The Virtual Gigolo

And the drama continues…

Rushdie hurt the feelings of the Islamic world by writing a blasphemous book. Awarding the knighthood is an attempt to weaken the ongoing dialogue between religions,” Liaquat Baloch, parliamentary leader of the radical MMA alliance of religious parties, told the AFP news agency.

As parts of Pakistan’s government and a large chunk of its population puts up virtual banner adverts announcing to the world what a backward nation they want to live in. Maybe they should just produce a map where most of the world is marked “here be dragons”, the level of communication doesn’t appear to reach much higher levels. What a sad sad world we live in.

I really don’t understand why, however much we show our acceptance of Muslims, however much it should be obvious that we see Muslims as normal people, the “elite” in certain countries of the world appear to conspire to make their own religion look stupid. Is it necessary, for example, for the Iranian government to spend so many hours concentrating on nothing but Israel no religious grounds? The latest episode of course is poor Salman Rushdie. I say poor because the stigmatisation of the man by certain segments of the international community has been at ridiculously low levels for many years. The fatwa was a problem suggesting an extreme oversensitivity in Iran, and after ten years it was thought that they had grown up a little and let it slide.

Now the UK has offered Mr Rushdie a knighthood. An honour that, far from harking back to Imperial times (though in name I realise the honours do) is just that, a way to honour an individual for his work. Some honours appear frivolous, but that doesn’t mean that they are stepping back into bygone times.

The more serious level of stupidity in the situation of course comes from comments that Sir Salman’s honour shows signs of “islamophobia”. What a ridiculous statement. Yet again all that has happened is that the Pakistani and Iranian governments have made a concerted effort to make their religion look stupid. What they fail to realise is that British Muslims do not provide the same source of entertainment, they separate themselves from the intelligent western Muslim masses who are lucky that most westerners are also intelligent enough to see through the comments, and realise that idiocy from Muslim governments in no way means that all Muslims are at the same intellectual level.

I realise this is late, but I’m posting on request. The question brought up by the news that the government has launched a 1 million GBP project to train Imams on taxpayers money. The responses to this have been mixed, but largely negative. It seems to me that the negative arguments look at it entirely the wrong way.

The first question to ask is, does the state pay to train any other religious leaders? It’s not entirely clear to me whether it does or not, but if so (and would an Oxbridge theology course not count in many ways?) why should Islam by treated any differently? If the state funds Christian leader training, then why not Muslim leader training?

The second question is are Muslim leaders any different from other jobs? That is to say I have been trained as a software engineer, the state funded that, and I had a right to that funding given the situation in the UK that university is largely a state funded system. Assuming then that university is to be state funded, certain apprenticeships get state funding, many practical college courses get state funding, is training someone to do a religious job any different? It is my view that while religious education at school level is wrong, because children are not old enough to choose a religion at a young age, by the time the reach university it would be misguided to assume that they cannot have chosen a religious career path, and hence if we are funding other career paths, why not religious ones as well?

The third question refers to the benefits to society of Imam training regarding finance. Should we pay for any training that has no economic benefit? I point you in the direction of a Classics degree. What economic benefit does a Classics degree provide? Surely the benefit is not in the degree itself, but in the general education and cultural awareness the existence of such courses promotes? Given the questionable affordability of further and higher education funding at this time, it could be argued that state support should be adapted slightly by economic need, but in a perfectly funded education system economic benefits should not come into funding decisions.

The final question refers to the benefits to society of Imam training regarding religious tolerance. In the UK we have a low level of religious involvement. Many have argued that this is a result of the existence of a state religion. What more reason would people have for not going to church having had all their will to do so forced out of them at school? The lack of interest in Shakespeare among adults may well have a similar source. Surely then, training Imams in a British context, with British values mixed in with the necessarily Muslim training can only be a good thing?