Journal of the Plague Years

• A link to a page in support of Lillian Ladele.
• Wimmin.
• The Most Shameful Posting I've Ever Made. But I'm Tired Of Being Censored.
• A Case Of Conscience. (Lillian Ladele.)

Please visit my page in (secular) support of Lillian Ladele.

In the case of Lillian Ladele vs. Islington Council: Among the many heartfelt and seriously-considered arguments on both sides, one might detect the workings of an Islintonian, PC, Thought Police.

[I acknowledge that when I have time, I probably need to define what I mean by 'thought police' - something perhaps not quite so paranoid as the phrase may suggest. Items on this page may give some idea what I'm getting at.]

Religious websites are supporting Ms Ladele, but otherwise opinion is rather against her. I believe, however, that the wrong issue is being discussed - namely, what she believes rather than her right to believe it; I suggest that to the extent that there is thought policing, it suits the PC agenda that the arguments be skewed in this way - it's easier to demonise a 'homophobe' (if such she is) than it is an ordinary person being harried out of her job because management has been reassigned from one (public sector) authority to another..

There is a good, liberal and secular, case for Ms.Ladele's right to keep the job she's done satisfactorily for well over a decade; this crisis in her life was not caused in any way by any action of her own, but by Islington council moving goal-posts for their own ideological reasons.

I have therefore created a page dedicated to her support to which I've transferred such little as I've written.

'Lillian Ladele' Islington Christian Homophobic 'Thought Police'

Wimmin.

15 February 2008 .

I've grumbled in previous postings about being called names: I'm a racist for being dubious about Sharia (I can sort of understand that), or, I'm an elitist for preferring a house system to a year system in schools (I never did understand that one at all).

It came to me while I was in the shower - always a good place for reflection - that one of the most unpleasant things I've heard, only a handful of times and not in particular aimed at me but enough to have me incandescent, is: that all men are by definition rapists.

Not, on the whole, likely to further endear me to the sisterhood's cause; and especially worrying that this could be said one time, conversationally, with no anger or occasion for anger, by a woman who was about to go to teach a class of 15 or 16-year-old boys.

Added 27 May: By chance, I re-read this item (and the next) last evening. I'll stick to my house rule (what's written, stays written), but I'm not pleased with some of what I wrote - at best it's intemperate and it's certainly not an expression of how I see myself. I regret, and apologise for, the dismissive term 'wimmin', since I regard its use almost as a mark of a particular sort of dinosaur male with no sense of empathy. So, why write it in the first place?

The simple answer is that the sisterhood can be as self-righteous as any fundamentalist.

We do live in a society where opinions are often pressed by influence or intimidation rather than by argument (most notably by both sides, including by Harman's Harridans - who apparently referred to themselves as the sisterhood, in the abortion debate last week): I have been unselfconfident enough, or cowardly enough, to allow myself to be influenced and intimidated at different times (most ridiculously, occasionally, in that I was overborne on behalf of arguments which I'd already taken to heart anyway). It's said to be a danger of the internet that it's too easy to do things which in cold light of day one might regret: however, I'm finding the experience liberating: I write what I damned well please, here; only one person has been so offended (by my opinions on Lillian Ladele) that he's refused to talk to me since - and it's even liberating to realise that that is his problem, not mine.

Because of a misplaced sense of politeness, an over-developed desire to be conciliatory, I never dream of retaliating in kind when people overbear and try to intimidate or bully me - despite knowing how discourteous those people are sometimes being. (My silence is sometimes taken as weakness, or even subservience: I watch the assumption being made, and still say nothing. But then, perhaps being too beholden to good manners at the wrong times is a form of weakness.)

I certainly become increasingly irritated - offended, sometimes - and I've come to the conclusion that it's not conducive to contentment to remain so polite...

Writing here possibly allowed a small boil to come to a head. These item, and perhaps one or two more, are as good a way as any to let off steam - even if a bit intemperately.

sisterhood Influence intimidation conciliatory bully weakness

The Most Shameful Posting I've Ever Made. But I'm Tired Of Being Censored.

10 February 2008 .

Whether or not multiculturalism will, or can, work in this country, I've said on this website that I'm a believer and shall always regard the experiment as having been a noble one.

However, there are some things which need saying.

As a teacher, supporting the idea of multiculturalism, I watched others (who did not have my certainty, or who had different ideas) being silenced under the threat of being branded racist or losing their jobs; and it happened all the time.

(Please See 1984 - Post-Modernism and Surrealism - 23 November 2007. I'm sorry that so far I can only take you to the top of the page).

I swear, here, that I tried not to be part of this moral Taliban. What I didn't realise was how intimidated I was becoming.
(Please also take a look at The Spider's Web - Control - 10 February 2008).

I want to say

1) that in my lifetime I have seen my culture change so greatly that I now feel more at home in some cities in Europe and the US than I do a few hundred yards from where I was born;

2) that, nevertheless, all my adult life I have been willing to compromise with different communities, and sometimes I've accepted almost intolerably patronising guidance - 'courses' - into order to try to do so more effectively;

3) that I have been told, time after time after time, that, because I'm white and male I am by definition racist (and sexist and God knows what); and I'm tired of it, and I'm tired of the unco' PC trying to intimidate me;

4) that I would have put up with all of that... but now I've got Dr. Tamimi telling me that I must learn from best practice - from countries stuck in the seventeenth century, with practices which my ancestors found repellent even then... and the head of the English Church is telling me that it is inevitable that Sharia Law (which is not some lovely New Age 'peace on everybody' and 'all people are equal' bit of benevolent guidance, whatever anyone says) will be incorporated into the English system... and clerics are telling the faithful that Jews are the spawn of the devil and that they, the faithful, will get lots of sex if they kill me.

I want to say that it is not my job to keep re-examining Sharia until I can add 2+2 and make 5: Sharia in its mutilating mode is all too plain (the punishments are put on the net, as a warning, for Heaven's sake) and even in this country, given plenty of media space, Sharia has shown this interested explorer that a great deal of it is repellent. I don't believe that Mohammed was the last prophet - I'm not a Muslim - and I'm not even likely to be convinced that he was a particularly good man, if I am to judge by too many of his followers. So if Sharia wants my vote, it needs to stop bullying and taking advantage of my (Enlightenment and Christian) society; it needs to pull its finger out and start realising that it has to find another route.

I need, too, to be given some evidence of what I'm told all the time, that the vicious fundamentalism of the Wahhabis, or the Deobandis, or whoever they are, as it keeps popping up in mosques within yards of where I live*, really is the extremism of a fraction of 1% of the Muslim world; because, believe me, I have worked harder than some in this country to learn about and understand Islam, and I haven't seen that evidence.

*I've been told I shouldn't believe everything I read... I don't have to; I had to pass Hamzah preaching his toxic message on the way to my local underground station.

In passing: we had large numbers of Muslim boys at the school where I was teaching 20 or 30 years ago; from a range of countries, primarily Turkey, Pakistan, Bangla Desh and parts of North Africa, so mainly but not exclusively Sunni. At about 14, they 'came of age'. It wasn't universal, but it was widespread (possibly by a majority), that at this age they would start being anything from disrespectful to outright offensive to women teachers. Again and again I came across young men who would do what I (as a man) asked, without a question, but who flatly stated that no woman could have authority over them. At home these same young men had a quite extraordinary authority not only over their sisters, but over their mothers. It was not spoken about too loudly, and caused the political left a deal of difficulty. It wasn't extremism in the sense that we talk about today, but looking back I realise that neither was it simply some charming 'other'. To my regret, I tried to 'accept' it as part of their culture; I now believe that was a mistake, though it's hard to know what if anything I should or would have been allowed to do. (Added 11 Feb.)

There is discussion in many of the rags at the moment about the dangers of people giving too much personal information on social network sites. Well, I've really gone overboard here. Am I going to regret it? If any Muslims identify who I am, are they going to give me another chance and talk to me? Or is there going to be a fatwa and, one day, a bomb? Or am I simply going to dismissed as another mad racist.

I would, without a doubt, have been fired from my most recent job for writing all this. Well, that won't happen, at least.

I am ashamed, however, that some of my friends are going to read this. Because the pity of it all is I am quite happy to coexist with Muslims just as I am with Christians, Atheists or anyone else who will respect me and mine in return; notwithstanding anything I've said here, I still think Canterbury was right to open up the discussion as he has. I'm just fed up with being told what to think, with being threatened, with being insulted, with being patronised, etc. etc. etc.

Added later: One thing I think I may have exorcised from myself this evening is the shadow of the Mind Police: if you don't think there's any such thing, try being a teacher in parts of North London.

A lot of our troubles aren't down to Muslims at all, but to an imperialist urge that just won't leave the Middle East alone on the one hand, and (often left or quondam-left) social agendas that feed on intimidation and mind-control on the other.

Do you think there aren't any mind games? Do you think there isn't a part of our political world which, not necessarily giving tuppence for Muslims, is nonetheless happy to use aspects of Islam - and of Islamic extremism - for its own purposes? It may be that you're right but, if so, I have to tell you that I'm far from the only person who has become slightly paranoid.

multicultural jew muslim imperialism 'mind police' under-age Wahhabi Deobandi sharia 'moral taliban'

A Case Of Conscience.

14 January 2008 .

Lillian Ladele, a registrar in North London for more than 10 years, has come into conflict with Islington council (which took her supervision over from the Registrar General on 1st December last). This is because she is being asked to officiate at same-sex civil partnership ceremonies; she is claiming 'discrimination or victimisation on grounds of religion or belief'. All sorts of folk have weighed in on both sides of the argument, including many of the usual suspects. Personally, I'm with Ann Widdecombe on this one (and I'm savouring it - it doesn't happen very often): Ms Ladele has had her terms of engagement changed unilaterally, and there should be a right to conscientious objection.

It's not a health and safety issue, nor one of imposition on third parties, so compromise should be possible (unlike, say, a teacher objecting to being barred from beating kids, where once the decision that corporal punishment is wrong has been reached by society, you can't have individual teachers demurring). There must presumably be plenty of registrars willing to officiate for homosexuals.

But my main issue is with some of those usual suspects, specifically the gay rights group Stonewall - who have won most of their battles and now sometimes seem to be becoming a bit strident and rather a pain. They said that Ms. Ladele's opposition to civil partnerships, which were given legal recognition in 2005, were unjustified. A spokesman said, "All public servants are paid to uphold the law of the land. Doubtless there were those 40 years ago who claimed a moral objection to mixed marriages between people of different ethnic origin. Discrimination on any basis is equally unacceptable." There are so many smug complacencies within those sentences that it's hard to know what to say.

• Public servants were required to jail 'practising' gay men for years, only just over 40 years ago. Stonewall would have gone along with that? As I recall, Stonewall were the first to fight against the police on that issue - sometimes with sticks and stones. More recently, the law barred teachers (public servants) from expressing certain favourable opinions regarding gays to their students (Section 28), and Stonewall was happy enough to support teachers who opposed that law. There is something quite repellent about somebody who insists on support for the law once it says what they want it to say.

• As for mixed marriages: Consider a person who sees them as morally objectionable: you and I may regard such a person as primitive or bigoted but, so long as he or she doesn't impose that view on anyone else (such as their own children), it is their right to have that moral opinion. Ms. Ladele is not trying to stop any gay partnerships: she simply doesn't want to be made to officiate. (And why would a gay couple want to be joined by someone who doesn't support them 100% anyway?)

• Active male homosexuality was a criminal offence within the adult lifetime of people who haven't even reached retirement age yet. No matter how repugnant that law may seem to us to have been, it is not reasonable to expect everybody to switch from seeing homosexuality as a crime to embracing it as the equal to marriage ('a sacred estate') in every respect in a single generation. And for people who have found the change hard, it must be particularly galling to be lectured at by those whom they still feel to be immoral.

• My personal protest is rather at aspects of our society than simply at Stonewall: specifically the growing habit of dictating to us what it is right and wrong to think - to the extent that what you think and your supposed frame of mind have become employment and even criminal matters in their own right.

It is only proper that if Ms. Ladele expresses opinions which I don't like, I (or Stonewall) should be able to tell her that we disagree and why; it is not proper for anyone to pronounce that she is wrong. It only becomes proper to go further than disagreeing if someone's opinions are impinging on another person's rights or liberties. Ms. Ladele is not impinging in any such way.

It is not one of my rights that I should never hear opinions I dislike, not even if I happen to be gay. The other side of the same coin is that I should be free to express my views - to the same limits allowed to Ms. Ladele. (Of course, I do hope that some Ms. Ladele's more evangelical co-religionists will bear this message in mind.)

And while I don't for a moment imagine that Ms. Ladele would be cowed by Stonewall, let's remember we have become a society in which it is far, far more difficult to express some opinions than it was a generation ago - a society in which a lot of people are cowed.

Actually, we have become quite revoltingly prim - what my old mum used to call 'pi'.

-/-

Somehow it just would be Islington council.

Islington Ladele Stonewall 'mixed marriage' 'gay wedding' registrar 'discrimination or victimisation on grounds of religion or belief' 'same-sex civil partnership'

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