was a pressing need to neutralize the potentially dangerous Bill in order to protect artists and their essential artistic freedoms.
The changes to the Bill have safeguarded the freedom to produce risky, humorous, irreverent and controversial works without fear of prosecution. Despite Government assurances that the Bill would not be used to prosecute artists there was actually no guarantee of this embedded within the Bill itself. The NCA was concerned that the “loop holes” within the legislation would lead to the far more insidious problem of artistic self-censorship.
Victoria Todd, NCA Director said; “In order to create a climate of tolerance and understanding it is of vital importance that artists be allowed to raise and discuss issues. This was a real point of principle, the significance of which has been reflected by the fact that so many organisations…lent their support to this campaign … a very important victory for artistic expression.”
Joan Bakewell, NCA Chair said: “I am delighted with the outcome…and pleased that the artistic community can now feel freedom of speech has to a degree been safeguarded. ”
The NCA is the UK’s only independent lobbying organisation representing all the arts. It provides a voice for the arts world in all its diversity. It seeks to safeguard, promote and develop the arts and win public and political recognition for the importance of the arts as a key element in national culture.
As far back as June 2005, opposition parties, artists, writers and Labour rebels combined forces to curb the government’s proposals to introduce the wide ranging bill. At that time the National Theatre’s director, Nicholas Hytner, the comedian Rowan Atkinson and the author Ian McEwan had joined with MPs to condemn the controversial measures to extend the race hatred laws to cover religious hatred.
As part of their public campaign they raised the vital issue that “a war on ideas” is very different and much more dangerous than “a war on abusive behaviour”: Ideas being the realm and right of the artist, as much as the fanatic.
Nicholas Hytner pointed out that “Don Carlos”, which starred Sir Derek Jacobi “unambiguously” promoted hatred of Roman Catholicism in a way that could well have breached the terms of the original racial and religious hatred bill. Hytner was deeply concerned that such laws would be “grievously damaging” to the theatre. And reaffirmed that it was theatre’s role to question, undermine and ridicule widely held beliefs, including religious ones.
Rowan Atkinson, of Mr Bean and Blackadder fame , also rejected the government’s promises that every case would be examined by the attorney general to protect artists. Atkinson said that this would only last until…”some political imperative suddenly…(made it)…desirable for the government to prosecute a few writers or journalists or playwrights in their desire to ingratiate themselves with a particular religious community”.
Atkinson added: “The excuse for this legislation is that certain faith communities have suffered harassment and a law is required to address it. That in itself is a perfectly good reason, and it is what this amendment…addresses. But it is not the real reason behind it…The real reason…is that since the publication in 1989 of Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses, a hard core of religious thinking in this country has sought a law to grant religious beliefs and practices immunity from criticism, unfavourable analysis or ridicule… The government has prepared a weapon of disproportionate power which can be deployed on their behalf at any time.”
Mr Atkinson went further, “Ridiculous, outmoded or hateful religious practices need to be criticised and exposed.” Atkinson called on ministers to cut themselves free from their “Thunderbirds puppet strings”, being pulled as far as he could see, “by factions within the Muslim community.”
Civil libertarian, the director of Liberty, Shami Chakrabarti stated, “Most anti-Muslim hatred is thinly veiled race hatred, (and is)…capable of being caught by more narrow amendment to the present law. This offence is capable of catching attacks on ideas as well as people. “
In his speech at Westminster, prior to the decisive amendment vote, Atkinson urged the government to back down and accept changes made by peers to strengthen the right of performers to criticise religion.
The following is an excerpt from the speech which was published in the Guardian on February 1st, 2006:
“Ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much for coming. I am sorry that it’s that Luvvie again whingeing about freedom of speech. Sadly, this bill will not go away and… so I am forced to return to the fray. Luckily, new issues and absurdities make their presence felt every time the measure is introduced, so there is always something to talk about…
…It is absolutely right and reasonable that religions should be protected from threatening language, behaviour and written material but I support the amendment to retain the right to abuse and insult, because of the essentially irrational nature of religious beliefs.
That is not to dismiss them: Indeed, I’m a great believer that the most important and most sustaining things in life are essentially irrational. Love, beauty, art, friendship, music, spirituality of whatever form, these things make no rational sense yet they are more important than any qualities that are rationally measurable. Those who think that, as they lie on their deathbed, they will be able to judge the success of their lives by how big a BMW they could afford at the end of it, are in for a big surprise.
However, it’s their irrational nature that leaves religious beliefs wide open to interpretation, allowing occasionally practices to be established that are wholly contrary to the mores of a civilised, liberal society. Those practices must remain open to the widest critique, including what could be perceived as insult or abuse…
Beliefs are only invested with life and significance by believers. If you attack one, it is very difficult to claim that you are not attacking the other, because the believers are the only people who invest the beliefs with significance…
…From a comedian’s point of view…Every joke has a victim and with a religious joke, it is bound to be a practitioner, even if the target is the practice.
… What is so frustrating for the creative community is the intransigence of the government on this issue when the amendment proposed by the Lords is such a workable compromise…The short-term political imperative really can be satisfied without the introduction of a permanent, censoring chill on free expression.”
And Atkinson is absolutely right on that final point. The drive to introduce long-term legislation for “short-term political imperatives” is a hazardous practice. It is also at these moments that we need to stop, pause and consider: Is this a fear-fuelled knee-jerk reaction or a considered intelligent response to current events and issues? It is vitally important that we linger at these defining crossroads, particularly when laws are being made in response to terrible and frightening events. There have been more than enough examples to date of politicians scrambling over themselves in an attempt to protect or secure us from the forces of darkness ( a.k.a. irrationality). And no-one has any doubt that “they” are out there. The fact is that they have always been out there. It is more about how we manage the anxiety that their “out-there-ness” engenders, and learn to get on with our lives.
The Terror issue has been writ large and in capital letters onto our psyches. It has brought to the surface ancient fears. And however one might wish to, we cannot legislate against such fears. The fear of the dark, the fear of being eaten, the fear of being killed in our beds, the fear of being dismembered. All these are deep, primal fears and will not simply go away because some Bill tells them to.
As Atkinson says, when the nature of the activity (religion and race hatred) is irrational, you have a big problem. Legislating against “offensive and abusive” behaviour, against “incitement, glorification and recklessness” in relation to race and religion could well be as potty as trying to legislate against love, kindness and laughter.
For more information about the National Campaign for the Arts, NCA and Membership information for organisations and individuals, go to:
www.artscampaign.org.uk
To contact NCA email: nca@artscampaign.org.uk
To read the full transcript of Rowan Atkinson’s speech, go to:
www.guardianunlimited.co.uk
For more information on civil liberties organisation Liberty, go to:
www.liberty-human-rights.org.uk
