Oh God. It's one of those moments I'm going to dare to argue something that overtly seems to contradict the values I normally espouse. It causes me physical pain to agree with right-wing pundits over anything, even loosely, but if nothing else I guess it shows I dare to think for myself, and refuse to bow to tribalism.
I f**king detest Boris Johnson, and everything he stands for.
Indeed, anyone who follows my blog would know I oppose these Tories and 'Brextremists' virulently, with every fibre of my being. But of all the incomprehensibly stupid and offensive stuff he's said, saying "no burkas shouldn't be banned, but they look ridiculous, it makes them look like bank robbers... it's like talking to a letter-box"?
Well... it's remarkably small-fry. And people getting so up-in-arms is EXACTLY what the far-right want. And it's EXACTLY why he did it.
Why? Because the brouhaha IS oppressing free speech; no two ways about it. It may have been a distasteful comment that someone in his position shouldn't have made, and it may well have been used to rile up those who are prejudiced. But an observational comparison with an inanimate piece of clothing, is not in any way racist. It's just not.
What all these "offended" people are doing, is actually giving credence and legitimacy to arguments the right-wing would have us believe are the reason they feel the way they do. (Which is bollocks, they're mostly just racist and hateful.) We're giving them moral justification and high-ground. In fact, Johnson's comments were most likely deliberately cooked up by him and Bannon as a deliberate ploy, exactly to 'split the chamber'. To divide the left (yet again) between moral do-gooders clinging to a virtue-signalling bandwagon, and more reasonable types who'll dare to say "hang on a minute."
EG: it was another trap to fuel right-wing support, and the liberal-leaning/well-intending British public, as usual, fell right into it.
The end goal? We've just made Boris even more of a flaming hero, to some. Check the Sky News data polls if in any doubt, support for him has come out of the woodwork, from every corner. We've made him relevant again, and given him a new slogan - one with painfully reminiscent overtones of what put Trump where he is today. It's all a calculated chess game, and we just handed him greater control of the board.
Like the whole debacle with Tommy Robinson, and countless fascist/populist rabble-rousers before him, allowing them the opportunity to play on the whole "being censored" thing, is a grave mistake.
Is Johnson a dangerous liar and hypocrite? Yes. Was it an inappropriate thing for a statesman to say? Yes.
Is Johnson most likely a racist, cut from the same cloth as Steve Bannon and Trump etc? Yes. Should we be terrified he's in cahoots with them? Yes. Was this a dog-whistle to racists, Tommy Robinson supporters, and general scumbags? YES.
But the comment itself was about a piece of clothing. When we start censoring observational humour and free speech to such degree, it's a slippery slope. I wouldn't think twice about joking that a Catholic/Orthodox priest or Jewish Rabbi looks like some kind of dodgy wizard, and I'm no racist. (Just an atheist/agnostic, who finds all religion ridiculous.)
So while I agree Johnson undoubtedly did this for nefarious reasons, I'm most concerned that free speech and observational humour - the likes of which we hear from people like Frankie Boyle and Jimmy Carr all the time - should not get caught in the crossfire. That is definitely not cool. I defy anyone to say what should or shouldn't be considered funny. You just have to reap the consequences if it's not, and run the risk of being considered a hateful bigot if your jokes go too far. (Which used to be a deterrent in itself.)
I've been all over this globe, and truly believe the cultural differences between men and women, and between people from different parts of the world... the stereotypes and funny quirks, endearing and not-so endearing traits etc: our ability to laugh and joke about them is what makes us free. When we can't, we're not.
True equality, true liberalism, is saying "you can believe in whatever you want, be whatever you want to be, dress however you want to dress etc - just as it's equally my right to take the piss and say you're talking nonsense, or to say you look ridiculous."
We cannot... we MUST NOT lose that.
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