Take up our quarrel with the foe

Muslims clashed with police after burning a large poppy in protest at Britain's wars in Iraq and Afghanistan which was timed to coincide with Armistice Day's two-minute silence.

Andy Bloxham, ‘Muslims clash with police after burning poppy in anti-Armistice Day protest’ The Telegraph, 11^th November 2010

Does it make you feel sick inside?

My stomach turned last November, but more out of anxiety towards the reactions it would produce on either side than from my own disgust. It’s like that deep breath you take as you scroll down to the comments section on a MailOnline article.

Last Armistice Day, as the two-minute silence was being observed near Hyde Park and the Royal Albert Hall, about twenty Islamic protesters began shouting: ‘Burn, burn, British soldiers, British soldiers, burn in hell.’ They added that British soldiers were terrorists and then burned two oversize plastic poppies (perhaps three - good old news facts). The protestors were members of the Muslims Against Crusades group. Also present were around 50 members of the English Defence League holding a counter protest. Both sides appear to have clashed with the police officers keeping them apart.

On 7^th March 26-year-old Amdadur Choudhury was found guilty of burning the poppies and fined £50. The prosecution said that the actions went ‘far beyond the boundaries of legitimate protest and freedom of expression.’ The District Judge, Howard Riddle, said: ‘The two-minute chanting, when others were observing a silence, followed by a burning of the symbol of remembrance was a calculated and deliberate insult to the dead and those who mourn or remember them.’ Choudhury was charged under the Public Order Act, which has thus labelled the chanting and poppy burning as actions likely to cause harassment, harm or distress to those who witnessed them.

You can imagine the reactions to the case and the court ruling: up in arms, in support, and most things in between. David Cameron said that that sort of behaviour had no place in a tolerant society and ‘many of us’ feel we should be making stronger statements to that end - stronger than a fine, perhaps.

The reactions to the poppy burning are similar to those that greeted the prospect of Islam4UK marching through Wootton Bassett with coffins representing Muslim victims back in January 2010. Gordon Brown commented:

Wootton Bassett has a special significance for us all at this time, as it has been the scene of the repatriation of many members of our armed forces who have tragically fallen. Any attempt to use this location to cause further distress and suffering to those who have lost loved ones would be abhorrent and offensive.

As it turned out Islam4UK cancelled the march a few days before it itself was banned under counter-terrorism laws. However, the reactions to the proposed march are interesting because, like the poppy burning case, they focus on the expectation and likelihood of outrage and thus render the protest deliberate incitement. The protests are not simply controversial activities that might offend or meet opposition on the day; they are acts that are ‘likely to cause… something’ and the organizers should or must have known that. Neither the protest nor those involved could proceed in innocence (‘a calculated and deliberate insult’ was the judge’s description of the poppy burning and chants). The protests thus become engineered acts of provocation, and by this understanding they are condemned, stopped or criminalized.

A recent ruling in the United States offers an instructive contrast to the poppy burning trial. The Supreme Court used a different set of criteria to judge a protest at a military funeral, and came to a different conclusion regarding protests that might (or rather may well) offend. On the 2^nd March it ruled that the First Amendment protects hateful protests at military funerals.

Members of the Westboro Baptist church have been protesting at military funerals. They have been present for hundreds of them, in fact, bearing signs like ‘America is Doomed’ and ‘God Hates Fags.’ They believe that, in letting American soldiers die in Iraq and Afghanistan, God is punishing America for its tolerance of homosexuality. You might have seen some of them on Louis Theroux.

The New York Times continues: ‘The father of the fallen Marine, Albert Snyder, sued the protesters for, among other things, the intentional infliction of emotional distress, and won a substantial jury award that was later overturned by an appeals court.’ Again, it is the self-evidence of the protest’s offensiveness - offensiveness ‘that no reasonable man could endure,’ a priori and obvious offensiveness - that is taken up here. The protesters knew that their protest would offend and so theirs is ‘intentional infliction.’ While in the UK this intentional infliction was an important factor in the court deciding on a (qualified) punishment for Choudhury, with Snyder v. Phelps the Supreme Court decided in the protestors’ favour and the ‘intentional infliction’ was the caveat to that ruling; the one dissenter to the vote, Justice Samuel Alito Jr., said he would not have protected what he saw as an intentional ‘vicious verbal assault’ on the Snyder family.

The Supreme Court ruling saw the primacy of free speech over the hateful, offensive nature of protests. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. mused on the former:

“It can stir people to action, move them to tears of both joy and sorrow, and — as it did here — inflict great pain.” But under the First Amendment, he went on, “we cannot react to that pain by punishing the speaker.” Instead, the national commitment to free speech, he said, requires protection of “even hurtful speech on public issues to ensure that we do not stifle public debate.”

There are obvious differences between the cases, and certainly between an individual Marine’s military funeral and a nationally observed day of remembrance for those killed or injured on active service. However, the motivations behind the UK and US rulings are similar: attempting to balance freedom of speech with the insult/distress caused. For the UK, the small size of the fine (the maximum for such an offence is £1000) reflected the right to free speech, while the offence caused was strong enough to warrant a fine despite that right to free speech. In Snyder v. Phelps the right to free speech came above the offensiveness of the protest, and the ruling went with the protesters. The free speech was linked to public interest; the issues raised by the church members (if not their particular take on them) connect to wider debates within America. Giving the opinion of the Court, Chief Justice Roberts noted that, while the protests might not have offered refined social or political commentary, ‘the issues they highlight—the political and moral conduct of the United States and its citizens, the fate of our Nation, homosexuality in the military, and scandals involving the Catholic clergy—are matters of public import.’

Presumably the poppy burning protest similarly raised issues of national importance, such as the UK’s military engagement abroad and the many debates surrounding it (again, it’s not the protesters’ particular take on the issues—which may well be abhorrent—but the issues themselves). However, the statements from the trial link public interest to observing Armistice Day rather than the anti war message of the protest. Judge Riddle noted the right of others to ‘express publicly support, sympathy and remembrance for the Armed Forces.’ Similarly Gordon Brown’s statement about Wootton Bassett noted the town’s significance for ‘us.’

What do the two rulings from this month leave us with? For America it is in the national interest to criticise war and America’s place in it, even if this clashes with commemorating the war dead. In the UK it is in our national interest to commemorate the war dead, even if it clashes with criticism of war. Personally I like to do both, and what does turn my stomach is a tendency in politics and media (and media politics) to use a discourse that sets off one against the other - or at best only discusses them exclusively of each other. Assuming that commemorating the war dead is antithetical to criticising war (and vice versa) is surely a mistake that the poppy burning protest made. For some, commemorating the dead is itself a criticism of war - just as, for others, it’s quite the opposite.

The newly Royal Wootton Bassett will come off the route of repatriation corteges when RAF Lyneham closes this year, so the town is presumably ‘safe’ from future protests and Guardian cartoons.