Debate: Off-beam on “Lady of Heaven”

I agree wih the thrust of Hein Htet Kyaw’s article in Solidarity 722, but I think the section on the sectarian religious film Lady of Heaven may mislead readers.

Hein says that the push to adopt blasphemy laws in the UK, USA and Canada has been brought into sharp focus by the 2022 release of this film. The film’s producer here states that there were no protests when the film was released in the US. There were protests in the UK, and two cinema chains banned the movie from being shown, but I think that did little to push the case for blasphemy laws in the UK. A hard-right Tory government was unlikely to be swayed on that by the Sunni hardline protesters.

The current risk is less a push for a new law than threats of violence and enforced censorship by some religious groups, producing a kind of blasphemy ban by the backdoor. The government’s dropping of plans to introduce a formal definition of islamophobia also suggests a new law is not yet on the horizon.

Hein is, I think, too generous to the producers of The Lady of Heaven in calling it an “authentic expression of Shia Islamic ideas”. I wouldn’t claim authority to rule on religious interpretations. Still, the writer of the film, Yasser Al-Habib, has been criticised by other Shia ideologues and even by the former head of Hezbollah and by Ayatollah Khamenei as a sectarian! The film was almost certainly produced as a direct provocation to his religious opponents.

The majority of Shia Muslims in the UK would not have been clamouring for the film. And the row about the film did not prevent them from practising their beliefs. A comprehensive search online finds no results for Shia mosques or organisations being attacked or intimidated as a result of the film. Shia are a small minority within a minority in Britain, but are not regularly directly harassed by Salafists and others on Britain’s streets.

Simon Nelson, London