I couldn’t understand some parts of this article, but it sounds interesting…

I couldn’t understand some parts of this article, but it sounds interesting…

I couldn’t understand some parts of this article, but it sounds interesting…

The thing that annoyed me most about Amis’s piece was the context, which is what most people who objected to it are accused of ignoring. For him to parrot almost exactly the BNP’s opinions on Muslims, then say that it was just an “impulse” and he doesn’t really mean it is woefully disingenuous. If Amis wants praise for going into the dark corners of the collective imagination and saying the unsayable, he has to actually engage with what he finds and provide some sort of moral framework to it, rather than cop out with a glib intellectual equivalent of “Only kidding!” That makes him the real-life equivalent of an Internet troll, just doing it for the reaction.

This sort of thing is maddeningly endemic among self-appointed intellectuals now, though. Pick up a Michel Houellebeccq book or a Michael Haneke film and you’ll find the most jaundiced, misanthropic caricature of humanity imaginable, but rather than deal with it, the creators simply say “And that represents all of us – you deal with it.”

People like that want the freedom to think up repulsive and offensive things, but they seem to regard it as a personal insult when you point out to them that, having thought it up, they should then show some responsibility for it and acknowledge what it says about them, rather than fobbing it off onto the rest of society. Amis’s mistake was to try and apply this hackneyed old way of thinking to serious political debate rather than fiction; he’s never been a particularly original thinker, and that unoriginality may have just tripped him up.

Exactly right. This seems to be the trap that most of the so-called muscular liberal poster-boys have fallen into. I guess the Fox-News line in political analysis is what puts food on their tables these days.

Shuggy, I see you’ve comprehensively failed to address what I said above.

Sunny – you’re not addressing Hitchens’ point, which was that Eagleton and Bennett were being far too literally-minded.

Is that another way of saying: “We must look at these phrases in context”? Sounds like the kind of thing the MCB would say.

Martin Amis did indeed declare after the whole controversy blew up and Eagleton pointed out the stupidity of his ways that “harassing Muslims” wasn’t a good idea.

But you singularly ignored the other quotes that Bennett has also dug up including: ”The impulse towards rational inquiry,” Amis wrote elsewhere, “is by now very weak in the rank and file of the Muslim male”

Tell me something, if that was said about the white male or the Jewish male, would you not find it a bit odd? A bit… racist maybe? I mean, he’s only being derogatory to about half a billion people…

“Rod Liddle, Julie Birchill types who profess some form of muscalar /liberal christianity on the other hand, just seem to have issues with brown people.”

I don’t know about Rod Liddle but I can’t imagine it of Julie Burchill. Any evidence? Anything I’ve read of hers on the subject takes issue with the religion and its precepts rather than the colour of those most likely to follow it in the UK.

By the way I wish Amis would write stuff on subjects he knows from the inside, like language and literature, rather than subjects he has had to swat up on, like religion and politics.

I suppose I’m just trying to gauge what ‘conversations’ are now possible, so was intrigued by your comment I’m planning a trip to the northern Stans in a couple of years time and not that I have any interest in religions anymore, perhaps I’ll just keep the conversation to ‘horses’ and such like.

Bananbrain – is there a reading list that I don’t know about? Do we actually have to read all this stuff your talking about. Do they write children’s books so I can scan through it quickly – I feel so left out. Holy Sheets sounds very Catholic. Is it?

Justforfun

b’shalom

bananabrain

b’shalom

bananabrain

i was referring to Kuwait – where i had spent most of my growing up years- and Bangladesh, where i come from, have lived in for 2 full years, and visit regularly as my parents and most of my relatives live there.

(ooh dont even get me started on KSA!! GRR!!)

i was referring to conversations anywhere, and also the ‘national’ conversation, if you see what i mean. ( and yeah, if you dont know the place, then not having conversations about religion in the bazaar is a good idea!) perhaps i was really referring to the relevance of religion – or not – to what makes people feel distinct as a people/group. Bangladesh hence may be a funny example because the forming of the nation was framed very much around the Bengali identity, and getting away from an arbitrary invention -i.e. Pakistan, which was supposed to be a homeland for Muslims, but clearly, didn’t have that much relevance for people at that time.

clearly things are possibly changing now.

and possibly in Kuwait, the shadow of that awful place, the K of SA, the custodians of the two holy mosques, was always looming over us. also there, it was clear that though there were lots of muslims from all different places, and lots of non-muslims, and there was never really a feeling of ‘muslim’ solidarity, nope. much more along the lines of where are you from. indians and pakistanis and bangladeshis – muslim or not – were definitely ‘foreign’ (all referred to as hindiyas for the most part!) as were any muslims from other countries, there was a certain feeling of Arab solidarity to a certain extent, though of course with very distinct national identities, and then the idea of arab solidarity died on august 2nd 1990 for most kuwaitis. still, overall, in that country, which was full of mostly expats from the world over, in the end, divisions were really along class lines.

though tbh its a nice sounding sound bite. i wonder where you appropriated it from?

a lot of ordinary people don’t feel they have to be automatically defensive about it because its “theirs”. … these people.

Are we talking about conversations in ones home with or conversations out in the bazaar.

When travelling I’ve been too much of a coward to discuss religions with people out in the bazaar.

Justforfun

By this I don’t mean that people shouldn’t go on condemning violence, discrimination against women and homosexuals, just that they shouldn’t be framed in a ‘post 9/11′ clash of civilisations framework.

I went to the Institute of Social Cohesion’s Islamism debate on Tuesday featuring Ayan Hirsi Ali and Ed Hussain : all very interesting but as neither speaker was typical of most Muslims I know(born into the faith and die in it even if they don’t practice at all) and most of the audience was non-Muslim and included quite a few right wing journalists with an axe to grind, (eg; one questioner was fearful that so called ‘sharia compliant ‘ ethical funds somehow helped OBL by not buying shares in alcohol companies ) I’m not sure what purpose these types of debate serve.

And that’s a key point of differentiation for me if you want to accuse someone of being Islamaphoic/racist towards Muslims- there’s a difference between someone who says ‘all abrahamic faiths are outdated/bad’ and someone who says/makes out that ‘Islam is worse’

So I think Amis has gone a bit over the edge. Hitchens despite his support for Bush deserves much more benefit of the doubt given his track record in standing up for peoples who happen to be Muslim and that he is consistent in being antiall religion .

Rod Liddle, Julie Birchill types who profess some form of muscalar /liberal christianity on the other hand, just seem to have issues with brown people.

i think i should go back to a muslim majority country where raising the issues of our dodgy imperialist past and the oppression we suffered through – is much more of a legitimate “progressive” thing to do – does such a place exist?

Wahishi – The Wild One @ 22 . See what happens when you educate women !! they spot most bullshit straight away. We know it’s in their nature to find ‘faults’ and with education, there is just no stopping them.

“demonise the demonizers”
“let live the let livers”
“Down with damn yellow commie bastards”

I think its time for my medication again.

Justforfun