Mick Hartley

Politics and Culture

Extremists

February 26, 2006

Sadly this doesn’t appear to be a spoof (via Tim Blair):

Extremists have been blamed after a cartoon featuring the prophet Mohammed with a bomb in his turban was put up in a housing office in Oldham.

The cartoon, which has sparked protests from Muslims worldwide since it was published in a Danish newspaper last year, appeared at First Choice Homes.

Managers acted quickly to remove it and have begun an inquiry.

Oldham was hit by race riots in 2001 when youths from the mainly Muslim Asian community fought white youths.

A number of measures have since been carried out in an effort to improve race relations in the town.

First Choice Homes – which runs the town’s council housing – said the matter had been reported to police.

Steve Yorke, its Director of Management and Operations, said many staff had been offended by the cartoon.

“They were upset and angry but it’s our job to demonstrate to all staff that we will not tolerate offensive literature, we will not tolerate posters of this kind which are designed to divide our staff and set staff against each other in whatever way shape or form,” he said. […]

Greater Manchester Police said they were treating the incident “extremely seriously” and were worried the incident could affect “community cohesion”.

A spokeswoman said: “Greater Manchester Police treat any incitement of racial hatred extremely seriously and robustly investigate any such incidents that are reported to us.

“We will not tolerate any acts of racial discrimination and are committed to working with local communities to tackle any issues that may arise.”

The police are treating this “extremely seriously”? Incitement to racial hatred?? A cartoon???

Posted in Uncategorized

8 responses to “Extremists”

Dom

February 26, 2006

Let me be the first: “We will not tolerate any acts of racial discrimination”. What race? What discrimination?

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Eric

February 26, 2006

Surely the BBC should be reported to the Police for posting a story on their website about a Sudanese man fucking a goat?

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KevinG

February 27, 2006

o come on. it’s because harry’s place went wobbly on this issue that i’ve started calling by here a lot more often. however, i can’t help thinking that someone putting up a picture of the cartoon mentioned, in a public workspace, is probably not making a point about free speech.

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Juan Golblado

February 27, 2006

Whatever his point he’s got the right to make it. (And ditto about looking for other places to talk about this because of appeasement over at HP.)
That bomb-in-the-turban cartoon, the “most offensive” of that innocuous bunch of cartoons, is a totally reasonable suggestion that the legacy of Mohammed bears some responsibility for the terrorism carried out in the name of Islam. That has to be a fair thing to say. It’s an entirely valid pov. Even if you don’t agree with it, how can you say it’s a pov that shouldn’t be expressed. Now that it’s effectively been banned I suppose it will be used to rattle the cages of whoever will respond, but so be it.
If he wants to put up a picture of Mohammed fucking a goat — or even getting fucked by a goat — he ought to be able to do so, but I would rather nobody did that, as it takes attention away from the more clearcut issue.

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JohnM

February 27, 2006

There’s another issue here. When the trouble hit last month the cartoons were much talked about and inevitably they got printed up and handed round the office or emailed to each other. I guess that happened at thousands of places round the country.
If sticking it on a notice board is racist, then handing it round the office or emailing it is racist too. There have been several high profile cases of people being dismissed for inappropriate emails. Once we move from a “the cartoons are controversial” narrative to “the cartoons are offensive”, it easy to ‘s difficult to see how an such an employee could avoid being disciplined for racism.

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Gregg

February 27, 2006

There is something the article neglects to mention – that particular cartoon has been adopted by the BNP for their leaflets. I suspect, given the mention of the council elections in May and the history in Oldham, that there’s a connection, hence the police treating it the way they’re treating it.

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Mick H

February 27, 2006

The BNP have stepped in to take advantage of the pusillanimity of the response to the cartoons here in Britain – so now the cartoons have acquired a racist connotation which they simply don’t merit. The winners out of all this are the Islamists and the BNP. A stronger reaction to Islamist threats in the first place – and an airing of the cartoons to show what the fuss was about – would have prevented all this.

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KevinG

March 2, 2006

i would have had the cartoons printed on every front page in the country. but there are rules governing workplaces and i’m not sure that anyone does actually have the right to put up whatever pictures they choose. someone puts up an NF poster for example, would you support that Juan? the idea this is about free speech is ridiculous.

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