On Martin Amis
I’ve written an article published today on Comment is free about Martin Amis and the ‘controversy’ surrounding him.
There are broadly two kinds of politically correct people. Those who have good intentions and want to say or do the right thing, and those who hide malign intentions behind sweet words. In advocating free speech, I have always preferred that prejudiced people be open with their thoughts than hide behind sweet words.
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Filed in: Civil liberties, Current affairs
Muzumdar, your willingness to come out with hilarious new names to hide your identity is a great source of amusement. But you will be deleted.
Mr Hundal
Rod Liddle was not reponsible for the Eurabia edition of the Spectator.
I’m not racist, but… is how you should have begun your aticle.
I fucking hate Amis and the post-modern wank horse he rides on the saul bellow wannabe twat twatter
He can’t hold a candle to his father, you know, the little wankstain.
Sunny, it may come as a suprise to you, but I’m not the only one who objects to your uber simplistic liberalism. I don’t know who you have deleted, or what was said, but it certainly wasn’t me.
Although, it must be convenient for you to blame any criticism of you on me and then delete it.
Sid et al,
Good to see the sychophants out in full force.
Sycophant? hardly. Much as I love and admire our kid, Sunny, I do have a brain of my own. Here is my take on Amis and Co from my own blog.
Sid I have to say, I love your blog name
I will never forgive Hollywood if they don’t model the next James Bond Villian on Martin Amis, complete with slimy-accent, lizard pitch-fork tongue and gelled-back hair.
They should probably expand the size of his head about 5 times too, so that it is roughly equatable to the size of his smug, xenophobic ego.
The utter igorance of Amis on these matters was laid painfully bare on TV a few months ago when he was a guest on Question Time….never before have I seen such stupidity come crashing out of the mouth of a supposedly ‘world-class’ thinker. He obviously had little understanding of what he was talking about beyond generalities and sought to cover it up by spouting hateful garbage and treating the audience with his usual dose of utter contempt.
I hope that quote about “Strip-searching people who look like they’re from the Middle East or from Pakistan..” does come back and haunt him…it is an utterly outrageous thing to say.
It’s basically indefensible, no wonder he’s gone into damage limitation mode.
“The utter igorance of Amis on these matters was laid painfully bare on TV a few months ago when he was a guest on Question Time….”
I remember that he used the term ‘Russia’s Asiatic side is coming out” with reference to Putin controlling the Kremlin with more impunity.
And is it just me or does he look a lot like William Dafoe, who BTW is an amazing actor.
William Dafoe! goddamn it, I see it!
Amis vs. a Marxist. Oh God. A pox on both their houses.
Read most of Amis Junior’s early work and took a dislike to him, so never bothered with the celebrated later works. Struck me as an arrogant little gobshite with a sour contempt for anyone outside his coterie. A lazy judgement, I admit, but it seems to have been borne out.
Rumbold,
I have no time for Eagleton either, but probably for slightly different reasons.
why are muzumdar’s comments being deleted?
unless he’s actually swearing ( which other people are doing and not getting deleted!
) what’s the problem – his point of view may not be popular,but..
it will get boring around here without a bit of controversy.
I can’t really comment on Amis jr the writer since I never finished “Money” out of boredom. I don’t think I ever gave him a real effort.
However, I really must take issue with “There are broadly two kinds of politically correct people…”
I think there are more.
What about those who are broadly politically correct because they are naturally empathetic, tolerant, and largely progressive yet wary of sterile and mushy group think and fond of slyly making eyes at women’s tits and taking the piss out of effeminate behaviour? Where do we fit in?
Oh yeah, we’re the blokes.
Sunny, it may come as a suprise to you, but I’m not the only one who objects to your uber simplistic liberalism.
Well that’s funny, all my detractors seem to have the same IP address as you. Must be a coincidence. Or you don’t have a life. Hmmm..
El Cid, you’re saying it’s politically incorrect to be blokeish?
Frothwith in CIF hits the nail on the head –
“Martin Amis’s crime was to declare in an interview:…”
He didn’t ‘declare’ that. You are taking it out of context, and what’s more:
“He “felt the urge” to say that, he confesses, but it
quickly dissipated.”
You *know* you’re taking it out of context. Not as bad as Eagleton who not only took it out of context but also said it had been written in an essay, but nonetheless utterly disingenuous. You and the Guardian should be ashamed of yourselves.
- Below is the actual context –
Amis wrote an essay around the fifth anniversary of the destruction of the twin towers.
In the essay, The Age of Horrorism, Amis wrote that moderate Islam had lost a civil war within the faith.
In a subsequent interview, he said: “There’s a definite urge – don’t you have it? – to say, ‘The Muslim community will have to suffer until it gets its house in order.’ What sort of suffering? Not letting them travel. Deportation – further down the road. Curtailing of freedoms. Strip-searching people who look like they’re from the Middle East or from Pakistan.”
- Martin Amis is a writer. Writers explore ideas and feelings. They also reflect back our responses to events like 9/11, which sometimes may be unpalatable, but nonetheless should not be denied. That is what writers, and all artists, do. That’s what they’re here for.
There is something nauseating about lesser folk who seek to stifle these voices, inevitably for their own purposes. Whether its to reinvigorate their career like Eagleton, or just maintain their profile, like you Sunny.
What exactly is being taken out of context? And what is the difference between “he declared” and “he said”? And what is this postmodernist arsewash about writers being above accountability because they’re judged to be “exploring ideas and feelings”?
And what is this postmodernist arsewash about writers being above accountability because they’re judged to be “exploring ideas and feelings”?
It’s not postmodernist, Sid. People have been burning them and their books for centuries.
That’s a bit of a strawman, and a slightly desperate one at that. What was out of context about Amis’ remarks and I’ll ask again, since you’re now defending him, what’s the difference between “he said” and “he declared”?
Here’s some real sense from normblog.
I think you need some new reading glasses Sid. Compare what Sunny wrote and what Amis actually said in the interview. They are all your straw men, I’m afraid – it’s not really about the difference between declared and said.
I think you need to read the normblog article, Boyo. You’re indulging in some very rancid moral relativism, which is unfortunate because just for a second I thought you spouted sense.
Your defence of Amis seems to rest on 2 arguments: what was taken out of context and the difference between “he said” and “he declared”. You’ve failed to define either in this case.
Let’s play alongg with your straw man. Many writers’ books have been burned. Can you tell us how many have been for “exploring ideas and feelings” such as:
deportation of minorities,
strips searches of minorities,
“curtailing of freedoms” of minorities,
“Discriminatory stuff, until it hurts the whole community and they start getting tough with their children”
Go on. Just one.
I really wish you would stop handing me your straw men Sid. I’m not actually particularly interested in defending Amis. In fact in an earlier comment in an earlier post I pointed out that there was much to take exception to in what he said.
However, I am, so to speak, defending his right to say it. Particularly to be quoted in full and not out of context (as I notice you have sought to do yet again).
If I need to spell it out I will -
In his interview he talks about experiencing an “urge” to do these things following the attempts, I believe, to down those airliners over the Atlantic. As a writer he is “exploring” (I know you love the word) how he responded to it. And actually, as a dramatist he was spot on because I will hold my hand up and say that after 7/7 I was full of anger and rage against the perpetrators of the crime, the instigators and the apologists. In my unreasonable rage I would have happily watched every one of them locked up, but of course IN REALITY I also appreciated how unreasonable, unfair etc it was. So does that make me a racist scumbag? I suppose in your and Sunny’s book it does. But it also makes me human.
And as someone whose speciality is dramatising the human condition Amis has a responsibility to confront these responses. You can take the easy option if you wish, but I would prefer to take the more honest one.
For someone not interested in strawman arguments, you can sure come out with some.
Strawman: No one is suggesting that Amis should be silenced for saying what he says.
Strawman: No one has played the race card here, even if you are imagining one.
What Amis and his defenders are guilty of is the unwillingess to distinguish between Islam and Islamic extremism. And also the unwillingess to distinguish between Muslims and Islamist extremists.
It’s a willful obtuseness on their part. And no amount of literary gymnastics can redeem them because it’s clear he’s apologised for getting caught out rather than for harbouring these feelings. I’ll repeat norm, because on this he bears repeating:
“the broadcasting of discriminatory sentiments and symbols brings into play public meanings, whatever private thoughts may be attached to them. In clarifying what he said, it’s a shame that Martin Amis expressed no regret for having said it. “
Martin Amis is a writer. the man is going to try and be shocking obviously! People should keep things in perspective.
and i agree with el cid- what’s this there are broadly speaking 2 groups of political correctness>?
what rubbish. i agree with the CIF commenter who pointed out that in itself is such a generalization.
anyway Sunny, you have made quite a few comments that could be taken as non-PC and sexist by some people’s standards on this forum- its lucky most of us women aren’t quite as uptight about our sex as some people are about their religion and their skin colour, and can take it like “men”.
so everyone – please just be warned, from now on, any comments that can be construed as condescending to females – will be held up to the light. It is not politically correct to demean half of the population.
Ladies – please pay attention
“the broadcasting of discriminatory sentiments and symbols brings into play public meanings, whatever private thoughts may be attached to them.”
I refer you to my earlier comment about the Eastern Bloc.
What Amis is “guilty” of is confessing to an emotional response. The gymnastics are those of the prosecution in this virtual show trial I’m very much afraid.
no showtrial just a (wank) stain on his literary pedigree.
El Cid, you’re saying it’s politically incorrect to be blokeish
No Sid, I’m not, but I don’t make the rules.
When the PC show trials come people like me might get lined up and shot by the alternative lifestyle fascists.
(My company’s gender and transgender awareness week is loooming and I’m beginning to sweat.)
What Amis is “guilty” of is confessing to an emotional response.
An emotional response to put people into deportation camps en-masse, yes.
Or is that “out of context”? What’s the correct context? You sound like one of those people defending the imams in Channel 4’s Undercover Mosque. Heh.
Sunny, you have made quite a few comments that could be taken as non-PC and sexist by some people’s standards on this forum-
I’ve never claimed to be a PC fanatic. But I don’t remember making sexist comments.
Righty ho Sonia.
But for me it’s not that it is politically incorrect to demean half the population, it is that is is bloody rude and also stupid.
Yesterday David Cameron made a trip to Southall to show he meant business. It’s not clear whether Ming will deploy his zimmerframe.
http://www.pickledpolitics.com/archives/1220
I would say that the above is ageist. Sunny Hundal, you are an ageist. I guess that you are the type of PC person who:
‘hide[s] malign intentions behind sweet words.’
Tut tut.
an emotional response to put people into deportation camps en-masse, yes.
Compare the Booker candidate Mohsin Hamid and his 9/11 novel:
http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/books/2007/09/booker_club_the_reluctant_fund.html
Whatever the truth, it struck me as brave that a writer should look into the events of the day in the unblinking way that Mohsin Hamid has done. Especially since he has his narrator say that he saw the tragedy – if only briefly – as cause for celebration. It takes guts to have a literary character we’re expected to feel sympathy with to tell such unpalatable truths, even now.
Those emotional responses exist amongst pretty much everyone of normal human psychology. If in some particular circumstance you don’t feel them, then either you are an outlier, or more likely it’s just that the circumstances didn’t match the trigger point you would need to feel like a member of a tribe under attack and wanting to hit back.
A Chelsea fan will not feel outrage when Liverpool are unfairly denied a penalty, will not want to punch the ref.
Judge people by _what_ they do when their buttons are pressed, not on _whether_ their buttons have been.
what the rarse-klart you on about?
well sunny, its all relative, so im sure you didn’t mean to be offensive to any of ‘us’, (
)but still, someone may construe something you said to be sexist. on some occasions, you have made some off the cuff remarks which could have been taken to indicate a ‘oh you women..’ type attitude, which = depending on the degree to which it is done, some women could take exception to and deem ’sexist’.
don’t fret pet, i was just pointing it out.
I’ve never claimed to be a PC fanatic. But I don’t remember making sexist comments.
I do. There was a certain moslem female writer you didn’t like once…
Hey, nobody is perfect
El Cid,
“I do. There was a certain moslem female writer you didn’t like once…
Hey, nobody is perfect.”
Was it me? Was it me? Oh gosh darn, I hope it was me!
I’ve never read Amis fil or Amis pere, and don’t intend to…
Talking about racism, has anybody come across Prof. Watson’s [Genome Project] prouncements? According to this chap, there’s a scale of human reasoning (zi Arischman being on top) with Africans being at the bottom of it all. Presumably this is genetic?
Martin Amis is a dick – end of.
Muhamad
Let’s not start burning books eh?
A lot of great historical figures of the past have blemishes to their name by modern standards.
I think Lucky Jim is a good read and a great reminder of a more gentle age a la Ealing comedy.
El Cid, waddya mean by ‘let’s not start burning books’? Ich bin konfuzdt.
I read books. I admire Martin Amis very much, and get tremendous pleasure from his funny and moving novels, and collections of insightful criticism. My favourite? “The Information”.
I submit this in the interests of balance.
Cheers!