Sunday 17 March 2019

Mice will play

Craig’s away / mice will play; (you picked a fine time to leave me, Lucille) Oh well; I’m in the driving seat; hang on tight.

The best piece I’ve read so far or at least the piece that most represents my own feelings about the Christchurch atrocity (which it undoubtedly was) is by Laura Perrins.

However, expressions of revulsion at the violence, or sympathy for the victims have been received with extraordinary bitterness if they happen to come from individuals or groups who’ve criticised Islam. That sours things even further. When criticism of Islam is maliciously assumed to equate to actual advocacy of terrorism and slaughter, it starts to look like projection. 

Some of the stuff I’ve read and seen online is utterly appalling, especially on Twitter. I could single out the video of Chelsea Clinton being confronted with the accusation: “Forty-nine people died because of the rhetoric you put out there”. And what was the ‘rhetoric’  that Clinton ‘put out there”? Ilhan Omar’s antisemitism, is all; and this finger-jabbing assault occurred at a vigil for the victims of the Christchurch shootings. (I see they've copyrighted the clip I've linked to. I don't know if one is allowed to just link to it.) The matter is fleshed out further in this BuzzFeed piece, where the perpetrators attempt to rationalise their bullying behaviour. 

Or, I could also mention David Liddington stating (to Nick Robinson on the Today programme) that “Islamophobia is evil” which is an ominous and sinister type of a thing for a politician to say. Violence, murder and terrorism are generally considered 'evil', but “Islamophobia?” 

And one can’t forget being  directed to the nasty, nasty, nasty spat between   Nesrine Malek of the Guardian and Julia Hartley-Brewer and even worse, Baroness Sayeeda Warsi’s spiteful response to Melanie Phillips 


and this.

I am a critic of Islam, primarily because of something that most Islamophiles rarely acknowledge, namely the antisemitism that runs through that particular religion, and in particular the religiously-inspired desire to erase Israel from the map. (After all, by rejecting peace with Israel Arabs deny themselves economic and cultural benefits in a way that is entirely self-destructive)

However, I oppose all violence and terrorism unless it’s in self-defence or as a last resort in the face of constant provocation. And just to be clear I unequivocally condemn the atrocity in Christchurch.

2 comments:

  1. Terrorism is an irrational thing
    although it can work
    eg in WW2 the resistance used attacks to slow down the Nazis
    .. and can get policies changed, the thing is that it usurps the democratic process and can just be turned out and used against you.
    eg if ISIS start a terrorist state someone will just used terrorism against them.
    Terrorism is "violent extremism"
    it's not just extremism, cos when everyone else is wrong, the enlightened person will seem extreme.

    Take veganism
    ..We know there have been meat-ophobic terrorist attacks against both farmers and researcherss
    We could say meato-phobics spread hatred & division.
    Does that mean vegans should be removed from the BBC platform.
    No cos they have free-speech concerns, even though we could say that they whip up the violent extremists.

    The Suffragettes were violent and sent letter bombs etc. The suffragists were more peaceful.
    Should the Victorians have banned talk of women's rights cos it fueled the violent Suffragettes ?

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  2. From the previous open thread
    MB pointed out that the media were not interested in 100 potential non-Muslim deaths
    \\ Monkey Brains6 March 2019 at 19:35
    The conclusion of the case involving an Islamic Jihadi preparing to kill 100 people in Oxford Street gets a cursory 500 or so words on the BBC News website. There have been nearly 20 stories about Shamima Begum since the start of the year, with a word count of probably 25,000 I would guess. //

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