In this piece Shami argues for the freedom of people to wear the symbols of their faith and be free from discrimination or prosecution. She cites the example of Nadia Eweida an employee of BA who was asked not to wear her cross on show. It should be noted that this was an issue of dress code for BA and that Ms Eweida felt was religious discrimination. Whilst I don’t want to get bogged down in the details of this particular story I do want to take issue with the comment piece by Shami Chakrabarti.

First of all the Nadia Eweida story broke in 2006; if this is the only example that Shami Chakrabarti can find to make her point that people across the country are being discriminated against for wearing religious iconography, then to say she is making a mountain out of a molehill would be making a molehill out of a divot. That aside she begins by taking issue with BA seeking legal advice;

“BA instructed an international law firm strenuously to resist her claim of religious discrimination.”

I think I can see what picture she is trying to paint here. That of poor Ms Eweida against big evil British Airways, but I think that is unfair. BA asked a law firm to protect their interests when the prospect of a costly and potentially publically damming discrimination trial was on the horizon, it’s hard to know what course of action Shami would have recommended instead.

“It may be true that religion has caused much war and prejudice but it has also inspired much art, music and compassion. And it is also true that scientists and engineers have produced some of the greatest advances in human history, but also some of the stuff of nightmares.”

I have no idea what her point is here to the issue at hand? Is she trying to imply that it is OK for religion to cause war and prejudice so long as we get some nice paintings at the end of it? Because that sounds like a fairly shitty pay off to me. Also, I’m not so sure that religion does inspire compassion. People are naturally compassionate, Dawkins has covered this topic extensively in the past, a Christian who shows compassion will always associate their compassion with their religion because that’s how they think. But I don’t believe for one minute that if our hypothetical person lost their faith they would suddenly lose all compassion for others as well. Any belief structure that discriminates against another damming them to an eternal firey grave because their beliefs differ does not come across as something that inspires compassion to me, but maybe I’m just being fastidious. The following sentence on scientists is thrown in there as a kind of up-yours to science. However what Shami fails to acknowledge is that while science may well be responsible for creating the ‘stuff of nightmares’ it is the people that put that stuff to use in the name of whatever cause they happen to be fighting for that we should really be damning, not the science itself. I can’t remember the last time anyone killed anyone in the name of scientific endeavour. Perhaps if they did we all might start treating scientists with the reverence normally only reserved for the, well, reverent. Of course all this is irrelevant to the issue but far be it from us to stand in the way of a perfectly good opportunity to have a dig at scientists and engineers. Afterall it was them that figured out how to get those massive planes in the air in the first place so really they must shoulder some of the blame.

Finally she uses an incredibly bias poll to support her argument that BA were in the wrong and her organisation should really be doing something about it. “86 per cent of British Christians polled disagreed with BA’s treatment of Ms Eweida”, I mean come on! 86% of British Christians side with the Christian, why not poll her family and friends as well see what they think? The only interesting thing about that poll is that it is a wonder the percentage was as low as 86%. Perhaps the other 14% realise that as religious discrimination cases go this is a pretty weak one. She wasn’t told she couldn’t be a Christian and work for BA, she wasn’t told she couldn’t wear her cross at all just asked not to display it. This had nothing to do with the fact that it was a cross but because it went against BA’s dress code that “personal items of jewellery, including crosses may be worn – but underneath the uniform” something that was perfectly practical for her to do. She cries religious discrimination and all of a sudden BA are in the shit for reacting a little heavy handily to an employee that broke the rules. Why should Ms Eweida and her cross be treated any differently to someone that wants to wear a pentagram, or a sharks tooth, or their birth stone? They shouldn’t, and to hide behind religious discrimination and human rights is a joke and one that Shami Chakrabarti and Liberty have fallen hook line and sinker for.