Marred

Two injured souls struggling against adversity. Andrew Marr, obviously paralysed down the left side, and Malala Yousafzai with her slight facial disfigurement courtesy of the Taliban were rather a sad sight this morning as they sat facing each other on the Andrew Marr show. 

Malala appears unnervingly confident in her public appearances. One has to admire her eloquence and maturity, but the superficiality of her quest is still the elephant in my room.

There’s something about being draped with a cloth that confers righteousness upon the drapee. When a Muslim sweeps into a room or Malala steps up to a podium swathed in fabric I get rattled.

Between them, she and Tommy Robinson have cemented a shift in the discourse, which has silently segued from a general disquiet about Islam as a whole, into the sugar-coated philosophy espoused by the BBC.

(The differentiation between the ‘moderate Muslim’ who is good, and the violent extremist who is bad, and not a ‘real’ Muslim. “AQ terrorism” they called it, before partially caving in and venturing “Islamist militancy”.)

The contention seems to be that it’s racist to criticise the moderate Muslim who is harmless, but it’s now okay, even in the P.C. world, to show slight disapproval for mass murder in the name of religion.

Malala represents ‘good’ Islam, although she has cherry picked the misogyny and other radical diktats of the Taliban against which to direct her campaigning, leaving the rest of it unexamined like the bad smell in the lift.

No-one in the West could  possibly object to the apple-pie and motherhood matters that she stands for, nor could anyone deny the bravery she has shown in making her stand.

Any fule kno that women should be able to be educated, and that beheadings and limb-amputations are a bit unsophisticated. But as to the antisemitism that many moderate Muslims perpetuate by supporting Palestinian Arabs with their stubborn opposition to the existence of Israel and their incitement and hate-preaching against Jews, well, that’s something that has been brushed under the carpet so much that I’m thinking of that episode of the Simpsons where the lounge carpet has risen several feet, undulating, because Marge was on strike.

I daresay if Muslims en masse opened their minds and allowed their religion to modernise and progress then Islam wouldn’t be a problem. But then, would it be Islam? 

What I was half thinking

You know when you have a thought that goes against the prevailing zeitgeist? The slightly uncomfortable feeling you have when you find you’re privately thinking the unthinkable? Well, I  had such a thought, but I’m no longer feeling guilty because I’ve found out I’m not alone. Also, my bad thought wasn’t entirely private because I did test it out on Craig in an e-mail to see if he recoiled in disgust. Yesterday we were musing by e-mail over Mishal Husain’s debut on the Today programme. We agreed that she may be considered good looking (by some) but she definitely has a harsh radio voice. Then I said something about Malala.

“they've Mother Theresa-ized her. He opinion on "talking to the Taliban" is ironic, since she was on the receiving end of their willingness to "talk." She's a teenage campaigner for education for girls, not some spiritually enlightened clairvoyant.”

I don’t know what Craig thinks because he changed the subject to Rageh Omar. I missed the first edition of the Ottoman thing and unfortunately fell asleep soon after I accidentally stumbled upon the repeat. I found the bit I did see confusing and soporific. I have very little appetite for Islam-related material on the BBC, but Craig has, and he’ll deal with it in his usual even-handed manner.

Anyway, I urge you to have a look at this  by Mary Jackson.

“He’s thinking what I was half thinking.” 

I’ll quote from the article she cites:

“Malala Yousafzai’s only qualification for the praises demanded from us lies in her being shot by the Taliban. Their reasoning for doing this – I concede – was certainly vile. She was one of numerous young girls in the Swat Valley to defend their right to attend school. To this (naturally), the Taliban are resolutely opposed and – in manner befitting their cowardice – chose to silence Ms Yousafzai by bullet, shooting her on a crowded bus.”

“I am frankly sick of seeing her pinched little face grinning inside every newspaper I open. Her vacuous and unhelpful words (her latest suggestion is for us to negotiate with the Taliban) are also something we could do without. And why on earth is she living in Birmingham?”

Ha! Pertinent and bitchy. My kinda guy! I must admit I did think that, and a bit more, when I heard the interview with Malala, and not only because of my self-declared bias against Mishal Husain.

“Ms Yousafzai has another value, alongside her chocolate-box ‘heroism’ story, for our political elites. She is the ‘Moderate Muslim’ par excellence. A visionary reformer of a culture unable to be reformed. She will doubtlessly also be held up as a ‘unifying’ figure, around which we can gather to bang tambourines and forget our differences, despite those ‘differences’ being the reason Yousefzai’s family scurried on a plane to Britain in the first place… “

Then there was  Mona  Siddiqui’s carefully enunciated observations about the transformative effect of education on this morning’s TFTD.

“To help us to escape from the intellectual and emotional limitations of our time…“A year ago no-one had heard of Malala. And now she has become a symbol of so many hopes. Yet her life points to a bigger cause than her own struggle. The need to educate girls. that she repeats the tenets of the Muslim faith itself. there are no boundaries to this sacred duty when we read that seeking knowledge is an act of worship itself, or the prophetic words ‘the ink of the scholar is more sacred than the blood of the martyr. Malala’s voice is one among thousands who dream of picking up a pen and making a difference. and despite the spotlight in which she finds herself, the reality of her vision for pakistan is fraught with obstacles. When Islam is used to attack education by equating it with Westernisation, the battle of ideas becomes fatal. Tragically and inevitably many will still die in this battle of ideas, but if the society  is to turn itself round it requires enormous political and intellectual courage. One young girl may be nurtured and developed as an iconic and global spokesperson, but her vision for change is in a society where your voice could cost you your life, and yet ironically it is precisely more voices, not martyrs, that Pakistan needs."

So even Mona gets it. Sort of. But she too is a ‘Moderate Muslim par excellence’ and the crux of the matter is that if her wish came true and ‘education’ were to magically confer enlightenment upon the Islamic world, would the Islamic world still exist?