Now that Adam is posting again (Huzzah!) I am sure there will be some reaction on the recent fighting between Hamas and Fatah. I don't pretend to know the ins and outs of what's going on, and will be catching on some much-needed reading over the summer.
In the meantime, as the possibility of there being an Islamist state on Israel's doorstep increases, here is a comforting picture of a kitten and a duck:
That is all.
Cory
Long article here in the New York Review of Books about terrorism; its aims, tactics and capabilities. The author agrees with the theses of the books he is reviewing. Suicide terrorism does not represent insanity, nor does it constitute a grave threat to the West. Instead, it is a shrewd and calculated method of warfare used by the weak to strike at the strong. The author claims that Iran, a country currently in the grip of Islamic theocrats and holocaust deniers represents no great threat to the United States:
Compared, say, to the threat of atomic obliteration posed by the Soviet Union between 1949 and 1989, the possibility of an Iranian attack on the United States does not seem very large. Even a nuclear-armed Iran would never dare strike the superpower because it would risk annihilation in response. Obviously America poses a far greater threat to Iran than Iran does to the United States. And perversely, it is this threat, more than anything else right now, that bolsters Iran's oppressive and unpopular government.
Yet the Cold War was between two relatively stable power blocs with each bloc run by a group of people who had no interest in suicide. Iran and the terrorists of Al Qaeda are of a fundementally different mindset. The USSR was run by atheists who maintained no belief in an afterlife and, therefore, had no wish to see a mushroom cloud outside the window of the Kremlin because a good chunk of the world rejected the tenents of Marxism-Leninism. Do we give Osama Bin Laden or the Mullahs of Iran the benefit of the doubt and believe that they love life just as much as we do? Seeing that Bin Laden has expressed his desire for a universal Caliphate that would wage war against the infidel West countless times, we would be foolish to do so. Or, instead, do we look at their operational record and apocalyptic rhetoric and decide to face the threat rather than try to contain it?
The article constantly scorns the Bush Administration's use of the phrase 'War on Terror':
"The declaration of a global war on terrorism," says Richardson bluntly, "has been a terrible mistake and is doomed to failure." In declaring such a war, she says, the Bush administration chose to mirror its adversary:
Americans opted to accept al-Qaeda's language of cosmic warfare at face value and respond accordingly, rather than respond to al-Qaeda based on an objective assessment of its resources and capabilities.In essence, America's actions radically upgraded Osama bin Laden's organization from a ragtag network of plotters to a great enemy worthy of a superpower's undivided attention. Even as it successfully shattered the group's core through the invasion of Afghanistan, America empowered al-Qaeda politically by its loud triumphalism, whose very excess encouraged others to try the same terror tactics.
But this is a war, one that the West did not start and one that the United States had no material or ethical interest in pursuing before it was declared. The Cold War was a period of foreign policy realism; it was perfectly acceptable for the US to back brutal dictators in the third world as long as they made anti-Soviet noises. The containment of Bolshevism overrode all other foreign policy factors. This cynicism and realpolitik, with men in suits in the West deciding which mass murderer would rule over which poor country, gave birth to the Horrorisms we now live with today.
And a proper analysis of the actual ideology professed by Bin Laden and his ilk is precisely what is missing from the NY Books article. Martin Amis does a good job of it here, in his Observer essay:
Savouring that last phrase, we realise that any voyage taken with Sayyid Qutb is doomed to a leaden-witted circularity. The emptiness, the mere iteration, at the heart of his philosophy is steadily colonised by a vast entanglement of bitternesses; and here, too, we detect the presence of that peculiarly Islamist triumvirate (codified early on by Christopher Hitchens) of self-righteousness, self-pity, and self-hatred - the self-righteousness dating from the seventh century, the self-pity from the 13th (when the 'last' Caliph was kicked to death in Baghdad by the Mongol warlord Hulagu), and the self-hatred from the 20th. And most astounding of all, in Qutb, is the level of self-awareness, which is less than zero. It is as if the very act of self-examination were something unmanly or profane: something unrighteous, in a word.
For Rodenbeck (the author of the NY Books piece), Islamist terrorism is something to be beaten by methods more familiar to the police than to the military. He is right to an extent, but he tends to underestimate the capabilities of worldwide terrorist networks. Proof of their determination, their savagry and their callousness can be seen in any of their works. Indeed, one needs only to look at the cataclysm of Iraq, encouraged as it was by the fools in Washington, to see what happens when large numbers of Islamists engage in terrorist activities in concentrate. Ethnic strife it may be, but it is fueled by religious zealotry.
The declaration of a war on terror has not been the problem, nor has the use of the military and armed force. The problem has been the hubristic and imperial over-application of these assets in a manner not conductive to the destruction of such a slippery foe. More caution, more skepticism and less charging about like a bull in a china shop with regards the US army and the Arab world would perhaps prove to be a more fruitful long term strategy. But make no mistake, this is a war and we must prosecute it. The Theocratic wing of Islam must be destroyed. Not 'by any means' but by the right means. Backing Muslim liberals and ensuring that the zealots have no place to hide are two wings of the same strategy.
-posted by Adam
Been a while since I did one of these. The article is "Reaping the harvest of our self-disgust" by Hanif Kureishi, from the Guardian on Saturday. It's my remarks in the quote boxes.
These days I don't often think about Margaret Thatcher,
Probably just as well.
but I am aware that the world we inhabit now was partly brought about by what she and her party considered in the 80s to be freedom.
Strange that someone who was Prime Minister for eleven years would have such a profound effect on our country.
By this I mean deregulation, the liberal market and consumerism,
Ah, you mean Thatcherism? Yes, Margaret Thatcher did seem a prominent supporter of that.
notions much extended under Tony Blair and his government.
Thatcher's specific enemy was communism. Our avowed and necessary enemy - since the attacks on the World Trade Centre - is Islam in its radical version,
I agree
which is increasing in strength, particularly since the failed invasion of Iraq.
Although, of course, radical Islam was around way before the invasion of Iraq, and is not only down to Western foreign policy. Not that Mr Kureishi seems fit to mention that.
After 9/11 there has been much talk about a "clash of civilisations", as though Islam and liberalism are only ever opposed to one another, with one or other of them being defeated in the end, as communism was.
It's not that Islam and liberalism are opposed to one another. It's RADICAL Islam and liberalism. Most Muslims don't live under Sharia law and blow themselves up. Another distortion from the author. There are many liberal Muslims, but Mr Kureishi seems to want to talk in stereotypes.
The underlying idea here is that in the future we will all pursue the same ideals, and indeed become similar in character to one another: it could be called a globalisation of personality.
Or the "imperialism of human rights", as Eric Hobsbawm described it. God forbid everyone has liberal values - of tolerance, freedom of speech, thought and action, the right to vote, equal rights for women. Wouldn't the world be a much nastier place then. Remember "globalisation of personality" though, it comes back later.
But these seemingly opposed philosophies - one of certainty, fixity and moral absolutes based on the unshakeable authority of one book, while the other is one of postmodern scepticism, doubt and flux - are not alien to one another in the way we might think. There is mutual fascination, and far more mixing or "multiculturalism" than we would like to admit.
All over the Muslim world people are compelled not only by consumerism and materialism but by the idea of a free and fulfilling education for their children. Most Muslims want a higher standard of living, job opportunities, good healthcare, housing and pensions.
Isn't this what every civilisation aspires (or aspired) to do? Why bother writing this at all? Though it's pretty obvious by now this guy doesn't mind writing drivel.
But Muslims are far more aware than we are of our self-deceit, of the "spiritual" price we pay for our freedom. They can see that the beautiful ideas we are peddling - democracy, free speech, individualism - bring considerable negatives with them. If the west is trying to sell these excellent ideas they are also, like a sleazy salesman, failing to mention their obverse - what it is, as it were, that you see when you turn the pretty picture round.
Damn that pesky democracy and freedom of speech! Whoever liked those crappy little ideas? And individualism, what's that all about?
It's also telling that just a few paragraphs above Kureishi wrote about the "globalisation of personality", whereby everyone becomes the same, and is now saying that the West promotes individualism. Which one is it?
If the body of the suicide bomber has become the symbol of the Islamist's defiance, determination and an almost inexplicable commitment to religious ideals, the way we in the west characterise our bodies is equally telling.
Our media and our lives are full of stories of obesity and anorexia, of models, mingers and the dietary habits of children. We either consume too much or too little. We can never get it right; we feel out of control. There is self-harm and addiction everywhere.
Is this guy comparing people who blow themselves (and other people up) to people who eat too much McDonalds? This is ludicrous. Suicide bombing is hardly "self-harm", it's an act of cold-blooded murder. Something eating too much food will never be.
Clearly most Muslims are not fundamentalists and most people in the west are not obese cokeheads.
Heaven forbid this guy talk in stereotypes. And some Muslims are obese and some westerners are religious fundamentalists. What a confusing world we live in!
Our notions of "east" and "west" are screens on to which we can project our fantasies. If we can say the east envies the west while wanting to distance itself from it - "they" refuse to integrate; why don't they want to be like us if they want to live here? - we can say that the self-disgust of the west conveys a profound confusion about the way we view ourselves now.
Where did "we" say that? Who is "we"?
From this point of view the Muslim is telling us what we already feel about ourselves but cannot yet own up to. The more alien this seems, the closer to home it is likely to be. Radical British Muslims wishing to attack and destroy something they belong to, crudely and violently represent something which comes from within rather than from without. If the east has too many values, which are over-constraining, the west, according to this view, has too few.
No, the west have values like "It's not right to blow yourselves up because you dislike government policy, killing dozens of people in the process". This is not a value which a few radical British Muslims shared on 7/7.
Our visual culture, Damian Hirst, Jake and Dinos Chapman; our playwrights, Sarah Kane and Mark Ravenhill; and our writers, including the excellent Michel Houllebecq,
I've only heard of one of these, (Damien Hirst), let alone actually see what they do, but never mind. Strange, as I thought modern art didn't really represent anything.
present a picture of a nihilistic west disappearing into a whirlpool of narcissism, sentimentality and moral emptiness. They are saying we have sold our souls for the freedom to shop and screw as and when we wish.
I don't think there's anything wrong with the freedom to do what we like when we like it. I can't also see how (or when) we sold our souls to do this. Maybe Magna Carta should never have happened - it put us on that long, disgusting walk to freedom, where we can do what we like when we please. How we must wish to be back in the days of 1214...
Furthermore, don't we claim to be enlightened, liberal and democratic while unleashing a whirlwind of disaster and death on the Muslim world, day after day?
I'd like to think that the occpying troops in Iraq now (I assume the writer means Iraq above all other cases) are not "unleashing a whirlwind of disaster and death", I'd like to think they are helping Iraq become a democracy, slowly but surely. Unlike the Muslim fundamentalists in the Iraqi resistance, who blow themselves up killing dozens of Iraqis daily.
If we find the idea of sacrifice difficult - why would anyone want to blow themselves up for a cause?
Why indeed, what a ridiculous thing to say! It's hard to know if he's being serious or not.
- our self-disgust points to an absence, perhaps to a need for authority. The idea of the father has declined, and the family has splintered; our religious leaders, our royal family, our politicians have little credibility. We no longer follow or believe in them.
On the other side, Muslim life is organised around the mosque, the family, the book, obedience, and the idea of being good. Further along, a committed Muslim might well kill himself not only for his beliefs but to improve the lives of others. Which of us will do this now?
What rot! Suicide bombers blowing themselves up to improve the lives of others? Nothing to do will Allah and 72 Virgins then?! If any Westerner is going to kill themselves to improve the lives of others, it'll probably be the troops in Iraq. Bearing in mind the results of a recent opinion poll, where it was said that 61% of Iraqis think bringing down Saddam Hussein is worth the hardship entailed.
I will repeat again that suicide bombing is an act of cold-blooded murder and there can be no excuses for it.
Freud considered religion to be infantile, which didn't mean he thought it was childish; rather, that it satisfied childhood wishes, mainly for certainty. Almost all societies, throughout all of human history, have been religious in some sense. Religion was a holding framework which organised people, often in authoritarian ways, controlling their sexuality.
Most societies have been religious - but there's little place for religion now that science has mainly disproved most things said in most religious books. Perhaps there could be a role for religion in helping people lead a good life - but that implies that you cannot make decent moral choices without being religious. This is a view I find very patronising.
Does Mr Kureishi believe that it was a good thing to organise people in authoritarian ways and control their sexuality? If he doesn't, this isn't made clear. You can use this sentence to show there ISN'T a place for religion now - I don't like the idea of a society being organised in "authoritarian ways".
Compared to religion, consumerism, which is based on, and indeed inspires, only dissatisfaction and greed, is far more likely to drive people mad, because who we are is always beyond our grasp. Once God overlooked us all, but now the only thing which watches us is the camera. We live in a country of more or less total surveillance, but it is an indifferent or hostile gaze which indicates that our extreme individualism has isolated us from one another. The Islamicist, far from being only crazy, is pointing to a weakness that we know - and refuse to accept - is really there.
I have to agree, I'm not exactly at one with the consumer society either. I'll leave insults to something more deserving.
In the past few years there has been much religion-lite, the New Age as well as versions of Buddhism or kabala. These are attempts to fill what Salman Rushdie calls a "God-sized hole". But these substitutes are the tofu of belief; they are not anything like the real thing. They do not terrify with their authority and they are not sufficiently irrational to inspire true faith. They do not punish enough. We are left to do that to ourselves.
So what we need is something terrifying and irrational?
Not long ago there was another idea, which involved neither God nor extreme competition, called socialism. It represented ideas of fraternity, social bonding and creativity which were fruitful and significant. But it was wiped out by Thatcherism in 1989 along with communism, which it in no way resembles.
Surely "proper" socialism was long dead by 1989? I wouldn't mind socialism being revived in the way he says, but we could manage with the values set out in the Euston Manifesto. I wonder if he'll sign it?
Our notions of tolerance, equality and interest in others - as well as legitimate guilt about colonialism - gave rise to multiculturalism, now considered a foolish if not discredited and even dangerous idea. How could we have thought that our ideas, developed since the Enlightenment, of rational debate, scholarship, criticism, were not far better than theirs? But now we are not so certain. If the west is a stew of corruption and idiocy this is not only a projection, but a version of our own self-disgust.
All of the west is a stew of corruption and idiocy? Rather generalised, isn't it? Like me saying the east is full of unthinking Islamic terrorists. Neither statement is true, just a massive crass overgeneralisation.
The repressed is returning: there is a new and virulent racism, in the form of religious discrimination. This is at the very moment when real religion has come back to the west - with a vengeance. This is not only because it is being imposed on us by "medievals" who we should never have tolerated, but because we are seduced by it. If the home-grown British bomber is our headache, he is also our symptom.
We are seduced by suicide bombers? Pfft....
If we have little idea of who we want to be or where are going, for some of us this is an agreeable state of entertaining disorientation. But this confusion fails to give us the conviction we require to assert ourselves, to really think about what it is the Thatcherite world failed to deliver, thus leaving a space which Islam can occupy.
And there the article ends. I don't see why Islam has to fill this gap in the world, and why it cannot be rational, secular values - freedom of speech, democracy, rationalism, secularism etc. Again, Mr Kureishi doesn't make his point very well.
Read the comments to his article as well - there are a few more decent points that I haven't included in this fisk.
I think that the article raises a couple (but only a couple) of serious points. But the way the writer argues them is crass and absurd. For the most part the article is overgeneralising, sterotypical claptrap. I hope I've put that across OK in this fisk.
Kudos for reading all this through to the end!
Cory
From my fellow Golden Strawberry comrade, in his post yesterday:
The big dividing line (and there are always dividing lines to be found) in this coming century, it seems to me, is between those who believe in a secular, reason-based way of life, and those who choose instead to prostrate themselves before an illusion. With terrible results.
Indeed. An article in the Sunday Telegraph today illustrates another one, about a chap called Trevor Brooks (Abu Izzadeen to his mates). Speaking to John Humphrys on the Today programme:
Mr Humphrys is used to exposing the equivocations and evasions of politicians. But Mr Izzadeen did not equivocate: he called John Reid "a murderer", said Tony Blair was "a terrorist" and "an enemy to Muslims and an enemy of Allah". Mr Izzadeen insisted that he couldn't care less about free speech, and that he would only observe "the Islamic process, not the democratic process". Allah "created the UK: it doesn't belong to you, or to the Queen, or to the Government, but to Allah. He has put us on earth to implement Sharia law."
At that point, you could almost hear John Humphrys's jaw drop.
You could hardly blame him. Most of those listening were in a state of shock too. Mr Izzadeen's bigoted religious intolerance was breathtaking. It was a salutary reminder of what the ideologues of fundamentalist Islamic terrorism actually believe. This is not a movement, as some claim, precipitated by British foreign policy. It is not a stand against "oppression" or a cry for "greater respect". Its goals are far more extensive: dismantling our secular, pluralist and tolerant democracy and replacing it with Sharia law and an Islamic state.
From this standpoint it is also difficult to disagree with the main premise of Alisdair Palmer's interview - that phone tapping evidence should be made admissable in court.
Cory
This is rather amusing. Via Harry's Place, here's what's said in the latest Al-Qaeda vid:
As for those who have expressed their respect and admiration for Islam, and acknowledged that it is the truth, and demonstrated their support and sympathy for the Muslims and their causes-- like George Galloway, Robert Fisk and countless others-- I say to them: isn't it time you stopped sitting on the fence and came over to the side of truth?
I for one think Robert Fisk would look marvellous in a hijab.
-posted by Roy
I'm afraid you'll have to make do with this link, as I can't seem to put the picture on this blog:
http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/3495/1779/1600/New_journal.jpg
Hat tip to BB, via SimplyJews
-posted by Roy
Roy said the following in his last post:
Constructive criticism of Islam, however, should be allowed and encouraged. It is hardly Islamaphobic to assert that a great deal of its members seem to be against freedom of expression and freedom of speech (see the cartoon row), and a minute proportion seem to be so intolerant of people's actions they want to blow said people up. It is also surely not Islamaphobic to try and suggest ways of how this can be stopped.
The word Islam means, literally 'submission'. Islam is the most binding and absolute of all the 'mono'theisms (how anybody could give such schismatic and divided organisations a name like that is beyond me). Orthodox Muslims believed that the Quran (literally 'the recitation') is the word of God as dictated to Muhammad over a period of 23 years. Muhammad was declared the 'Seal of the Prophets', thus preventing any further revelation from occuring through another Prophet in the future.
The Quran, then, as Orthodox muslims would see it, is perfect and unchangable, it is also the source of the Islamic Sharia law. Combined with the Hadith (the sayings, life and example of the Prophet Muhammad), the Quran is the source of all Islamic law.
You can of course see the difficulty reformist Muslims have in changing their societies. When confronted by fanatics who can point to the text itself and lift directly from it many justifications for the atrocities they commit, the exercise can often seem futile. The West must engage with and support the progressive wings of Islamic communities across the globe. They must be helped to win the argument with the Quranic literalists.
The end goal for a truly progressive foreign policy would be the complete secularisation of the whole globe, but this cannot happen unless the globe is willing to listen. Liberal muslims can be reasoned with, debated with and eventually shown the way forward. Reactionary muslims give no rights to atheists in their societies (they do not even receive dhimmi or 'protected' (essentially 2nd class) status given to 'People of the Book' - Jews and Christians). Armed force should not be put aside in the war we are engaged in, but a more considered and prudent use of it in the future would, perhaps, yield more fruitful results.
-posted by Adam
The purpose for this Daily Mail-esque headline can be found in Guido. A Tory blogger wrote a joking Lefty Lexicon post, which is actually pretty funny. I particularly like:
Disproportionate - foreign affairs: Describes any act by USA or Israel.
Intolerance - Intolerance can only committed against certain defined groups of people. These do not include, Americans, the middle class, white manual workers, rural people, business and Christians obviously.
Nazi - informal: describes non-Lefty views and useful to link with people Lefties don’t like. Thus Germany’s Nazi period is the only noteworthy formative experience of Pope Benedict.
Terrorist - no such thing. Only people suffering from ‘root causes’ and ‘legitimate grievances’.
His employers, Orange, received a snotty letter from some Muslim group or other. They are all indistinguishable, except they use the word "Islamaphobic" every sentence. Take this extract:
(1) "Islamophobic - anyone who objects to having their transport blown up on the way to work."
This is islamaphobic in the sense that it obfuscates the fact that Islamaphobia exists and it suggests that all victims of terrorism are islamaphobic (which is an offence to all innocent victims of 7/7 including muslim victims). Islamaphobia is the irrational fear of Islam and is a phrase which is used to describe prejudice against Islam which is especially important since such prejudice does not fall into the definition of racism. Further this comment is clearly trying to falsely polarise the problem of Islamist terrorism by saying that all muslims are terrorists - as a muslim I condemn having my transport blown up but clearly I do not consider myself islamaphobic.
This surely takes a joke far too seriously. If we can be serious for a moment (rather than take disproportionate action against someone making an obvious joke), Islamaphobia - if it actually has any meaning following it's overuse by militant lefties and paranoid Muslims - to my mind means the hating of Muslims simply because they are Muslims. Constructive criticism of Islam, however, should be allowed and encouraged. It is hardly Islamaphobic to assert that a great deal of its members seem to be against freedom of expression and freedom of speech (see the cartoon row), and a minute proportion seem to be so intolerant of people's actions they want to blow said people up. It is also surely not Islamaphobic to try and suggest ways of how this can be stopped.
-posted by Roy
Again, Gene on Harry's Place discussing whether Hezbollah are fascist.
To my mind, fascism means the belief in some sort of "master race" and the commitment to go to any lengths - such as the Nazi Party conquering half of Europe - to promote that "master race".
I don't know if Hezbollah are fascist, but what I did find amusing was someone in the New Statesman saying that Hezbollah are committed to a secular state in Lebonan. Especially when in its founding statement, Hezbollah declares:
Only an Islamic regime can stop any further tentative attempts of imperialistic infiltration into our country.
I don't know who's more mad, them or me....
-posted by Roy
A decent article on Comment is Free (!) by Martin Bright:
There are even some on the centre ground of British politics who are beginning to talk about a 'popular front' of progressives opposed to the rise of militant Islam in an alliance modelled on the democrats of left and right who united to oppose fascism in the 1930s. But this will be impossible while deep divisions exist over the conduct of the war in Iraq and Israel's savage attack on Lebanon, both of which will help build support for radical Islam across the Muslim world and in Britain. But the principle is a good one.
Professor Chetan Bhatt of Goldsmith's University in London is one of the few thinkers on the left to have developed a coherent position on the religious right. In an essay to be published later this year, he argues that the left must rethink the way it deals with Islamists at the exclusion of genuinely progressive secular and religious voices within Britain's south Asian Muslim communities. 'The left, despite its knowledge of the horrifying politics of communal and religious sectarianism in south Asia, has often been unable to grasp the existence of the "fascisms of the powerless" or the small communal "fascisms" in everyday civic life. Acknowledging this means facing numerous political directions at once, as painstakingly complicated and difficult as this initially seems.'
Meanwhile, the Foreign Office seems determined to press ahead with courting radical Islamists. Just this month, the British government paid for Yusuf al-Qaradawi to attend a conference in Turkey to discuss the future of European Islam. At home, it funded two Islamist youth organisations, the Federation of Islamic Student Societies and Young Muslim Organisation, to help run a roadshow of Muslim scholars to tour the country. Fosis and YMO, while condemning violence, are ideological allies of the Muslim Brotherhood and Jamaat-i-Islami. It is ironic that conservative thinkers categorise these organisations accurately as part of an Islamist extreme right, while many on the left continue, wrongly, to see them as part of some wider international Muslim liberation movement.
While this situation remains, there is no shame for those on the left opposed to the rise of radical Islam to build alliances with conservatives prepared to call fascism by its real name.
That's my emboldening
How true. Perhaps documents like the Euston Manifesto can help build that consensus.
-posted by Roy
