This winter, I was invited to join a panel debate on the controversial decision by Tate Britain to withdraw John Latham's God is Great (1991) from a retrospective of the artist's work at the gallery.
The other panellists were the lawyer and author Anthony Julius and Raficq Abdulla, a Muslim intellectual.
The artist and his many supporters were in the audience, as were Stephen Deuchar, the director of Tate Britain, and his staff, who were anxious not to cause any more upset to Latham, a thin and intense 84-year-old.
Latham is livid. 'Tate Britain has shown cowardice over this... it isn't even a gesture as strong as censorship, just a loss of nerve,' he said.
It was obvious from what Deuchar said that his action came out of considerable self-interrogation and the difficult dilemmas arising out of multiple responsibilities to art and artists, to stakeholders, and to our complex society.
Deuchar explained that he didn't want the work to be given a political dimension the artist had never intended and didn't want the motives of the Tate misrepresented 'because of a particular social and political resonance'.
Already, the debate was becoming more interesting and vital than that tired old match between absolutist libertarians and those who advocate censorship.
In truth, the wide-ranging, deep and intellectual deliberation at this event was worthy of the artist and the gallery. Sadly, it was also exceptional, as such thoughtful exchanges rarely take place. Values and expectations are increasingly contested in our multifarious democracy.
There is no space for a civilised dialogue, as heat too quickly burns up the possibilities. There is a wider public debate that is yet to happen, about the role, rights and obligations of art in this post-post-enlightenment age.
For life and art cannot live as disconnected and disinterested entities. They make constant demands on each other, explain and provoke; sometimes one submits to the other. Science used to be able to claim cultural and political neutrality. No longer.
Art still insists on juvenile abandon, carefree expression that is never called to account. More liberty is always better than less, but there is no society where an absolute freedom prevails. As Edward de Bono says, the jungle is free. Civilisation tames that freedom.
We should mind more than we do about the savage curtailing of our liberties by politicians since 9/11. But when artistic expression is curtailed, the line between freedom and responsibility needs to be carefully judged and considered by the powerful and the powerless.
This decision by Tate Britain was wrong, but it was taken for understandable reasons. God is Great, to me, a flawed and striving Muslim, is an extraordinary representation of devout belief in one God and universe.
Three religious texts shot through clear glass tell me about our connections, and suggest revealed religions can become rule-bound when the real faith lies beyond words and images, pure and reflective as glass.
God is Great is part of a series of works previously shown at London's Lisson Gallery and the Venice Biennale. In the 2005 piece exhibited in Venice the glass is broken, the books lying in the shards. The divine spirit has been shattered by recent events.
Millions of Muslims are liberal, secular, and open-minded. They have been offended against by the decision that assumed we are all volatile and unlikely to understand such works.
Why no concern that fundamentalist Jews and Christians too might object to the 'desecration' of their texts?
In 2003, Tate Britain apologised to 'Muslims' because in one Victorian painting it was suggested that a woman depicted was one of Prophet Mohammed's wives. Then they were told it wasn't. How does anyone know?
It is ludicrous and makes Islam look foolish and volatile at the same time. What next, shall we clothe all nudes in galleries (perhaps in burkas?), rub out faces that appear to caricature black people, or Jews?
Such actions rebound on all of us, as society becomes convinced we are aliens. The Muslim militants who destroy our peace need to be given no succour.
The British have a fabulous history of challenging art and transgressive aesthetics. In Waldemar Januszczak's beautiful Channel 4 programme on Islam and art, there were frescos in mosque courtyards with dancing girls and glasses of ruby red wine.
If some people are moved to fury by a work, a soap box should be installed nearby for them to vent their anger in words. Why should museums be silent churches, anyway?
Theatres and publishers need to have similar arrangements for vociferous objectors, who can raise hell but have to accept they cannot determine what is seen and heard in public spaces.
There are times when banning is the only answer - rap lyrics that glamorise violence against women, for example, or overtly racist texts.
A good society promotes both free expression and acceptable self-restraint. Sometimes, rarely one hopes, it becomes necessary to curtail the work of an artist or writer or performer. No such case can be made for the quivering, sensitive God is Great by John Latham.
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown is a writer and broadcaster
John Latham in Focus is at Tate Britain until 28 February
The other panellists were the lawyer and author Anthony Julius and Raficq Abdulla, a Muslim intellectual.
The artist and his many supporters were in the audience, as were Stephen Deuchar, the director of Tate Britain, and his staff, who were anxious not to cause any more upset to Latham, a thin and intense 84-year-old.
Latham is livid. 'Tate Britain has shown cowardice over this... it isn't even a gesture as strong as censorship, just a loss of nerve,' he said.
It was obvious from what Deuchar said that his action came out of considerable self-interrogation and the difficult dilemmas arising out of multiple responsibilities to art and artists, to stakeholders, and to our complex society.
Deuchar explained that he didn't want the work to be given a political dimension the artist had never intended and didn't want the motives of the Tate misrepresented 'because of a particular social and political resonance'.
Already, the debate was becoming more interesting and vital than that tired old match between absolutist libertarians and those who advocate censorship.
In truth, the wide-ranging, deep and intellectual deliberation at this event was worthy of the artist and the gallery. Sadly, it was also exceptional, as such thoughtful exchanges rarely take place. Values and expectations are increasingly contested in our multifarious democracy.
There is no space for a civilised dialogue, as heat too quickly burns up the possibilities. There is a wider public debate that is yet to happen, about the role, rights and obligations of art in this post-post-enlightenment age.
For life and art cannot live as disconnected and disinterested entities. They make constant demands on each other, explain and provoke; sometimes one submits to the other. Science used to be able to claim cultural and political neutrality. No longer.
Art still insists on juvenile abandon, carefree expression that is never called to account. More liberty is always better than less, but there is no society where an absolute freedom prevails. As Edward de Bono says, the jungle is free. Civilisation tames that freedom.
We should mind more than we do about the savage curtailing of our liberties by politicians since 9/11. But when artistic expression is curtailed, the line between freedom and responsibility needs to be carefully judged and considered by the powerful and the powerless.
This decision by Tate Britain was wrong, but it was taken for understandable reasons. God is Great, to me, a flawed and striving Muslim, is an extraordinary representation of devout belief in one God and universe.
Three religious texts shot through clear glass tell me about our connections, and suggest revealed religions can become rule-bound when the real faith lies beyond words and images, pure and reflective as glass.
God is Great is part of a series of works previously shown at London's Lisson Gallery and the Venice Biennale. In the 2005 piece exhibited in Venice the glass is broken, the books lying in the shards. The divine spirit has been shattered by recent events.
Millions of Muslims are liberal, secular, and open-minded. They have been offended against by the decision that assumed we are all volatile and unlikely to understand such works.
Why no concern that fundamentalist Jews and Christians too might object to the 'desecration' of their texts?
In 2003, Tate Britain apologised to 'Muslims' because in one Victorian painting it was suggested that a woman depicted was one of Prophet Mohammed's wives. Then they were told it wasn't. How does anyone know?
It is ludicrous and makes Islam look foolish and volatile at the same time. What next, shall we clothe all nudes in galleries (perhaps in burkas?), rub out faces that appear to caricature black people, or Jews?
Such actions rebound on all of us, as society becomes convinced we are aliens. The Muslim militants who destroy our peace need to be given no succour.
The British have a fabulous history of challenging art and transgressive aesthetics. In Waldemar Januszczak's beautiful Channel 4 programme on Islam and art, there were frescos in mosque courtyards with dancing girls and glasses of ruby red wine.
If some people are moved to fury by a work, a soap box should be installed nearby for them to vent their anger in words. Why should museums be silent churches, anyway?
Theatres and publishers need to have similar arrangements for vociferous objectors, who can raise hell but have to accept they cannot determine what is seen and heard in public spaces.
There are times when banning is the only answer - rap lyrics that glamorise violence against women, for example, or overtly racist texts.
A good society promotes both free expression and acceptable self-restraint. Sometimes, rarely one hopes, it becomes necessary to curtail the work of an artist or writer or performer. No such case can be made for the quivering, sensitive God is Great by John Latham.
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown is a writer and broadcaster
John Latham in Focus is at Tate Britain until 28 February
