The noose on even ever-so-gently criticizing any aspect of Islam is tightening.Ian McKewan just discovered so when he used the term "Islamism " which generally refers to militant Islam.
Excerpt from this article in the Independent (via Jihad Watch):
The novelist Ian McEwan has launched an astonishingly strong attack on Islamism, saying that he "despises" it and accusing it of "wanting to create a society that I detest". His words, in an interview with an Italian newspaper, could, in today's febrile legalistic climate, lay him open to being investigated for a "hate crime".I admit to not having read Martin Amis. Wiki information on him is HERE. Maybe he is a racist, but I don't immediately find any such information.
In an interview with Guido Santevecchi, a London correspondent for Corriere della Sera, the Booker-winning novelist said he rarely grants interviews on controversial issues "because I have to be careful to protect my privacy". But he said that he was glad to leap to the defence of his old friend Martin Amis when the latter's attacks on Muslims brought down charges of racism on his head. He made an exception of the Islamic issue out of friendship to Amis, and because he shares the latter's strong opinions.
"A dear friend had been called a racist," he said. "As soon as a writer expresses an opinion against Islamism, immediately someone on the left leaps to his feet and claims that because the majority of Muslims are dark-skinned, he who criticises it is racist.
"This is logically absurd and morally unacceptable. Martin is not a racist. And I myself despise Islamism, because it wants to create a society that I detest, based on religious belief, on a text, on lack of freedom for women, intolerance towards homosexuality and so on – we know it well."
McEwan – author of On Chesil Beach and the acclaimed Atonement and Enduring Love – has spoken on the issue of Islamism before, telling The New York Times last December: "All religions make very big claims about the world, and it should be possible in an open society to dispute them. It should be possible to say, 'I find some ideas in Islam questionable' without being called a racist."
But his words in the Corriere interview are far stronger, although they do fall short of the invective deployed by Martin Amis. He has said "the Muslim community will have to suffer until it gets its house in order", and told The Independent's columnist Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, a Muslim, in an open letter: "Islamism, in most of its manifestations, not only wants to kill me – it wants to kill you."
Perhaps readers and commenters here at IBA know more about Martin Amis -- and Ian McKewan, for that matter.
In any case, I see the West moving toward a time, not too far in the future, that will forbid any criticism of Islam whatsoever. If that day comes to pass, we will have lost the war of ideas in even limited public-forums.
A public "hate speech" case against an author with Ian McEwan's name recognition and popularity would prove very interesting indeed, especially given his principled stand and outspokenness. "Atonement" is a major best-seller and McEwan is far better known to the general reading public than even Martin Amis himself, to say nothing of Mark Steyn or Ezra Levant.
ReplyDeleteWoo hoo!
ReplyDeleteI have to say something about the term Islamism. That Muslims would be unhappy over McEwan using the term "Islamism" is the height of absurdity. There is no more gentle term we could use to describe the extremists of Islam.
ReplyDeleteIslamism is defined as:
1. the faith, doctrine, or cause of Islam
2 : a popular reform movement advocating the reordering of government and society in accordance with laws prescribed by Islam
Is is, simpy put, political Islam. It is a form of Islam which calls for Islamic government. It calls for the institution of Sharia as law.
There should be no question that we ought to oppose such an idea. Sharia, strictly speaking, is the end of free speech/conscience, as it advocates the death penalty for anyone who leaves Islam. Sharia also advocates death for homosexuals and adulterers.
Sharia as law is directly opposed to the separation of Church and State. As our Constitution puts it:
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof ..."
No sane person in the West would disagree with that, so why would anyone oppose Ian McEwan's criticisms?
Yes, as I said, we may be seeing the first crack in the dam.
Pastorius:
ReplyDeleteRushdie and Amis are both Indian/Pakistani Brits.
Wherever did you get that notion? To my knowledge, Martin Amis, son of Kingsley Amis, is no ethnic Brit. Check this out, please. And check out his photos on Google Images. He certainly doesn't look as if he has either Pakistani or Indian blood.
Always, this is an excellent and very interesting post. Thank you.
I see the West moving toward a time, not too far in the future, that will forbid any criticism of Islam whatsoever. If that day comes to pass, we will have lost the war of ideas in even limited public-forums.
That does indeed seem to be the case. In fact, it would appear that we are nearly there already!
And as you say, when we can no longer criticize Islam or Islamism, then we shall have lost. Period!
Well, this IS quite a shocking surprise.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if McEwan's liberal publishers are going to be as delighted as some of us are.
Mark,
ReplyDeleteYou're right.
I'm wrong.
My memory failed me. I thought I had read that Amis was born in India or Pakistan.
Jeez, was I mistaken, or what?
I'm embarrassed.
Since I am so off, I will remove my previous comments.
Using any term besides Islam to describe Islam only encourages Muslim aggressors since they smell fear. Not that being fully honest saves you from getting your head cut off if they get their hands on you, but those who are not afraid to call out Islam itself confounds this enemy who has done his worst to silence us all. There's power in naming Islam and its Jihad directly and we should always use the exact terms. Always. And in the endgame, our leaders will finally be shamed into using the terms themselves, when it'd be too embarrassing not to.
ReplyDeleteMy dear Pastorius!
ReplyDeleteThere is nothing to be embarrassed about. We are all fallible human beings; ergo, we all make mistakes.
Go and enjoy a drink and a good cigar, or whatever else that gives you pleasure! A man who makes no mistakes cannot be a man, by definition. To err is human, to forgive, divine! :-)
Bosch Fawstin:
ReplyDeleteI couldn't agree with you more. Islam was, is, and will be the problem. Always.
Urban Infidel:
ReplyDelete:-)
Mark,
ReplyDeleteThanks.
And, I feel a little better now, because I figured out how I made the mistake.
Somehow, in my brain, wires crossed for VS Naipaul and Martin Amis. Both are critical of Islam and Amis sounds like it could be a Muslim name, so I think that's how it happened.
Anyway, Naipaul won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2001 and I was thinking of him when I wrote that Amis was among the Literary Canon of the 20th century. Also, when I said that I thought Amis was Indian or Pakistani, it is Naipaul who is of Indian heritage.
So anyway, for anyone who is interest in reading modern authors who are critical of Islam, now we have Amis, Rushdie, McEwan, and Naipaul.
Here's an article from the Guardian on Naipaul:
The novelist VS Naipaul has caused an outcry by comparing the "calamitous effect" of Islam on the world with colonialism.
Sir Vidia, born in Trinidad of Indian parentage, who travelled extensively in the Muslim world for his books Among the Believers and Beyond Belief, launched his attack after a reading of his new book, Half a Life, at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London.
Islam, he claimed, had both enslaved and attempted to wipe out other cultures."It has had a calamitous effect on converted peoples. To be converted you have to destroy your past, destroy your history. You have to stamp on it, you have to say 'my ancestral culture does not exist, it doesn't matter'."
Sir Vidia claimed what he called "this abolition of the self demanded by Muslims was worse than the similar colonial abolition of identity. It is much, much worse in fact... You cannot just say you came out of nothing."
He argued that Pakistan was the living proof of the damage Islam could wreak.
"The story of Pakistan is a terror story actually. It started with a poet who thought that Muslims were so highly evolved that they should have a special place in India for themselves.
"This wish to sift countries of unnecessary and irrelevant populations is terrible and this is exactly what happened in Pakistan."
Ahmed Versi, editor of the Muslim News, said Naipaul's outburst showed just how deep his ignorance of Islam was.
"What he says may shock many people here, but it comes as no surprise to those of us who have read his books. He is basically a Hindu nationalist, who has a deep dislike of Muslims, and that is where he is coming from."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2001/oct/04/afghanistan.terrorism9
Sorry to have been AWOL in this discussion. I went off watch yesterday so as to enjoy a day out in the convertible.
ReplyDeleteI found Bosch's comment spot on:
Using any term besides Islam to describe Islam only encourages Muslim aggressors since they smell fear. Not that being fully honest saves you from getting your head cut off if they get their hands on you, but those who are not afraid to call out Islam itself confounds this enemy who has done his worst to silence us all. There's power in naming Islam and its Jihad directly and we should always use the exact terms. Always. And in the endgame, our leaders will finally be shamed into using the terms themselves, when it'd be too embarrassing not to.
The enemy is playing a game with the very first rule of debate, i.e., defining terms. Old ploy, really.