Getting Someone's Goat

I was going to write something about bestiality among world leaders, but it appears it’s a risky business. A Recip for disaster and grief, it would seem. Dear old Boris Johnson has a blogged a diatribe against Angela Merkel for giving the nod to a prosecution under some law prohibiting acts of Lesé Majesté last invoked under Kaiser Bill. Ridiculous, you might think. But wait a minute. Imagine Recip is a student at your British University of choice. Imagine a stand-up on at the S.U. calls him a goat-fucker in the course of a routine. Imagine someone comes to speak at Oxford or Cambridge and refers to Recip as someone who is enamoured of the company of Caprinae Capra. I expect there would be a few trigger-warnings or maybe even a ban on future appearances. There would probably be a demonstration on the quad demanding a safe-space for those born under the sign of Capricorn.

I am on Boris’s side to a degree. The leader of a significant state (which as we speak probably holds the fate of the EU in its hands) really ought to just ignore the childish spoutings of a German stand-up. But… and it’s a big but: that state is Turkey and whilst it is secular it is pretty much hard right in its socio-political attitudes. I’ve seen some of Turkey from the inside. Insulting Kemal Ataturk (dead long since) could get you in a lot of trouble even today: Midnight Express type trouble, for those of you old enough to remember that. So I think you can imagine just what Recip’s reaction has been.

Jan Boehmermann wisely did his schtick on German TV late at night (Have you seen German terrestrial TV?) . However, in these days of youtube.com I suspect his routine was seen in Turkey within minutes. Merkel has agreed to a prosecution, unwisely, I feel. I’m just wondering what would have happened had someone done the same here. The only person I think might ever do something similar is Frankie Boyle. Would Nicola Sturgeon have reacted in the same way? Would Cameron? I don’t know. Libel laws in our country are strange. There have been cases dismissed on the grounds that the statement is clearly untrue and meant only as a joke/political satire, as is the case here, at least on one side of that backslash.

Remember the Pig’s Head thing? Boris thinks that just because Cameron ignored that, Ertogan should do the same. Never in a million years. One man’s joke is another man’s insult vengeable only by boiling in oil or castration in the most painful and public manner possible. People, cultures and races are different. Oh dear, that’s me not speaking at the Oxford Union this year then.

PS Midnight Express is not a restaurant, neither is it a film approved by the Turkish Tourist Board.

PPS Boris's post is here