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The cover article of the latest New Statesman is by William Dalrymple, and is called simply Islamophobia. The value of the piece for me is that it puts the case against the current trend of US (and UK) policy as strongly as I have ever read it. War is the health of the state, and it will bring ID cards and tougher searches at airports, blah blah. Maybe so, but that hardly amounts to the collapse of civilisation as we know it. This (this being the concluding paragraphs of Dalrymple’s piece), on the other hand, just might:
Meanwhile, Tony Blair’s neoconservative chums in Washington, immune to the justifiable fears of the Muslim world, talk blithely of moving on from Iraq next year to attack Iran and Syria. They have also invited Franklin Graham, the Christian evangelist who has branded Islam a “very wicked and evil” religion, to be the official speaker at the Pentagon’s annual service – and this immediately prior to his departure for Iraq to attempt to convert the people of Baghdad to Christianity.
All the while, the paranoia and bottled-up rage in the Muslim world grows more uncontrollable, and the attacks by Islamic militants gather pace, gaining ever wider global reach and sophistication. As long as British Muslims remain at the receiving end of our rampant Islamophobia, and remain excluded from the mainstream of British life, we can expect only still greater numbers of disenfranchised Muslims in the UK to turn their back on Britain and rally to the extremists.
As Jason Burke points out at the end of his excellent book Al-Qaeda, “The greatest weapon in the war on terrorism is the courage, decency, humour and integrity of the vast proportion of the world’s 1.2 billion Muslims. It is this that is restricting the spread of al-Qaeda, not the activities of counter-terrorism experts. Without it, we are lost. There is indeed a battle between the west and men like Bin Laden. But it is not a battle for global supremacy. It is a battle for hearts and minds. And it is a battle that we, and our allies in the Muslim world, are currently losing.”
This month’s upsurge of rampant Islamophobia in Britain, widely reported in Muslim countries, is the last thing we need in such a desperately volatile climate.
That “upsurge” is the Kilroy-Silk affair, and the surge of support that K-S received, in particular, from the readers of the Daily Express, together with the increasing number of attacks of British mosques there have been lately.
The point is this. More airport searches for us, or for that matter even that military ‘quagmire’ that the opponents of military action in Iraq have been earnestly predicting and for which some may even have been hoping, is as nothing – nothing – when set beside the danger that Dalrymple is describing. What he fears is a massive influx of intelligent, educated (much of it scientifically educated) talent into the ranks of the terrorists, as a result of the thrust of Western policy towards Islam in general, and in particular as a result of the inability of anti-Islamists to make any distinction between mere Muslims, and outright terrorists. Give a dog a bad name, in other words.
I don’t like Islam one little bit, because I consider its central tenets to be untrue, and I dislike untruth. (God does not exist. Muhammed is not his prophet. Etc.) I feel similarly about Christianity. (God does not exist. God did not send his son anywhere.) I further dislike Islam because so many Muslims these days, unlike most of the Christians I have much to do with, seem to take their religion really seriously and really to believe it to be true, which I find frightening. Who knows what the hell these people will deduce from their false axioms? It only takes a tiny few. (In the past it only took a tiny few Christians to set the tone of entire centuries.) So, yes, despite the fact that I am well aware of the fact – which of course it is – that the overwhelming majority of Muslims are entirely peaceable and decent and morally blameless people, and in millions upon millions of cases I dare say a lot better people than I am, I am “Islamophobic”. So, am I helping to push the world into a pit of barbarity, just by saying such things as I do earlier in this paragraph?
Setting aside entirely the moral rights and wrongs of the matter (i.e. am I entitled to put what I put in the previous paragraph?) is current US policy (and the attitudes of people like me that accompany it), as a matter of fact, having the effect on the overwhelming majority of hitherto non-terroristic Muslims that Dalrymple describes? Is George W. Bush making Al-Qaeda recruitment harder or easier than it would otherwise have been? Is GWB frightening the Muslim world into abjuring terrorism, or enraging it into taking it up big time? In short, are we winning the War on Terrorism, or losing it?
If people want to comment on that by veering off into the realms of the related but utterly distinct matter of whether we are morally or intellectually or politically entitled to be rude to Muslims, or whether they started it, or which is worse, our Islamophobia or their anti-Semitism and anti-Great-Satanism – they should obviously feel free. I can’t stop such comments. But the great strategic question is surely: whether, as a matter of fact, people like William Dalrymple are right or wrong.
My tentative opinion has always been – i.e. since 9/11 – that whereas some Muslims are no doubt being enraged into terrorism by US policy, many more are being scared away from it. But am I right?
Mark Steyn’s has something to say about the Kilroy-Silk affair in the Telegraph today. True to his ‘notorious’ style he does not mince words. Enjoy.
Let me see if I understand the BBC Rules of Engagement correctly: if you’re Robert Kilroy-Silk and you make some robust statements about the Arab penchant for suicide bombing, amputations, repression of women and a generally celebratory attitude to September 11 – none of which is factually in dispute – the BBC will yank you off the air and the Commission for Racial Equality will file a complaint to the police which could result in your serving seven years in gaol. Message: this behaviour is unacceptable in multicultural Britain.
But, if you’re Tom Paulin and you incite murder, in a part of the world where folks need little incitement to murder, as part of a non-factual emotive rant about how “Brooklyn-born” Jewish settlers on the West Bank “should be shot dead” because “they are Nazis” and “I feel nothing but hatred for them”, the BBC will keep you on the air, kibitzing (as the Zionists would say) with the crème de la crème of London’s cultural arbiters each week. Message: this behaviour is completely acceptable.
The situation starts looking serious with the concluding paragraph:
And so, when free speech, artistic expression, feminism and other totems of western pluralism clash directly with the Islamic lobby, Islam more often than not wins – and all the noisy types who run around crying “Censorship!” if a Texas radio station refuses to play the Bush-bashing Dixie Chicks suddenly fall silent. I don’t know about you, but this “multicultural Britain” business is beginning to feel like an interim phase.
I missed this article in the Telegraph yesterday. It was written by Ibrahim Nawar, an Egyptian, who is the Head of the Board of Management of Arab Press Freedom Watch, a non-profit organisation based in London that works to promote freedom of expression in the Arab world.
I fully support Robert Kilroy-Silk and salute him as an advocate of freedom of expression. I would like to voice my solidarity with him and with all those who face the censorship of such a basic human right.
I agree with much of what he says about Arab regimes. There is a very long history of oppression in the Arab world, particularly in the states he mentions: Iran, Iraq, Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, as well as in Sudan and Tunisia. These regimes are not based on democracy and their legitimacy comes from military dicatorships or inherited systems. The basic right of an individual to voice his or her opinion is not granted in any kind of form in the Arab world.
It is worth remembering, however, that there are individual Arabs who do work hard to defend human rights and one cannot make a blanket generalisation about Arab people. We support Mr Kilroy-Silk’s comments specifically in reference to Arab regimes because we are against the oppressive policies supported by rulers in the Arab world.
As already expressed here on Samizdata.net, we do not agree with the contents of Kilroy-Silk’s article in its ‘totality’, as Tony Blair would say. But we do agree with some of the points, namely the ones about oppressive Arab regimes. These are echoed by Mr Nawar and I am particularly fond of his last paragraph though.
I condemn the decision to axe his programme and call for the BBC to reinstate him forthwith. Indeed, the treatment of Mr Kilroy-Silk is very worrying because it indicates that censorship is now taking place in liberal, Western countries like the United Kingdom. These countries should instead be setting an example to the oppressive Arab regimes that violate freedom of expression on a daily basis.
Yes, but it was the BBC, after all.
Update: Mr Nawar does have stronger words for Mr Kilroy-Silk in an article on the Arab Press Freedom watch website. And his defense of freedom of speech is pertinent as ever.
Those who are calling for a swift action against Kilroy-Silk through the administrative route will not be able in the future to defend any victim dealt with in the same way. Moreover, it is not in the interest of advocates of freedom of expression in the Arab world or in Muslim countries to resort to the state in order to punish someone they may differ with.
Glenn Reynolds blogs about a happy ending to the story of imprisoned Iranian blogger Sina Motallebi. This is very good news. The icing on the cake (the cake being release from prison) is that he credits blogs for playing key role in the events.
OJR [The Online Journalism Review]: So why do you think they let you go?
Motallebi: They didn’t expect the pressure from Webloggers and foreign media in my case. They think I’m an individual [freelance] journalist and not affiliated with any political party, I’m not an insider. So they think that when they arrested me, there wouldn’t be strong pressure to release me… I think they found the cost of arresting me more than they thought before.
There will probably be much written and made of this (quite rightly). What caught my attention was this bit from the ‘post-release’ interview with Sina Motallebi.
At newspapers, an editor can change your article. They’re [ed. Iranian authorities] afraid of Weblogs because in Iran we don’t have the experience of an [open] society. We have a [closed] society. Weblogs are a good experience, where everyone can explain their ideas. And the government is very afraid of them.
…
Socially in Iran, we haven’t experienced a [free] society where everyone can express their ideas. We don’t experience the freedom of expression that much. But Weblogs give the opportunity to Iranians to speak freely and share their ideas, their views, and even the details of their personal lives.
Freedom of expression was also important for people talking about their personal life, especially for girls and women. That’s the reason you see many Iranian females blogging now. Under Islamic rules, many things are prohibited for young people. Each week many Iranian youngsters are arrested only for going to a party or walking with a friend of the opposite sex. So normally, they can’t even talk about their personal life. But online with their fake names, or in some cases their real names, they can mention their personal lives and experience freedom of speech.
The Bloggers of the World Unite!
Aargh! Typing this almost hurt and the instinctive reaction is one of: Over my dead body…but you get the drift.
I had a small bit of free time this morning, so I have counted the December numbers for Coalition deaths. Without further ado, here is this month’s plot:
Copyright Dale Amon. All rights reserved. May be used with attribution to Samizdata
This month contains a higher number of casualties among other Coalition troops than usual. 5 Bulgarians and 2 Thai’s are included in the combat deaths (hostile) count and one Pole was involved in a fatal accident (non-hostile). American combat deaths fell to 25; no Brits were killed either by accident or in combat in December (Two died in a road accident on the New Year). It is concievable but not provable the surviving Saddamites are specifically targetting non-US/UK forces in hopes of frightening their governments out of the coaltion. Only on the ground intelligence could tell us and that sort of information is rightfully not in the public domain.
Most significant, of course, is the large drop. One could hypothesize the opposition threw everything they had into a ‘Tet Offensive’. Like the Viet-Cong before them, they lost; unlike the Viet-Cong there is no regular army from a neighboring country, armed and funded by a super-power, to take their place.
This is only a supposition; one cannot state this with any confidence of being correct until there are a few more months of data to back it up. One could alternatively hypothesize the enemy is quietly regrouping after their offensive. I do not believe this, but it is certainly possible.
There’s a curious use of a word to be found here, or there is now, as I concoct this, at about 4.40 pm on Sunday afternoon, London time. Maybe it will change soon. I refer to the little heading which leads to this story. The story itself is headed “Blair praises UK troops in Basra” and I have no problem with that. But the bit at the main website that leads to this story says, on the left, just under where it says “NEWS”:
Blair rallies UK troops in Basra.
Rallies. Yes, you read that right. Evidently some twit at the BBC thinks that Britain’s army has just suffered some sort of defeat.
Please understand that I am not in any way blaming Blair for this absurd word, merely the fool who put it up at the BBC website, and as I say it may soon vanish.
These people are starting seriously to believe their own bullshit.
Iraqis are not just depending on government to protect their new liberty. According to this report from the Coalition Provisional Authority, they are armed and dangerous… to terrorists:
Elsewhere in Baghdad, individuals inside a white Opel fired small arms at ICDC personnel at the Al-Amil gas station. The Civil Defense Corps soldiers returned fire, and Iraqi customers waiting for fuel also fired at the Opel. The assailants broke contact, and a search of the area met with negative results.
Is it just me or does this paragraph sound like something out of an L Neil Smith novel?
Oh how I wish I had the presence of mind to have taken a picture of her to illustrate the point of this post, not that I ever need much excuse to publish a picture of an attractive young woman… my camera was on my belt as usual but alas my brain was not in gear and moments later she was lost in the swirling post-Christmas sales crowds.
She was in her late teens or maybe early twenties, obviously from a fairly well off family, very stylish in a ‘Mayfair London’ manner (though I saw her in Kensington), beautiful in a ‘could be a model’ sort of way, dusky complexion, long legs made to look even longer by expensive looking high heeled shoes and a very short form fitting ‘little black dress’… and wearing an Iranian style hijab.
Although I can only speculate as I do not know the young woman who caught my eye, it is not hard to see the ‘domestic compromise’ at work here… her family insisting she wear the hijab whilst she insisted on dressing to kill in the manner of her adopted western culture and friends.
This little drama must get played out a million times a year across Europe and North America amongst the Muslim diaspora and in the long run, it is not hard to see which cultural force is going to win. I suspect that one of the reasons that small pockets of western Muslims have become radicalized is that it is they who are most starkly confronted with what happens in the majority of cases when the old ways are confronted by western secular individualism. No civilization based on submission to arbitrary edicts from the Dark Ages can survive contact with a civilization that essentially encourages you to find your own way and do what you will.
I suspect within one hundred years, maybe less, Islam will have about as much relevance to the life of most ‘Muslims’ as the Anglican Church does to most British ‘Christians’… something you might or might not encounter when getting married or buried and not much else.
We’ve commented very little here about the Iran earthquake of December 26th, which could obviously be an earthquake in more ways than one. For several days now, I’ve been wanting to do a piece called something like “Now wait for the political tremors”. But hello, what’s this?
Here’s how this Economist piece concludes:
… the catastrophe may have one benign effect: a lessening of the Islamic republic’s distrust of foreigners. That distrust was evident in 1990, when the Iranians turned down many offers of outside help in the aftermath of a previous catastrophic quake and officials denounced sniffer dogs as “unclean”. Mr Khatami, in recent days, has showed no such qualms, appealing for help from all bar Israel. Some people in Bam were rescued thanks to the once-reviled canines.
Mr Khatami’s conservative rivals have mixed feelings about foreign help. During his trip to the area, the supreme leader did not deign to mention the mainly western countries that had rushed to Iran’s aid, let alone thank the rescuers in person. That is not untypical of Iran’s stand-offish conservatives. Last Friday, while survivors of the disaster surveyed the wreckage of their lives, Mr Khamenei found time to extol at length the merits of making the pilgrimage to Mecca.
Yes, but setting aside how the conservative bit of the Iranian elite feels what is the Iranian elite as a whole doing that is any different?
This UPI piece is somewhat more informative on that score:
On the issue of a diplomatic thaw, Rashid Khalikov, a U.N. official, praised Iran’s quick call for help and opening of its borders. “They immediately opened up their airports for foreign flights, opened their consulates all over the world to issue visas for aid workers as fast as they could and have often waived them,” Khalikov said at a Monday news conference in Geneva.
U.S. Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said in interview with the Washington Post, “There are things happening, and therefore we should keep open the possibility of a dialogue at an appropriate point in the future.”
The story seems to be that there are two kinds of attitude that are contending for supremacy in Iran, the one that says that Allah will see to everything provided only that we grovel to him in the precisely correct manner while wailing the precisely correct noises, and the one that says that if Allah wants this mess (and all the other messes around here) sorted, the way he’ll do it is by us sorting it on his behalf, by making use of such things as dogs, foreigners, etc. The former tendency wants the West to drop dead. The latter tendency wants Iran to come alive.
And this earthquake, paradoxically, plays right into the hands of the Come Alive party, because it shines a big public torch on which attitude saves lives and which one does not. For never forget that the key to how many people die in disasters is not just how many die in that first horrible few minutes, but how many more die of boring things like malnutrition, the cold, infection caused by lack of sanitation, infection of untended wounds, etc., during the days that follow. And that latter figure is determined by the attitude of those in power who are able to do something, and who either do that something or do not.
Personally I don’t think it makes much sense to moan about whether buildings were or were not earthquake proofed. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but is no help in clearing up a mess right now. That stuff comes later.
But a ruling elite that sits on its prayer mats in the immediate aftermath of disaster but otherwise does nothing is definitely moan-worthy. Mr Khamenei and his ilk will surely not be looking good in the eyes of their fellow countrymen right now.
An earthquake has struck Iran causing thousands of fatalities.
But we all know who is responsible:
I’ve heard tectonic weapons tossed around but what if that evil dummy prayed for the quake???
I wouldn’t put anything past George ‘Hitler’ Bush.
An acquaintance of mine, of impeccably liberal (translation for Brits – socialist) views was recently making snide remarks about the impending trial of Saddam Hussein. Funny, I did not notice such folk getting all upset when Spanish authorities attempted to put, say, Chile’s former dictator General Pinochet on trial.
But then I guess I forget the universal rule of thumb – if X is advocated by the United States, particularly when it is led by a Republican, then X must be wrong. How silly of me to have forgotten.
Belmont Club has a couple of fascinating entries that mesh well with my last post on the tranzi menace. Collect the set!
I was particularly struck by the Club’s take on the immediate post-9/11 tranzi reaction:
The curious antipathy of the Germany and France towards unilateral American action following September 11 was driven not by a sudden revulsion for American culture, but by the loss of something they deeply coveted: the means to exercise supranational police power under the aegis of international treaties. In the days following Osama Bin Laden’s attack on New York, hopes ran high in Paris, Berlin and Moscow, that America in her grief would deposit her strength in the hands of the “international community” who, thus armed, promised to put a stop to terrorism and uproot its causes. To provide the violins, the capitals of Europe expressed the utmost sympathy for the American loss and deluged embassies with flowers and letters of support. “We are all Americans now”. For a moment, matters hung on edge, the most critical instant in modern history. Then the haze passed, and America shook the expectant, extended hand and said “I’ll take care of it myself”. The response was immediate and incandescent. The internationalists rounded on America with as much hatred as the sympathy they had professed mere moments before.
As always, Belmont Club’s full analysis of the prospects for the future shape of international order are worth pondering. The Club posits a bottom-up New World Order founded on common law that contrasts sharply with the top-down command-and-control vision of the transnational progressives.
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We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
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