Shocked, shocked
They still don’t get it. (Who? I don’t really know – I don’t really understand who these people are. The people who think Islamism is okay. Who are they [apart from Islamists of course]? I don’t know. I don’t understand what this tendency or ideology or grouping is. They baffle me. I encounter them here and there, but what they think their politics might be remains opaque. I know they get very irritable with people who have reservations about Islam [let alone Islamism], but that’s not exactly manifesto-quality thought, is it.) They find it astonishing that a clever literate person would despise Islamism. Because – what? Because they themselves would find life in Jeddah perfectly pleasant? Because they would be quite happy to see their children enrolled at a madrassa instead of a real school? What?
The novelist Ian McEwan has launched an astonishingly strong attack on Islamism, saying that he “despises” it and accusing it of “wanting to create a society that I detest”. His words, in an interview with an Italian newspaper, could, in today’s febrile legalistic climate, lay him open to being investigated for a “hate crime”.
It could? Where? In what jurisdiction? If he were Canadian, it probably could; but he’s not; so what can that mean? But more to the point, why are a couple of Indy reporters astonished at the strength of McEwan’s attack on Islamism? Do they think Islamism actually, contrary to McEwan, wants to create a society that no right-thinking person could possibly detest? If so…do they live in burrows underground?
I myself despise Islamism, because it wants to create a society that I detest, based on religious belief, on a text, on lack of freedom for women, intolerance towards homosexuality and so on – we know it well.
Well, some of us do; others apparently don’t. Or else they have very peculiar tastes.
One might think that reporters for the Independent would place some value on independent thought and would have noticed that Islamism isn’t too keen on it, but apparently not.
Maybe the paper’s owners have business interests in certain places, where perhaps they may value critical reporting of Mr. McEwan’s entirely sensible statement…?
Just a thought.
It’s still owned/run by Tony O’Reilly (who made his cash primarily from Heinz), ain’t it?
hmmm….
I think it’s not that they like Islamism, it’s just that they don’t take it very seriously. They view it as a cultural phenomenon – in someone else’s culture – that they and other ‘outsiders’ ought not criticise too much, even if they do find it personally distasteful.
Pitiful. Dangerous.
But even there – I can see thinking that about Islam (however mistakenly) – but about Islamism, not so much. They’re reporters, they can’t really think that Islamism is elsewhere! But it’s not that I think they like Islamism. I don’t think anything – I’m just baffled.
Is it fear? That’s the only explanation that I can think of.
I hate to use the analogy, because it’s so often used when it’s wrong. But I do wonder. Is this a bit like Munich? There are no halfway measures here. If you mention it, you have to take it seriously, and if you take it seriously, you have to go the distance, whatever it takes. And it may take more — isn’t this why there is fear? — than we dare.
Christie Blatchford had an interesting item on Canadian politeness and Islamism in the Globe and Mail recently (here: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20080621.BLATCHFORD21/TPStory/?query=Christie). I don’t think it’s just politeness.
Well, I think it’s political in some way. But what I can’t figure out is what kind of politics it’s supposed to be. I guess it’s just very very very crude anti-racism – that simply thinks ‘most Muslims are brown therefore Islam is right on therefore so is Islamism.’ Except that’s so stupid one hesitates to attribute it to functioning journalists who work for a major paper. But I think it’s ‘political’ rather than fear.
Well, Ophelia, I may be older and jaded, but I think that ‘political’ is a pretty good translation of ‘fear’.
Hmm. I think it has more to do with a rather perverted or impoverished idealism. I doubt that the journalists really wrote that out of fear – my guess is that they wrote it out of a kind of automatic solidarity with insulted Muslims and hence Islamists.
Really? What a strange thing to do!
Explain this, if you will. 9/11 was the Islamist assault on the US — wasn’t it? And now journalists are responding with — pardon me? — solidarity?!
Well – this is why it’s surprising. This is the point of my post. Of course it’s a strange thing to do!
Also of course, they would jump up to point out that there is more than one kind of Islamism. But all the same, solidarity with Islamism is obviously the subject of the post, because why else would they find it astonishing that McEwan despises it? The thought behind that astonishment is some kind of approval or political alliance or sympathy or something like that.
And I can’t explain it, because as I said several times in the post, I don’t understand this idea.
You know, if you regularly read blogs from muslim majority places like say, Malaysia, Indonesia or even Pakistan, you’d be shocked at how frankly the non-muslims as well as the secular or liberal muslims (there’s always an apostate or two present as well as an anti-hadithist who’s skirting apostacy) discuss and roundly condemn political islam. There’s absolutely no concern for ‘racism’ or ‘orientalism’ or political correctness for some obvious reasons – the commenters share ethnicity or nationality with muslims as well as less obvious ones, the commenters clearly recognise the nature of the beast because they are directly threatened by it. They are fully aware of their own history, local cultural idiosyncracies, individual quirks – and recognise that all these will be obliterated by the sharia fetishists who inevitably turn out to be perverts of one sort or the other.
Western journalists – especially british ones it seems to me, having swallowed whole the official statements from the likes of the MB, MCB, OIC,CAIR, MPACUK, HuT and assorted mullahs, are simply too lazy to go out there and look for other opinions or to even reflect a bit more deeply on the views they have been handed by the ‘official’ spokesmen. If they did , they’d get over their fear of being labelled racist or islamophobic because there are muslims who’d then have to wear the same labels!
There’s also a variant of the liberal westerner who despite knowing full well the dangers of islamic theocracy hesitates to condemn it or worse, lectures others for their ‘demonising’ of islam because he believes the average muslim is perched dangerously on a fence and such criticisms WILL CAUSE him to topple over onto the islamist side. Such is his faith in the goodsense and self-preservation instincts of the average muslim.
In the context of the first paragraph, where the reporter speculates about the possibility of McEwan being investigated for a hate crime, ‘astonishingly’ might mean that the reporter is surprised at his temerity in speaking out in today’s febrile legalistic climate, rather than surprised at his hostility to Islamism.
Well, yes, Ophelia, that was the point of the post. I’m sometimes dense, as you have pointed out, but not that dense.
However, there must be a reason for this unnatural reticence on the part of journalists. It’s not in their very nature, and the only thing that scans for me is fear. In Canada, Muslims, not just Islamists, have been attempting to silence criticism, by throwing the Charter of Rights and Freedoms at journalists. But there’s been an implicit threat ever since the fatwa against Salman Rushdie. The UNHRC has been nobbled, and threats of violence are a regular part of Muslim rhetoric (not only of the Islamist variety). Ayan Hirsi Ali has been under police protection. Ibn Warraq changed his name. Theo Van Gogh was murdered. Christopher Hitchens has remarked on the pusillanimity of the print media in the US and elsewhere which (despite its reliance on the image) refused to print the cartoons in solidarity with their Danish brothers and sisters of the press. The Council of Ex-Muslims has remarked (within the last day or two) on the dangers involved, in Britain, mind, of labelling yourself an ex-Muslim. And the list goes on.
Ian McEwan (as well as Martin Amis, whom he is defending) stands out as a lone voice in an ocean of silence. Solidarity does not explain this to me, and astonishment is not enough.
Eric, I have not pointed out that you’re sometimes dense!
On the other hand – I have pointed out that you sometimes tell me things that I already know and have spelled out in great detail in several places on B&W – which applies to the whole of your second paragraph. For all I know, you know all those things because you read about them here – so it’s mildly exasperating to be lectured about them as if I were pig-ignorant on the subject.
I know all that; I still think the journalists’ astonishment comes from conformist political ‘anti-racism’ rather than fear; I don’t know that, but that’s my guess.
mirax, yeah. Like Khadim Hussain for instance, whom I link to regularly. He put me on a mailing list so I hear from lots of people in Muslim majority Pakistan who are not in the least charmed by Islamism.
I often imagine right-on people telling each other it’s racist to be critical of, say, the Southern Baptist Convention, and then I have a good laugh. Conservative authoritarian male-run religion is just that, and it’s laughable to think that progressives should cuddle it anywhere.
Had a thought I should have had much earlier – forget the business interests of the owner/publisher! There is the tiny outside chance that they were simply trying to drum up some controversy because it sells papers…?
The indy is, after all the lowest-selling of the (allegedly) ‘quality’ dailies (http://www.abc.org.uk/cgi-bin/gen5?runprog=nav/abc&noc=y). Plus it had a recent change of editor – Roger Alton, fresh from losing the Observer-Grauniad internal ‘war’. A man who has courted controversy pretty shamelessly in the past (e.g. supporting Iraq war)
So this is how I reckon it went:
Ian McEwan says something perfectly rational about some supernaturalists and their fun ideas in an Italian interview.
—> Journalists ( but unsure how much significant input Thais P-S had because she’s *extremely* junior – I googled!) realise this can be portrayed in a way that makes it seem controversial, (even though deep down its bloody obvious he’s right, and technically they’ll be siding with a bunch of raging dogmatists). Controversy = sales = prominent by-line = enhanced career prospects.
—> Journalists/sub-eds (assuming there are any left at the Indy?)/editor get together to portray McEwan as ranting extremist.
—> Indy sales go ???(find out in a couple of months, or thereabouts…)
ho hum.
(Sorry to be horribly cynical, but I’ve got a mate in the business, and this really does seem to be the way it works much of the time…)
There’s even the worse possibility that the journalists in question DIDN’T write/frame the article that way originally, but someone else higher-up the food chain did (for cynical reasons as above), and stuck their names on it anyway.
Yeah, could well be, Andy. One can almost hear them – ‘Hey, add an ‘astonishingly’ there – that’ll irritate people!’
Always makes me think of ‘That’ll fetch ’em, or I don’t know Arkansaw,’ that kind of thing does.
We’re playing into their diabolical plot!
“We’re playing into their diabolical plot!”
Only if, as a direct result of the general internet excoriation they seem to have received, more folk have bought the worthless rag…
Must admit, I don’t fancy standing around for hours on end researching that one:
“Excuse me, madam, but I couldn’t help noticing you just purchased a copy of the Independent – might I ask you a few questions about your internet surfing habits..? no…? it’ll only take a second..it’s for a very good cause…Butterflies & Wheels, you might have heard of..?…oh, well, thanks anyway”
Give me 10 minutes online with a nice cup of Earl Grey any day of the week…
:-)
No, Ophelia, I didn’t learn of all those things on this site, and I don’t think that you are ‘pig-ignorant’ (actually, pigs are quite smart). But they seemed to be relevant to the point that I wanted to make, so I repeated them.
I’m really not sure how to respond. Of course, you say these things on this site, otherwise, I suppose, I wouldn’t bother responding at all (although I do address other sites not nearly so receptive to my point of view). Does repeating someting you have said or suggested mean that I think you are ignorant? Scarcely. But why should these things not be repeated as part of an ‘argument’ or an ‘observation’?
The other day you suppressed G. Tingey (I think), and then that particular discussion stalled and sputtered. I’m not always original either, as you’ve noticed, even if I’m not dense. But I do try to address the topic. If you’re displeased, of course you may say so, and why. But I wonder, do you really need to be so nasty about it?
This is called ‘Notes and Comment’, but when someone comments in a way that agrees with you, you say, ‘It’s already been said.’ Fair enough. Does it bear saying again, and again? I don’t know. The fact is that the things that you highlight in your comments are as repetitive as any comments I have ever made. This is a continuing problem — especially the problem of Islamism. It comes up again and again. There’s little chance of saying anything that’s particularly original. Islamism is a danger. Perhaps Islam is too, although the jury still seems to be out on that. How to deal with the problem is not clear, although you’ve made it clear what solutions won’t do, so I won’t repeat myself.
I guess my question is. Given the repetitiveness of the data, what would you like us to say, that won’t raise your ire, and leave us trailing clouds of ignominy?
Eric…
I know pigs are smart, but they’re not erudite, are they. I said pig-ignorant, not pig-stupid. Anyway it’s just an idiom.
I didn’t “suppress” G Tingey. I’m not the KGB, or even the King of Hearts. So that particular discussion stalled; so what? Discussions can’t go on forever, and some of them never really start; what of it?
I didn’t mean to be nasty. I merely meant to be editorial. I do that with comments; I think it’s necessary.
I don’t always say “it’s already been said.” I do say it very often to G Tingey, but he’s sui generis. My ire wasn’t raised – and I didn’t mean to generate any clouds of ignominy. I just – think we can discuss things without recapitulaing everything from the beginning each time. I like your comments! It’s just that faint note of lecturing that creeps in now and then. But I didn’t intend to be nasty.
Mirax, great post. Thanks for that clear articulation of the non-western perspective. Cheers.
Thanks DFG but you’d probably disapprove if you heard more from me! The muslims who are insistent on a secular state may most likely be a small minority.
The vast majority of muslims, imho, don’t know much at all about their religion (illiteracy, knowing next to nothing about arabic, rote memorisation of the quran, strong focus on ritual and recitation rather than understanding, some spectacularly stupid religious teachers clogging their minds up with rubbish, having a poor knowledge of even other islamic sects let alone other religions or philosophies) and are actually , I think, much better people because of this! Attempting to reconcile the inconsistencies of the holy text and the scholars’ rulings would rather screw you up, I imagine.The islamist warriors I encounter on the net rely on a great deal of sophistry and disingenuity to make their point,often failing to actually win the argument.
Despite the polls that suggest widespread support for sharia/hudud implementation, the average muslim (at least in se asia) is, I think, smart enough to be aware of the full ramifications of handing power over to the mullahs and not especially keen on theocracy (ever heard anyone other than a nutcase say anything good about religious police or the self appointed thugs like the FPI or HuT?). But they would never say this aloud. They’d especially hate the kaffir saying such! My fear is that – due to the increasing numbers of islamist politicians on the make, these people may one day be outmanoeuvred and wake up to find an islamic party in charge.