The Politics of Dancing

One of the current mantras of those who would tend to characterise themselves as progressive or left is the ‘fact’ that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are the cause for the radicalisation of Muslim youth and the resultant acts of mass murder committed in London and Madrid. This particular ‘truth’ has become so embedded that anyone who casts doubt upon it becomes immediately open to ridicule and open contempt. However if you point out that the 9/11 attacks occurred prior to either of these military campaigns the rules suddenly change and you are informed that Israel’s repression of the Palestinians and the situating of American troops on Saudi soil are the catalyst. No mention is made of the liberation of Kosovo or, somewhat the belated efforts by the Americans to halt Serb aggression against the predominantly Muslim Bosnian state. To understand the growth of radical Islam and its related offshoot Islamic terrorism one needs to go back way beyond 9/11 to the late 1960’s and the failur...

As from the 1st of June, it will be illegal to consume alcohol on the London Underground, buses trams and the Docklands Light Railway. I suppose that most peoples reaction will be either of indifference, 'it doesn't affect me,' or relief that public drunkenness on the transport system is being tackled. However, legislation to deal with the nuisance caused by anti-social behaviour already exists. Public drunkenness has always been an offence whether in the form of ’drunk and incapable' or 'drunk and disorderly,' all other forms of nuisance can be accommodated under the general umbrella of breach of the peace. Rather than place the resources required to deal with the minority who make a drunken nuisance of themselves the new London Mayor switches to the now current default position of a blanket ban. As I say this may seem like a small sacrifice, I can only remember drinking on the tube once, some time ago. I had been with a group of people helping a friend move...

Travelling to work yesterday on an extremely crowded Hammersmith and City line train I found myself being literally bulldozed aside by a man who having nearly pushed me off my feet planted himself in front of a young woman, dislodging a newspaper from her hands and pushing her against the end of carriage exit door. All I could manage was a feeble “do you mind!” which of course he did not in the least. On attempting to leave the train I found my way blocked by a man attempting to force his way onto the train, I had to struggle to get past him. On the same day a young man stepped to one side insisting I get on the Piccadilly Line train first. A few days earlier I witnessed another young man go out of his way to offer his seat to an elderly lady. Now in the first two cases both the men concerned were white businessmen in their thirties. In the latter two incidences both were young black men. Now these incidences of themselves illustrate nothing, except perhaps that stereotypes around b...

Three items on the mornings radio news. A senior policeman is advocating a compulsory national DNA database. A new camera is being tested which can identify how many occupants are travelling in a car, this to assist in the policing of car sharing lanes. The Law Society wants to see a new legal framework for the bugging of telephone conversations. Other stories percolating just under headline level, the admission that the Americans had used British bases during the kidnap of foreign nationals, the government is still struggling to push through legislation extending the length of time persons can be held without charge. The list could be longer. A former government advisor described the creation of a national DNA database as inevitable, that is ‘unable to be avoided, evaded, or escaped; certain; necessary.’ I thought that it is this very notion of an unstoppable juggernaut that has characterised the more general response to the erosion of civil liberties. Of course such developments are ...

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...