Lashing out

In Britain, heretics get a metaphorical lashing

Yes, there are huge cultural differences between Sudan and the UK – but the elites on both sides of the divide share one important pastime in common: the policing of morality.

Thankfully no one in Britain is given 40 lashes. Instead they’re given a metaphorical lashing. Those who offend public morality or ridicule conventional wisdom are not tied up and beaten, but they are beaten up in the press and political circles and are frequently hounded from their jobs. The difference in Britain is that the metaphorical lashers pose as the guardians of PC, liberal morality, keen to protect the public from outdated and offensive ideas, while in Sudan the literal lashers are closed-minded clerics who lose the plot over any inappropriate mention of Muhammad. Yet both have in common a deep intolerance of ‘unacceptable’ ideas and a desire to monitor and clamp down on blasphemy: whether it’s secular blasphemy against liberal conventions here, or literal blasphemy against archaic conventions over there.