Ganesh's beer, Mohammed's child bride and gay Jesus - more on 21st century blasphemy

It's always best to start with a beer:

Baffo’s Ganesh IPA carries an image of the multi-armed Hindu deity Ganesha holding a beer mug, a beer bottle, barley and what appears to be a hop cone.

In a statement, president of the Universal Society of Hinduism, Rajan Zed, said that the “inappropriate usage of Hindu deities, concepts or symbols for commercial or other agendas” was unacceptable as it would “hurt the devotees”.

Zed added that linking an alcoholic beverage with a Hindu deity was “very disrespectful”.

Ganesha, traditionally depicted as having multiple arms and a human body with the head of an elephant, is the Hindu god of wisdom and is known as the ‘remover of obstacles’.

Baffo describes its 5.8% IPA as a double malt amber-coloured craft beer brewed in the English IPA style.

It seems that, despite the offence taken at this blasphemy from the Universal Society of Hinduism, the brewer in question isn't budging and plans to carry on selling the beer. The organisation making the complaint is based in Nevada (and seems to have a thing about searching for beers using iconography from the Hindu pantheon as this micro brewery in Keighley discovered) and say:

“Usage of Hindu deities, concepts or symbols for commercial or other agendas is not okay as it hurts the devotees."

The central argument here isn't the fact of the blasphemy - “Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain” as the second commandment puts it - but rather that followers of the religion might be upset at others' blasphemy. It's a second order modern blasphemy that, at least in Europe, seems to be supported by the human rights courts:

"An Austrian woman's conviction for calling the Prophet Muhammad a pedophile did not violate her freedom of speech, the European Court of Human Rights ruled Thursday.

The Strasbourg-based ECHR ruled that Austrian courts carefully balanced the applicant's "right to freedom of expression with the right of others to have their religious feelings protected, and served the legitimate aim of preserving religious peace in Austria."

I don't consider that calling Mohammed a paedophile is done for any reason other than, as the court observed, "...having been aimed at demonstrating that Muhammad was not worthy of worship." The problem is the bit about "preserving religious peace in Austria" where a collective concern (followers of Mohammed might be unpeaceful if people are gratuitously rude about their prophet's matrimonial arrangements) is imposed on an individual right to speech. We should be concerned, moreover, that protecting religious 'feelings' is given as a reason to suppress speech.

This second order blasphemy where the crime is the upset caused to worshippers rather than the blasphemy itself sit oddly at a time when the West in general and Europe particularly is becoming less and less religious. And, as the Irish will vote today, specific blasphemy laws are seen as anachronistic (it's pointed out that, until Stephen Fry said something rude about God, the Irish had rather forgotten they had a blasphemy clause in their constitution).

For us Brits it took 30 years from the 1976 prosecution of Denis Lemon and Gay News for publishing a James Kirkup poem about Jesus being gay before we finally rid ourselves of any laws specifically criminalising blasphemy but now it is allowed for us to use religious symbolism satirically, attack the tenets of religions and call their founders rude names. Except, it seems, if doing this offends "religious feelings" or undermines "religious peace". I am reminded how I wrote, only a few days ago, how identity politics was creating a new form of blasphemy law:

We will have a scripture written down in legalese by government, police, CPS and courts with hate speech being to offend against these commandments - in effect what we'll have is a 21st century blasphemy law. And it will be a blasphemy law enforced by the unholy alliance of fanatical partisans, the Calvinists of Social Justice, and public authorities keen to be seen upholding the scriptures of political correctness. Free speech will have died.

I hadn't expected, when writing this about the widening reach of so-called 'hate crimes', that these would be used to reintroduce the crime of blasphemy - at least as regards Islam (Ganesh beer and gay Jesus have yet to find themselves in the European human rights courts although the UK Supreme Court has rules on gay cakes). The outcome of the ECHR's decision won't be a rash of court cases but rather the gradual adjustment of public diversity policies all wrapped round a wider definition of Islamophobia to encompass upsetting Muslims rather than just being prejudiced against Muslims.

I think we are watching as the right to speak as we see things, even if that upsets people, is being ended. People will still tell us they think free speech is important but then ruin this truth by saying that some forms of speech aren't free speech - "hate speech isn't free speech" they'll assert expecting us to nod and say "of course we can't let people say that sort of stuff". This isn't free speech it's exactly the same as that stiff old world of blasphemy laws where politicians, courts and public authorities decide what you are or are not allowed to say. Welcome to 21st century blasphemy where the possibility of offence - even faux offence from an obsessive little organisation in Nevada - is sufficient for your speech to be banned. As Ireland votes to remove its blasphemy law, the ECHR puts it back in!

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Absolutely right - we shouldn't ever forget this...

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...Corbyn was a member of the board of Labour Briefing, a fringe magazine for diehard leftists that unequivocally supported the IRA’s bombing campaign. Corbyn organised the magazine’s mailing-list and was a regular speaker at its events. In December 1984, the magazine“reaffirmed its support for, and solidarity with, the Irish republican movement” noting that its “overwhelming priority as active members of the British labour movement is to fight for and secure an unconditional British withdrawal”. Only “an unconditional British withdrawal, including the disarming of the RUC and UDR, will allow for peace in Ireland. Labour briefing stands for peace, but we are not pacifists”. Moreover, “It certainly appears to be the case that the British only sit up and take notice when they are bombed into it”.

The current leader of the Labour Party supported the bombing of civilian targets by the IRA. it really is as bad as that and we should never stop telling the world the truth of his support for murderers.

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Bogus booze and fake fags...

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Prices soar thanks to the government's ravenous desire for our cash and the urging of the Church of Public Health to ban everything that gives pleasure (because pleasure is addictive). And the consequence is that the criminals arrive:

As shoppers prepare to stock up on alcohol to celebrate the festive season, Essex County Council's Trading Standards team is warning that bottles of counterfeit spirits, particularly vodkas are in circulation. 

This won't only be in Essex - across the UK enterprising criminals are gaming the gap between the cost of production (or the price of purchase overseas) and the tax-inflated prices in Britain's shops. And the bigger the gap, the bigger the margins for the criminal and the greater the temptation to break the law.

The consequence, of course, is that stuff like this happens:

The illicit substances were tested and it was found the vodka was in fact industrial alcohol and contained a chemical commonly used in bleach, as well as xylene and toluene – two compounds found in paint stripper and dangerous for human consumption.

You see the criminals don't care. They're not bothered if they poison you or make you blind. Nor are these entrepreneurs fussed at all about selling fags and booze to children. And as the nannying fussbucketry continues, as the duty on booze and fags rises, the problem will get worse. Just look at Ireland:

Customs officials have smashed a major smuggling gang and seized nine million cigarettes.

Four men were being quizzed over the massive seizure following the intelligence led operation involving officers from Revenue’s Customs Service, in conjunction with CAB and Gardai.

This bust has an estimated potential loss to revenue of €3.7 million and estimated street value of €4.3 million.

Of course some people continue to pretend that all this isn't a problem -  denying that approach a quarter of the tobacco consumed in ireland is smuggled (because the data comes from the tobacco companies).

It seems wrong that adherents to the Church of Public Health are happy to see people poisoned, blinded or killed and for criminals to make millions from smuggling and manufacturing fakes rather than admit their approach isn't working.

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Of course, kids don't buy their fags from shops do they!

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I was struck by this comment in an article about why display bans don't work:

As both Emery et al and Harrison et al report, only about five per cent of young people purchase their cigarettes from retail venues. Given that the overwhelming majority of adolescents obtain their tobacco from friends or family, their beliefs about the retail accessibility of tobacco are irrelevant to the decision to smoke. This accounts for the fact that in Ireland, as elsewhere, there is little connection between youth smoking prevalence and the ease of access to tobacco products.

So ruining Mrs Smith's back as she bends behind the counter won't provide the health benefits the nannying fussbuckets would like to see then!

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A dark day for Ireland - electing a terrorist and friend of murderers to its parliament

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Gerry Adams was a leading member of the IRA when the organisation received support and funding - probably arms, too - from Libya:

In 1972, 29-year-old Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi made contact with leading Irish republican Joe Cahill through the Breton artist and sculptor Yann Goulet. The purpose of the approach was an offer of material assistance to the IRA whose struggle against British occupation of the Six Counties was reaching a new intensity. 

I'm sure Gerry Adams knew about this. And the story continues.

In 1973, when Seamus Twomey was arrested Gerry Adams took over as commanding officer of the IRA in Belfast. The Adams leadership was well able to match the body count which occurred under Twomey in 1972 which read, 81 innocent Catholics and 41 innocent Protestants mainly murdered in no warning IRA bomb attacks.

I'm sure Gerry Adams knew about this - his entire political life has been spent around murderers, hoodlums and thieves. Criminals made worse in that they took over a noble cause - uniting Ireland - and brought it violence, death and terror.

Today, Gerry Adams is elected to the Dail - representing the County of Louth, a place he has never lived and has no interest in. It is a dark day for that County and for Ireland. It would be better were Adams rotting in some jail instead of parading his evil across the Republic.

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European Union has served its purpose. Time to scrap it.

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What follows isn’t one of those ‘Little Englander’ rants about the iniquities of Johnny Foreigner and how Britain’s membership of the European Union is a bad thing – probably because there’s too many foreigners involved, don’t you know! Instead – as someone who once was a swivel-eyed Euro-fanatic – it is a simple and straightforward argument for the whole show to be shut down.

The European Union has done its job. Now it should pack its bags, shut up shop and shuffle onto the dusty shelves of history.

Whenever the leaders of Europe speak of the project they inevitably – as in some sub-clause to Godwin’s Law – refer to the need to prevent European nations tearing themselves asunder in an orgy of war and terror. This is why – as we heard most recently from Helmut Von Rumpuy – the Euro-enthusiast desires to link the sceptical view of the project to nationalism. By saying that scrapping the EU will lead to a renewed ‘nationalism’ (by which of course the speaker means brown or black shirts and jackboots), a further seed of doubt is sown into the mind of the undecided.

However, having presided over the reconstruction of Europe’s industry (behind tariff walls that, once removed, meant the terminal decline of those same industries), the rebuilding of good relations between the peoples of the continent and the collapse of centralist socialism as a national model, the EU now has no purpose. Indeed, it has become an anachronism, an historical nonsense. And an expensive one to boot!

European nations – for all our football fan bluster about the French or the Germans – are not going to war with each other. We’ve got pretty used to rubbing along with our neighbours and share an enormous amount with them. Continuing with supranational institutions achieves nothing – other than to create tensions where there need not be tensions.

So it is with Ireland. A little place. Smaller in population that London or Paris and stuck out on the fringes of Europe. A nation with a difficult relationship with its immediate neighbour and whose talent has, in the past, mostly left on boats and planes to create a noisy diaspora. This was the “Celtic Tiger” – explosive growth fuelled by an asset boom the like of which the place had never seen! And, as these things do, the economic train hit the wall.

But there’s a problem. Ireland – just as with Greece and soon, Portugal – is no longer master of its own destiny. The option of reducing the value of the currency has gone as has the ability to use a central bank to support actions in the market. Ireland can either default – with all the problems that entails – or cut spending.


The EU is in the way. Local economies in Europe are less able to respond to changes in the economic climate since the Governance of Europe will always be about German business and French government. For a while this mattered since the aim was to stop another war between these two countries. Today that's more likely with the EU than without. And, in the meantime, the economies of small countries are threatened by the controlling, economic dirigisme of the European system.
It is time for Europe to be set free again to grow, to create and to succeed. And for the Bonapartist myth of a single Europe to be returned again to the back shelves of history.
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The Spirit of Mystery - thoughts on reading Gerald of Wales

"In the south of Munster, near Cork there is a certain island which has within it a church of St Michael revered for its true holiness from ancient times. There is a certain stone there outside of, but almost touching, the door of the church on the right hand side. In a hollow of the upper part of this stone there is found every morning through the merits of the saints of the place as much wine as is necessary for the celebration of as many masses as there are priests to say Mass on that day there."

Or so Gerald of Wales tells us (among other tales of lions loving women, cows that were partly stags and oddly behaved Irish cocks). Sadly all these wonders have gone - we are incredulous these days and take against tales of wonder and magic. Yet in these tales there is a certain truth being told - in Gerald's case the truth of God's salvation as evidenced through the miracles of the saints. We should not dismiss such truth because it no longer accords with our knowledge. We know that Aurelius Ambrosianus didn't get Merlin to magic the "Giant's Dance" from Kildare to Salisbury Plain - there to form a memorial to:

"...a great crime committed when the flower of Britain's manhood was cut to pieces by the concealed daggers of the Saxons who, coming in the guise of peace with the weapons of treachery, killed the youth of the kingdom that had been so carelessly guarded."

Or do we. Is there not in our mind a place where it's possible that Merlin performed just such a deed, where stones outside churches miraculously produce wine each day and a land where the saints are "vindictive in nature". I'm sure there is - it's the part of the mind we're told to put away as grown ups. As Paul told us, we put away such childish fancies.

But I know you still love the spirit of mystery.





*For those who care about such matters, the church in the picture isn't the one in the tale but the church at Harty Ferry on the Isle of Sheppey - another place of mystery and wonder.
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