No Comment...?

Let me start this post by getting my excuses in early: I am a fully paid up member of the Dawkins & Hitchens fan club. I believe organised religion is, for the most part, an unnecessary and divisive phenomenon based more on self-interest and self-preservation than anything else. But then, I’ve always had a bit of an issue with authority, especially when it is claimed to be moral. 

The last few days have seen a number of stories covered by the press in relation to Holocaust Memorial day. From the publication of an ‘offensive’ cartoon by Gerald Scarfe in the Sunday Times to comments from a Lib-Dem MP regarding the treatment of Palestinians in the occupied territories, the casual observer might feel that it’s completely off-limits to articulate a viewpoint that might possibly be deemed critical of, or offensive by, anyone of Jewish faith at this time of year.

I’ve personally never felt that religion should be a ‘no go’ subject. Despite some very obvious quirks in relation to diet and genital-mutilation, Judaism is a religion characterised by much warmth and humour and so it saddens me to see religious leaders pulling out the holocaust trump card when anyone dares to criticise the actions of contemporary Jews in the Middle East. And it’s a shame because it really is a trump card – a nuclear option to which there simply is no answer. Without any shadow of doubt, the holocaust was an appalling event and there are no words to describe the horrors experienced by its victims, be they Jews, homosexuals, ethnic minorities or any of the other groups who were deemed undesirable by the Nazi regime. However, and I draw a deep breath as I say this, no religion (or political regime based on a religious doctrine, for that matter) should be beyond scrutiny or criticism and it is most regrettable when anyone in a position of political or religious authority attempts to claim otherwise.

Of course, timing is everything. The timing of the cartoon and MP David Ward’s comments were both spectacularly bad, but does that make either anti-Semitic? Would the outcry have been less vociferous at any other time of the year? I can’t say, but I am deeply troubled by the way in which any supposed criticism of Israel is branded anti-Semitic in the same way as I object to how small numbers of Islamist radicals took the cartoons published by Danish newspapers and altered them in order to spread violence in the region. Of course the Middle East conflict is an incredibly complex issue but I often think it’s a little too easy for both sides to turn on anyone who dares to comment on it and claim their views to be simplistic or naïve. Maybe a healthy dose of naivety is actually just what the situation requires.

No one should deny the holocaust nor attempt to belittle its effect on the Jewish people or psyche. In the same breath, however, freedom of speech is an incredibly important human right and no government or religion should think its conduct is beyond reproach or analysis. People of all faiths (or of none) should have paused last Sunday to reflect on the holocaust as one of the greatest examples of man’s inhumanity to man. In future, Jewish leaders should also draw a more distinct line between the events of the past and present, and avoid the kind of intolerances and careless labelling that they themselves have so frequently derided.