Atheists face Muslim-led censorship from UCL Union

Final update.

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Further update : in under 24 hours, the above petition has gained over 1000 signatories from around the world. This blog post was reproduced on richarddawkins.net, prompting Richard to add his name as well as numerous other significant figures, and RDFRS UK gave us their support via the incomparable Paula Kirby. The National Secular Society stood behind us, as did the National Federation of Atheist, Humanist and Secular Student Societies and numerous other atheist student groups in Britain.  New Humanist  reported on the day’s events; PZ Myers blogged about them at  Pharyngula , and society members from UCL were contacted by the BBC and by radio broadcasters all the way from Australia.

Thank you to everyone who’s joined with us to stand up for free expression.

The society have asked me to add here that tomorrow, they plan to meet with UCL Union and bring these events to a close. In line with the petition’s wording, I can only hope this translates into a full, public withdrawal of its attempt at censorship and a meaningful apology to UCL’s atheists.

I’ll keep you all posted, but it looks as if we’ve made our point pretty well. A huge thank you again if you came to our aid.

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Update:  the atheist society mentioned here has now set up this petition to defend free expression at UCL. Please add your signature to it, and share it online.

If you want to be of further help, consider writing to the UCLU reps mentioned on the petition site or using the cartoon below as an avatar on social networks - or, if you’re in London, attend the pub social tonight!

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Not long ago, atheists at University College London put up to advertise their pub social. Note the image, taken from the Jesus and Mo online comic strip, used on the page:

Today, they were sent a message by a student union offical. The message, I’m told, is confidential and so can’t be reproduced here, but stated that ‘a number of complaints’ had been made about the use of the image – partly because contrary to Islamic teachings it depicts the Prophet Mohammad, and partly because it depicts him around alcohol. The union then told the atheist society to remove the image immediately and inform them once this had been done.

Having heard about this from the society’s president, I’d be interested to know precisely how many complaints UCL Union have received; despite the unusually high number of Muslims in the society’s Facebook group, only one has contacted them with a serious request of the image’s withdrawal, who then threatened to involve the student union and presumably has done so. (Their entire correspondence with the society appears unedited beneath this blog post, save for the removal of personal details.) Who are the ‘many Muslim students’ offended by this? Why, if they feel so strongly, have they not spoken up as strongly?

Well, perhaps the one person who complained at length was speaking for all of them. But wait! Their final message to the society began as follows:

I don’t represent anyone. I speak on my own behalf.

[…] I am asking you not to misrepresent my faith as one which in any way condones the act of drinking, since it is an immoral act in Islam.

That’s right: what atheists have obviously missed about Jesus and Mo is that, far from an absurdly extreme removal of two religious figures from their appopriate contexts for comic effect, its clear aim is actually to provide historical commentary on the Prophet Mohammad’s beliefs.

Of course this image suggests he condoned the consumption of alcohol! And how could we have overlooked so easily its explicit historical assertion that he and Jesus of Nazareth were casually acquainted, despite the several centuries between their lifetimes?

Not only, in fact, does the author of J&M believe these heresies about the Prophet. The same cartoon shows him either to have been capable of time travel, or to have been a drinker so innovative that his watering holes resembled those of the 21st century!

Should you want for more proof of this comic strip’s venomous heresy, look only to the other panels in the series.

These atheists are spreading the word that Mohammad used Apple computers!  

That he backed Jesus up on guitar at open mic nights!

That they slept in the same bed! (Fully clothed, mind. No risky business here.)

Muslims, try not to be too hard on us silly atheists. When that lot at UCL used Jesus and Mo to promote their socials, they weren’t to know that a web series depicting the two as flatmates in 2012 would be read as an apocryphal account of Islamic morality. (The simpletons.)

I must ask, though: what makes you think – and what makes you think, UCL Union – that individuals’ negative reaction to this image is a good reason for its forced removal? There are, after all, plenty of images I find offensive which are used at universities by religious societies. To give some examples from the UCL Islamic Society’s website, for example…

…I’m offended as an anarchist and as a humanist when I see children dressed for prayer, who rarely have a chance to question their religions’ claims and who lack the life experience to understand what kneeling in front of a dictator really means.

I’m equally offended as a feminist when I see women dress according to men’s instructions from centuries past.

And by the way, these images aren’t part of a satirical and obviously absurdist web comic. These images are real .

But if, supposing I were studying at UCL, I e-mailed the student union and asked for these photographs’ removal from the website, what kind of reply should I expect?

A refusal, fairly obviously. Because being offended by something doesn’t mean you get to ban it.

I don’t care if Muslims are offended, or if they have cause to be. Hell, I wouldn’t care if the society had posted an enormous ‘FUCK G*D’ sign on its page. The right to free expression includes the right to mock religion. Yes, including offensively.

So, UCL Union: if you are able to force your university’s atheists to censor their web presence – I’m not sure you will be able to, by the way – what will you do in future, when complaints are lodged about these pictures, and comparable ones from other societies? Because if you do nothing, we’ll be forced to conclude not only that you don’t understand the above, but that you see offence taken by Muslims as a somehow more severe problem than the moral concern of non-Islamic students.

That, at England’s first secular university, would be a backward step of 200 years.

Alex Gabriel

* * *

The full correspondence between the president of UCL’s atheist society and the one Muslim student who complained to them follows. As mentioned above, only names and personal information have been omitted.

I messaged you because I came across your pub social to Athiest Soc. I respect the fact that people have different views on things, and you’re welcome to have a social whenever and wherever you want, but I have to say I was really quite saddened when I saw the picture of the social.

As a Muslim, I find it highly inappropriate for there to be a depiction of Muhammad. As a human, I think it’s really quite insensitive and outright rude to have a picture of Muhammad holding a beer, when alcohol is strictly forbidden in Islam.

I really hope you will a) respond to my message with an acknowledgement of how that picture is not appropriate, b) remove that picture and c) Not use that or other such pictures in future.

I look forward to hearing from you.

I appreciate the kindly worded message. Others who feel the same way as you may have taken a different tone in communicating their feelings to me.

This said however, I will not remove the image.

Nobody has the right not to be offended. If you feel saddened by the image, then you do have the right to ignore it, or refrain from viewing it. However you do not have the right not to be offended.

There is no actual indication that Mohammed is drinking beer. Perhaps he is enjoying a glass of Coke.

Our society are great opponents of censorship, particularly on the grounds of “offence”. I will not indulge in any form of self-censorship because my words/actions/posts may offend an individual or group.

I am sorry that we had to communicate as the result of such a situation. I do hope that we can meet under less confrontational circumstances in the future.

I hope you had an enjoyable holiday.

Yes thank you, I did . It is unfortunate that others have expressed themselves in inappropriate ways, but it is also unfortunate that you will not remove the image.

Just so you know, the picture clearly indicates that he is sitting in a pub (by the big handle in the centre) and that in itself, even if no drink is consumed is forbidden in Islam (since the main purpose of pubs is the sale of alcohol).

It does not matter, therefore, whether the glass he holds depicts coke or not. The picture you have uploaded is not only offensive as a byproduct of what it depicts, it is directly insulting by portraying our Prophet as doing one the most fundamental things he was opposed to.

Moreover, this is an event conducted by a society which is affiliated with the UCL Union. I would not be having this conversation with you if you drew this in your diary in your room, but I do think that in such a public capacity, this directly reflects on the Union. I genuinely do not want to make this a big issue Robbie but it is quite hurtful to a lot of people.

Please understand and remove it. If not, then with genuine regret, we will have to bring this up with the union.

Before we proceed, would you mind clarifying on whose behalf you are speaking and in what capacity?

If you feel it necessary to bring this matter to the Union, then we will discuss it with them. That said I fail to identify the exact arguments you will make in-front of the Union with the belief that they will censor us. As far as I understand, you find it profane of us to use an image which violates the laws of Islam and as such, we should be prevented from using it.

It is your right to be offended when someone violates the commandments of your faith. As an explicitly non-Islamic entity, it is hardly fair to ask us to abide by those rules simply because you do. There are numerous aspects of the Islamic belief that many of our members find offensive, however we cannot force you to behave like secular humanists, nor would we want to.

If our advertisement offends you and the Union is persuaded to censor us, where do you expect a line to be drawn? On the same basis, all other religious and atheistic societies would presumably have to be banned, since they all make claims deemed heretical from an Islamic perspective. Societies which involve food or its preparation will have to adhere to the culinary code of Muslims; copies of the Qur’an handled by union officials will have to be kept on top shelves, and touched only after rituals of self-cleansing.

I cannot see a difference between these unlikely scenarios and us having to use advertisements which don’t offend any Muslims by breaking their religious rules. If the union was in anyway consistent following such a successful complaint, then the scenarios I have just mentioned would logically follow.

The alternative is that your society and the ASHS both acknowledge, in the name of basic freedom of expression, the other’s right to violate their own ethical principles (within the limits of law) even if they find it personally distasteful, since it would be unfair to impose our moral impulses on each other otherwise. This is the argument we can happily make to the union, if you still want to seek their involvement, although we’d still prefer not to be combative.

I don’t represent anyone. I speak on my own behalf. Your logic is very flawed: If I was asking you to abide by Islamic rules, I would be asking YOU not to drink. Instead, I am asking you not to misrepresent my faith as one which in any way condones the act of drinking, since it is an immoral act in Islam.

I have tried to reason with you but I see no hope in you changing your stance. I do think that your actions are actually completely intentioned to cause hurt to a lot of people and as such are utterly devoid of any humanity.

In any case, I have no personal qualms with you. Good luck making your case to the Union.

In defence of Diane Abbott

No, I’m not her biggest fan myself: yes, it annoys me that she sent her son to a private school; yes, how she ran for the Labour leadership on a ‘grassroots’ platform but was just as self-advancing as the boys in suits. Yes, I find her smug and condescending. But given that as I write this on Sunday morning, her name is still to be found all over Twitter, the time has probably come to nail my colours to the mast.

The general thrust of the backlash to her tweet - ‘ White people love playing ‘divide & rule’. We should not play their game   ’ - seems to be, ‘What if it had been the other way around?’ On Toby Young’s blog for the Telegraph and in other Tory hotspots on the Internet, all manner of sentences have begun with ‘If we’d said that about black people…’ (Said in places with a certain fetishistic yearning, I must add. One pictures the likes of Philip Davies late one night, feverishly whispering Enoch Powell quotations in each other’s ears.)

Far be it from me to stop the Conservative Party being un-PC, and I don’t want to sound too much like Ed Miliband here, but Abbott’s accusers just do not get it . Her phrasing was characteristically poor, agreed, but her tweet if I understand it right was not a generalisation about all white people as is widely claimed. It was just an observation about how people behave who are in power.

Imagine, for the sake of argument, that it actually were the other way around. Imagine that, in Powell’s words, black people did have the political, social and financial whip hand over whites; that practically all Members of Parliament, not to mention Ministers, had been black throughout the course of history; that the entire monarchy before them had been, too; that whites had been enslaved by blacks for centuries; that the white population were confined almost exclusively to the poorest and most violent areas; that whites were targeted specifically by black police and subject to singularly violent treatment. (As I’ve said before, I could go on.) Would it then have been untenable for a white MP - say, Philip Davies - to comment in broad strokes about the way blacks behaved toward ‘the white community’?

No. And moreover, it wouldn’t have been wrong.  

Whenever a historical social movement has tried to reset the norms of its encompassing culture, its opponents have used all power at their disposal to divide it - in some cases, mainstream media; in some cases, religion; in some cases, the laws and armed agents of the state. (In many cases, all of these and more.)

Men played divide and rule with the women’s suffrage movement in the 1900s, attempting to divide the good suffragists who obeyed the law and avoided disrupting male-dominated society from the bad suffragettes who tangled with the police. Straight people played divide and rule with the queer movement in the 20th century, dividing the good homophiles of the 1950s and 60s, who sought inclusion in straight society and who (in Lord Arran ’ s words) didn’t flaunt their behaviour, from the bad crossdressers and queer activists who had sex in public, took drugs and - funnily enough - also fought the police.

Straight people continue today to play divide and rule with queer people, arguing amongst themselves over same sex marriage without the inclusion of queer voices, defining the aims of the LGBT community externally and otherising queers who still oppose it, as many openly did as recently as the 90s.

The ruling classes today play divide and rule with the working classes, and with their opponents on the active political left. Police in London literally divide good activists - ‘peaceful’, placid, pacifiable - from bad activists, ready to smash windows and occupy Fortnum & Mason. The media, for example Sky News, emphasises the transgressions of the latter group so as to stimulate infighting and frame the political narrative in its own terms, without addressing the issues at hand.

And yes, white people play divide and rule with blacks: when newspapers and television stations refer to violence and crime in areas like Brixton as ‘the problems of the black community’, implying a need for internal conflict with the good employed and law abiding black people stigmatising the bad unemployed and criminal black people rather than addressing the recidivation which creates the areas in question in the first place; when press attention is heaped on black and Asian figures who support even more Hobbesian policing of their communities, as if to validate the singling out of bad blacks; when, at the most academic level, teachers like the ones at my old school sing the praises of Martin Luther King and say nothing of Malcolm X except that - shock! - he condoned the use of violence.

Malcolm X, by the way, practiced actual anti-white racism in his days with the Nation of Islam, racism which he later emphatically denounced. To describe Abbott’s acknowledgement of white privilege and its protection as racist not only assumes black and white identities to be meaningless trivia rather than mechanisms in a politicised social structure, but betrays a basic lack of knowledge about the realities of genuine racism against whites, even today in countries like Japan. Moreover, it justifies the existence of the term ‘ privilege denial ’ .

Had she tweeted ‘Men like to rape women’, her phrasing would again have been unfortunate and the reactionary lobby would no doubt again have accused her of ‘blatant sexism’. (My choice of example is not coincidental; anti-feminists in particular are especially fond of false victimhood. Only last night, I read a Facebook comment claiming that ‘the pendulum has swung the other way’, on the grounds that women-only gyms exist.) But regardless of Twitter’s reactions to her comment, and the white-dominated media’s in general, she would again have been right.

In case you’re still not convinced, consider that the mass reaction to Abbott’s statement in the wake of the Stephen Lawrence trial has twisted the media narrative of the last few days away from the pervasive racism of the British police and from violence against black youth, and toward a badly behaved black lady being terribly offensive toward us poor white folk.  

Sometimes, comprehensive hegemonic domination is just so hard.

Keep digging, Cee Lo. John Lennon’s only six feet down.*

Well, aren’t we all wound up with Cee Lo Green recently? In case you weren’t already aware, is what he did to John Lennon’s ‘Imagine’ on New Year’s Eve.

Changing ‘no religion too’ to ‘all religion is true’? Not by any means cool.

My first reaction was irritation, as it usually is when the religious hijack secular music for their own ends. We’ve just had the festive season, and, seriously, do you know how hard it is to find a secular carol with songs like ‘O Tannenbaum’ Christianised in translation? For goodness’ sake, they’ve even had at Eurovision: remember ‘Love Shine a Light’ from 1997? Someone, apparently, thought ‘God Shine a Light’ just sounded better. Christians, take note - you already have two thousand years of cultural hegemony under your belt. Let the rest of us keep our own songs, now, maybe?

My second reaction was the same one that filled the atheist blogosphere. ‘All religion is true’ - I mean, what? That may seem a pleasingly inclusive, acceptably ecumenical statement to anyone looking for one, but it falls apart as soon as we think of religions in the plural. To take the bullshit by the horns, religions if they are nothing else are sets of hypotheses about the universe and most make claims which contradict most others’. As Rebecca Hensler put it :

All religion? So we’ve got Heaven and Hell and Hades and reincarnation and Valhalla and whatever weird sh*t the Mormons and Scientologists believe ALL existing. And we have everyone from Kali to Loki to Eris messing around. And Jesus is the Messiah and son of God (Christianity) and NOT-the-Messiah and NOT-son of God (Judaism), and sort of the Messiah-but-not-son-of-God (Islam).

Sorry if I’m being unfashionably empirical, but ‘true’ is not a word I throw around casually. That’s why I’m a skeptic. If you want to say conflicting statements are all true, you’re just being stupid - and if you’ve forgotten that religions are actually sets of factual statements, rather than innocuous social groups like genders or cricket clubs, wake the hell up.

My third reaction, which was I’m afraid the most severe of all, came when I read the tweet about it Cee Lo posted mid-backlash.

Yo I meant no disrespect by changing the lyric guys! I was trying to say a world were u could believe what u wanted that’s all.

Honestly, and I hate to flog a dead horse here, I’m a little reminded of liftgate . Pro tip: when you’ve said something that’s annoyed a lot of people, don’t try to explain yourself by saying something worse .

You want a world where people can believe whatever they want? Me too. So where do we start? Perhaps with the Christians in Iraq getting shot at by Muslims? The Muslims in Palestine getting blitzed by Jews (and vice versa)? Hindus attacking them in India, whilst being attacked by Sikhs?

The biggest perpetrators of religious intolerance, overwhelmingly, are the religious. If you want people to have basic freedoms of belief, why alter John Lennon’s song to lick the boots of religion as a concept? It’s fairly clear from Lennon’s own statements, as well as his life, that the ‘no religion’ lyric refers to oppressive institutions and dogmas rather than actual supernatural belief on a personal level:

If you can imagine a world at peace, with no denominations of religion - not without religion but without this my-God-is-bigger-than-your-God thing - then it can be true.

There you go, Cee Lo Green. If you want to talk about freedom of belief, sing the original lyric next time around.

Alex Gabriel

*I realise of course that John Lennon was actually cremated, but this title was too good not to use.

Channel 4, are you showing your political hand?

Ahhh Channel 4, broadcaster of Queer as Folk , Skins and Black Mirror . Home of the young, hip, ‘alternative’ television viewer, friend to the Twitterite left. How edgy thou art. How risqué. How reliably with it .

But hold on. Haven’t you also spent the last few years telling women, via Nicky Hambleton-Jones and Gok Wan among others, how to look (and feel) suitably screwable? Haven’t you been giving Hayley Taylor a platform to tell the most defencelessly inarticulate people you could find that, if they remain unemployed in an economy with millions more jobless than available jobs, there must be something wrong with them?

And what’s this I keep hearing about your recent documentaries?

It’s not that I didn’t enjoy My Transsexual Summer . To be fair to you, you avoided all the hallmarks of the stare-at-the-freaks format better than you sometimes previously have. But what’s with all the talk of ‘changing gender’? What’s with the use of ‘transgendered’, and its ever so slightly cissexist ‘-ed’ suffix? Actually, for what reason didn’t you call it My Transgender Summer , given that that’s by and large the community’s preferred term, and that not all the people featured wanted transitional surgery?

And what, on top of all of that, am I meant to think when I find this blog post by one of the participants, complaining about gender binaries being enforced by the editing, and transgendered people being used as sympathy bears? When I see the same person complain about the production company being exploitative ? When I see another person featured blogging about how the abusive relationship she was in at the time of filming got left out of the broadcast?

Then, in the last few weeks, there was Living with the Amish . Again, don’t get me wrong - having extreme Christianity beamed weekly into my eyeballs was informative, and a pretty good resource when discussing the realities of religion. Why, then, the emphasis on the sheer happiness of those simple, unpretentious Amish folk?

Not that you shouldn’t be allowed to tell morality tales of how young people can be happier by never even touching their partners before they’re married, or how monogamous, heterosexual, lifelong marriages are the only means to emotional wellbeing. Thank you for spending so much time showing us the British participants’ admiration for values like those.

Except - and it’s just a thought, honest - couldn’t you have dwelt a little longer on the threats of Hell for nonbelievers? On the Amish participants’ disbelief in natural selection? Perhaps you could have been just a tad more critical of the Amish wives’ mandatory submission to their husbands’ wills - or at least reminded us of how, in the previous series, two Amish visitors to Britain were filled with hope when a young woman described herself as anti-feminist. (Incidentally, don’t you think this quieting of women might play at least a part in the Amish’s prized domestic tranquility?)

All of this concerned me as I tuned in weekly. Then, as before, there appeared on my screen a blog post from one of the series’ participants . Was there a reason that, loved up with the happy families narrative of Amish life, you did so little to address their racism? To quote from Siana (also featured in my last post here ):  

a little boy called me a “N*gger”, an Amish  family made several “racial” jokes, a grown man spoke of the “lack of intelligence and incompetency of black people” behind my back and insisted that “black people know nothing about hard work” – has he heard of SLAVERY?! -  and a nine year old girl told me that “black people [were] like a pack of wild animals” and that they, in her opinion, are “dark, prone to being bad and committing crimes” and so on.

This, from the same channel that gave us the televised version of The God Delusion . There’s no denying your reputation as the preferred channel of lefties, queers, godless people and all the other groups who piss off Stephen Green. So why, in your latest popular documentaries, are you pursuing narratives which are at best antediluvian?

Are you simply confused, or attempting ill-advisedly to cover all possible political bases? Or is it, as I rather suspect, that production companies with whom you partner - Twenty Twenty and Keo, in the cases above - are corporations like any other, bound to cater to the tastes of the socially privileged?

Channel 4, are you showing your political hand?

Alex Gabriel

100 interesting atheists in Britain - who aren’t old, white, privileged straight men

Preface

Here are some of the best known figures associated with atheism, in the UK and more generally: Richard Dawkins . Daniel Dennett . The late Christopher Hitchens . Peter Atkins . James Randi . Simon Blackburn . Sam Harris . Colin Blakemore .

Here are all the speakers from the 2011 convention of the AHS: Norman Warner , Baron Warner. . Andrew Copson . Johann Hari . AC Grayling . Robin Ince .

Reader, are you noticing a pattern?

Not only are they uniformly white and male – most of them are over 50 (with a couple of exceptions), most of them are straight (with three exceptions – hence Gerard Phillips makes the list below) and at least half of them attended private schools.

That this is a problem is not something I should have to say. Unless changes are made, as Greta Christina , the atheist movement will end up like the gay community, which has remained monoethnic and androcentric throughout its recent history, strengthening its own opponents by alienating thousands of potential allies.  

How many black British atheists stay quiet about it because all the other black people they know of are practicing Christians? How many British atheists are there of Muslim, Sikh or Hindu backgrounds who stay quiet about it too, again because they know no one from their own communities who lives without God?

How long will it take, furthermore, for women atheist bloggers to stop getting rape threats – rape threats, for fuck’s sake, from other atheists online – because they’re not acknowledged as integral members of the movement?

If you have a problem with ‘affirmative action’ because you don’t think race or gender matter, try comparing Richard Dawkins’ hate mail, filled with amusing spelling mistakes, with Rebecca Watson’s, filled with threats of sexual assault and genital mutilation. However biologically similar or different men and women are, the lived experiences of women atheists are different. They have different things to say. (Incidentally, isn’t it funny how it’s always men who don’t think gender matters? Also, white people who think race no longer matters. You get my point.)

The same goes for race, as it does for class. Yes, I’m a white male to all practical extents and purposes – but if you wanted to know what it’s like to be poor in religious communities, who would you ask? The , all of them private school alumni, or me, who grew up in a council house? My views on religion are at least in part unreconstructedly Marxist, for that exact reason, which qualifies me to talk about it in ways none of them ever could.

When you’re sat planning atheist speaker events, or writing literature about atheist role models, or at your student society’s pub social, you wouldn’t only want to include scientists. You wouldn’t only want to include ex-Christians either. If you’re only representing the atheist perspective of one group, you’re limiting yourself.

For exactly the same reason, we shouldn’t only (or predominantly) include old, white, privileged straight men. We need to make conscious efforts to connect with atheist figures who are women, who are queer, who are young or who are from ethnic minorities for exactly the same reason we need to consciously involve non-scientists and former members of non-Christian religions.

Hence this list.

When Jen McCreight published her large list of awesome female atheists , it was brilliant. But not only do we need to think about diversity in wider terms than gender – most of the atheists on her list were US-based.

Thus, most of the people below either live in the UK full time or have some recent history of appearing here. Not all of them are female, and many are white; some are privately educated, many are straight; some are scientists, and lots are from Christian backgrounds. But this last contains no one who is all these things. Whoever is listed on it is from an underrepresented group, and has something to say.

Invite them to your events, alongside better known and privileged speakers if needs be. For those who don’t do speaking engagements, link to them online and recommend them. Post quotes from them, instead of from the privileged atheists everyone knows.

If nothing else, learn about them. I certainly learnt a great deal compiling this list, because many of them are simply brilliant.

Alex Gabriel

THE LIST

Mina Ahadi , Iranian ex-Muslim and Secularist of the Year 2007. at One Law for All’s Conference on Apostasy, Sharia Law and Human Rights in December 2010.

Jim Al-Khalili , physicist, BHA distinguished supporter and campaigner against creationism in schools. Spoke at this year’s Nine Lessons and Carols for Godless People , presented BBC documentary Science and Islam and at Surrey University; born in Iraq to Muslim and Christian parents.

Tariq Ali , British Pakistani historian and Guardian columnist. Author of Mullahs and Heretics: a Secular History of Islam and critic of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood . Co-produced the documentary Hell’s Angel , criticizing Mother Teresa, with Christopher Hitchens.

Stephen K. Amos , black comedian. as an atheist on 4thought and presented the documentary Batty Man in 2007, including investigating Jamaican churches’ attitude to homosexuality.

Helen Arney , comedian and musician. Appeared at Lessons and Carols in 2011 and as well as and.

David Baddiel , comedian, writer and BHA distinguished supporter. Has written in The Times and about comedy’s relationship with people’s religious beliefs.

Bidisha , novelist and feminist critic of an Indian background. Wrote a series of ‘thoughts for the day’ in The Guardian this month, as an atheist on The Big Questions earlier this year and has written previously on prayer.

Siana Bangura , black history student at Cambridge, blogger and partipicant in Channel 4’s Living with the Amish . ‘ ’ in her own words and ‘got hell for it’.

Jenny Bartle , president of the National Federation of Atheist, Secular and Humanist Student Societies and speaker at the 2011 Rally for a Secular Europe. on The Big Questions in January 2011.

Catherine Bennett , feminist and columnist in The Guardian . Prominent critic of Sharia , bishops in the House of Lords and faith schools .

Susan Blackmore , memeticist, writer, advisor to The Skeptic magazine and Centre for Inquiry UK and BHA distinguished supporter. Holds the 1991  CSICOP Distinguished Skeptic Award and signed the 2010 letter opposing the papal visit.

Tessa Blackstone , Baroness Blackstone, Labour life peer, supporter of the Accord Coalition and BHA vice president.

Baba Brinkman , rapper and writer. Created the Rap Guide to Evolution as a science education tool and at Lessons and Carols 2009. Also known for his , originally performed at Geek Pop.

Jenny Bunker , philosophy lecturer at Roehampton University (previously Oxford and Southampton) and New Humanist contributor .

Lucy Cavendish , Guardian and Telegraph journalist, screenwriter and novellist. Defended her two past abortions while as an atheist on 4thought.

Aroup Chatterjee , Indian doctor and author of Mother Teresa: The Final Verdict . Testified against her beatification with Christopher Hitchens in 2003, on The Big Questions to criticize her and of faith healing on 4thought.

Amy Clare , feminist blogger at The F Word . Has written on misogyny in the godless community and guest posted on Butterflies and Wheels , Ophelia Benson’s blog.

Jenny Colgan , novellist and former stand up comedian. Raised in a Roman Catholic family, and contributed to The Atheist’s Guide to Christmas in 2009.

Sue Cox , (ex) Catholic sex abuse survivor, neuroscientist and addiction therapist. against the Vatican’s record at 2010 Protest the Pope rally and

Saeed Kamali Dehghan , Guardian correspondent in Iran . Frequently reports on the Iranian government’s actions including its recent treatment of Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani.

Shirley Dent , Associate Fellow at the Institute of Idea, blogger at The Guardian and New Humanist contributor. Writes frequently on literature and the wider arts, including the far right’s use of William Blake’s ‘Jerusalem’ and Satan’s heroism in Paradise Lost .

Carol Ann Duffy , first woman (and lesbian) to hold the post of Poet Laureate. Stated as an atheist that poetry takes the place of religion in secular societies, and authored a new series of Christmas carols in 2007.

Angela Eagle , Labour MP for Wallasey, Shadow Leader of the House of Commons and NSS honorary associate. Currently 68 ^th on The Independent on Sunday ’s 2011 ‘pink list’ of the country’s most influential gay men and lesbians.

Sally Feldman , former broadcast journalist at the BBC, council member at the Media Society New Humanist editorial team member and contributor , Rationalist Association trustee and Dean of Media, Arts and Design at Westminster University.

Edna Fernandes , British Indian journalist, New Humanist contributor and author of Holy Warriors: A Journey into the Heart of Indian Fundamentalism and The Last Jews of Kerala .

Shreela Flather , Baroness Flather, British Pakistani crossbencher (formerly a Conservative life peer) in the House of Lords, BHA distinguished supporter and NSS honorary associate. Appeared as an atheist on 4thought in 2011.

Muriel Gray , Scottish historian and Guardian columnist . Has stated ‘faith schools’ should be described as ‘superstitition schools’, and suggested human affection must replace religion.

Wendy M. Grossman , founder of The Skeptic magazine, committee member at the Association of British Science Writers and fellow at the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry. on The Big Questions in 2011, and has written in The Guardian on the origins of atheism and whether religion is dying .

Goranka Gudelj , Iranian activist, Outreach Coordinator at One Law for All and speaker at their 2010 Conference on Apostasy, Sharia Law and Human Rights.

Rahila Gupta , Guardian journalist and women’s rights campaigner. at One Law for All’s ‘Enemies not Allies’ seminar.

Rumy Hasan , senior lecturer at Sussex University, columnist , author of Multiculturalism: Some Inconvenient Truths and critic of the term ‘islamophobia’ . Spoke at One Law for All’s Conference on Apostasy, Sharia Law and Human Rights.

Natalie Haynes , comedian, writer and BHA distinguished supporter. Performed at Lessons and Carols 2008, contributed to The Atheist’s Guide to Christmas and is a regular contributor to New Humanist .

Lez Henry , black sociologist and historian. on The Big Questions discussing the Bible’s use in the slave trade, and has written and has worked with the British Council to combat Christian-Islamic friction in mixed communities.

Richard Herring , comedian and BHA distinguished supporter. Performed at Lessons and Carols 2011 and previously attracted Christian protestors at his Edinburgh show .

Ayaan Hirsi Ali , Somali-Dutch politician and ex-Muslim. Her memoirs Infidel and Nomad discuss her experiences of genital cutting, excommunication and having a fatwa issued against her.

Darcus Howe , black political activist and writer born to an Anglican priest in Trinidad. Has argued in New Statesman for religion to be kept out of the media’s youth coverage.

Deborah Hyde , editor of the skeptical blog Jourdemayne as well as The Skeptic magazine. Speaks regularly at Skeptics in the Pub meetings and will be taking part in QEDcon 2012 .

Virginia Ironside , journalist and NSS honorary associate. She has written in criticism of the Catholic Church’s social attitudes, opposed the Pope’s 2010 state visit and publicly.

Lindsay Johns , black broadcaster and columnist in The Telegraph and The Guardian . any existing god would be a racist in a 2010 4thought appearance, and previously reviewed Kenan Mailk’s From Fatwa to Jihad for New Humanist in 2009.

Linton Kwesi Johnson , black dub poet raised in Christian Jamaica. Described to New Humanist how he questioned religion while reading Marx and discovering Christianity’s historical support for slavery; later wrote ‘ .

Patrick Jones , gay poet and playwright whose novel Darkness is Where the Stars Are drew protests from Christian Voice which caused Waterstones to cancel his book launch. His response was published in New Humanist .

Owen Jones , blogger and author of Chavs: the Demonisation of the Working Class . Discusses the role of the churches in determining Conservative Party support from the poor in the 19 ^th century.

Jackie Kay , black lesbian poet and novellist. Has spoken about encountering extreme religion in Nigeria and adapted a book of the King James Bible in 2011 for the 66 Project to mark the 400 ^th anniversary of the King James Bible.

Helen Keen , science-based broadcaster and comedian. Features in the Radio 4 series, and performed at Lessons and Carols 2011.

Shappi Khorsandi , Iranian-born comedian, from a family exiled for critizing the Islamic revolution . Has with Amnesty, written in New Humanist about being an atheist comedian and performed in Lessons and Carols 2009.

Glenys Kinnock , Baroness Kinnock, Labour life peer in the House of Lords and honorary associate of the NSS.

Paula Kirby , atheist activist at the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science and columnist at The Washington Post . on the ‘women in atheism’ panel at the World Atheist Convention 2011 and takes theists’ questions at asktheatheists.com.

Adam Knowles , chair of the Gay and Lesbian Humanist Association. in February 2011 with the title, ‘The End of Gay?’

Iszi Lawrence , , writer and organiser at Oxford Skeptics in the Pub. the (supposed) existence of angels on 4thought in 2011.

Josie Long , actor and comedian. Organised two events (‘Darwin’s Birthday Spectacular’) with Robin Ince in 2009 and performed at Carols and Lessons in 2011.

Houzan Mahmoud , Kurdish feminist, blogger and anti-war demonstrator. Writes for The Guardian and The Independent , and at One Law for All’s rally in 2009.

Kenan Malik , Indian-born writer, broadcaster, neuroscientist and BHA distinguished supporter. in January 2011 and published From Fatwa to Jihad: the Rushdie Affair and its Legacy .

Zoe Margolis , feminist and author of the sex-positive blog Girl with a One-Track Mind . Has opposed Nadine Dorries’ campaigns for abstinence based sex education in her Guardian and New Humanist columns and taken an anti-faith schools position .

Christina Martin , comedian, blogger and New Humanist contributor famous for her creation of God Trumps in 2008. in 2010 defending Jesus as a subject for humour and at the Secularist of the Year 2007 ceremony.

Francesca Martinez , comedian and television writer. suggestions of making ‘Jerusalem’ the national anthem on 4thought, and was described in The Independent as ‘a staunch atheist’.

Suzanne Moore , journalist and columnist in New Statesman and The Guardian . Has written recently on pro-life religious pressures and taking her children to Bethlehem for Christmas . 

Rhys Morgan , 17 year old skeptical blogger , critic of alternative medicine and winner of the TAM London Grassroots Skeptic award. in 2011 after criticizing the Burzynski clinic in Houston, Texas and being subject to threats of legal action from them.

Maryam Namazie , human rights campaigner, blogger , spoke for One Law for All, the Council of ex-Muslims in Britain and Iran Solidarity. in 2010 and the .

Jo Neary , writer, actor and comedian. Appeared in Lessons and Carols 2010 and in December 2011  on the New Humanist podcast .

Deborah Orr , Guardian and Independent columnist. Criticized the BHA during its 2011 census campaign, and has written on defending human rights as well as religion’s use in justifying homophobia .

Pragna Patel , writer and feminist of an Indian background and founding member of Southall Black Sisters and Women Against Fundamentalism. Has written on the importance of secular safe spaces and spoken at Protest the Pope and at One Law for All’s .

Christina Patterson , writer for The Independent and The Huffington Post , and BHA distinguished supporter. Past articles include commentary on multiculturalism and integration , irrationality and contemporary Iran .

Laurie Penny , feminist blogger and New Statesman columnist. Reported for NS on Protest the Pope in 2010, having supported it , and has since written on Christian pro-life campaigns and misogynistic fundamentalism .

Grayson Perry , ceramic artist, known for sexual imagery and crossdressing. Told The Times he feared reprisals from Islamists and described himself on Radio 4 as favouring ‘fundamentalist atheism’. Set to argue for ‘religion for atheists’ with Alain de Botton at Intelligence Squared .

Gerard Phillips , NSS vice president. in 2011 and about his experiences leaving the Catholic Church because of its stance on homosexuality and about prayer in public bodies.

Lucy Porter , c omedian, actor and writer. in December 2011, responding to the question ‘Can atheists enjoy Christmas?’

Nina Power , senior philosophy lecturer at Roehampton University, writer and activist. Contributes regularly to New Humanist, including praising Feuerbach’s critique of theism .

Philip Pullman , author of the His Dark Materials series and more recently The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ , , NSS honorary associate and for the Secular Europe Campaign.

Laurie Pycroft , student and founder of Pro-Test , a pressure group in support of scientific animal testing, in 2006 aged 16. Appeared on The Big Questions in 2011, discussing whether religion would survive in the future.

Hassan Radwan , Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain committee member, blogger and vlogger . Taught for 15 years at Islamia Girls Secondary School and owned a Da’wah bookshop, and spoke at the One Law for All Conference on Apostasy, Sharia Law and Human Rights.

Michael Rosen , poet and broadcaster, previously Children’s Laureate (2007-2009). Previously took part in a documentary series, Why Atheism? – later distributed on DVD by the NSS – including interviews with Philip Pullman and Roman Catholic 6 ^th form students.

Gita Sahgal , British Indian feminist and human rights activist, founding member of Women Against Fundamentalism, suspended from work at Amnesty International after critizing its relationship with Islamists. in 2011 at One Law for All’s International Conference on Women’s Rights, Sharia Law and Secularism.

Angela Saini , science writer, Guardian columnist and blogger of an Indian background. Has written in New Humanist about Indians’ rationalizing of religion and elsewhere of the country’s status as a ‘geek nation’.

Terry Sanderson , NSS president, journalist and gay activist. in 2010 and in February 2011, also in 2011 and One Law for All’s .

Sathnam Sanghera , journalist and memoirist of an Indian background. in December 2010 critizing the animal rights movement, and has previously been accused of betraying Sikhism and written about Sikh fundamentalism.

Wendy Savage , gynaecologist and pro-choice advocate, representative of Doctors for a Woman’s Choice on Abortion. Appeared on the Unbelievable? podcast in July 2011, and also on .

Alom Shaha , science teacher, writer for The Independent , The Guardian and Inkling magazine and blogger . Has written The Young Atheist’s Handbook , due for publication in 2012, about science’s merits, being a Bangladeshi atheist and the monoethnicity of the godless community .

Simon Singh , science writer and Guardian columnist of an Indian background, author of Trick or Treatment , campaigning for libel reform since facing a court case from the British Chiropractic Association. Spoke at TAM London in 2010, and currently working with Sense About Science and the Nightingale Collaboration .

Barbara Smoker , former NSS president and vice president of the Gay and Lesbian Humanist Association. at GALHA’s 30 ^th anniversary celebrations and the NSS’s ‘ ’ conference in 2009.

Kate Smurthwaite , pro-choice activist, and NSS member. Appeared on The Big Questions in and , discussing Mother Teresa and the existence of Heaven. Led the Protest the Pope march in 2010.

Clare Solomon , student and education activist. Raised in a Mormon family , later converting to Islam after marrying a Bengali man; now a non-religious ex-Muslim. Drew attacks from Jewish groups by criticising Judaism and the state of Israel.

Bahram Soroush , Iranian civil rights activist, against Sharia in Britain. Spoke at One Law for All’s Conference on Apostasy, Sharia Law and Human Rights.

Francesca Stavraokpoulou , theologian and broadcaster. Presented the BBC documentary in 2011 and previously contributed to Channel 4’s The Bible: A History . on The Big Questions .

Samantha Stein , freelance writer and director of Camp Quest UK. on The Atheist and the Bishop in 2009 and spoke at Denkfest 2011 in Switzerland, critiquing the current UK schools system.

Hayley Stevens , skeptical paranormal investigator and blogger. Author of the popular Hayley is a Ghost blog, writer at shethought.com , frequent visiting speaker at Skeptics in the Pub meetings and co-host of the Righteous Indignation podcast.

Peter Tatchell , queer human rights and democracy activist. at Protest the Pope in 2010, in 2011, took part in One Law for All’s and addressing Christian claims of persecution.

Polly Toynbee , Guardian columnist and BHA president. Has written previously that ‘sex and death lie at the poisoned heart of religion’ and in opposition to British faith schools as well as in 2009.

Marco Tranchino , Italian gay rights activist and member of the Central London Humanist Group. Presided at the 2010 Protest the Pope rally and .

Frank Turner , folk musician. Penned the song ‘ ’ in celebration of a godless universe, and professes to ‘like Richard Dawkins a lot’.

Byron Vincent , slam poet and comedian. Winner of numerous well known slams, and enjoys .

Mary Warnock , Baroness Warnock, philosopher, columnist , crossbencher in the House of Lords, author of Dishonest to God: On Keeping Religion Out of Politics . Stated on 4thought in 2011 that Christians should side with protestors at St. Paul’s Cathedral.

Anne Marie Waters , lawyer and One Law for All campaigner. in 2011 and took part in the at the World Atheism Conference in Dublin and the .

Zoe Williams , feminist, columnist and BHA distinguished supporter. Has written on the Humanist Society of Scotland’s Darwin Day podcasts and on public perceptions of religious groups .

Phillipa Willitts , disabled feminist blogger at The F Word . Has written on Pope Benedict XVI’s track record and contributed a segment, ‘ Madness Gone Politically Correct ’ to The Pod Delusion in August 2011.

Jeanette Winterson , lesbian novellist raised in a fundamentalist Christian home and author of Oranges are not the Only Fruit . Published a secular version of the nativity ( The Lion, the Unicorn and Me ) in 2010 and reviewed Philip Pullman’s The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ in 2010.

Keith Porteous Wood , NSS General Secretary and holder of the 2007 Distinguished Services to Humanism Award. in 2009 and at One Law for All’s rally the same year.

Laura Woodhouse , atheist feminist and writer. Supported Protest the Pope in 2010, covered church resignations over female bishops and critized the French burqa ban on The F Word .

Paul Zenon , street magician and ‘professional trickster’. Once made a living posing as a psychic, and is set to speak on the subject of mediums at CFI’s ‘Beyond the veil’ day conference and QEDcon 2012 .

Benjamin Zephaniah , black poet and playwright known for refusing the OBE on anti-imperialist grounds. Raised in a Christian environment, he recently stated religion is ‘killing us’.

A word about atheism and ‘going negative’

Recently I’ve been doing some work with the Atheist, Humanist and Secularist Society at LSE, who like most godless student groups - including the one I’m part of in Oxford - put up a stall at their annual freshers’ fair to court prospective members. All over YouTube, videos from often overconfident theists are plastered which bear the title ‘Questions for atheists’ - but I somewhat doubt any of the uploaders have encountered us at a recent freshers’ fair, where societies face constant interrogation from passers by.

I’m fairly confident that I speak for atheist student groups everywhere, and quite possibly atheist groups in general, when I say that there’s one question which drives us mad like no other. Unsurprisingly, it’s not one of the questions they usually ask. It isn’t ‘Why is there something rather than nothing?’ and it’s also not ‘Why don’t you just kill yourself?’ It’s most certainly not ‘How do you make sense of the world?’ since the world makes quite enough sense on its own already.

The question which infuriates us every year is ‘What is it that you actually do ?’

At times, a supplementary question is added for effect. ‘What is it that you actually do - just sit around, not believing in God?’

The answer is no, of course - and I apologize if to you, this seems quite as fucking obvious as it does to me. No more, specifically, than anarchist groups just sit around opposing the state; no more than vegetarian societies just sit around not eating meat; no more than teetotallers go to Alcoholics Anonymous, in hope of just sitting around together not drinking.

Our broader society is filled with negative labels: non-smoker, non-voter, unemployed, disabled, asexual. Queers define themselves as people who aren’t straight and non-denominational Christians are defined by lack of membership to particular churches. In all these cases except perhaps the first, which is the only non-minority, there are good reasons for the people in question to talk to one another. And if §you find it odd that some people identify themselves based on what they’re not, it seems unfair to single out atheists for criticism.

Stupid as the question is, surprisingly many atheists seem to agree with the assumption that precedes it - that to ‘go negative’ when labelling your position is somehow inadvisable. AC Grayling in particular, when not busy privatizing higher education, is fond of suggesting that ‘atheist’ is a no more meaningful label than ‘afairyist’. Only one national society in Britain, Atheism UK, describes itself as godless in a direct sense, and is dwarfed in all practical senses by the British Humanist Association, which claims to represent Britain’s ‘millions of non-religious people’ while almost never applying the term ‘atheist’ except in reference to other organisations.

The motive for this, presumably, is that stating what you do (rather than don’t) believe in is more effective. To be sure, there’s more than a grain of truth here much of the time. But is it always the preferable approach for activists, or the most pragmatic?

How much success would the abolitionists have had if, instead of demanding an end to slavery, they marched under the banner of ‘emancipationism’? How much ground would the NSPCC gain if it tore up its ‘Cruelty to children must stop’ posters in favour of a new slogan, ‘Be nice to kids’? Are we really saying anti-fascists should abandon a label that only indicates what they oppose - and if so, what positive term could possibly replace it? As I’m sure you’d be told by many an affronted slutwalker if your placard read ‘CONSENT IS AWESOME’ instead of ‘NO RAPE’, there are times when it’s only appropriate to say what you don’t believe in; when anything else would be beating around the bush.

To understand the value of a self-named atheist society and to appreciate its necessity, you need only a basic awareness of theism’s effects. To take up AC Grayling’s example, imagine that 80 percent of the world did believe in fairies. Imagine that in developing countries, the assumed will of the fairies - including the stoning of women, the genital mutilation of children and the torture of defenceless animals - constituted national law. Imagine wars were rationalized, if not started, on the grounds of the fairies’ teachings.

Imagine millions of people were dying all around the world because fairyists opposed advances in medical science or devices to stop disease spreading. Imagine that if you wished to hold a public office in most of the world, you needed to swear to do the fairies’ bidding. Imagine that in the tiny minority of countries whose state constitutions prevented government from taking pro- or anti-fairyist positions, the fairyist population cried persecution and chased political control. (I could, like, seriously go on.)

Wouldn’t you, then, take being an afairyist really rather seriously? Wouldn’t you find an organisation dedicated explicitly to afairyism fairly helpful? And wouldn’t you feel more than a little put out, when asked by passers by what the point of it was?

You would? Then you can probably take a good guess at how we feel.

If you’ve never given this significant thought, then it’s not much wonder you don’t see what atheist student groups are for. And if you’ve never thought about it, perhaps that’s just because no one’s made you think. That, in fact, is what we actually do. Thank you for asking.

Alex Gabriel

Semper memento: on the life and death of Christopher Hitchens

Yesterday, Christopher Hitchens died.

In anyone else’s case, that sentence might have potential. It might be half a punchy byline, or help to preface an opinion piece. 2011 has been a good year for the reaper, and were I eulogising Pete Postlethwaite, Amy Winehouse, Steve Jobs or Gil Scott-Heron - all geniuses in their own ways - I might at this point know how to follow the news of their death with something fitting. But in Hitch’s case, at least for me, there can be no thoughtful follow-up or polished segue. The sentence stands awkwardly, with any qualifying statement as conspicuously absent as he now is.

Let me repeat: Christopher Hitchens died yesterday.

To soften the blow as best they can, friends of mine are attaching the usual RIP. Well meant as requiescat in pace might be, I find I can’t bring myself to do the same - not because the man’s death doesn’t bother me, but because it does. As of a day ago, Christopher is not resting any more than he is breathing. His heart has stopped beating, his eyes have stopped moving and his brain is no longer active. I say this precisely because it upsets me: the poetry of John Donne notwithstanding, the death of an uncompromising campaigner for ugly truths is not to be euphemised with the metaphor of sleep. The pretence that he still exists is an insult to his memory.

If, as those who prayed for him would have it, he has indeed ascended to a higher plane, then rest will surely be the last thing on his mind. Like him, I don’t believe a god exists - that the universe’s kinder aspects somehow imply a designer, or that anyone who designed it would be worth befriending, and face to face with the inventor of the cancer which killed him, I daresay Hitch might experience a second wind. Irrespective of his contested existence, God most certainly is not great, and today would be a very bad day to be him.

It’s certainly true that decades of chain smoking and heavy drinking played their part in shortening Christopher’s life, as he freely admitted post-diagnosis. Even before the effects of his treatment were visible, his suggestion that audiences ‘hold it down on the smokes and the cocktails’ confirmed the seriousness of his condition as it would have anything which caused him to change his mind. (Never having felt that supporting a war effort disqualifies you from the left, I’m inclined to say his politics had more continuity than is acknowledged; this was not a man whose positions on anything were casually chosen, and a U-turn of any sort would always have signalled drama.)

In any case, he would almost certainly have been less impressive stripped of alcohol and tobacco. The Hitchens I was lucky enough to meet briefly over dinner at Oxford was exactly as borderline-inebriated as the Hitchens I knew from the news, and exactly as formidably genial as a result. As anyone with me that evening will doubtless concur, there was no one like Hitch: no one so intimidatingly at home at the head of the table, no one so able to speak at length on any given topic, no one so able to hold a room in the palm of their hand. From a mere hour or perhaps two spent in his company, shortly before the news of his illness broke, I gathered that intoxication did as much for him as it would degrade anyone else. His too-short life cannot be made into a cautionary tale, however hard his tabloid opponents try: he might have lived longer without the drinks and drags, but would almost certainly have lived less well.

If you doubt that his life is exemplary, then ask yourself: what other journalist would travel to Iraq, Iran or North Korea on an average research trip? What other commentator would voluntarily endure torture before reaching a verdict on its use? What other present day moralist would dedicate whole books to exposing the faults of their subjects - among them Henry Kissinger, Princess Diana, Mother Teresa and Bill Clinton? Can you think of another globally sought speaker who would pause for fifteen minutes after a talk to give an eight-year-old a reading list? And who else would have churned out such a writerly output while mortally ill, in the daily agony his final column described? Make no mistake: Christopher Hitchens will be remembered not just as a great writer, but as one of humanity’s greatest ambassadors.

The phrase with which to honour him posthumously, if you need one, is semper memento - always remember.

To be alive now as a member of our species is a privilege next to which all paradises pale: we inhabit this planet not only as the sole known organisms in the universe to be aware of their own mortality, but as the ones which understand our surroundings best. We know now that our sun is a ball of flame more massive than a billion Everests; we realise that the blue whales in our oceans are the largest creatures our world has ever seen, whose blood vessels are so wide that we could swim in their hearts. No prior century’s people have experienced these privileges - and no future generation will be able to boast that for a short time, they shared a planet with Christopher Hitchens.

Quite plainly, there was no one like him. There may not be again, at least for a long time. But if we each of us remember him at his best, and take our cues in days to come from his singular life, perhaps we can in some sense accommodate his absence.

Alex Gabriel

I’m rebooting this Tumblr. Now turn on and tune in.

If for some deprived reason you’re a regular viewer of this page, you’ll have noticed some drastic changes in the last few hours. The fonts I use have changed, new links are visible in the overheard, and most obviously all my prior posts have now been deleted. I’m starting fresh, and this post is the first in my rebooted Tumblr, so let me take a moment to explain why.

There’s in which Susan Blackmore applies mimetic theory to the web and coins the term ‘temes’ (technologically transmitted memes); more, I think, than any previous social network, Tumblr is an explicit teme machine. This is where internet atheists share thoughts on Christian apologists, activists spread videos of state violence and Glee fans reblog GIFs of their favourite character moments. What’s kept me here for so long, if not what drew me here, is how Tumblr exposes me to so many things I like.

But the downside of any environment like that is, it makes you lazy. A personal friend, looking back a few months ago on her days as a student, reminisced about the time when she produced ideas rather than consumed them - and, to extend the food analogy, if you give me a lifetime’s supply of ready meals, I’m going to stop cooking my own food. (I know. Stay with me.)

What I mean to say is that the longer I’ve enjoyed Tumblr, the less pro-active my use of it has become. I’ve been posting less and less in the last couple of months, despite being online as much as when I first signed up, because viewing other people’s posts passively has pacified me.

I don’t want to be pacified or placated. I enjoy writing posts like this much as I enjoy designing material for other people, because creativity gives me a high - the same kind of high, I suspect, some people get from exercise. So I’ve given myself some new rules.

From now on, Tumblr is for writing. Ideally, I want to be uploading daily blogs like this one one on the things that interest me, each of roughly 300 words at the least. I’m not going to be following as many people, and chiefly it’ll be people I actually know. And rather than reblogging other people, I’m going to stick to putting up my own material.

Tumblr’s rich content is exactly what makes it so good - on my dashboard now, I see reblogs of Emma Goldman, Orwell and Marx - but as Orwell said , it’s time I was active and not passive.

Alex Gabriel