Friday 16 January 2015

Unfunny jokes

Following the update to the previous thread to the effect that there suddenly seems to be a move to persuade the world that ‘the ‘the prophet Mohammed’ (to distinguish him from any other ordinary Mohammed/Mohammad, and not to imply that he’s everyone’s prophet) - that the Muslim prophet whose image must not be reproduced, is forgiving and would rise above criticism with a smile. Well, maybe not with a smile.
"The prophet just rose above it"

Mehdi Hasan said it on Question Time, and later on This Week the Muslim ‘comedienne’ Shazia Mirza said it again. What is going on here? Has there been a memo from Allah?

That Question Time was bad enough. The lowlight was Anna Soubry’s announcement that these nothing-to-do-with-Islam terrorists weren’t ‘racist’ because they killed everyone indiscriminately. She hadn’t even heard of their coincidental propensity to accidentally target Jews. This is a tory M.P.
 People must have voted for her. 

David Starkey by the way said some brave things, but we knew - and so did he - that he was only there to make sparks fly. He kind of looked resigned to it. I don’t think he enjoyed being controversial as much as he used to. All the fun seems to have gone out of it. And he made a couple of slips, which didn’t help. At one stage he mentioned ‘Ahmed’, which was either Starkey’s ‘generic-Muslim name’ for Mehdi, or directed at the questioner, ‘Hamid’. Naturally Mehdi assumed the former, and chalked up another point with a smirk. 

I don’t want to base my argument purely on ad homs, but Mehdi is such a clown that it’s hard not to. His over-the-top gurning and exaggerated pronunciation of anything Moossslim is parodic to the point of, well, slapstick.
“My prophet, when he returned to ‘Mukka’ in triumph, he forgave all the people in that city who verbally insulted and physically abused him earlier on in his life.”  - That’s the kinda guy he was. 

Everything every M.P. on that panel said was highly offensive. Are we expected to vote for these people? It’s my right to be offended.


As a matter of fact, I thought their ultra PC remarks about teacher/pupil sexual offence court case was bordering on bonkers. Starkey was right. Why didn’t someone ask the social worker in the audience who spoke so vehemently about adult responsibility ‘at what precise point does a ‘child’ become and ‘adult’? 
Yes indeed the teacher was in a position of trust, which he abused, and yes he was in a position of ‘power’. He was found guilty. Remember, though, the girl was  over the age of consent, old enough to get married, and no doubt a young woman’s passionate infatuation and sexuality, which many an adult male (M.P.s no exception) knows very well, puts her in a position of power too,

Enough of that off-topic aside. I feel like poor Judy Finegan begin-agin. Where’s Richard?


Somehow I’m living in a world where no-one is allowed to speak the truth. No-one can acknowledge reality. What is to become of us?

Which brings me to This Week. Now I should be a fan of Andrew Neil by rights. But somehow I’m not. He’s the nearest thing we’ve got, and I suppose one should be grateful for small mercies, but what about his unfunny joshing about that ‘Birmingham is a Muslim no-go area” debacle? Ha very ha. Not. 
Neither Andrew Neil, Diane Abbott, Michael Portillo nor the unfunny comedienne nailed it. None of them properly got to grips with Nabila. Her point, which they failed to accept, was that any depiction of the prophet (Muslim) is offensive to Nabila and thousands upon thousands of her co-religionistas. 

Even if one were to draw a stick man, and label it “The Prophet Mohammed” it would offend her. If one were to put a turban on a smiley emoticon and caption it ‘Mo” she would be hurt. 
It doesn’t matter whether the cartoon-Mo was depicted in his ‘all forgiving’ mode -  even though his all-forgivingness is something Mehdi, Shazia and the-man-who-forbade-the BBC-to-air-the-Hadith-that-says-he-wasn’t insist is one of the prophet’s most outstandingly humane characteristics - that is irrelevant and beside the point.  
None of these outraged Muslims care one iota about the content of the cartoon save for the fact that it depicts an image said to be that of the Muslim prophet Mohammed.  
We may find that hard to take seriously. And we do. 


Portillo protesting that the cartoon was well meant, Nabila arguing that any depiction of Mohammed was a deliberate provocation, Portillo and co reiterating that a well-meant cartoon depicting Mohammed was no excuse for outrage, Nabila arguing that everyone depicting the prophet is being knowingly inflammatory, everyone saying that ‘giving in’ would appease radical Islam. Round and round in circles, and letting Nabila get away with alleging that no-one would dare publish an antisemitic cartoon. That’s the funniest thing anyone said all day. Shazia could have livened up her act with it.  

10 comments:

  1. I agree with much of what you say.

    It was a shame Starkey mis-timed his (accurate) point about Mehdi Hasan's likening us kaffir to unreflective cattle (so allowing him to wheedle out of it). Starkey should have opened with that. And he should have linked it to offence as in - do we kaffirs have a right to be offended by your remarks Mehdi?

    I agree Starkey's lost some of his fight. And he's not quite as clever as he makes out. Also the "Glorious Early Period of Islam" that he deployed is a pretty overdone. Early Islam's role as a protector and promoter of knowledge was distinctly patchy.

    "None of these outraged Muslims care one iota about the content of the cartoon save for the fact that it depicts an image said to be that of the Muslim prophet Mohammed. "

    I am not entirely sure about that. It is the "mocking Mo" element that really incites. There is in fact a representation of Mohammed in the Supreme Court building in the USA of all places which - in line with the 18th century rationalists' misplaced lauding of Mo and Islam (as a useful stick with which to beat Christianity) - depicts him as a wise judge. You rarely hear Muslims getting upset about that, although from a Sharia point of view it is inadmissible.

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    1. Yes, it probably is the ‘mocking mo’ aspect of the cartoons that enrages. However, since that cartoon, albeit an actual cartoon rather than a reverential but representational religious icon, was not, allegedly, intended as mockery, but rather a gesture of reconciliation, they haven’t got such a good case. It still boils down to the actual insult of depicting the prophet in the form of a crude a line-drawing.

      The reason all at This Week appeared to concentrate on the message within the Charlie Hebdo cover rather than the fact that the depiction of the prophet as a cartoon is in itself offensive enough to ‘most Muslims’ if not to justify, then to explain the violent reaction, is that it touches on the ludicrousness of most religious dogma.

      There are ridiculous aspects to many religious observances, but none so numerous or so trivial as those attached to Islam.
      Heaven forfend that the people who worship a Teapot become radicalised. Or the people who treat Prince Phillip as their God. Imagine teapot Jihad.

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    2. Sticking to the new cover and focusing on how it, unlike previous CH output, is not only not an insult to Mohammed but in fact refutes those who say he would justify the murders, is the best way forward, I think. I haven't watched it yet, but I will.

      Judaism in its most black-hat form certainly has numerous and trivial observances (ever done Shabbos in a Lubavitch neighborhood? I've never seen anyone work so hard or be so stressed on the day of rest), probably more than Islam. But there is no imperative for violence because they don't come from a violent culture of third-world cavemen.

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  2. So Nabila Ramdani was on 'This Week' too? Is there any current affairs programme she's NOT been invited onto in the past week?

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    1. Haven't seen her on Bargain Hunt yet. Of course, those are filmed months before airing, so check back in about May or June. If she turns up on The One Show or Blue Peter, all bets are off.

      We've often joked about certain people being on speed dial at the BBC, and refer to some as 'Universal' this or that. Life may imitate art sometimes, but this is the BBC imitating satire.This is just the latest of several of our years-long accusations of bias being proven recently.

      Good for Portillo for daring to say that on air. I hardly ever watch This Week any more since B-BBC ended the Question Time live chat thing, but I'll check it out today or tomorrow just to see that.

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    2. I have to say, David, I did think of deploying the nickname 'Universal Nabila' but thought better of it.

      I, too, haven't watched it for years, but am starting to do so now.

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  3. Watching This Week right now. I think there must be a directive that the BBC narrative now must be that Mohammed didn't respond to criticism with violence. He was both, all over the map, and it's going to be difficult to argue because both sides can present evidence.

    Nabila is a raving lunatic. I wonder if the BBC isn't parading her all over the landscape in order to shine enough sunlight on her poison. Maybe. Maybe I'm giving either the Beeboids or the audience too much credit.

    Well done, Brillo and Portillo for agreeing with me about how to interpret the cover. The only other thing I will say is that the BBC (and Theresa May and Cameron and the rest of them) need to take this message to the Muslims already or shut the hell up.

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  4. I get so easily distracted by incidental matters while watching programmes like this.

    Andrew Neil's quip about that FOX expert thinking that Birmingham has more mosques that Mecca (PBUI) had me reaching for Google to find out how many mosques Mecca has and how many mosques Birmingham has.

    Curiously, I can't find a figure anywhere for the total number of mosques in Mecca. There are at least 200 though, according to newspaper reports from some four years ago saying that 200 of them could be facing the wrong way. A precise figure for Birmingham, however, seems very easy to come by. There are, apparently, 159.
    http://mosques-map.muslimsinbritain.org/maps.php#/town/Birmingham

    I'd have guessed about 30.

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    1. I eagerly await Neil snarking at how MSNBC, the network as a whole, is a joke because one of Al Sharpton's guests said something stupid.

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  5. We certainly do inhabit a strange world now - a veritable hall of mirrors. What do you call a society that loses all contact with reality?

    Pat Condell laces the bitter pill with some humour, but it is bitter nonetheless to think that we have to live under this official ideology that the terrorist attacks, the 1000 lashes in Mecca, the kidnappings in Nigeria, the murders of schoolchildren in Pakistan all have nothing to do with Islam, and Mo was a smiling sage who thought nought of the abuse heaped upon him by lesser souls.

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