Take It From One Who Knows

Salman Rushdie has come out strongly in support of the British Sikh playwright who caused an uproar in Birmingham recently by staging a play that featured a violent scene in a Sikh temple.

Rushdie seems to care more about traditional British values such as freedom of speech than most native British people these days -- or at least their government representatives like Fiona MacTaggart, a Home Office official who couldn't be arsed, as our British friends might say, to show a bit of support for the playwright, now in hiding to avoid death threats. Notes the Telegraph about Ms. MacTaggart:

A Home Office minister suggested yesterday that the violent protests that forced the cancellation of a play about Sikhs would ultimately benefit the author and the show.
Fiona Mactaggart refused to offer support for either the theatre, which came under siege, or the author, Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti, who is in hiding after reportedly receiving death threats.


Meanwhile, DumbJon notes that the L3 terror of offending religious sensibilities in the UK does not apply to the practioners of one particular religion (guess which one?):

You can always rely on Channel Four. These people really are the poster boys for Liberal Tourette's Syndrome. Other folk - the Beeb for one - can at least simulate normality when tactically necessary, but with C4 they just can't help themselves. Take the question of Christianity. Everyone knows the Left hates it, but try getting them to admit it. OTOH, you just know C4 can't let Christmas pass without unleashing its inner Linda Blair. Yes indeed - at 20:30 on Dec 25 itself, C4 will screen a program called 'Who really wrote the Bible' ? I mean, really. Yes, the exact provenance of the Bible is a subject worth discussing, but choosing that date to air the show is just an delibrate attempt to offend.


(Cross-posted at The Adventuress)

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