Friday, February 17, 2006
They’re not Big Brother – they’re just your Mum
As I lay in bed yesterday morning, listening to Radio 4, I was reminded of a conversation I had about 10 years ago. For some reason I’d got talking about the likelihood of a fascist regime taking over in the UK, I can’t remember why.
But I do remember saying that I thought an authoritarian regime based on Nazi principles would never take hold in the UK. There is, rightly, far too much popular revulsion towards racism (overt racism, at least). No, I said, if somebody wanted to take away our everyday freedoms they would have to use another tack. Anti-racism, for example – because nobody would want to be tarred as a racist by opposing such measures. In the name of protecting the oppressed minorities, all sorts of laws could be passed while the liberal-minded felt too guilty to object. This was years ago, of course, long before New Labour told us that Things Could Only Get Better.
And this conversation came back to me in the most chilling way as I listened to the Today programme telling me about the newest measures being introduced for my own protection. Smoking will no longer be allowed in pubs, or even private members clubs – some newspapers felt the need to point out that it will (for now) still be allowed in your own home. Glorifying terrorism will be a crime, since listening to somebody who thinks it’s great to blow up innocent people is apparently enough to turn us all into suicide bombers. Saying anything that could be taken as inciting others to hate people on account of their religion will be a crime. Looking at the wrong kind of porn on the Internet will be a crime. All in the name of protecting the weak – or the vulnerable, as we now call them – from the countless evils of human nature.
The irony is that I don’t even think the British government is setting out to be a dictatorship. I think they genuinely believe that we need to be protected from ourselves. Those who argued that allowing smoking to continue in pubs that didn’t serve food would be unfair on the working classes (sorry, the socially disadvantaged) really think that their duty to the people Labour was created to represent is to be their Mum. Coax and bully them out of their unhealthy habits, improve their self-esteem by telling them they’re just as good as the posh kids really, and make sure they eat properly.
But we’re not children. We are the adults to whom the government is accountable – and not the other way around. I want to defend my opinions in open, public debate, not in a court of law to an Attorney General who will decide whether they are too dangerous or offensive for the vulnerable ears of some minority group. How much "respect" does it show for Muslims, or gay people, or whoever, to think that they can’t bear to hear or read something rude about them, or what they hold dear?
We’ve missed a golden chance to play the system against itself, of course. If we’d started a religion of which smoking tobacco was a central observance, and chosen pubs as our places of worship, the new anti-smoking laws would be inciting hatred against us as Smokers. The whole edifice might have imploded in a puff of crazy logic.
If puffs of anything are still allowed, of course.
But I do remember saying that I thought an authoritarian regime based on Nazi principles would never take hold in the UK. There is, rightly, far too much popular revulsion towards racism (overt racism, at least). No, I said, if somebody wanted to take away our everyday freedoms they would have to use another tack. Anti-racism, for example – because nobody would want to be tarred as a racist by opposing such measures. In the name of protecting the oppressed minorities, all sorts of laws could be passed while the liberal-minded felt too guilty to object. This was years ago, of course, long before New Labour told us that Things Could Only Get Better.
And this conversation came back to me in the most chilling way as I listened to the Today programme telling me about the newest measures being introduced for my own protection. Smoking will no longer be allowed in pubs, or even private members clubs – some newspapers felt the need to point out that it will (for now) still be allowed in your own home. Glorifying terrorism will be a crime, since listening to somebody who thinks it’s great to blow up innocent people is apparently enough to turn us all into suicide bombers. Saying anything that could be taken as inciting others to hate people on account of their religion will be a crime. Looking at the wrong kind of porn on the Internet will be a crime. All in the name of protecting the weak – or the vulnerable, as we now call them – from the countless evils of human nature.
The irony is that I don’t even think the British government is setting out to be a dictatorship. I think they genuinely believe that we need to be protected from ourselves. Those who argued that allowing smoking to continue in pubs that didn’t serve food would be unfair on the working classes (sorry, the socially disadvantaged) really think that their duty to the people Labour was created to represent is to be their Mum. Coax and bully them out of their unhealthy habits, improve their self-esteem by telling them they’re just as good as the posh kids really, and make sure they eat properly.
But we’re not children. We are the adults to whom the government is accountable – and not the other way around. I want to defend my opinions in open, public debate, not in a court of law to an Attorney General who will decide whether they are too dangerous or offensive for the vulnerable ears of some minority group. How much "respect" does it show for Muslims, or gay people, or whoever, to think that they can’t bear to hear or read something rude about them, or what they hold dear?
We’ve missed a golden chance to play the system against itself, of course. If we’d started a religion of which smoking tobacco was a central observance, and chosen pubs as our places of worship, the new anti-smoking laws would be inciting hatred against us as Smokers. The whole edifice might have imploded in a puff of crazy logic.
If puffs of anything are still allowed, of course.
