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Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
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I don’t know about my fellow Samizdatistas, but I am having a hard time responding to the latest events in Egypt with anything other than a resigned shrug.
My understanding is that this is not one of those enjoyable melodramas where there are Good Guys and Bad Guys, when we here in the comfortable seats (the ones outside Egypt) can all cheer the Good Guys and jeer the Bad Guys. My understanding is that there are the Bad Guys as in the government, the Good Guys as in the people who would just love to be living in a nice civilised country which respects human rights and where there is dignity and freedom and whatever is the Egyptian for apple pie, with a thriving economy for all etc. (with no Jews or Americans screwing everything up) … and then there are the Other Bad Guys, aka the Muslim Brotherhood, who would like nothing better than to see Egypt reduced to ruins, to take charge of the ruins, and then to ruin the ruins a whole hell of a lot more. The Good Guys are now so angry with the first lot of Bad Guys that they either don’t realise or don’t care that they may be playing right into the hands of the Other Bad Guys.
I would love to be proved wrong. Whether I am proved wrong or not, I would still bet that there are lots of others out here in non-Egypt who now think exactly as I do.
The government can take away my freedom, but if they take away my internet porn, they’re going down
– @arabist
I like this, from Claire Berlinski:
My Muslim Brotherhood threads gave rise to a bit of confusion about which book I was talking about. Obviously, I made a mistake in assuming that everyone on Ricochet was reading every word I write, 24 hours a day. Now that I think about it, that’s more than a bit silly and self-involved. A beginner’s mistake, really. Sorry, I’m learning on the job. On the bright side, I’m not the President of the United States.
Nice writing. I read on, and learned about Ms Berlinski’s take on what I now believe to be the biggest debate in the world about how to see off Islam, namely: is “Islam” the enemy, or something more like “Islamism”?
I think that, difficult though this truth is to face, the enemy is Islam, the thing itself, and that all Muslims, simply by calling themselves Muslims, give aid and comfort to the enemy, Islam. “Good Muslims” must be persuaded to stop being Muslims at all, and to leave, in large numbers. Only when large numbers do start leaving, in numbers so large and so public that the very momentum of history itself starts to drain out of Islam, will the civilised world start to get on top of this problem.
But Claire Berlinski thinks differently:
McCarthy’s entirely correct that Islamism is mainstream, rooted in Muslim scripture and favored by many prominent Islamic commentators. No one who knows anything about the subject would disagree.
But there is also significant dissent from this view in the Islamic world. Those who dissent from it are our friends and allies. Why on earth should we pronounce categorically, say, that “In Islam, homosexuality and adultery are capital offenses,” if there are practicing Muslims who think otherwise? Are we truly saying that we’re more qualified to interpret the Koran and all of its associated scholarship than Muslims who have come to another conclusion? Why would we shoot ourselves in the foot this way?
Indeed. And there were a lot of Communists who significantly dissented from actually existing Communism. But still they helped actually existing Communism, big time, not least by supplying a veneer of apparent civilisation to spread upon this totally ghastly creed. They also spent much time moaning about civilisation itself, for also not being Communist in their preferred, virtuous way. Do I say that I had – and that I have – a better grasp of what Communism really meant than these dissenters from the Communist orthodoxy? Damn right. I did and I do.
The one big thing that “practicing Muslims” must do if they are on the side of civilisation and against Islam, is to damn well stop with their practicing, and – if straight atheism is too strong for them, too cold and too true – to find a civilised way of gratifying their religious impulses instead of the barbaric one that is Islam.
Former US representative in Kandahar, Bill Harris, told the paper that the embarrassing mistake was not Britain’s alone, saying “something this stupid generally requires teamwork.”
Many thanks to Taylor Dinerman for the heads up on this QOTD material:
The story of Waleed Hasayin, a Palestinian West Bank atheist blogger, is indicative of the nightmare that is inevitable in any system where state, society and religion are completely intertwined.
[Muslims] believe anyone who leaves Islam is an agent or a spy for a Western State, namely the Jewish State.
The mere existence of an outspoken atheist is intolerable in such an environment… but the thing about tolerance is it is only appropriate when it is reciprocated and Islam does not tolerate views that deny their God’s existence, so why should any non-Muslim tolerate Islam? Tolerance for intolerance is cowardice, not to mention suicidal.
Surfing on the blogs, I came across this item that I have not seen anywhere else. Israel has, potentially, some pretty handy oil resources.
Wow, better tell Halliburton & all those nasty right-wing neocons and advise them to cook up some fake reason for invading the place…
This article has more.
Rand Simberg makes a subtly profound little point, in an email to Instapundit, as reported by Instapundit in an addendum to this posting, which links to a piece about newspapers that provide a spew of complicated reasons for not printing stuff that Muslims might be offended by, omitting only the real reason, which is that they’re scared.
“So who are the ‘Islamophobes’ again?”
The point being that the Islamophobes are clearly not those who publicly defy Islam’s threats and attacks and who just go ahead and publicly criticise it anyway and publicly mock it anyway. Where’s the “phobia” in that? No, the phobia – the fear – is being shown by those who refrain from such criticism and such mockery, because they are afraid, and are afraid even to admit that they are afraid (because that too might be interpreted as an implied criticism of the thuggishness of that which they are refraining from criticising or mocking).
Although I have long been irritated by the suggestion that to fear Islam is in any way irrational, I had truly never thought of this particular point. Next time you dare to criticise Islam for being, oh, I don’t know, evil, or something along those lines, and somebody says you are an Islamophobe, say: “Well, yes, I am a little bit scared of Islam because it is indeed scary. But you are even more scared of it, so scared that you dare not admit the truth of what I am saying. You are even more of an Islamophobe than I am.”
This is a meme that deserves to get around.
With apologies to all those who had worked this particular thing out years ago.
With apologies to all for whom this is stale news, I want to report on Ezra Levant’s latest book. Remember Ezra Levant? Yes, the guy who put his head way above the parapet to defend freedom of speech against the ridiculous ‘Alberta Human Rights Commission’, which had been busy trying to stamp it out.
I have not been paying much attention to Ezra Levant lately, but last night I happened to re-visit his blog, and I soon struck gold. Or rather: black gold. Oil. Shale oil, to be more precise.
A commenter on this later posting by me here about Levant mentioned Canadian shale oil, and now Levant has written a whole book about this.
Canadian shale oil is taking a huge bite out of the market share of those Middle Eastern terror paymasters who have been such pestilential opponents of free speech in the West in general and of Ezra Levant’s free speech in particular, which could just be how Levant got interested. The Greenies hate Canadian shale oil, probably for that same reason. The Mainstream Media … well, that bit’s obvious. What’s not to love about a book saying hurrah for Canadian shale oil?
As I say, lots of Samizdata readers will have seen these bits of video, of Levant talking about this book, Ethical Oil (brilliant title, yes?), at least a week ago. I’ve only had time to watch and hear half of the first bit of video, but already I know that any Samizdata readers who do not yet know about this book will likely be very glad to hear about it now.
Many bad things have happened during the last decade. One of the best things to have happened during that same time is that books like this one of Ezra Levant’s – thanks to all of, you know, this – can now become as widely read as they deserve to be.
This just in from a Jane’s newsletter:
Nation state may be behind computer worm attack on Iranian nuclear plant. The first known example of a computer worm designed to target major infrastructure facilities has infected the personal computers of employees in Iran’s Bushehr nuclear power station. The malware, known as Stuxnet, is capable of taking control of an industrial plant by targeting weaknesses in systems designed by German company Siemens that are used to manage water supplies, oil rigs, power plants and other utilities.
I pretty much thought this had to be the case. The problem is, this is a double edged sword. Stuxnet has been seen in the wild enough to be picked up and reported on by Symantec. That means it has also been picked up by white and black hats alike and will be reverse engineered and used for other ‘payloads’. This is the inherent problem with the viral software attack. Once you use it, you might as well have posted the source code with a Gnu Public License on it.
So, now that we have proof by example that embedded process control systems can be hijacked by a virus, we had better start worrying who else is going to get targeted by slightly modified versions.
Geert Wilders is on trial today for telling it like it is with his film ‘Fitna’.
If you are a blogger, read up on the subject and get out the support. Europe may not have Freedom of Speech with teeth in it, but perhaps you can provide that poor benighted continent with implants.
Reading this item over at National Review’s Corner blog, which relates to recent attempts by Al-Quaeda types to attack targets in Western Europe – apparently foiled for now – got me thinking. One of the possible targets, judging by the comment, was the Eiffel Tower in Paris. It makes me wonder when the “blame-the-West-First” crowd are going to understand that it was always idiotic to claim that 9/11, or the Madrid atrocities, or the London bombings/etc could ever be described as the West getting some sort of “blowback” for its allegedly dastardly deeds against Muslim lands. Whenever this argument is made, the implication, explicit or not, is that the appropriate policy to adopt is the equivalent of hiding under the bed.
France, let’s not forget, has more than its fair share of bad relations with some Muslim lands – Algeria in the 1950s being a case in point – but in recent years, the country’s government has been at pains to distance itself from the supposedly “cowboy” policies of Bush/Blair, although possibly things might have hardened a bit under Sarkozy.
But it makes no difference. Whether you are an isolationist, multilaterialist, or neocon interventionist, the outcome is the same: the Islamists will try and kill you and your fellow citizens without discrimination. We can try and placate the crocodile, but it is ultimately a futile strategy. It is occasionally necessary to remind people of this grim fact.
I must admit to being a bit gobsmacked by this:
Israel and the Jewish people found an unlikely defender in Fidel Castro, the retired dictator of Cuba, on Tuesday, when he came out strongly against Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s denial of the Holocaust and supported Israel’s right to exist.
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