08 October 2013

Censoring atheists at LSE is a victory for oppression

.... Grumbling old farts like me often bemoan the diminishing radicalism of students. Often it is unfair – we place expectations on young people from which the rest of us seem exempt.

But 50 years after Ali had his moment of revelation, a mere five years after we finally got around to abolishing the blasphemy law in England and Wales, I find it sad and disturbing that students themselves, and the administrators of their institutions, appear to be voluntarily forbidding anti-religious expression.

[A COMMENT] "Religious hatred, particularly Islamophobia, is a real and corrosive influence in political and media discourse and it needs to be challenged and resisted"

And there Ally is where you try and have your cake and eat it. Because up until then you were making an important point about the freedom to offend sensibilities, however deeply held. With those weasel words you basically back track because now you’ve left a wide open debate about where valid criticism or satire becomes islamophobia? [Guardian Cif] Read more