The Politics of Dancing

Amidst all the furore surrounding the rather silly remarks about Sharia Law made by Dr Williams I think the central issue is in danger of being obscured. Perhaps this is not so surprising since we are constantly informed that his remarks were so finely nuanced, representing a degree of sophistication of intellect that the rest of us mere mortals are likely to have missed, it seems possible that the only person who may have fully understood Dr Williams’s argument may have been the Archbishop himself. Obscurantism presented as a virtue. However I believe the real intent of his remarks was an assault on the growing separation of religion and the state, between religious and secular law. For the last hundred years the Church has faced a loosing battle against the growing secularisation of society, a process, with which, it can be fair to say, the church has never been wholly reconciled. The archbishop seems to have felt that an attack on secularist principles might prove more successful cl...

I fear the battle to retain a range of civil liberties may have already been lost. Faced by an ongoing terrorist threat, one that looks likely to last decades, we are bullied into accepting more and more draconian limits upon our liberties, including such basic freedoms as free speech, the right of habeas corpus and peaceful assembly. That most insidious of all Orwellian concepts, thought crime, has now become a chilling reality as people are arrested and locked up not for what they have done but for what they might do, for the things that they have downloaded and read. Britain has never experienced a period of totalitarian rule; most people view the growing surveillance of every aspect of their lives from government and commercial organisations with benign acquiescence or indifference. For anyone living in any large city now whole swathes of their lives will be lived under the watchful eye of the video camera and for the most part think nothing of it. Soon we will, if the present gov...

Dear Mark Steel, I read your recent piece on the Pope. 'If you think Islam is medieval, look at Catholicism.' At a time when real clerical bullying and medieval thinking has astonishingly again become a serious threat to freedom of speech and an open society, oddly you choose only to attack the sillier doctrines of the Catholic Church. (And for the record who wouldn't feel queasy about the outpourings of Mr Ratzinger). However I could not help but ponder why you chose this target at a time when woman are being stoned in Bazra for being inappropriately dressed, or a teacher is sentenced to death in Afghanistan for downloading an article critical of Islam, and protesters think it legitimate criticism to carry placards stating 'behead those who insult Islam!' If your purpose was to attack medieval thinking, there were surely far more obvious targets? Well,  it occurred to me, for one thing you can certainly be sure there will not be any 'fatwa's' emana...