Douglas Murray

New York Brooklyn is the hipster heaven of New York, which is perhaps why it was there that a bust of Edward Snowden was unveiled yesterday.  Not that it stayed long.  The bust of the former National Security Agency contractor was put on a pedestal sometime on Monday with the word ‘Snowden’ glued on the base at the Prison Ship Martyrs' Monument at Fort Greene Park.  It was taken down a few hours later by parks and recreation employees. I don’t want to read too much into this, but the brief deification and bringing down of Snowden’s image does seem apposite.

To the extent that Britain has philosophers, we do not expect them to address issues of any relevance to the rest of us. They may pursue some hermeneutic byway perhaps, but not the urgent or profound issues of our time. Roger Scruton has always been an exception in this regard, as in many others. He has spent his adult life thinking and writing about the nature of love, the nation state, belonging, alienation, beauty, home and England. But even his closest readers may gulp at the relevance of his latest subject matter. His new novel, The Disappeared, is set in the north of England and centres on the recent rape-gang cases. It’s a gripping, disturbing narrative dealing with abduction and abuse but also love, escape and a type of redemption.

I have been most interested in recent posts here by Alex Massie and Matthew Parris.  Here is a poll which might interest them both. YouGov recently carried out a survey in the UK which sought primarily to judge public opinions on the issue of posthumous pardons to people convicted of homosexuality. So far so hip, cool and with the beat. But the poll also asked respondents whether they think in general that homosexuality is 'morally acceptable' or 'morally wrong'.  What do you think the figures were?  Well in most regions of the UK those people who thought homosexuality 'morally wrong' sat at around 15 per cent.  About what one might have expected.  But what do you think the figure was in that enlightened beacon of progressive diversity which is our capital?

One of the questions I most often get asked is: ‘What can I do?’  If you agree that actual liberals are the only palatable future in authoritarian societies and also recognise that they are a beleaguered minority, is there anything you can meaningfully do to help? Western governments are generally too busy doing business with authoritarian governments to focus on actual human rights abuses.  Meanwhile many groups at home which claim to care about human rights around the world are too busy attacking the world’s only democracies or defending extremists to have much time left for the real fight. But I have recently been introduced to an initiative which stands a good chance of providing an answer to that difficult readers' question.

It seems that the laughably misnamed ‘Islamic Human Rights Commission’ did not like my last piece. Indeed the Khomeinist organisation has written to complain to my editor.  Here is their letter: Dear Sir, I note that Douglas Murray's article published on your website yesterday has several points of concern. Most pressing is the fact that he suggests that the charity wing of IHRC organised the Islamophobia Awards. You are providing your readers will [sic] false information as this is not the case. I trust you will therefore make the correction immediately by removing all references to IHRC as a charity in the context of this article, which is all about the Islamophobia Awards.

I have always treated the ‘Islamophobe of the Year’ event with the scorn it deserves. Not least because each year this fantasy prize for a fantasy concept is run by a British Khomeinist organisation laughably named the ‘Islamic Human Rights Commission.’  The nominees include anybody opposed to the agenda of Islamic extremists, including Muslims.  Of course each year, whilst laughing at it, those of us who are regular nominees also regard it as being to our great good fortune that the IHRC is a British charity operating in the United Kingdom rather than an Islamic charity operating in an Islamic country.  If the latter were the case then rather than laughing at the IHRC every year, those of us who it annually attacks would be hanging from cranes.

So the identity of 'Jihadi John' appears to have come out.  And surprise surprise he is a man associated with the group Cage (formerly Cage Prisoners).  The leaders of this group - Asim Qureshi and Cerie Bullivant - have been filling the airwaves ever since the naming of their friend Mohammed Emwazi. Qureshi even appeared to shed a tear as he talked about what a 'beautiful young man' his friend Jihadi John is. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zXuY_GR0pTQ I wonder if any scales have fallen from any eyes in the last 24 hours?  I do hope so. Cage is, after all, a group which has for years been introduced on the BBC, Channel 4 and so on as 'the human rights group Cage'.

Two years ago the Danish writer Helle Brix helped found the Lars Vilks Committee. The group of media figures from left and right came together to support the Swedish artist who has been under constant threat of death since drawing a picture of Mohammed in 2007. ‘We agreed that Mr Vilks should not be alone in the world,’ says Helle when we spoke earlier this week, ‘and if the establishment or the Swedish artists wouldn’t support him then we would. We wanted to give him a platform and a possibility to do what he used to do before he was unable to go out and meet the public because this is, of course, what disappears when you become a target, you get a lot of security around you and people are afraid to invite you.

It looks like this year’s Simon Hughes prize (awarded each year to the non-Muslim who does the weirdest impression of holding Islamic principle) must go to Lord Woolf. In a speech yesterday at the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies the former Lord Chief Justice chose to explain why Muslim sensitivities should be especially respected.  He also used this pulpit to warn people in Britain not to exercise their rights as free citizens.  Here is an excerpt: ‘By now it must surely be appreciated that depicting the prophet in a derogatory way will cause grave offence among many Muslims and can lead to an explosive reaction with dreadful consequences.