Dissent to State orthodoxy is becoming illegal
A new law is coming to the UK regarding Islamophobia. Only the main issue is not about Islam/ism/ophobia. I’m in favour of religious freedom and have many Muslim friends. It’s about how the State deliberately creates a catch-all vague criminal definition to silence legitimate debate and opposition to Government-speak on key issues.
If you don’t agree, and say you agree, with what the Government decides your opinion is, no matter how contestable, then your reputation and livelihood is at stake.
That’s not a far cry from the Gulag. They were deliberately terrible for those who were interred. Most Russian Soviet subjects did not go to the Gulag – they knew to self-censor, no matter how counter-productive the madness.
As someone who has been behind the Iron Curtain three times, this approach to ‘Islamophobia’ feels a bit like Stalinism.
The madness and authoritarianism will then spiral for two reasons:
- madness – because any error correction mechanism is now absent – legitimate criticism is condemned as lacking care for a vulnerable group and – voila – the State has made itself immune to criticism.
- authoritarianism – because the solutions don’t work and get worse from no error corection mechanism. And then the leaders then have to blame others for the failure and double down on their policy. It’s a classic result of “mis-attribution of causes to effects”.
If the British people allow such curtailments of important discourse (the freedom to express yourself and disagree peaceably in all conscience) then humiliation and “Man’s inhumanity to man” is not far away.