Dispatches: Holy Offensive
First shown on Channel 4 in February 2005
Channel 4's Holy Offensive is a documentary that examines two highly publicised clashes between artistic freedom and religious belief in today's Britain. Both are from the world of theatre, an art form usually thought of as old-fashioned, but which keeps finding itself at the cutting edge of contemporary culture wars.
On 9 December 2004, the Birmingham Rep theatre staged Behzti (Dishonour), a play by Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti. Eleven days later, it was taken off after protests by local Sikhs escalated into violence. The reason given for the cancellation was that the theatre could no longer guarantee the safety of its audiences. Newspapers reported that both author and cast members had received death threats.
The following month, the BBC was attacked for planning to screen the musical Jerry Springer: The Opera, which had opened at the National Theatre in London in April 2003, transferring to the West End that November. Despite vocal protests from both Christian and Muslim groups outside Broadcasting House, including the symbolic burning of television licences, the programme was broadcast at 10pm on 8 January 2005.
Blasphemy
What links both incidents is the idea of blasphemy, which means any word or sign which intentionally offends God. This includes anything that insults the goodness of God or ridicules religious belief. In Christian Europe, blasphemy was a crime punishable by death until the Enlightenment of the 18th century, and Britain still has blasphemy laws, although they are now very rarely used. In Muslim countries, it is also a crime.
Behztiwas condemned by Sikhs because the play, a black comedy about two Sikh women in a Gurdwara (Sikh place of worship), involves scenes of sexual abuse and violence. Staging this in a religious location caused offence. For example, Inderjit Singh of the Sikh Messenger says: 'It took all the nasty aspects of life, and put them in the holiest place, a temple, and that is grossly insulting.' Vincent Nichols, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Birmingham, agrees: 'Such a deliberate, even if fictional, violation of the sacred place of the Sikh religion demeans the sacred place of every religion. People of all faiths, therefore, will be offended.'
Jerry Springer: The Opera provoked a record number of protests -- about 47,000, compared with 1,554 against Martin Scorsese's film The Last Temptation of Christ. It was attacked not only because the songs – like, 'Chick with a Dick' – feature dozens of swear words, but also because the second half of the show includes mockery of Christian figures such as Jesus and Mary, who appear on stage. The blasphemous scene is a row between Satan and Jesus, who admits he is 'a bit gay'. Church groups argued that the scene in which Jesus wears a nappy was blasphemous.
The Right Reverend David Parsons of Highfield Road Baptist Church, Dartford, urged people to e-mail and call the BBC to stop the screening. Christian websites urged similar actions. The Churches Media Council says: 'The proximity of the broadcast to Christmas was bad timing,' adding that there was the 'possibility of deep and lasting offence being felt by some Christians'. What 'might be acceptable in the theatre was not necessarily acceptable in a public service broadcaster.'
Defence
Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti says: 'I certainly did not write Behzti to offend. It is a sincere piece of work which explores how human frailties can lead people into a prison of hypocrisy.' As such, 'Its themes are universal.'
On 23 December 2004, 700 supporters signed an open letter deploring the violent events which led to the play's cancellation. They wrote: 'It is a legitimate function of art to provoke debate and sometimes to express controversial ideas. A genuinely free, pluralist society would celebrate this aspect of our culture. Those who use violent means to silence it must be vigorously opposed.'
Artist Shakila Taranum Mann defended the play, saying it explored important stories of people in authority abusing their positions. 'I am extremely worried about what this [cancellation] means for people like me and the art we create. This is mob rule. If people feel so strongly that they act like this, is their faith not built on quicksand because it can be so easily swayed?'
Stewart Lee, one of the creators of Jerry Springer: The Opera, defended the BBC's decision to broadcast: 'As a former CofE choirboy with a B in Religious Studies at A-level, I feel almost over-qualified to defend our position. We think it bodes well for BBC2's future that it has chosen to schedule a demanding and often difficult theatre piece.' The BBC's Director of Television, Jana Bennett, said, 'It's a really good piece of opera that has something to say. I wouldn't accept that you could say it is blasphemous.'
Terry Sanderson of the National Secular Society adds, 'This organised attack is the latest of a series of attempts by religious interests to control what we can see or say in this country. Viewers have a right to see it. Those who are likely to be offended have a similar right to turn it off.'
Did you know?
These two cases are by no means unique.
- Earlier in 2004, the BBC cancelled Popetown, a satirical animated series set in a fictional Vatican, after complaints from Catholics. They also complained about a nativity scene at Madame Tussauds, which depicted celebrities David Beckham and his wife Victoria as Jesus's parents. It was removed after being violently attacked by a visitor.
- The last theatre artist to be prosecuted was Michael Bogdanov, director of Howard Brenton's The Romans in Britain, staged at the National Theatre in October 1980. Moral campaigner Mary Whitehouse took out a private prosecution for obscenity because of a scene showing a homosexual rape. But when it came to court, Whitehouse withdrew her prosecution.
- The last person to be successfully prosecuted for blasphemous libel was Denis Lemon, the editor of Gay News, in 1976. Whitehouse successfully prosecuted him for publishing a 66-line homoerotic poem: 'The Love That Dares To Speak Its Name'. Lemon received a nine-month suspended sentence, which was later quashed.
- In the 1990s, writer Salman Rushdie was forced into a decade of hiding and police protection. Claiming that his novel, The Satanic Verses (1988), was blasphemous, The Iranian government issued a fatwa against him in February 1989, which resulted in his book being publicly burned in Bradford.
Such incidents illustrate a trend. In the past, the British state was the main censor, using the law to control theatre (in Britain censorship lasted until 1968) and to regulate the arts, with the blasphemy laws to protect religious sensibility. In more recent years, the state has become increasingly liberal, while special interest groups have become more vocal. These groups either create media storms that try to silence artists by generating uncomfortable publicity, or use laws for private prosecutions.
Incitement
New legislation may soon take the place of blasphemy laws. A proposed new law on incitement to religious hatred is part of the Serious Organised Crime and Police Bill (2005). This would make it an offence to 'knowingly use words, behaviour or material that is threatening, abusive or insulting with the intention or likely effect that hatred will be stirred up against a group of people targeted because of their religious beliefs'.
When then Home Secretary David Blunkett tried to introduce a similar law as part of his Anti-Terrorism Crime and Security Act 2001, the House of Lords threw it out. Now, a very wide coalition of people oppose the new law, partly because of fears that it might be used to limit freedom of expression by comedians or artists who criticise religion.
On 7 February 2005, the government decided to rename the offence 'Hatred against persons on racial or religious grounds' to make clear that it is not religious jokes, beliefs or ideas that are being targeted. Opponents of the legislation dismiss the change as no more than a 'slight improvement', arguing that it still threatens Britain's tradition of free speech.
Nicholas Hytner, head of the National Theatre, says the new law will 'strike fear' into artists and result in self-censorship. 'I claim the right to be as offensive as I choose about what other people think, and to tell any story that I choose,' he says. 'No one has the right not to be offended.' The National will be presenting plays in 2005 that challenge religious belief. One by Howard Brenton will look critically at the life of St Paul.
Pragna Patel, of Southall Black Sisters, says: 'This law won't be used against racists but against people, such as women, who dissent within their own communities. Moderates want it because it means they get state support to police their own communities.' The Behztiaffair shows that the issue is not freedom of expression, but the right to dissent. 'Women tend to be more often critical, and women are more easily silenced. In many communities, there is growing intolerance, and especially of women's dissent.'
Keith Porteous Wood of the National Secular Society, says: 'The best way to combat religious extremism is to encourage our already-threatened freedom of expression. These proposals have the opposite effect – even if only through self-censorship – with seven-year imprisonment possible and dangerously low prosecution thresholds. The measures are unnecessary because incitement to violence is already illegal.'
Truth is strong
The last word goes to the English poet John Milton (1608-1674). In 1644, he wrote Areopagitica, advocating freedom of publication. Although he was a religious believer, and part of the Puritan movement, he realised that censorship weakens truth. 'I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue, unexercised and unbreathed, that never sallies out and sees her adversary.'
Milton had confidence that truth would win any argument: 'Though all the winds of doctrine were let loose to play upon the earth, so Truth be in the field, we do ingloriously, by licensing and prohibiting, to misdoubt her strength. Let her and Falsehood grapple: who ever knew Truth put to the worse in a free and open encounter?'
Aleks Sierz
