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The French report calling for a ban on women wearing Islamic face veils worries me, for a number of reasons. Don't get me wrong, I think the world would be a better place in general if religion ceased to exist, but I don't think banning it, or specific religious practices, is the way forward.
I'd base my reasoning, in part, on John Stuart Mill: “the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others”. The wearing of a veil, when done willingly and without coercion or manipulation, harms nobody; therefore, it should be permitted.
The supporters of the report claim that “it is the symbol of the repression of women”; while ending the oppression of women is a goal I'd wholeheartedly support, I'm not entirely convinced that fining women for being oppressed is a particularly helpful solution. Punish men who force women to wear the burka; don't punish women who are forced to wear it (and, for that matter, don't punish women who wear it by choice).
The report also recommends that anyone showing signs of “radical religious practice” be refused citizenship or residence. Again, not necessarily a bad thing, assuming for the moment that “radical religious practice” is harmful to others; however, I suspect that the burka is a much more obvious symbol of “radical religious practice” than anything that might be worn by men, leading to disproportionate punishment of women.
In discussion with members of TermiSoc, I took my position further: though in many cases, religion is harmful to liberty, banning or restricting religion and most religious practices would be in contradiction with the Harm Principle quoted above.
It does not hurt others, for example, for someone to believe that the world was created by an omnipotent being. It does not hurt others, even, for someone to believe that the world was created in six days 6014 years ago, any more than it hurts others for someone to believe that the sky is green or that there is a china teapot orbiting the sun between Earth and Mars. They are almost certainly incorrect, but they have the right to be.
The point at which it becomes legitimate to oppose religion is the point at which it begins to affect others. When people demand that children are taught about the orbitting teapot as if it were fact, or at least likely, oppose it: being taught something as if it is fact when it is not is harmful. When people demand that women wear robes that covers their entire body aside from their eyes, oppose that, and oppose violence against women who don't wear it (in fact, oppose violence against all women) – but don't, as explained above, punish the victims for being victims. Conversely, when people try to demand that someone not wear a symbol of their faith, oppose that – a crucifix or turban harms nobody, and thus there are no grounds on which to forbid it.
When people try to pass laws based solely on their religion, oppose them, because while people may opt into a set of religious laws if they like, such laws shouldn't be enforced upon others. In fact, any laws that are not simply an application of the Harm Principle should be opposed: government has no right to exercise power over individuals for any other purpose, and neither do other individuals.
There's been a lot of discussion recently about the banning of the fundamentalist group “Islam4UK”. Opinions are strongly divided; many people on both the left and the right think it was perfectly acceptable, while others (at least on the left; I'm afraid I don't know of any sensible right-wingers, or even if such a thing exists) believe that “free speech should be absolute”, or at least that Islam4UK had not abused freedom of speech (nobody had shouted “fire” in a crowded theatre, for example).
I'm in the second camp; I'll explain my reasoning shortly, but first I want to talk about the Governmental tactic of proscribing organisations that are seen to be a threat.
What exactly does this achieve? Fundamentally, all any organisation, of any kind, is, is a group of people and a name. Proscribing an organisation does not forbid its members from associating with any other members (and indeed cannot, as freedom to associate is a fundamental human right). Therefore all it does is prevent people from using a particular name, which is completely impractical in preventing any sort of crime (al-Qaeda would be unlikely to operate under that name in the UK even if it were permitted, so why should they care what name they use?). In fact, Islam4UK is just the latest of a series of names used by what is effectively the same organisation: proscribing it is clearly achieving nothing.
If the members of Islam4UK have committed a crime, prosecute them for it. If they have not, then do not. It's not a complicated matter. “Proscribing” an organisation is about as effective as demanding that they stop misbehaving without actually doing anything about it.
As for the wider freedom of speech issue: as David Mitchell argued in the Guardian, protecting the right of free speech even for people with whom you disagree is essential for a free society. I don't agree with what Islam4UK have to say – but then, I don't agree with what the other side have to say either. I doubt that living in a Muslim nation with enforced Muslim religious law would be any worse than living in a Christian nation with enforced Christian religious law (or “values”, as they're generally called). I put up with Islamic nutters like Anjem Choudary for the same reason that I put up Christian nutters like Rowan Williams – because, loony or not, they have the right to an opinion and to express it. (Incidentally, Dr Williams: yes, I do think you're an oddball, along with any other grown man or woman with an imaginary friend, but you're not doing any harm so feel free to carry on.)
Nobody seriously considers preventing the BNP and similar organisations from having their say – as much as I wish they'd shut up and go away on their own, and as much as I support acting against them wherever possible, even I don't believe that banning them outright would help in the slightest. Why, then, should they be permitted to have their say and not other, similarly extremist groups?
I'm not arguing that free speech is, or should be, absolute – as mentioned, the crowded theatre is the canonical example of when free speech should be limited. If their speech caused harm, or was likely to cause harm, then by all means restrict it; if they want to incite a mob to rampage across a city, burning and looting as they go, then lock them up. If they want to express their disagreement with the UK's involvement in the Middle East (which, by the way, I would entirely sympathise with), then stop whinging, let them go ahead, then organise your own march to express your support for the war. Don't stop people having their say, just have your own say back. More speech, not less, is the way forward.
For quite some time, I've believed very firmly that public services should be public — not private, run for the benefit of their shareholders to maximise their profits, but public, run for the public good, to maximise the service provided to the people who use the public service. There's a simple reason for this — while a privately-provided service might operate in the best interests of its users if that provides the maximum profit, if there's another way to make a larger profit (like, say, screwing over the customers any way they can) then they will do so. Further, many public services are natural monopolies (it's difficult, for example, to run multiple competing train services along the same route, without causing accidents), so it's hard to ensure competition (which, hopefully, would keep prices down).
However, more recently, I've become less convinced that having all services centralised under Government control is necessarily a good thing — rather, it's just another sort of monopoly, and even with the most benevolent government in history that's less than ideal. It also limits regional autonomy, which is often desired in public services — Devon and Cornwall are very different to Greater London and should be run in different ways.
However, there's a third wa–no, wait. We've had a third way and it was just like the first one. How about a fourth way? Public services, public ownership (“common ownership of the means of production”, even) does not require ownership by the government — why not ownership by the public?
There are probably a dozen different ways in which a co-operatively-run transport system could work, but the model which occurs to me is one of many small, regional co-operatives running local bus services (and metro, and so on). Think Transport for London, but run by the citizens (London is possibly too big an area for a single co-operative — perhaps one per borough would work better, but I don't want to get too bogged down in specifics — the only way to know is to try and see what works). The boundaries of these co-operatives might coincide with council boundaries, but that's not a requirement — in some cases, it might be more practical for an area to belong to a different co-operative, or to more than one (Torpoint and Saltash spring to mind, on the Cornish side of the river but with regular bus services to Plymouth as well as Liskeard).
These co-operatives would be responsible for all the public transport infrastructure in a small area — managing the local railway station and lines, maintaining bus stops as well as planning and organising services and maintaining the vehicle fleet (of course, there'd be nothing stopping someone starting a private bus company, but why use a private bus when you can use one in which you have a say in the running of?). How, though, would transport on a larger scale work — say national rail services, or (assuming London was split into several co-operatives) services across the capital?
Co-operatives with a stake in the service (both those with stops or stations as well as those responsible for the track used, even if a long-distance service passes through the area without stopping) would work together to negotiate the services needed to best benefit the users. This would work on both a small scale (Plymouth to Torbay bus services, with Ivybridge, Totnes and Newton Abbot consulted as to how many services should stop in each and how many should pass them by, as well as arranging matters so that the buses are sensibly spaced out) and a larger one — the Edinburgh to Penzance service (which would obviously involve many separate groups, all of whom should have a say in how the service is run).
More specifics are difficult to give — it's difficult to say what will work and what won't without trying it, and correcting problems as they arise. Probably someone with more knowledge of co-operatives could say more about the practical details that I could; this is just a general suggestion from me.
A couple of days ago I watched Twilight, for two reasons – one, I thought it only fair that I watch it before ranting about how terrible it is, and two, I was really bored.
It wasn't the worst film I've ever seen; I wasn't forced to turn it off in disgust after ten minutes. However, I think that's probably because I have a lower threshold for boredom than for things pissing me off.
It's not the plot that I have an issue with, per se, as the characters. I think the same general plot could be reasonably good, given better lead characters.
Firstly, Edward. Let's start with the age thing. He's supposedly the same age as Bella – seventeen. However, in his own words, he's been seventeen for “a while”. Ninety years, as it happens. Why, exactly, is a centenarian picking up teenage girls? In what universe is that appropriate? Age differences are all well and good, but he's old enough to be her great-grandfather.
It might be okay, of course, if he was slightly less, um, obsessive and creepy. Let's see – he regularly breaks into her house and watches her sleep without her consent or even knowledge. He stalks her “for her own good”. He repeatedly talks about how he wants to kill her – how, in fact, it's a constant struggle for him not to do so. How, exactly, is that romantic? If that's not an abusive relationship, it's on the way there; apparently he gets even worse in the later books, abandoning her “for her own good”, then returning, only to make her leave her family and friends to be with him (or is it “for her own good” again?).
I wasn't going to comment on the “sparkly vampire” thing, but as I've been writing this it's been bugging me more and more. There are thousands of vampire legends. They share many features in common, and have many more unique points. If you're going to write vampire fiction, you could take elements from any of these to come up with something new and unique – a dozen times over, probably. Or you could make up your own, fitting in with the general vampire theme. I quite like how Interview With The Vampire explains which of the vampire legends are true and which aren't, tying it in nicely with the real world and the millennia of folklore. Or, you could make up something that sounds more appropriate to a My Little Pony than a vampire, explain it away as something that “evolved” as a way of catching prey (vampires “evolved”? how? and how does evolution fit in with Stephanie Meyer's much-vaunted Mormon faith?).
The problem with Bella is the complete lack of a character. She's a face, a name, and a bit of backstory. There's nothing to distinguish her, no reason for her even to exist other than as someone for Edward to fall in love with (supposedly). At first, she demonstrates that she's relatively intelligent (she recognises the square root of pi being recited, completely out of context, and manages to figure out the truth about Edward through research). However, even that seems to disappear once they become a couple, and once she's put in a dangerous situation.
That's the big problem I have: she's in danger, so she must sit around and be rescued by her boyfriend and his family. Earlier in the film, she was perfectly willing to try to defend herself (though, again, rescued by Edward, who'd conveniently been stalking her for her own protection). Now, though, she just gives up, completely incapable of acting on her own behalf. She doesn't even seem to play a role in planning her own escape and the trap for the vampire who's threatening her. In fact, the only part she does play is to put herself in even more danger, so that Edward looks even better when he shows up to rescue her.
Is this really something that should be encouraged? Girls, don't think for yourselves, don't live your own lives; just sit around and wait for a controlling, obsessive, abusive — sorry, I mean “romantic” — guy, then live your life exactly how he wants you to, get married and have his kids (even if it means risking your own life to do so – because abortions are under no circumstances acceptable), and so on, and so forth. Just conform to the strictest, most out-of-date gender roles you can – welcome back to the 1950s!
A few links to finish: Buffy v. Edward, an amusing mashup video (Flash, sorry, but links to other formats), and the writeup that goes with it, plus another article: Twilight's Bella Swan is a Feminist's Nightmare – I particularly liked a comment that pointed out that if Edward wasn't good-looking, his behaviour would be obviously unacceptable, but because he is it's considered “romantic”. I also like all the other comments from fans jumping to Twilight's defence at the slightest hint of criticism…
(And just one minor point to finish off with: I don't know what sort of vegetarians Stephanie Meyer has met, but if you eat animals you are by definition not one. Calling yourself a vegetarian because you don't eat humans is like calling yourself a vegetarian because you don't eat red meat. Just saying.)