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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   32925 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 27, 2023

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Quran damaged at school recorded as ‘hate incident’ by police

The home secretary has expressed concern after the police recorded a “hate incident” at a school where four pupils allegedly caused “slight damage” to a copy of the Quran.

West Yorkshire police became involved at Kettlethorpe High School, Wakefield, after a Year 10 pupil said to be autistic was told to bring in a copy of the Islamic holy book by friends after losing a video game. It was damaged, allegedly after being dropped in a busy corridor.Four pupils were suspended for a week and the police intervened as false rumours spread that it had been set alight.

Inspector Andy Thornton addressed concerned parents at the local mosque and told them the damage was being treated as a “hate incident”.

Tudor Griffiths, the headmaster, said there had been “no malicious intent” but the pupils’ actions were “unacceptable”. Wakefield council said the Quran had suffered “slight damage”.

You can also watch this hostage apology video from the mother, apologizing, earnestly explaining Islamic dogma while wearing a hijab like she's some Dhimmi. I don't know how to put my contempt for that entire situation into words.

This to me seems like more confirmation of by now an ancient belief of mine: being an alleged victim group that's willing to kill people is worth more than the sum of its parts. If everyone just admitted that the fear here was that Muslims would riot, hurt the family or just generally misbehave there would be no doubt that what happened was deeply ominous and the police - and everyone - would have to pick a side.

However, because there's the patina of victimhood, actions that should be deeply worrisome instead get to be written off as defending against racism. A Swedish man being able to reliably trigger violence by burning a book is somehow not a worrying signal from the minority group, it's about Swedish "far right" types. We wasted a lot of time debating whether Charlie Hebdo was "Islamophobic" , as if it had anything to do with the price of tea in China.

The desire to cast all ethnic groups as oppressors and victims prevents basic analysis here.

The standard argument I've seen against hate speech law is that we can't punish what's in people's minds. But maybe we can add: you can't trust people to treat minorities and their differences sensibly. As in: we're apparently doomed to conflate "racism" against "gooks" for owning all of the grocery stories with being worried about groups that can be reliably triggered into illiberalism and, even worse, outgroup violence by not-even violations of medieval norms (this isn't the first time that straight lies have been used to enflame this issue)

And nobody can do anything with this information. Cause it's racist.

And yes, I think it possible the police acted quickly (and out of proportion) to forestall the sort of drama we've seen elsewhere when Islamic norms are violated. Hell, it might have even been to the boy's benefit for people to hear that the police are on it so they don't seek self-help (until everyone lets it go). But, if that's your local maximum, you're far too close to Pakistan for my liking.

a Year 10 pupil said to be autistic was told to bring in a copy of the Islamic holy book by friends after losing a video game.

Notice how they don't mention why he was told to bring in a Quran after losing a video game. The book falling out of a bag on its own is nothing big and certainly not deserving of the extreme response it got, but an extreme response it did get which makes me suspect that the child was told to bring the Quran to school by his "friends" so they could do something nefarious to it, and they were caught before they could begin their act. This could be what the mother was (quite rightly) apologising for, not the book suffering light damage.

The book falling out of a bag on its own is nothing big and certainly not deserving of the extreme response it got, but an extreme response it did get which makes me suspect that the child was told to bring the Quran to school by his "friends" so they could do something nefarious to it, and they were caught before they could begin their act.

This religious community's calling card is an extreme response to nothing. And pure speculation, belied by the article :

A boy had taken the Quran to school last week and given it to another pupil who read out passages on the tennis court, according to Akef Akbar, a councillor who is working with the school. He said the book was later taken inside, where it fell on the floor before being put in a pupil’s bag.

In any event, it would be nothing to apologize for, burning the coran is a public service at this point.

When he made up his religion, muhammad took care not to declare artifacts holy, so no one could do to him what he did to the little statues of the old gods of mecca. Thankfully, his flock has not followed his lead in this matter, so anticlericals have a clean attack angle. It should be burning on public television constantly, giving muslims a chance to return to the True Islam.

The local imam said that anyone who resorted to threats “is not truly following the teaching of Islam”. He added that Muslims would not tolerate disrespect of the Quran.

No threats, just the violence I guess. OK

One could argue that all religions’ calling cards are extreme responses to nothing…

Even the Jains?

Do you think not eating onions or garlic, because they must have some rudimentary consciousness, because they live through multiple seasons, is not an extreme response to nothing? Not to mention all the other insane behaviors designed to prevent the accumulation of negative karma.

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