An badly-named group called the Dove World Outreach Centre and its leader, one Reverend Terry Jones, have gained notoriety of late for promoting ‘International Burn a Quran Day’.

A YouTube user I really like, Anekantavad, has an elegant riposte: Don’t Burn Any Books Day. He holds up a series of books from his library – 1984 by Orwell, the Bhagavadgita, the Quran, the Collected Works of Oscar Wilde, the Joy of Sex, Salammbo by Gustave Flaubert – and simply saying he will not be burning them or any other.

Quite a few YouTube users have followed suit, myself included. My books were A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M Miller Jr, In Defence of Politics by Bernard Crick, La Venganza de Don Mendo by Pablo Muñoz Seca, The Citadel by AJ Cronin, Reflections on Violence by Georges Sorel and the Anabasis by Xenophon.

He has collected various videos from people taking part in Don’t Burn Any Books Day in the playlist that follows below.

xD.

It seems Richard Barnbrook is not a happy bunny. On the front page of the BNP’s website is an article called “Richard Barnbrook Condemns “Anti-Democratic” Sabotage of His Website by Leadership Challenge Opponent’s Team“. It’s great to see the BNP are being fair and balanced, with such phrases as

British National Party GLA member and leadership challenger Richard Barnbrook has expressed his disgust at what the anti-democratic sabotage of his official website by the web designer of fellow leadership challenger Eddy Butler.

and

the disgraced traitor former BNP webmaster Simon Bennett

and

Although Bennett had of course been suspended from the party for his treason, it was Mr Butler’s right to employ whoever he wanted to in his campaign team, despite the obvious questions over Bennett’s suitability.

Nice to see the BNP having a falling out with itself.

xD.

The first in my ‘know your ism’ series.

xD.

Not only is Julia Gillard Welsh – she was born in Barry – she’s an atheist. She is, of course, the first woman to be PM of Australia, and drafted the affirmative actions rules “within the Labor Party in Victoria that set the target of preselecting women for 35 per cent of ‘winnable seats’[17] within a decade”. She was also involved in setting up EMILY’s List Australia. You can hear a brief interview with her on the subject of her atheism here.

xD.

The Face Coverings (Regulation) Bill, introduced by Philip Hollobone MP (Conservative – Kettering), has had its first reading.

Given Mr Hollobone’s previous statements that the burka is ‘against the British way of life’ and ‘offensive’, it is fairly clear to me what its intent is.

Three points.

Firstly, this is deeply illiberal. I shouldn’t need to say much more, but I will. I understand that there are times – airport security, for instance – where we do need to make sure that the person matches the passport and we seem to be managing just fine with providing an area where people who wear the burka can be identified and so on. However, if people are just going about their daily business, I think they should be able to wear more or less what they want. Short of that, this must rank as an extraordinary expansion of the writ of the state and I don’t want the introduction of some sort of sumptuary law.

Secondly, this isn’t the way to go about it. If we assume that the burka is indicative of oppression and isolation, I don’t see how a ban will remediate the situation. If the premise is that women are oppressed and forced to wear the burka, they can be compelled to remain at home or only leave it occasionally. If the premise is that they are an isolated community, ditto, with the additional bonus of feeding into the extremists’ (al-Mujahiroun, the Daily Express…) narrative that it is impossible to reconcile being British with being a Muslim. Mr Hollobone and his fellow-travellers in UKIP haven’t talked about education or reaching out, just about bans.

Thidly, unintended consequences. It is far too easy for me to see how a badly-worded bill could lead to situations like welders’ masks having to be removed if you’re not welding for more than half a minute and not being able to dress up as a ghost for Hallowe’en. The alternative is to specify that this law only applies to Muslim women.

Ultimately, I don’t think this is about covering one’s face. I think that is being used as a proxy for Islamophobia.

I find this proposal abhorrent and I’m glad to say that, as Mr Hollobone came seventeenth out of twenty in the ballot for Private Members’ Bills, I don’t think it stands any real chance of making progress. The second reading will be on December 3rd, by which point the text of the bill should be available.

xD.

I’m working on a slightly longer post about the British constitution at the moment; in the meantime, do take a look at some of my videos over at www.youtube.com/DLandonCole.