Not racist apart from ‘the odd impulse’
Martin Amis was interviewed on Channel 4 News yesterday evening. Defending his father, he says “He wasn’t anti-semitic, except with the odd impulse”. This is really funny. We’re moving on from the days of “I’m not racist but…” to the more subtle “I’m not racist except with the odd impulse…”
Martin Amis isn’t really a racist you see. He just felt the impulse to lock up all Muslims until they “get their house in order” (they’re all culpable for each other you see). The odd impulse doesn’t really reveal what you really feel or mean. It’s just like the odd impulse once has to blow up a train or like go on a murder rampage. Why make a big deal out of quotes taken out of context, right? Watch the interview. I think Jon Snow was far too soft on him but it was still amusing to watch Amis squirm and evade the question.
One point I wanted to make on my recent article on this; ignorant polemics like Martin Amis (and Rod Liddle, Melanie Phillips, Mark Steyn etc) survive by creating a false choice between their ideas and fascism. They keep stating that they’re only opposed to religious fanaticism, so if you oppose them then obviously you’re in league with Bin Laden. They (or their supporters) don’t want to pretend there is a middle ground for a more nuanced and intelligent analysis. It’s just constant shrieking of: Are you on the side of freedom or facism? There’s no need to buy into it, it insults our intelligence.
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Filed in: Humour, Race politics
This is going to run and run…
Why doesn’t he just apologise for it? he is only making things worse for himself.
Excuse me while I chortle down my sleeve. You can`t make a cup of tea without calling someone a racist. If one raindrop beats another to the bottom of the window its probably because of ingrained systemic racism. False oppositions … you are the world champions .
You are determined that immigration should continue to overwhelm the indigenous population and any squeak raise in protest is “racist”.Take the fully fitted decking with all the trimmings out of your own eye
This is the pot calling the kettle ….um ….. eeerm help me out here
ZinZin, its better he doesn’t. Better to know what we are going to have to deal with than have it all shrugged off.
Such extreme arrogant supremacists need to be held to the light.
Only last night I was astonished to hear Melanie Philips (as a panelist on the Moral Maze, BBC R4) castigate the BBC for inviting a ‘witness’ who’s views supported legalising hard drugs.
‘How dare the BBC give him a platform’, is the sum of it. Even though she had unfettered opportunity to interrogate the man.
For me, I felt sorry for the man for having to sit in the same room as her; and the great british people for having our airwaves polluted so regularly by her shrill voice and replulsive views.
I can’t believe we have a University entreating its reputation to a fellow with such a black heart, and a coward to boot; the BBC giving free-form access, weekly, to a vicious thug who is quite happy to re-write history to suit her dark dark agenda.
Man will not be free until the last Iman is stranged with the entrails of the last Vicar who is be suffocated by the bowels of the last Rabbi.
I can’t believe we have a University entreating its reputation to a fellow with such a black heart, and a coward to boot; the BBC giving free-form access, weekly, to a vicious thug who is quite happy to re-write history
Indeed. Why Terry Eagleton is getting away with…..oh, you are talking about Terry Eagleton, aren’t you?
You are determined that immigration should continue to overwhelm the indigenous population
Newmania, I know you find it difficult to contain your anger, but what’s that gotta do with the topic?
Soso: I don’t want to sound harsh, and I’ve no interest in insulting anyone, but
No one cares Soso.
Martin Amis is a boring old turdflap of impeccable literary pedigree who nowadays has nonsensical, bitter diatribes against Muslims published in the right-wing press. He hasn’t had a novel of any worth published in years and is now attempting to pin his tails to the Hitchens gravy train, by conflating Muslims with Extermists and Islam with Islamic Terrorism. Anythinig to get shift the stock lot of The Rachel Papers.
That’s it.
People like Amis and Mad Mel are just spouting absolutely stupid shit, and they are shooting into the realms of popularity and ‘credibility’ because of it.
They remind me of Abu Izzadine and Abu Hamza in many ways, extremists stirring for the sake of stirring without thinking or at times even believing what they are saying, but being tempted to go even further because they are now ‘well-known’ for their ‘controversial’ views and will be asked along to lots of media events.
What’s weird to me is seeing this crap about ‘Islam being the root of all evil’ gathering pace in credible circles. It’s the new ‘thing you’re not allowed to say’ and therefore the wannabe rebels are promoting it as a means of showing their ’street cred’.
Is it easier for them to obsess over this than try to de-construct politics, economics and our ultra-complex socially-constructed existence?
nah, can’t be bothered with that!
It’s all IZLAMMZSS fault!!
Refresh
When you are in a corner it is better to admit defeat, lick your wounds and move on than fight a losing battle.
For a liberal to call for the imposition of Nuremburg laws on Muslims is objectionable. Amis is quick to damn those on the left who supported Stalin (his own father is included in this number)but it is hypocritical to call for a Stalinist/Nazi solution to the problems posed by Islamists. Like father, like son.
Well…..that probably applies to the more extreme, austere interpretations of Islam. However, the “lights didn’t go out” and “the music didn’t die” during the centuries of Islamic domination in the Indian subcontinent, despite the nefarious efforts of Aurangzeb and his ilk, of course. In fact, some would say it provided an infusion of new ideas and cultural influences to a society which had become stagnant in some ways.
I guess it all depends on what interpretation of Islam one practises, along with the impact that the “local” culture has on it (and vice versa).
Sunny, let’s not forget he was “musing” about the necessity to randomly harass anyone of Middle-Eastern appearance, which is not only going to include many of the British Muslim population as a whole but would also result in large swathes of the non-Muslim Asian population in the UK (ie. the rest of us) being on the
receiving end of such treatment. Not exactly a stellar suggestion to win hearts & minds, considering that it would catalyse the alienation of Asians en masse regardless of their religious affiliation.
ZinZin, I think when someone of Amis’ supposed-capacity attempts to intellectualise a deeply repulsive thought then its important to let him damn himself, morning, noon and night.
If he was to withdraw to fight another day, I anticipate more headlines pointing fingers at muslims for running some sort of campaign to silence the great and the good of british literature. Deja Vu. Remember I said it first.
I would place him on some list as a ‘person not conducive to the global public good’.
The lights tend to go out wherever religion dominates the state. Currently Islam is the religion with pole position when it comes to dominating states. But it is far from a one horse race.
So I’m religiophobic, or credophobic, or fideophobic or whatever. Except phobic implies fear, and I’m not afraid, just pissed off.
As Jai points out, Amis was ‘musing’ on the extreme harrassment of those who look similar to those he fears. For someone who asserts intellectual superiority over the rest of us, as Amis does, that is a squalid position to take. And mealy mouthed to boot.
He could have addressed real issues, but prefered to suggest that the urge to humiliate the perceived other was a reasonable human response to historical trauma. It isn’t.
Like all Abrahamic religions, Islam starts with the assumption that we are filth, created from filth, engendered in filth, with filthy impulses and rightly doomed to eternal torture unless we submit meekly to Skydaddy’s capricious demands. And make it our business to ensure that our neighbours are equally craven. Unless you decide to become the deity’s enforcer, in which case infantile rewards are promised.
Where that is a dominant philosophy, you are going to have a screwed up nation.
Soso #14
You’ll excuse me for not taking a fucktard like you seriously as you’re begging me to.
Amis is old, past his prime and without a writerly impulse left in his body. It must be hard being the only progeny of a literary behemoth but turn out to be talentless, idea-less and hopeless. Martin Amis, doyen of the 80s luvvie literary establishment but one miserable tosser, the embodiment of the writerly pre-ejaculation, the overrated zero-talented literary twat who’s basked in the glow of his surname, who came too soon.
The most gratifying thing for me is seeing the Muslim community in the UK not even bat an eyelid at Amis’ creepy “musings”. So de-sensitised are we to yet another publicity hungry media-whore manipulate the press to wrangle some cheap and cheesy controversy.
Amis forgets that you should scrutinise the ideology, but not blame entire groups of people. His suggestion of collective guilt and collective punishment is obscene, and had it been asserted about Black or Jewish people he would have been hounded out of town by now.
White racism and the BNP should be criticised, that is an ideology. Saying all white people should be held responsible for, and punished, because of the activities of racists, is lunacy. And yet Amis, and his half-wit defenders, cannot understand this simple, basic truth, when it applies to the issue of Islamic fundamentalism.
oi! what was wrong with the last line, which went:
Get a book contract, you old [four letter c-word], and leave us the [four letter f-word] alone.
Soso, come back when you’ve stopped frothing all over the place and your spasms stop, yes? We prefer intelligent conversations here thanks.
Morgoth, you are very much mistaken if you think its an issue between Eagleton and Amis. Its an issue between Eagleton, me, my neighbours, friends, millions of UK citizens, billions across the globe and Amis, Hitchen, Philips, Morgoth, Blair, Bush, Rumsfeld, etc.
Eagleton is to be commended for raising it.
Ruby
“Amis forgets that you should scrutinise the ideology, but not blame entire groups of people.”
Amis knows full well there are others to tackle that one, he is after all Hitchens friend and confidante. Hitchens does his ideology party trick, Amis turns it ever so slightly into Eurabia.
We must start asking some really tough questions about these people.
Refresh,
However odious I might find Amis, Eagleton’s effort was hardly commendable.
“However odious I might find Amis, Eagleton’s effort was hardly commendable.”
He was the one who took Amis to task. Is that not commendable? I had not seen it anywhere else.
Believe me I’d have been more than delighted to have seen the Ruth Kelly or Hazel Blears whichever one of them is in the cabinet looking after the interests of the communities, counter this repulsive creature.
Oh I just wanted to make the point that Melanie Phillips is on Question time tonight, so if you want to see the spectacle of someone spewing shit tune in at 10.35. And for those people that don’t think its physically possible for such an act to occur, you just have to watch it!
Sunny, my contributions are an asset to your comboxes, and without them you’d be left with a boring echo-chamber, one in which everyone would always agree on everything.
I refrain from using foul language and I NEVER refer to other commenters as *fucktards*, yet it is my comments that are removed.
“A quarter of humanity now and by 2025 they’ll be a third”: Martin Amis, enfant terrible.
I’m absolutely baffled as to why anyone would find such a statement offensive.
Just how many millions of people, for instance, can one fit on the banks of The Nile before its waters are reduced to a mere trickle?
The Nile may be a long river, but its water volume is only VERY MODEST by world standards. Egypt and Sudan, both with large and fast-growing populations, are about to cross swords over just who gets the lion’s share of it.
Some of the losers, and a loser there has to be, will probably die of thirst, I guess.
Ditto for the water resources in the Middle East. Turkey, Iraq, Syria and the Kurds, once again all with large and fast-growing demographics, are already sabre-rattling over the resources of The Tigris and Euphrates, rivers that have only modest water-volumes as well.
In fact, large parts of the muslim world are so top-heavy with exploding populations, that in the near future even a small and seemingly innocuous crisis could become the tipping-point, leading to an ecological and humanitarian disaster on an UNPARALLELED scale.
Two trains, one track.
Islamophobic observation?!
Martin Amis did Muslims a favour by denouncing the suicidal, the outrageous and the enviromentally UNSUPPORTABLE demographics of the islamic world.
All Sunny can do in response is mutter ‘islamophobe’.
Perhaps he needs a drink.
All Sunny can do in response is mutter ‘islamophobe’.
I delete your tripe because it’s naked racism, couched in language about how the darkies are multiplying in huge numbers or threatening western civilisation.
I don’t want an echo chamber, but I don’t BNP types here either you see. And I have no interest in letting my database space be used for filth thanks. You’re welcome to post it somewhere else.
Martin Amis did Muslims a favour by denouncing the suicidal, the outrageous and the enviromentally UNSUPPORTABLE demographics of the islamic world.
The problem is, not only are you racist, you’re a dumb idiot on top of that. You clearly didn’t read my third paragraph properly in the article.
But hey, you’re not racist, you just have the “odd impulse” on this site to froth about how those ignorant Arabs should be grateful we’re dropping cluster bombs on them. Spare me the tripe please.
Eagleton is to be commended for raising it.
Bollocks he is. He’s only raising it because Amis critised the people him and his far left cronies have their tongues up…
Let’s face facts here – Eagleton is a self-described supporter of a philosophy that killed 200 million people in the 20th century. That he should be listened to on ANYTHING is a joke. Frankly, he should be locked in a gulag for a couple of years and fed nothing but cabbage to experience what his precious marxism would have foisted on everyone else.
Soso, are you amongst those that have to be thanked for population control in Iraq?
Bleh/Morgoth, but what about what he actually said of Amis?
It would have been good to see you deal with Amis. I would have commended you for it.
Irony is lost on you Morgoth. Considering that you wish to kill every single Muslim on the planet, which is the “Amis impluse” taken to its logical conclusion perhaps a spell in Abu Ghraib will be of some benefit to you.
Please play the issue and not the man, arguably in this case the latter isn’t important.
The other way lies the incessant demands – happily now mostly a thing of the past – for every contributor to PP to reveal their ethnicity/gender etc.
Er… isn’t this the same thread as last time? What is this Stalinist “urge” Sunny? Now he’s guilty because of the crimes of his father?
“ignorant polemics like Martin Amis (and Rod Liddle, Melanie Phillips, Mark Steyn etc) survive by creating a false choice between their ideas and fascism.”
Sounds to me as if you are employing a version of that ol’ anti-semitism brush beloved by the pro-Isreal lobby, ie anyone who offends me is a racist.
Not anyone, just Martin Amis, Rid Liddle and Mark Steyn.
Rid Loddle even.
Jon Snow: I just want to try and distinguish between Islamism and Islam. I mean, for example, you say “The extreme incuriosity of Islamic culture”. I mean how can you say such a sweeping thing, an entore faith that is expressed in different strands in different parts of the world.
Martin Amis: Because they’ve translated a only handful of books in the last millenium. Erm…
============================================
(my emphases)
Question: Who’s ‘they’?
The entire Muslim world of course. Well I can speak for Bangladesh, who is part of ‘they’ and it has one of the most vibrant publishing industries in Asia, in spite of being drastically poor, produced 3 Nobel Laureates and is a Muslim country.
So how can Amis then suggest that he has made the distinction between Islam and Islamism?
Irony is lost on you Morgoth. Considering that you wish to kill every single Muslim on the planet, which is the “Amis impluse” taken to its logical conclusion perhaps a spell in Abu Ghraib will be of some benefit to you.
I do not. I merely wish to debrainwash them, along with every other stinking Theist on the planet.
why is it that the stink seems to be emanating from your side, you being a cod-theist goat-fucking devil worshipper?
Jai Post #10 – I suppose one idea that Amis did not put forward to allow people to separate us muzzies from the rest is to ask us very nicely to sew crescent shaped badges on our outer clothes and to mark our front doors with an “Allah” sign in red ink. I vaguely remember something similar being asked of another religous group..but then again history is just another boring subject which has no relevance today.
As for Morgoth…have you got some sort of debrainwashing, anti God brainwashing machine?? oh you are funny…
Yes, kind of sounds like all the ’shrieking’ about ‘are you on the side of anti-racism’?
personally, i’m starting to think we really need a new term for racism. there are so many ‘group-ists’ out there who are effectively discriminating, but if its not seen as a ‘race’ thing, ooh guess what no one cares.
its getting really BORING, can we be [progressive] for a change and just look at discrimination full stop, this race thing is just so bloody self-fulfilling
have you got some sort of debrainwashing, anti God brainwashing machine?
Yep. Its called Free Will, and recognising that the Self is the Divine, not some imaginary skyfairy.
goat-fucking devil worshipper
Not very original Sid, come on, you can do better!
not for you I can’t. you’ll have to be happy with what you get goaty.
*cries*
*hugs his pet goat for comfort*
Morgoth, i have free will which is why i CHOOSE to believe in what you call a sky fairy..that’s my choice…it’s a democracy innit
But your belief in an external divine directly impinges upon other people in a negative way – thus indicating that it is not your True Will.
Free-will, the implicit sanctity of Man as Vicergent of God (Islam), the inner Pradip (Buddhist) being concomitant with Man’s Ideal Nature Prakriti (Hindu) or Fitnah (Islamic) are all theistic concepts.
You goat-fucking devil-worshipping simpletons are simply repurposing those concepts.
But hey, you’re not racist, you just have the “odd impulse” on this site to froth about how those ignorant Arabs should be grateful we’re dropping cluster bombs on them. Spare me the tripe please
Sunny where have I every called, or even intimated that “ignorant Arabs” should be grateful the cluster bombs?
I’m ignorant and an idiot? I’m also a practicing Cahtolic, SWEETIE, and The Vatican declared the U.S invasion of Iraq an UNJUST WAR, and this, right from the GET-GO.
Last week The Pope refused to even meet with Condi Rice.
If the population of the Islamic world increases in line with predicitions, then in less than 20 years it will have bred itself into abject poverty, ecological collapse and massive famine.
If every Mufti, Mullah and Cleric in every Islamic country were to introduce a draconian one child only policy, tomorow morning at 8:00 AM sharp, it’d still be a case of too little too late.
And you cavalierly dismiss this impending disaster with some facile, cliché about “darkies”?
News bad, messanger therefore racist.
Wow!
“But your belief in an external divine directly impinges upon other people in a negative way – thus indicating that it is not your True Will.”
You see this is what irritates me about you Morgoth. I don’t impinge upon anyone. Nor do any of the muslims in my acquaintance and I know a lot..as soso so eloquently points out, we breed a lot so by default I know a lot of muzzies.
And I just love the way you tell me about True will..I can’t be arsed with ppl who tell me what i think..or what i should think…or how i should act or how they perceive my actions or those of my co religionists..
I’m also a practicing Cahtolic, SWEETIE,
I remember you telling us earlier you were an atheist gay?
If every Mufti, Mullah and Cleric in every Islamic country were to introduce a draconian one child only policy,
Why should they? It hasn’t helped the Chinese. What draws people out of poverty is good economic policies. Dubai is somewhat showing the way.
then in less than 20 years it will have bred itself into abject poverty, ecological collapse and massive famine.
This is claptrap. Their problem will be water, not food. And poverty really isn’t a major problem in the Middle East, more in Africa and Asia.
Really, the amount of rubbish you spout in your messages, I could spend a day taking them apart. It’s easier just deleting such rubbish.
Newmania, I know you find it difficult to contain your anger, but what’s that gotta do with the topic
Its clear , I `m not angry and you are using a frankly adolescent ploy that is just a little dreary in an adult….
Newmania, I know you find it difficult to contain your anger, but what’s that gotta do with the topic
Its clear ,and you are using a chat room warrior ploy that is just a little dreary in an adult…….I`ve outgrown that sort of one up manship myself ..:)
Personally I thought that Amis handled himself very well in that interview, barring that weird cat like lick of the hand at the end.
Considering how many times I hear “quoted out of context”, it was nice to see him describe that context. He is right about not searching little girls, I get annoyed when I’m being made late for a flight because they are searching a little old lady in front of me. A little bit of profiling would do little harm in my opinion, even if they just focus on males in the right age group as skin color is a terrible way to spot political dissidence, even if currently there is a strong correlation.
Sure we all have “impulses”, it’s perfectly encapsulated in that song “everyone is a little bit racist”.
TFI