The New Blasphemies
by Roger Watson, European Conservative:
“But we don’t have blasphemy laws,” I hear people say when someone protests about some perceived slur on their God or Prophet. Indeed, we do not. Essentially moribund, they were abolished in England in 2008 and in Scotland in 2021. If we did, our prisons would be overflowing with the people who blaspheme against Christianity. Appropriately, British blasphemy laws only ever protected Christianity and, even then, only the Christianity of the established churches. However, the lack of such laws did not protect the right of the public to watch a film of which some Muslims disapproved or a teacher from having to go into hiding with his family for showing a cartoon they did not like. In France, the consequences for upsetting the Islamist mob can be more serious, and even fatal. Islamic extremists require no laws to discourage blasphemy; they simply take the law into their own bloody hands.
But blasphemy not only irritates people of a religious persuasion, other blasphemies have emerged which affect the country as a whole. The consequences may not be so violent as they have been in France, but they are unpleasant, nevertheless. You will not be killed, but you may lose your job and be unable to make a living, or feed your family. You may not be stoned and left to die under a pile of rubble, but you will be ‘piled on’ via social media. You will be cast into the metaphorical wilderness as you lose friends, family, and social position. In other words, you will become a victim of ‘cancel culture.’
For there to be blasphemy there needs to be religion and, in this case, I am referring to the religions of identity politics and climate-change activism. More recently, COVID orthodoxy was a manifestation of the same phenomenon. In fact, while these may seem to represent disparate interests, there is remarkable cross-fertilisation between them, including a call for collective action. These are not merely religions, however; they are the religions of fanatics. Their adherents have an overriding set of beliefs to which their lives conform, and to which they wish others to convert. They have their own language, usually to differentiate who is ‘in’ from who is ‘out,’ and they are associated with a high degree of self-righteousness. Thus, those who ascribe to identity politics are ‘woke’ and those who eschew them are not. Those who subscribe to the theory that human activity is the sole cause of climate change, and that we are heading for a climate emergency, identify themselves as ‘green’ and the more extreme elements belong to direct action groups such as Insulate Britain and Extinction Rebellion. Holding their particular sets of beliefs, while demonising those who do not as ‘climate change deniers,’ is sufficient justification for actions which inconvenience and even endanger the lives of ordinary working people. If you questioned the COVID orthodoxy and refused to wear a face mask you were accused, contrary to all evidence, of being a danger to other people.
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