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Pulse Media
20.2.07
12.2.07
The French neo-feminist-republicanist-secularist-leftwing-con representative
Interesting how she claims to be unbiased, because her paper publishes cartoons criticising Israel. She makes the same 'mistake' of comparing Israel to a religion as the west's super-zionists. Israel is a state, with a government which is responsible for its acts of terror, and therefore open to criticism and/or ridicule. Islam and Judaism (and christianity, for that matter) are faiths, and the few muderous thugs who profess to act in the name of religion do not represent that religion. I believe in total free speech (as long as it does not constitute a libel or a direct call to murder or violence). I also believe we should not be surprised when provocation brings a reaction (be that reaction violent or intellectual).
the whole debate can be viewed here
The debate is not be about free speech (it should not be in my opinion), though such a debate is important. I have said it before, I believe in free speech. In that respect, I agree with Caroline Fourest and Gijs Van de Westlaken for example. The debate in my opinion is about hypocrisy. It is about censorship - legal censorship (as in France, Germany, Austria, Turkey, Iran...) or self-censorship in the main stream media. If we can criticise and ridicule one religion and its believers, or a state, its government, its thinkers, then we can criticise others as well. If we can show cartoons depicting Muhammad as a terrorist - and I wish Channel 4 had - then we can if we so wish - and I would not wish to do so not least because I am the grandson of a jewish refugee - deny the Shoah and we can definitely criticise the terrorist actions of the State of Israel without being accused of anti-semitism.
Furthermore, the debate is about balance of power - political and media. If there was strong and continuous uproar over how muslims are treated in the West and in their own countries by western powers and their clients, then perhaps there would be less ill-feeling on the part of muslims.
6.2.07
5.2.07
Welcome To Planet Blitcon
Another exercise is beyond the reach of any of the Blitcons. There are exotic creatures they cannot imagine in their fictions and diatribes: the generality of Muslims, people who believe in something other than the Blitcons' understanding of Islam, people who live humdrum lives on the streets of Bradford, Karachi or Jakarta, people far removed from the festering imagination of the Blitcon. Amis has never even met an ordinary Muslim in his life.
But I lie. He has met one. In "The Age of Horrorism", Amis tells us that in Jerusalem he came face to face with the "maximum malevolence" of an Islamist, the gatekeeper at the Dome of the Rock. Amis writes that he wanted to enter the mosque in contravention of some "calendric prohibition" - there are none, actually - which led to a transformation in the gatekeeper: "His expression, previously cordial and cold, became a mask; and the mask was saying that killing me, my wife, and my children was something for which he now had warrant." By the simple observation of facial expression, Amis was able to divine the entire plot. But might it not be that the humble gatekeeper had never encountered such an obnoxious, arrogant and ignorant tourist?
Presumably, facial expressions explain Amis's claim that only one thing does not fit in multicultural Britain: Islam. How does this fit with the lives of the doctors, teachers, policemen, businessmen, entrepreneurs, bankers, solicitors, academics, scientists and even other writers and novelists as well as postmen, bakers and candlestick makers who are British Muslims living ordinary lives and making their contributions to British society? Perhaps they should change their facial expressions, acquire a new set of teeth and smile a bit more in the face of the avalanche of Islamophobia they have to endure.
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