Londonistan
Stupid article in the guardian today. The offensive Melanie Philips interviewed by some slightly thick reporter, who gives her views far too much currency.
Basically Philips goes on about how Britain is being destroyed by Islam and the lack of values in modern society, basic daily mail stuff. Only because she used to write for the Guardian they feel the need to give credence to her, like Julie Burchill who because she used to be a bit left could get away with being outrageously racist in many of her articles. Maybe they used to do the same with Gary Bushell, after all he used to write for various socialist papers.
Anyway, back to the idiocy-
Throughout the book there are shards of evidence and penetrating questions that deserve to be at the centre of political debate. Did the security services in the 80s and 90s take a naive and complacent view of the growth of extreme Islamist cells run from London by political exiles, thinking that they wouldn't bite the hand that fed them? Have we got the right balance between protecting and promoting the rights and languages of minorities on the one hand, and the safety and culture of the majority on the other? Is the left overinfluenced by the Palestinian question, and too ready to close its eyes to the brutal realities of extreme Islamist thinking and practice?
Certainly, we should discuss these matters. We are in a country with a fast-growing and increasingly assertive Muslim minority. Relations between them and the Christian or secular majority are of huge importance, as is our security from terrorist attack. And yes, some do use anti-Zionism as a cover for anti-semitism
Is the left over influenced by the so called paelstine question? Change that the Jewish question and relate it to anytime before 1940 and you kind of get the idea why its sort of important. The airy fairy way the interviewer just dismisses Palestine, as if not to understand that that, more than anything else invites rage on behalf on anyone who knows the history of Israel and its actions against the Palestinian people.
Philips does the usual ‘anti-Semitism is growing, Muslims do it and the left love a bit of it’, casually forgetting both that considerably more mosques get attacked than synagogues and that many of the best lefties have traditionally been Jewish.
Also this, the old rightist bugbear-
Multiculturalism, she writes, "has become the driving force of British life, ruthlessly policed by a state-financed army of local and national bureaucrats enforcing a doctrine of state-mandated virtue to promote racial, ethnic and cultural difference and stamp out majority values". British nationhood is being disembowelled by "mass immigration, multiculturalism and the onslaught mounted by secular nihilists against the country's Judeo-Christian values."
Don’t really see that where I am, its more an attempt to ride Britan of the kind of casual and violent racism that has pervaded this culture for too long. She does the old us and them, because in her mind there really is only one British culture, and that somehow that encapsulates both mine and her worldviews, even though they are utterly different. She also forgets that islam is also based on Judeo Christian values, what with the Koran incorporating both he old and new testaments. Heaven forbid she should actually seek to understand those she can readily label and attack
She should bear in mind that tonight it will not be the jewish citizens of this country who live in fear of terror raids, of the rising BNP and being attacked on the street for looking different. Yes there is anti-Semitism and it is abhorrent but it is no worse than any other racism.
More -
It's the tactics used by Stalin to call political opponents mad. But it does have echoes of the 1930s because the Jews then tried to draw attention to what was going on in Germany, and they too were told they were hysterical and paranoid."
Yeah because the threat posed by a very small minority of militant Islamist is exactly the same as the totalitarian brutality of the worlds most evil regimes. And I like the selective use of history, not realising that there may be other historical parallels that might be more apt.
"Again, when I say that talking about Weimar and feral children is ruining her own case and that I really don't think things are that bad, she snaps: "No, I'm sure you don't. That was said to people like me in the 30s, exactly the same kind of argument from the same kind of people ... it is very resonant of Weimar and the prejudice against the Jews is very resonant of Weimar."
Doesn’t really do herself any favours, does she? We ain’t living in Weimer Germany (god I wish we were, expressionist cinema, Bauhaus, that would be great, apart for the rise of Nazism of course). And she forgets that it wasn’t just the Jews who were warning against the rise of Nazism it was those pesky, supposedly anti-Semitic lefties. She seems to forget, most tellingly that she works for the fucking Daily Mail, a newspaper whose record regarding Nazism should make them hang their heads. In the thirties they thought Hitler was the best thing since sliced bread and that anti-Semitism was grand. How can she work for a paper like that and still spout this shite. She’s not mad, she’s just thick.
And one last nugget
"They are fuelled by an ideology that itself is non-negotiable and forms a continuum that links peaceful, law-abiding but nevertheless intensely ideological Muslims at one end and murderous jihadists at the other."
Tarring much with the same brush? Its just the old assumption that there is this big homogenous block called islam, where everyone agrees the same thing and nothing ever changes. Islam has changed, it does change. There are sects and groups and disagreements over beliefs, there is sunni and shia and sufi and as many variations of belief as there is in Christianity. It shocks me that she should be so offensively ignorant of something she chooses to blame for the ills in society. That’s when she’s not blaming us for the moral decline of the nation. Frankly a nation that has respect for other cultures and does not tolerate bigotry and hatred has more morals that the Daily Mail ever will.
Perhaps she is the Ann coulter we’ve all been looking for.
Basically Philips goes on about how Britain is being destroyed by Islam and the lack of values in modern society, basic daily mail stuff. Only because she used to write for the Guardian they feel the need to give credence to her, like Julie Burchill who because she used to be a bit left could get away with being outrageously racist in many of her articles. Maybe they used to do the same with Gary Bushell, after all he used to write for various socialist papers.
Anyway, back to the idiocy-
Throughout the book there are shards of evidence and penetrating questions that deserve to be at the centre of political debate. Did the security services in the 80s and 90s take a naive and complacent view of the growth of extreme Islamist cells run from London by political exiles, thinking that they wouldn't bite the hand that fed them? Have we got the right balance between protecting and promoting the rights and languages of minorities on the one hand, and the safety and culture of the majority on the other? Is the left overinfluenced by the Palestinian question, and too ready to close its eyes to the brutal realities of extreme Islamist thinking and practice?
Certainly, we should discuss these matters. We are in a country with a fast-growing and increasingly assertive Muslim minority. Relations between them and the Christian or secular majority are of huge importance, as is our security from terrorist attack. And yes, some do use anti-Zionism as a cover for anti-semitism
Is the left over influenced by the so called paelstine question? Change that the Jewish question and relate it to anytime before 1940 and you kind of get the idea why its sort of important. The airy fairy way the interviewer just dismisses Palestine, as if not to understand that that, more than anything else invites rage on behalf on anyone who knows the history of Israel and its actions against the Palestinian people.
Philips does the usual ‘anti-Semitism is growing, Muslims do it and the left love a bit of it’, casually forgetting both that considerably more mosques get attacked than synagogues and that many of the best lefties have traditionally been Jewish.
Also this, the old rightist bugbear-
Multiculturalism, she writes, "has become the driving force of British life, ruthlessly policed by a state-financed army of local and national bureaucrats enforcing a doctrine of state-mandated virtue to promote racial, ethnic and cultural difference and stamp out majority values". British nationhood is being disembowelled by "mass immigration, multiculturalism and the onslaught mounted by secular nihilists against the country's Judeo-Christian values."
Don’t really see that where I am, its more an attempt to ride Britan of the kind of casual and violent racism that has pervaded this culture for too long. She does the old us and them, because in her mind there really is only one British culture, and that somehow that encapsulates both mine and her worldviews, even though they are utterly different. She also forgets that islam is also based on Judeo Christian values, what with the Koran incorporating both he old and new testaments. Heaven forbid she should actually seek to understand those she can readily label and attack
She should bear in mind that tonight it will not be the jewish citizens of this country who live in fear of terror raids, of the rising BNP and being attacked on the street for looking different. Yes there is anti-Semitism and it is abhorrent but it is no worse than any other racism.
More -
It's the tactics used by Stalin to call political opponents mad. But it does have echoes of the 1930s because the Jews then tried to draw attention to what was going on in Germany, and they too were told they were hysterical and paranoid."
Yeah because the threat posed by a very small minority of militant Islamist is exactly the same as the totalitarian brutality of the worlds most evil regimes. And I like the selective use of history, not realising that there may be other historical parallels that might be more apt.
"Again, when I say that talking about Weimar and feral children is ruining her own case and that I really don't think things are that bad, she snaps: "No, I'm sure you don't. That was said to people like me in the 30s, exactly the same kind of argument from the same kind of people ... it is very resonant of Weimar and the prejudice against the Jews is very resonant of Weimar."
Doesn’t really do herself any favours, does she? We ain’t living in Weimer Germany (god I wish we were, expressionist cinema, Bauhaus, that would be great, apart for the rise of Nazism of course). And she forgets that it wasn’t just the Jews who were warning against the rise of Nazism it was those pesky, supposedly anti-Semitic lefties. She seems to forget, most tellingly that she works for the fucking Daily Mail, a newspaper whose record regarding Nazism should make them hang their heads. In the thirties they thought Hitler was the best thing since sliced bread and that anti-Semitism was grand. How can she work for a paper like that and still spout this shite. She’s not mad, she’s just thick.
And one last nugget
"They are fuelled by an ideology that itself is non-negotiable and forms a continuum that links peaceful, law-abiding but nevertheless intensely ideological Muslims at one end and murderous jihadists at the other."
Tarring much with the same brush? Its just the old assumption that there is this big homogenous block called islam, where everyone agrees the same thing and nothing ever changes. Islam has changed, it does change. There are sects and groups and disagreements over beliefs, there is sunni and shia and sufi and as many variations of belief as there is in Christianity. It shocks me that she should be so offensively ignorant of something she chooses to blame for the ills in society. That’s when she’s not blaming us for the moral decline of the nation. Frankly a nation that has respect for other cultures and does not tolerate bigotry and hatred has more morals that the Daily Mail ever will.
Perhaps she is the Ann coulter we’ve all been looking for.
posted by Marcel at 3:42 AM
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