On the Today programme (0810) this morning, the Home Office minister Fiona Mactaggart — the minister who has been defending the proposed law against incitement to religious hatred — came close to justifying the Sikh violence which has succeeded in forcing the Birmingham Repertory Theatre to cancel the last ten performances of the play Behzti (Punjabi for ‘Dishonour’) . The Sikhs objected to the play because it depicts rape and murder in a Sikh temple. According to the Telegraph, after they first protested the theatre allowed them to circulate their objections to members of the audience. This did not placate the Sikhs who wanted the action moved away from the temple. Last Saturday night there was a riot outside the theatre involving more than 1000 Sikhs. Windows were smashed as the mob tried to storm the building, eggs were hurled, three police officers were injured and the play was stopped after 20 minutes. Since the Sikhs refused to guarantee that there would be no more violence, the theatre was forced to cancel the play to safeguard audiences and players. According to the Guardian, the Sikh playwright, Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti, has been forced to flee her home:

'"She has been threatened with murder and told to go into hiding by the police. She is personally paying a high price," said Shakila Taranum Mann, a filmmaker. "She feels this is an attempt to censor her. It is mob rule." '

Now by any normal standards, all this is appalling. This kind of violence and intimidation is simple criminal behaviour that should be stopped and the perpetrators punished, period. But instead of the theatre being protected from this intimidation and the play being able to proceed as a result, the play has had to be cancelled. Thus violence and intimidation have won the day in Birmingham, and a woman is now in hiding for having written a play that upset people.

So what was the government’s response to all this? Invited to comment, Ms Mactaggart first hid behind the pious disclaimer that the decision to cancel the play was entirely a matter for the theatre; then she went so far as to call the violence ‘very sad’ — ‘sad’?? since when is violent rioting, an attempt to storm a public building, assaulting three police officers and threatening a theatre company, the audience and a playwright ‘sad’? -- ; and finally issued the ringing statement that people were entitled to protest if their faith was insulted.

Well, I think Ms Mactaggart is an insult, to the intelligence and to democracy. Of course the Sikhs were entitled to protest and to object. There is all the difference in the world, however, between protest and violent intimidation. But most alarmingly, Britain is now a society where the greatest offence of all is to give offence. It is considered more heinous to offend people than to commit violence. This has been demonstrated by a number of incidents over recent years — such as the case of Harry Hammond (see January 14 post), who was attacked after he held up a poster calling for an end to homosexuality, lesbianism and immorality, but who was himself convicted of a public order offence. And in our multicultural society (sic), the very existence of the majority faith and its festivals is deemed to be offensive to minorities — who are themselves utterly baffled by such a ludicrous attitude.

In a devastating piece in the Times, Anthony Browne observes that Britain is committing cultural suicide by writing Christmas out of the script. As he so mordantly observes:

‘The Red Cross bans Nativity scenes in its shops… Christmas trees and decorations are banned in Britain’s Jobcentres… For the third consecutive year Christmas postage stamps will be Christless. A quarter of schools will not have Nativity plays, and almost as many have banned carols… Tony Blair’s Christmas cards have no reference to, well, Christmas. The Eden Centre in Cornwall has banned Christmas, replacing it with "a time of gifts. The war on Christmas is being waged across Christendom. In Italy, a school replaced the Nativity play with Little Red Riding Hood, while another replaced the word "Jesus" in carols with "virtue". The Mayor of Sydney caused outrage by reducing the city’s Christmas decorations to a single secular illuminated tree with the sign "Season’s greetings". The US now has a national "holiday tree" and schools take "winter holidays". Christianity has gone back to its origins, and become the world’s most widely persecuted religion, finally prompting the Vatican to hit back with a campaign against "Christianophobia".'

Paralysed by its own self-loathing and terror of giving offence through its very existence, the Church of England is just letting this happen with not a peep of protest; indeed, it is been avidly signing its own death warrant by genuflecting before the shrine of multiculturalism wherever possible. But of course, the way to assert itself is not to attack or intimidate people who may insult it. The nativity scene at Madame Tussaud’s featuring David and Victoria Beckham as Joseph and Mary was grossly insulting and disrespectful to Christianity. But it was still very wrong for a vandal to attack it.

Which brings us back to the Sikhs, who before this incident in Birmingham were the model of a law-abiding minority community. Indeed, in their passionate espousal of British values, they were in some ways more British than the British. So what on earth has come over them?

I think it is no coincidence that this has happened so soon after the new law against incitement to religious hatred was mooted. Sure, Sikhs are already covered, along with Jews, by the law against incitement to racial hatred. But as has been said before, there is a very great difference between inciting hatred against a race, to which people have no choice but to belong, and a religion, which is a matter of choice. The former is designed to prevent hatred of people; the latter, hatred of attitudes, opinions and texts. The former is a defence of liberty; the latter is a direct attack upon it. And it’s no use Ms Mactaggart insisting that the proposed law on religious hatred would not criminalise the giving of offence. It would. All religions, just like atheism or secularism, give offence to someone, and very often that someone claims that the perceived insult amounts to incitement to hatred. Sometimes this is true; sometimes it is not. But the blunt instrument of the law will not distinguish the one from the other.

The Sikhs understand that this law has been proposed because the Muslims have effectively threatened the British government, which (as more candid members privately admit) is throwing them this bone to buy their votes at the general election. So if the Muslims can get their way by flexing their muscle, why can’t the Sikhs? If Muslims can destroy a fundamental liberal principle by jumping up and down about being insulted, then why can’t the Sikhs?

Our laws against incitement to violence are very rarely used, despite clear evidence. And yet we are now arriving at a situation where legitimate opinion or drama is to be suppressed at the behest of violence or intimidation -- which will therefore have won twice over. The result will be increasing violence, as competing groups abandon the battleground of words to settle their differences on the streets instead.

This is decadence — a culture dying on its knees before the spectres of violence and intimidation, in a vain attempt to appease the forces that now threaten to destroy it.