From that admirer of modern art, Alexandra, we learn that London's Tate gallery won't be showing a certain item in a planned exhibit of conceptual artist John Latham's work, due to concerns that Britain's Muslim community could be offended.
The title of the offensive work? "God is Great."
John Latham's God Is Great consists of a large sheet of thick glass with copies of Islam, Christianity and Judaism's most sacred texts - the Koran, Bible and Talmud - apparently embedded within its surface.The work was due to go on display last week in an exhibition dedicated to Latham at London's Tate Britain, but gallery officials took the unprecedented decision to veto it because of political and religious sensitivities.
Ah, those "political and religious sensitivities." That means, dear readers, fear of Muslim violence.
Now, all religions are irrational, I'll grant you that, and they all have bloody histories behind them, and I'll grant you that, too. But what we're facing today are worldwide movements of Muslims dedicated to blowing people up in the name of their religion, acting on that decision, and buffered by Muslim "moderates" making excuses for the murderous ways of their fellow believers. At least in most of western civilization today, no other religion can be so characterized.
Who wails, for example, over the innocents killed because of "Piss Christ?" No one does, because no one died. An execrable waste of human effort, that one, but nobody died over it, not even its perpetrator creator, Juan Serrano. What the Tate fears, with plenty of justification, is that Britons could be killed over "God is Great" -- and not because of violence from Jews or Christians, but from Muslims.
The hypocrisy here is that the Tate fears violence but doesn't quite come out and say so; no, they prefer to say that they don't want to offend "political and religious sensitivities." And that fear of violence is pretty damn justified, too, as the recent attack in Bali reminds us -- but they don't say that, either. They don't say it, even though there are plenty of people, in Britain, in Bali, and elsewhere, who regard resorting to violence as justified, even mandated, by their religion.
Artist Latham wants "God is Great" returned to him. Fine -- that's a matter between Latham and the Tate. And everyone observing this story -- especially those who like to speak of "root causes" -- should be aware that the fear of offense, and resulting violence, could have been sparked by adherents of any of the three religions depicted, no one of which is any more rational than the other. Probably neither Latham nor the Tate's trustees are aware of the meaning of that irony. If Latham were aware of it, perhaps he'd not make noise about wanting that particular work returned to him. But such observations have already been put forward ("Christianity had its violent past, too, you know..."), and while there's nothing wrong with that, it's irrelevant. We didn't see thousands of Catholic rioters or squads of suicide bombers reacting to "Piss Christ," and the Tate's not worried about Church of England communicants blowing up themselves and others over "God is Great." Can the Muslim Council of Britain honestly, and credibly, say the same of their fellow believers?
Ultimately, faith and force are corollaries, a point which has been made before. Appeasement didn't end in 1938, and the Tate incident won't be the last, either. And it won't stop the bombings, or the threats of more bombings.