Samson was like a suicide bomber. So why do you love the opera, Mr Gove?
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Version 0 of 1. Michael Gove, the education secretary, is apparently at war with Theresa May, the home secretary, over religious extremism. Gove thinks that May deals only with its consequences – ie, violence – and not with its root cause. For Gove, the May approach is some endless and fruitless game of whack-a-mole, just dealing with the consequences of religious extremism and not its ideological origins. He wants to drain the swamp and tackle the celebration of extremism long before it issues in violence. His target is Birmingham schools. But why not the Royal Opera House? Opera, like religion, is obsessed with violence, often against women. Poulenc's Les Dialogues des Carmelites – currently on a short run and broadcast live from the Royal Opera House tonight on Radio 3 – tells the story of a group of nuns during the French Revolution. Their convent is overrun by revolutionaries and desecrated. And the nuns are forced to choose between martyrdom and faith. By the end, all 16 sisters have been guillotined, defiantly singing the Salve Regina on their way to having their heads removed. The whole thing is beautifully presented, with minimal staging and extraordinary musical sensitivity. And the fact that Simon Rattle is wielding the baton will guarantee to pack in the genteel, well-heeled audience. But I wonder if they would have turned up to an opera about Islamic martyrdom? Or been so enthusiastic in their applause if 16 shahida had chosen a violent death over conformity to their new and unsympathetic political/social norm? I bet there would have been walkouts. And I very much doubt that Rolex would have been a sponsor. Yet nobody complained that Christian martyrdom propaganda was being staged at one of our elite cultural institutions. But isn't this also a version of Gove's religious extremism, too? The Royal Opera House has form on this. Among many other dangerous ideas previously promoted in that gilded temple, for instance, is a moral justification of suicide bombing. Take Handel's oratorio Samson and Saints-Saens' opera Samson and Delilah – both of which have been staged at Covent Garden. Samson's trip to Gaza, as explained in the book of Judges, is clearly a martyrdom operation. First he kills 1,000 members of a rival religious tradition with the jawbone of an ass, then he burns down the source of their agricultural livelihood by tying torches to the tails of 300 foxes and letting them loose in Philistine barns and vineyards, and finally, when he reaches their temple, and believing he is doing the will of God, he pushes over its pillars in an act of revenge for the humiliating loss of his eyes, killing himself and thousands of worshippers in the process. The Book of Judges records the event thus: "Samson said, 'Let me die with the Philistines!' Then he pushed with all his might, and down came the temple on the rulers and all the people in it. Thus he killed many more when he died than while he lived." Today in Gaza, public spaces are full of posters celebrating the deaths of "martyrs" who have given their lives in revenge against the Israelis. But how were their deaths significantly morally different to that of Samson? Yet no one is having a go at the Royal Opera House for being some sort of Trojan horse or ideological training camp for would-be terrorists. Maybe you think opera is just posh cultural fluff? But Gove is no philistine. He has described Wagner as having the power "to take possession of your soul and inhabit your mind" – which is precisely what he fears is happening in some Birmingham schools. And Wagner, of course, is not a morally uncomplicated figure himself. No, Gove is as blind as Samson if he does not recognise the double standards at work in picking out Islam for special treatment. To rework Matthew's gospel: "Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother (Ishmael's) eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own?" |