One of the things which disturbed me about the Beijing Olympics was the lack of humour in any of the proceedings. Once a society no longer has a capacity to laugh at itself, I think it’s an indicator that there is something seriously wrong.
An offhand joke by British Muslim woman Halima Aziz led to her being suspended from her job for seven years. In October 2001 (shortly after the September 11 attacks), Ms Aziz, a lawyer for the Crown Prosecution Service was attending the Bradford Magistrates’ Court when a security guard asked her if she was a security risk. Rather than getting angry at the guard, she joked in response, ”I’m a friend of bin Laden’s.”
Shortly thereafter, she was suspended from duties with the CPS for the comment. In part, this was because it was wrongly believed that her comment had provoked a riot between Asian and white youths at the Court. She was also wrongly accused of making anti-US comments and statements that the Jews caused the September 11 bombing. All of these accusations were false.
Now, seven years later, she has been awarded £600,000 compensation by an employment tribunal for her wrongful suspension and discriminatory treatment. She believes that she would not have been treated in the same way if she had been white and had made the offhand remark. The tribunal agreed, saying:
This would be completely unacceptable response on the part of any employer but for a public body like the Crown Prosecution Service it can only be regarded as astonishing.
Ms Aziz plans to use the money to construct an orphanage in Pakistan. In addition to the compensation payout, the CPS spent over £500,000 in legal fees. The Daily Mail article notes that the average payout to victims of the 7/7 attacks in London is around £7,500.
It’s a pretty poor indictment on society when this kind of offhand comment gets blown out of all proportion, with devastating consequences for Ms Aziz. I have to say that I would be tempted to respond in exactly the same way if a security guard asked me if I was a security risk. It doesn’t say much for the CPS administration either. They’d be better off spending their money on prosecuting real crimes rather than defending actions such as these. Unfortunately, it just shows how Bin Laden and Al Qaeda have succeeded in sowing division and suspicion, and these kind of responses just exacerbate the problem.
I very much doubt that Al Qaeda et al have any sense of humour whatsoever (one of the things which indicates that they are very screwed up people). Let’s not allow them to make us lose our sense of humour into the bargain.
23 Comments
Read this? A joke is a very serious thing.
No, I haven’t read that novel – but it’s precisely that kind of society which has no sense of humour.
Giving a stupid answer to a stupid question these days is inclined to get you arrested.
It’s a bit more stupid to say one is carrying a bomb repeatedly when boarding an aircraft, and not to say “just kidding” about 2 seconds afterwards. There is a possibility that someone boarding an aircraft may carry a bomb, whereas the possibility of a middle-aged British lawyer being mates with Osama Bin Laden is more clearly ridiculous.
Still I would have just let that student off with a very stern warning. Silly, but not criminal.
Apparently it is or was standard for customs to ask people arriving in the US whether they intend to overthrow the Constitution of the United States.
Sir Peter Medawar replied that he did not intend to overthrow it, and hoped that he would not do it by accident. They stil let him in, but that was a long time ago.
Editors of literary magazines can be humourless as well. Medawar was an offspin bowler “not completely without success, with a team of artists and mendicant musicians”. One of his books has a photo of himself on the cover, holding his hand up in front of his chest, holding some object. In my review of the book I said that the cover photo showed him demonstrating the grip for his off breaks. The Editor cut it out.
Medawar was an Oxford scholar, man and boy for 15 years, so you might find some interest in his story. He could have been a Lebanese peasant but his father was sent to England as a youth and …etc. This is the mutilated review, http://www.the-rathouse.com/Medawar_PlutoRepublic.html
I suppose what’s irritating some is the paltry payouts for 7/7 victims. Criminal compensation is a good idea in theory, but the sums are so paltry that it makes you wonder if it’s at all worthwhile.
Middle-class English barrister or not, she was all kinds of a dickhead for thinking that was funny a week after 9/11. Shows you what happens when we start taking trivial crap seriously, from the bottom up. It’s like a minor error when starting to solve a calculus problem… it just goes, ahem, ‘wronger and wronger’.
Mrs Aziz is very lucky not to have been a Mr Aziz. His backside would have been in a jail for 7 years and he would kiss it before he got 600,000 compensation. And woe betide him had he said that his missues knew Bin Laden. He would have been charged with insulting women to boot and got 14 years.
Editors of literary magazines can be humourless as well.
No?
You’re kidding right?
How do you overthrow a constitution? Don’t you overthrow the government?
M Fortas, I think you are right – the situation would be different if Ms Aziz were a Mr. I can’t imagine Bin Laden having many female friends given the attitude of Al Qaeda to women, which gives the comment a ludicrous spin. That would not be present if the lawyer were Mr Aziz (it could be more plausible).
Ms Aziz was very silly to make the comment – but I don’t think the response was justified. I guess I have my own foot in mouth moments where I say stupid stuff, so I would just give her a very stern warning.
Adrien, I guess you overthrow the government first, and then throw out the Constitution. The very act of taking over the government by force is presumably unconstitutional, so I guess that’s why you’d want to get rid of it (to legitimate your own rule).
Adrien, I think that was back in the days when the communist party’s stated position was to use the existing western democratic systems to get into power and once there, dispose of the constitution and establish their socialist utopia.
Perhaps it’s just my sense of humour, but when asked at airport security whether I am carrying explosives it’s difficult to find an appropriate answer … if I were, would I tell you? Aziz seems to have had the same problem.
DEM, that’s my problem too with such questions – who is going to say that they are a terrorist or that they are carrying a bomb? It’s a stupid, stupid question. And it brings out the sarcasm in me.
I hate that “Are you carrying any explosives?” question a have foolishly said yes before withdrawing it immediately.
Better to say “Do they have to go freight?”
Reply to the question re explosives: Yes, my temper.
the communist party’s stated position was to use the existing western democratic systems to get into power and once there, dispose of the constitution and establish their socialist utopia.
And they did a bang-up job to. 100 years plus of Australian democracy and they managed to get one person elected to parliament…
In Queensland?????!!!!!!!!!
who is going to say that they are a terrorist or that they are carrying a bomb?
The IRA
There’s an old saying from my ex-state: after two years in power any government becomes a Queensland government…
It sounds like her response was very sarcastic, the guard should have picked it up.
England is increasingly unrecognisable. One the home of wit, dissent, and political incorrectness, it has become shrill, authoritarian and well, Presbyterian.
It all started with that lezzie headmistress in Hackney who would not let her students attend a performance of the ballet Romeo and Juliet at the Royal Opera House even though they were given free tickets!
Her reason? Because it ‘perpetuated oppressive patriarchy “and because it was a “blatantly heterosexual love story”
Ah, where is that revolver when you need it!?
I think your headline is totally amiss. I cannot think of anything less likely to be tarred with the “political correctness” brush than the actions of the Crown Prosecution Service in relation to conduct alleged by a court security officer against an (UK usage) Asian solicitor for the prosecution.
Remember, they are prosecutors and so, for that matter, was she.
I don’t see political correctness as merely as the kind of thing that people complain of with regard to some on the Left (eg, removing Christmas nativity plays to avoid offending other religions). I see it more broadly as a tendency to take things overly seriously and without any sense of humour.
From that point of view, I think it was a kind of political correctness – thou shalt take terrorism absolutely seriously at all times, and any kind of failure to do this shall be punished severely. Possibly more of a right wing political correctness than a left wing political correctness.
What is your point about prosecutors? Not the old chestnut about prosecutors = persecutors?