Harry’s Place

See also Caroline Lucas, leader of the Green Party
http://www.engageonline.org.uk/blog/article.php?id=2244

Dalrymple has form on this - he can be consistently relied upon to adopt the TheIrie position, as it can be quite handily summarised in familiar terms - no brown-skinned person, and especially no brown-skinned person of a certain Arabian-originated faith can ever do anything wrong - its always someone else’s fault (where the someone else is always the UK, US or Israel), and even if the brown-skinned person has done something naughty, said brown-skinned person always can’t help himself since he is merely helplessly reacting against the ubiqutious oppressors of brown-skinned persons with Arabian-originated faith.

In short, he’s a knob.

And he’s a racist knob at that.

Let us not also forget that Dalrymple also blamed 9/11 on ‘the repressive campaign waged against the second intifada by [Ariel] Sharon in autumn 2000′.

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/non-fiction/article645300.ece

This not only overlooks the fact that Sharon only became Prime Minister in February 2001, but also the fact that Al Qaeda planned its attacks in 1999, at a time when the Clinton administration was trying to broker a peace settlement between Israel and the Palestinians.

Such intellectual dishonesty doesn’t surprise me anymore.

Such intellectual dishonesty doesn’t surprise me anymore.

I can beat that.

One of the Taliban Trots on CiF (can’t remember which one it was alas, but it was a while back) stated authotatively that the Bali Bombing was directly caused by the overthrow of Saddam, and the usual suspects fell into a chorus of agreement.

For anyone who don’t have a Time Tunnel in their back garden (Osama Bin Time Lord?), the overthrow of saddam was in April 2003. The Bali Boming was about seven months *earlier* - October 2002.

If the Muslims were to burn William Dalrymple’s books because of their potboiler qualities, it would be possible to forgive them much.

Utter nonsense, of course. If we can get past the requirement for a condemnathon (i.e. of course the killers are responsible and 100% to blame for what they did, and should be brought to justice) perhaps we are also allowed to think about how our own actions might mitigate of inflame such further attrocities. If you can get past the platitudes (which you can’t), then we can think clearly without this bloody ridiculous charge of excusing terrorism. To the extent its about “blame” blame the killers. To the extent its about dealing with reality, lets think about whether our policies are making this problem worse, and whether we should sort them out. Clearly, the oppression in Kashmir, Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan should stop. It should stop, even if there is other oppresssion in the world (Darfur, etc). Pointing out that the continuation of this oppression leads to outcomes like this is simply straightforward common sense. That isn’t to justify it. It isn’t about excusing it, its about understanding it. And you people are in denial.

Wikipedia

He is a regular contributor to The New York Review of Books [2], The Guardian [3], the New Statesman [4] and The New Yorker [5].

Har!

Great stuff, Eamonn. Dalrymple really is a sorry little twat.

London Times Online adoptes a more “subtle” approach:
http://www.solomonia.com/blog/archive/2008/11/theres-always-column-space-available-to/index.shtml

Why am I not surprised?

Irie, simple question:
do you think that if as you put it, the ‘oppression in Kashmir, Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan’ is stopped will that be an end to Islamist terrorism?

I think it would definately have a large effect, yes. Economic growth would ultimately end it, but the prerequiste for that is an end to the brutal occupations.

That Dalrymple article is amazing.

The relevant paragraph begins by accusing Michael Gove of “rewriting history”, and yet only a sentence later he is concocting a bafflingly confused version of events to suit his own narrative.

The hypocrisy is astounding.

Gove also rewrites history when he alleges it was the “appeasement” of the Palestinians represented by the Oslo peace process that encouraged Al-Qaeda to launch the 9/11 attacks. In fact it was the violent repression that followed Israel’s unilateral ending of peace talks that formed the backdrop to the attacks. Bin Laden’s deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, has written that the repressive campaign waged against the second intifada by Sharon in autumn 2000 provided Al-Qaeda’s opportunity: as the corpses of dead children piled up, al-Zawahiri realised that here was the rallying cry that could unify the Muslim world

The only “oppression” happening in Iraq and Afghanistan is coming from Islamist scum such as the Taliban.

US/UK and NATO forces are doing what they can to remove these scum, and in Iraq have largely succeeded to such an extent that from next year they will be preparing to leave. Some “brutal occupation” there eh ?

Our brave troops are not “oppressors” by any means and only complete cretins such as TheIdiot believe they are.

The idea that Islamic terrorism is a response to ‘oppression’ is absurd. There was plenty of oppression in Afghanitan before 2001 and in Iraq before 2003, but Islamists were quite unconcerned.

The suggestion that the removal NATO forces from Afghanistan would lead to economic growth is equally absurd.

Irie, so you’re effectively saying that the cause of Islamist terrorism in your view are
i) brutal occupations
ii) poverty

- is there any room for ideology there?

- is there any room for ideology there?

The ideology is, poor brown people cannot never be discrete moral actors.

That isn’t to justify it. It isn’t about excusing it, its about understanding it. And you people are in denial.

Let’s work to these rules consistently, shall we?

You go first. Spend as long as you like trying to “understand” the Sabra and Shatila massacre in 1982. Have you ever asked yourself what motivated these young Lebanese Phalangists to enter the refugee camps and slaughter hundreds of Palestinian civilians? What could the leadership of the PLO have done differently to reduce the chances of something like this happening? How much introspection have you and your political ilk called for over Sabra and Shatila? Shows us what it is not to be in denial.

The problem with this guff about “solve Palestine, Kashmir etc” and you “definately (sic) have a large effect, yes” is that it assumes a static world. The world of course is dynamic and new problems will arise to take the place of old ones. Given Islam’s international borders the chances are that many of the disputes of the future are likely to involve Muslim lands.

Put simply, the problem then, is that if there is a will or “animus” to use such disputes as I believe, not “genuinely” to advance their resolution but rather to whip up radicalism among Muslims, then any old dispute real or invented, will do for the purpose. That is why it is so terribly irresponsible for some in the West (Dalrymple is a good example, the Irie another) to merely parrot the supposed “resentments” of the Ismamists without doing anything whatsoever to challenge them.

From what I’ve read the surviving terrorist speaks perfect English, suggesting that he is middle-class. In fact the scumbag has used it to beg the doctors to save his life. How brave is that!!! That they were wearing expensive clothing is not surprising. No doubt, just like a bridegroom, they were given expensive clothes as gifts. To be honest, the whole thing reminded me of ‘Tombraider’ with the rucksacks and running round corridors. It also seems that Pakistan is threatening to stop ‘containing’ the training camps and Islamicists unless India takes back the hurtful things it has said. Any excuse …

Woodlice operate according to ‘taxes’ - the run away from light and towards moisture.

For some people, Muslims are the same.

When a jihadist seeks out Jews, or Hindus, or ‘foreigners’, or “Muslims who are less devout than them” to murder, it is basically no more than a reflex.

It is our fault for putting Jews, or Hindus, or ‘foreigners’, or “Muslims who are less devout than them” in their way.

But The Irie, the gunmen and bombers themselves seem to think they have broader, ideological political objectives than ending any ‘repressive occupations’. Are they deluded about that, just wrong about their own motivations? How can we know if they don’t?Doesn’t the torture and murder of Jews in Mumbai, seem to indicate that they know what they are talking about, or do you have evidence that these wre secret ‘zionists’ with Mossad connections?

I wonder why they don’t consider the Muslims they themselves shot to have been oppressed in any way. Being gunned down on a train strikes me as pretty oppressive.

I really don’t understand why these liberal “brown terrorist” appeasers still fail to get it. Their basic argument is : there has to be a valid excuse for this violent action because otherwise these people would not be so angry.
QED any angry people who want to kill people in their cause can and should be “understood”.

Of course that is a nonsense because even they don’t find excuses when its an angry racist or fascist blowing people up. Then its back to some old nonsense about how only “oppressed” non-Westerners can be validly angry.

Fatuous stupidity at its most revolting and another example of how “Left wing thinkers” are totally losing the plot.

Dalrymple … “liberal”? Have you read any Dalrymple before?

Here we go again with the stupid ‘understanding the causes of terror’ debate. What’s so hard to understand about this:

When the US and its allies conduct ‘the war on terror’, there may be variation in what we may call ‘perceptions of injustice, among Muslims’ with respect to this war on terror. It is perfectly sensible to say the greater the perceptions of injustice, the greater the likelihood of terrorist attacks, and to argue that the war on terror has from time to time, perhaps, aggravated this sense of injustice to no good end, even if you do believe the war on terror is justified and that a certain level of ‘perceived injustice’ is inevitable. Such an argument only goes astray when it turns this into a justification for terror, as we all know.

Perhaps everybody making such an argument ought to point out that there are greater injustices perpetrated against Muslims by other Muslims, and ought to point out that this sense of injustice may not be widely shared among Muslims, and ought to point out that this sense of injustice does not square well with the conduct of the US and its allies in many respects, and ought to serious engage with what are, and are not, legitimate responses to a sense of injustice (indiscriminate murder obviously being not). It should also be added that perceptions of injustice are stoked by inflammatory preachers (and just the usual dismal human tendency to prefer comforting conspiracy theories over the complex and banal truth)

Some Muslims undoubtedly are “exquisitely sensitive to certain instances of injustice committed against their coreligionists and completely indifferent to others”. That’s quite consistent with a causal link between the conduct of the war on terror and terrorism. It is not necessary to treat everybody as of equal moral character - some people are moral cretins, lunatics and sadists, and some of those people will the ones that turn a ’sense of injustice’ into terrorist acts.

It is true that many liberal western commentators do slip from “trying to understand the causes of terrorism” into condoning terrorism, and of projecting their anti-imperialist fantasies onto the terrorists and neglect more pertinent ’causes’ (such as the individuals in question being moral cretins, religious lunatics and sadists), and so forth. Harry’s Place, Norm etc. has always been right about this.

But it is also so that some liberal western commentators are just trying to say something sensible about the causal mechanisms that ‘explain’ (in the sense a social scientist might use) terrorism, and to make some valid criticisms of the way the US and its allies have conducted the war on terror.

If you leap all over the latter with accusations of the former, all we get is a big ugly stupid boring row. Are you sure you haven’t done that here, with Dalrymple?

Brownie’s point about Shabra is well made. I would love to hear The Irie’s reply, but won’t hold my breath.

Danny - yes, ideology is third on that list. I agree, those are probably the three most important factors. I happen to think ideology, and principle, are extremely shallow factors in man’s activities in general.

Brownie - Well, if I was in the PLO, or a Palestinian refugee in Lebanon, maybe that would be a sensible question. However, given that I’m British, and what happened was that Israeli proxies commited a massacre, speculating about what the victims of that massacre might have done to better prevent it, is rather odd isn’t it? To be consistent with my principles, I ought to be thinking about what I could have done to prevent it, as an ally of the perpetrator.

And lo TheIrie’s singularly lop-sided take on the world is revealed.

Irie,
Can I suggest that you read this.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Looming_Tower

It may help you.

‘I happen to think ideology, and principle, are extremely shallow factors in man’s activities in general.’

What other than ideology makes someone think that there has been oppression in Afghanistan since 2001 but that there was none before 2001?

What other than ideology makes someone think that there has been oppression in Iraq since 2003 but that there was none before 2003?

What other than ideology makes someone think that there is no oppression worth bothering about in Darfur or Saudi Arabia or Iran?

OK Luis but Dalrymple says :

“These were not poor, madrasah-educated Pakistanis from the villages, brainwashed by mullahs, but angry and well-educated, middle-class kids furious at the gross injustice they perceive being done to Muslims by Israel, the US, the UK and India in Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan and Kashmir respectively.”

Would he have said :

“These were not poor, ill-educated working class people from sink housing estates, brainwashed by Nick Griffin, but angry and well-educated, middle-class kids furious at the gross injustice they perceive being done to White people by Muslim child molesters in Bradford, Al-Qaeda hostage takers in Iraq and violent so-called asylum-seekers in the West.”

I very much doubt it, don’t you ? His comments are not just factual, by using phrases such as “well-educated” he gives the excuses credence. He’d never do that for Western right wing terrorists.

Irie, so your argument boils down to the classic:

It’s Imperialism and Capitalism are responsible for this formula.

In which case, I’m not surprised you don’t attach much weight to ideology.

Just as a matter of interest, I think you’d agree that seeing Imperialism and Capitalism as major root causes of Islamist terrorism reflects a particular ideology.

If you can have one that’s cental to your world view, why can’t they?

If you leap all over the latter with accusations of the former, all we get is a big ugly stupid boring row. Are you sure you haven’t done that here, with Dalrymple?

I’m sure. Can’t speak for anyone else.

Which is not to say that we shouldn’t have our own conduct and policies under constant review. I have no problem whatsoever with this. What I reject emphatically is the suggestion that there is causality; as in, you remove the Taleban from power in Afghanistan, so random commuters will inevitably get shot up in Mumbai. This isn’t walk in the snow and you leave footprints. This is evidence of a corrupt ideology.

The day a lapsed Muslim* is self-immolating in a Baghdad marketplace or murdering random westerners on our public transport system, I’ll consider reveiwing this position.

Lets’s be frank and not PC. It is true that emnity and hate towards Jews can be found in the Koran and Hadiths. Hence, islamic Terrorism hatred of Jews pre-dates any of the events listed.

In fact hatred towards Christians (infidels) is also in those books.

They don’t need any other excuse.

Why did Dalrymplpimple miss it?

Removing the Taleban from power in Afghanistan would not upset anyone who was opposed to oppression. It would only upset someone who was in favour of a certain of oppression.

To be consistent with my principles [Irie]

There are so many things worng with clasue that I don’t know where to begin.

And there are so many things wrong with my comment that I wish we had a preview function…

You raise Shabra and Shatilla Brownie. I fail to see the analogy.

Is the Irie being even more silly than usual today?

It is obvious, The Irie, you do not attempt to undestand the ‘root causes’ of the Shabra and Shatilla massacre, or what the representatives of the victims could do to address, them, you simply condemn it as a crime. Why the double standard?

Just read the Caroline Lucas peice and I am actually shocked!
I know she seems to have flirted with this sort of view previously but this is just so blatantly an anti semetic response that It beggars belief. I feel like the only response now is to consider the Green party as being in the same camp as the BNP until they can prove otherwise.

For once, I have to disagree with Eamonn McDonagh, I don’t think that it is “liberal cultivated opinion” rather William Benedict Hamilton-Dalrymple’s views are resemblant of a strain of thinking found amongst the British aristocracy in the 19th and 20th century, a form of condescending admiration for the “noble savage”.

I suspect William Benedict Hamilton-Dalrymple would never consider that the inhabitants of India or Pakistan were his equal, having gone through an excessively privileged upbringing and education as the son of Major Sir Hew Fleetwood Hamilton-Dalrymple, 10th Baronet Hamilton-Dalrymple and the Grandson of Walter Egerton George Lucian Keppel, 9th Earl of Albemarle.

Those attitudes so often to be found in Comment is Free are not that far removed from the beliefs which were inculcated during the heyday of the British Empire, a vulgar disdain for the lower orders, “foreigners” and inhabitants of the wider world.

Therefore, these “homicidal tantrums” are taken as a given by these ex-aristocrats and the strain of thought that they represent, and that lingering disdain for humanity which was intrinsic to the Imperial mentality never really died, it just lay dormant until Comment is Free gave it an outlet.

So I think what is sometimes portrayed as “liberal opinion” is nothing of the sort, rather it holds within it many of these reactionary ideas from a by-gone age, peculating just below the surface.

That is why it seeks to excuse, apologize or contextualize such brutality because it sees violence and murder as an integral part of the human condition, and thus somehow acceptable within its own post-Imperial psyche.

Dalrymples comments about the shooters wearing fashionable clothes is just bizarre, as are the conclusions he draws from them. The areas of Mumbai that they plotted to murder in, are like the Manhattan of India. Walking around in Pakistani shalwaar kameez would draw attention to them. What else were they going to wear to blend in for the short walk around the place? And how can he draw conclusions about them being middle-class from all of that? And so what if they are middle class? I remember him saying exactly the same stuff about Islamic fundamentalists from the UK, ie: wea re to blame for people like Mohammad Siddique Khan and Shezad Tanweer.

Dalrymple writes some good stuff on Indian history, and he is forthright and correct on some issues to do with Hindu fundamentalists. But I can’t help feeling that the man has a latent and deep admiration for the whiff of cordite and gun shot when it has an Arabic twang to it. I’ve tried to see it from all perspectives, but the man is an apologist for Islamist terrorism and violence. Maybe it’s rooted in his excessive romanticisation of Mughal history — who knows.

The cause of this massacre is race hate. Just as Hitler’s genocides were carried out because of race hate. The purpose of race hate is to delude people about the causes of their sufferings in order to control them. Thus there is a myth of a “US - zionist plot to control Pakistan” which was used to motivate people to slaughter jews, hindus and westerners in Mumbai. Would surrendering to islamist extremists reduce this race hate? This is the TheIrie/Dalrymple proposal. The evidence goes against this. Islamic terror is more or less kept in the box in Israel/Palestine and Obama will put a surge into Afghanistan to do the same there. The crucial factor has to be Pakistan and the degree to which the latest inhumanity will help get the military there to do something.

The fact that Dalrymple is not universally seen to be a fascist bigot is part of the problem.

Let me re-state this. The mandate for killing Jews and Christians comes from the Koran and Hadiths. Its obviously politically incorrect to mention this and so commentators pick up that it MUST be something we did. And if you hate Israel anyway you will use that as the excuse in the hope that you can engineer a blame on the Jews and somehow force Israel to give in to the Islamist agenda. They conveniently ignore Hamas closely following the Koran by stating that Israel is actually “Islamic lands that have to be returned to Muslims”.

Why oh why do people ignore this?

Remember that in the pipeline of grievances is Al Qaeda stating that Andalucia is really Islamic lands because Muslims once conquered it and have been kicked out.

Well, Muslim armies conquered a lot of Europe before being repelled.

Its is NOT a political injustice its ANY EXCUSE! You know that because since in Darfur the Islamists are killing Christians then that’s OK as far as the Islamists are concerned.

Sorry but so many commentators are pulling the wool over your eyes and using any perceived injustice against Muslims as an excuse to surrender.

“Please, they say they just want a State in Palestine, give it to them irrespective of the cost, fuck the Jews, just give it to them and then they will behave”

No they wont!!!

It’s a pretty pass that certain elements of liberal cultivated opinion have come to.

That’s the great thing about HP. Some of the perorations sound like they are written by a retired colonel in Hampshire spluttering over his cornflakes and Telegraph. :-)

j.r - I was typing mine as you posted yours. It seems we agree.

“That’s the great thing about HP. Some of the perorations sound like they are written by a retired colonel in Hampshire spluttering over his cornflakes and Telegraph. :-)2

Physician, heal thyself.

Well said Mod (and John Meredith - Benji is certainly the most retired Colonel-like commenter here!)

What are the root causes of Shabra and Shatilla then? Is it that Israelis are depraved? Is it only that Phalangists are depraved? Or is it that the Palestinian refugees were too poorly behaved and agravated them? Tell me, since appartantly the consensus here is that the root cause of the Mumbai massacres was simply that the perpetrators were depraved Islamists, full stop. There can be no considerations of material circumstances at all. They can’t even be raised.

Maven, all religions start of as mad cults. They need to be emasculated and house trained to make them safe. Christianity was broken in by the enlightenment and Judaism by the halakhah. The same process needs to happen in some remaining outposts of unreformed islam; in Turkey, the maghreb, Jordan and the balkans the work is more or less finished.

I also remember a piece that Dalrymple wrote about the decline of Christianity in Palestine and other Arab lands that layed the blame on Israel. OK, maybe that has something to do with it, but the guy is a moron if he thinks that Islamic extremism isn’t the main cause of the strangling of Christianity in Arab lands — just look at the Coptic Christians in Egypt. It’s bizarre because he correctly identifies the rise of Hindu chauvinism for persecuting Christians in Indian hinterlands. But he ifs and buts and contextualises Islamic persecution and drags Israel into it all.

TheIrie, the Lebanon massacres of Muslims by Christians, which you allude to, and of Christians by Muslims, which you don’t mention, are part of an ethnic conflict where race hate is used by warlords to motivate their followers. Just like Mumbai.

Of course it’s the Jews fault, it always is. Now let’s have some of this nice brie and talk about how wonderful we are. And those nasty nasty Jews.

Benji you cunt I suppose this Muslim leader, Muslim leaders refuse to bury terrorist dead, sound like a retired colonel in Hampshire spluttering over his cornflakes and Telegraph.

I wish the editors of this blog would permanently ban the inane twat Benjamibn forever. He is of no use to anyone, not even himself!

I see that, probably correctly, George Galloway and Salma Yaqoob are criticising the British Press coverage for its assertions that British Muslims were involved in the Mumbai attacks.

http://www.socialistunity.com/?p=3129

It my of course be better coming from people who have not associated British Muslims with “reprisal attacks” in the past.

In the comments it appears that DavidT and HP are the most culpable.

“What are the root causes of Shabra and Shatilla then? Is it that Israelis are depraved? Is it only that Phalangists are depraved? Or is it that the Palestinian refugees were too poorly behaved and agravated them? ”

Tell us what you think? I think it was a grotesque and evil crime performed by criminals and without anything to mitigate it. Do you really think that the victims provoked it in some way and take some of the blame? Why all the wriggling?

This has nothing to do with repression or oppression.

Two things;1) Islam’s core texts have, are and will continue to be interpreted in such ways by SOME Muslims as to justify unjusitfiable acts of violence against innocent people. It began 14 centuries ago with the faith’s founder attacking merchant caravans, and the methods haven’t changed since.

Mohammed is the model.

2) Most western pundits, even very good ones, tend to project their own western intellectual/moral qualities on the Islamic world and thus fail to make important and crucial differences between Judeo-Chrisitna culture and that of Islam, and are thus perplexed when confronted by vastly different standards of behavior. Islam is all about gaining territory…whether it be an ‘innocent’ prayer room in western universities or bits and piece of India.

Or England.

Mohamed is the model.

Let’s examine Indian ‘oppression’ of Muslims, one of Dalrymple’s ‘root causes’, for a moment.The Indian gov’t has had affirmative action programmes for its Muslim minority for some time now. How many majority Muslim countries, if any, have affirmative action programmes of any sort for their religious minorities?

India, too, subsidises the Haj for its Muslim population, with the result that Indian Muslims visit Meeca in much greater numbers and do so on a budget partially financed by the Indian state. When one compares the number of pilgrims from India with the numbers of pilgims from Pakistan, the difference is astounding. Far fewer Pakistanis can afford it. I’d even say that India’s Muslims are quite spoiled and pampered, and that their inferior economic performance and second-rate levels of edcucational are the result of Islam’s diktats, its myraid of restrictions and and limitations, that discourage initiative, innovation, dynamism and ambition.

Once again, Islam is an agressive, expansionist and insatiable ideology that needs no reasons, rational or excuses to attack innocent people and countries.

As the example of the attacks in Mumbai clearly demonstrate, when it comes to a very legitimate and widespread interpretation of jihadist Islam, either you kill it or it kills you.

Fuck the dialogue, get ‘em while they’re weak.

Demanding Pakistan hand over its nuclear arsenal, or else, would be a very good place to start. Let’s face it, the place is a clearing house for every islamist whack-job on the planet.

Graham,

It occurred to me, the Empire mentality never really went away it just morphed into something else, and I think you can see its origins in the modern day notion of the “noble savage”, that dull fatalism, so articulated by “anti-imperialists”, etc it is a reaction to modernity and enlightenment thinking.

I think you are quite right Mod (although it is a big area to cover - and possibly best not approached on this thread.) But of course The grandparents of today’s “anti-imperialists” were just as enthusiastic builders of Empire and prosletysers for its benefits as the anti-imperialists are against it all. The form remains, only the content has changed.

I see that, probably correctly, George Galloway and Salma Yaqoob are criticising the British Press coverage for its assertions that British Muslims were involved in the Mumbai attacks.

I will simply record that the lone terrorist in custody speaks fluent English. Maybe well educated or maybe a native. Time will tell.

I don’t see why its wrong to latch onto leading edge speculation that came from the scene of the atrocities. It would have been big news had it been correct.

Lets be a conspiracy theorist and suggest maybe some were from Britain but it would be political dynamite if they said so. Its not as if British Jihadis haven’t been found in war zones. Its not as if the reports were off the radar in terms of possibility.

TheIrie, I think you’re a little off base here. Since 9/11, intelligence services and others have done a huge amount to profile jihadists and jihadi movements and the findings are that they are almost always a product of the middle classes - the idea that poverty is the root cause or even a significant factor just isn’t supported by the evidence. And if poverty was a key player, why don’t we see more terrorists from sub-saharan Africa, home to some of the poorest people on the planet?

The same points can be made about the ‘injustice’ argument. How is it that tyranny and oppression have been fought in many places without resort to machine-gunning staff serving in cafes or tourists eating there?

This latest carnage, like all the others before it and, sadly, all those to come, is motivated by a murderous ideology.

Great stuff John P

Demanding Pakistan hand over its nuclear arsenal, or else, would be a very good place to start. Let’s face it, the place is a clearing house for every islamist whack-job on the planet.

And the USA could do this with its Sixth Fleet threatening Pakistan - or else. However, it would also be fair to ask India to stand down its own nukes.

Also, this would show Iran that we aren’t messing around.

Good strategy John P. You are appointed Admiral of The Fleet (honorary)

Indeed Graham, good way of putting it

I don’t think it coincidental that so many of the trend setters and apologists for “anti-Imperialist” violence are the products of an elite Oxbridge education. That detachment from reality goes hand in hand with their condescending admiration for violence in faraway countries.

Obviously your personal yacht will be called “Sloop John P” while you inspect the Fleet.

“Benji you cunt I suppose this Muslim leader, Muslim leaders refuse to bury terrorist dead, sound like a retired colonel in Hampshire spluttering over his cornflakes and Telegraph.

I wish the editors of this blog would permanently ban the inane twat Benjamibn forever. He is of no use to anyone, not even himself!”

Can I second that, though Im not sure I would put it in quite those terms. Same goes to the other little creep who seems to have found a return to these threads irresistible (TheIriot).

Benjamin is simply a time wasting idiot. Anyone who knows TheIriot from his previous forays here will know him to be a dishonest, unpleasant little person solely here to get a reaction out of people. He gets it for a few days until (fortunately) people start to ignore.

Matt

“For once, I have to disagree with Eamonn McDonagh, I don’t think that it is “liberal cultivated opinion” rather William Benedict Hamilton-Dalrymple’s views are resemblant of a strain of thinking found amongst the British aristocracy in the 19th and 20th century, a form of condescending admiration for the “noble savage”.”

I agree with Mod. You see the type again and again. There is another one who often has programmes on The Beeb but whose name escapes me. Fancies himself as a sort of Lawrence of Arabia and does archeology programmes.

You know the type. A few arabs will be beating him across the face with some rocks and he will be egging them on understanding their anger (a la Fisk) when really they just think he is an irritating twerp.

Matt

Good post, this reverse culpability shtick is just so predictable.

Perhaps as an act of good faith, we should cut off our own heads.

No, it isn’t ‘Islamophobia’ when so many Muslims, in the name of their religion, really are - repeatedly, in multiple locations, trying to kill us ‘Kaffirs’!

Here is yet another dopy young woman whose column made me very very angry at the Guardian which saw fit to give paid column space to such tosh. We decents are an angry bunch.

Here is a quote from her piece, and an excellent response from one of the regular, sane contributors to CiF comments:

“Muslims are an angry bunch. We are angry about Bush and about Afghanistan and Iraq and Palestine. We are angry at the vitriol aimed at us after 9/11 and 7/7. We are angry about Abu Ghraib and anti-Islamic stories propagated by the Middle East Media Research Institute and the ignorant media. We are full of resentment, but this is the perfect chance to put our anger behind us.”

moveanymountain responds:
“Let me support your desire for Muslims to put their anger behind them. A worthy goal. One that could start with the end to lies that create such baseless hatred. That there is anything in Afghanistan or Iraq to be angry about. That there is any vitriol aimed at Muslims after 9-11 and 7-7 - and I notice you do not claim Muslims are angered by the lies some extremists direct at Jews and other non-Muslims every day. That the entirely true stories on MEMRI are a cause for any anger except at the Imams and leaders in the Middle East who say such things. All things worth giving away.

How about on a day when Islamists kill hundreds in Mumbai we hear about how Muslims are angry at the people who did this?”

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/nov/29/leaders-and-reply-kia-abdullah?showallcomments=true

And I like this metaphor from the comments on a blog about the press descriptions of the murdered Rabbi and his wife:

The jihadists are often portrayed as if they were an amoral force of nature that responds to provocation the way a gas leak might explode if you leave the valve open. So, if Jews or Christians are killed, it was because they were proselytizing or there is religious conflict when in fact pogroms have taken place. If someone makes a cartoon, it’s the cartoonist’s fault there are riots.
Is it the racism of low expectations?

http://breathofthebeast.blogspot.com/2008/11/holtzbergs-not-ultra-and-not.html

Brownie.

On second thought, my comment above may be misplaced - meaning that it is probably okay as a general observation, but less so applied to Dalrymple. I was suggesting Eammon may have misread him negatively, whereas I may have misread him positively.

This though: What I reject emphatically is the suggestion that there is causality; as in, you remove the Taleban from power in Afghanistan, so random commuters will inevitably get shot up in Mumbai. This isn’t walk in the snow and you leave footprints. This is evidence of a corrupt ideology.

When talking about causality, in the sense I meant, the word ‘inevitable’ is misplaced. It’s an empirical statement when X is observed, instances of Y are observed to increase. You are doubtless quite right it is evidence of a corrupt ideology, but because the world does contain people who hold a corrupt ideology, removing the Taliban in Afghanistan (probably) does raise the chance (’cause’) murder in Mumbai. It should go without saying that this does not mean the Taliban ought not have been removed, nor does it do anything to lessen the outrage of what was done in Mumbai.

If I was being generous to Dalrymple, he could be taken as saying that (parts of the) West’s conduct in the war on Terror and aspects of India’s policies and conduct have raised the probability of attacks like these without having the justification that, say, removing the Taliban per se had, and ought to be changed. But as I say, that may well be to err on the side of generosity.

Oh and good piece on CIF by Sunny Hundal about Pilger’s Obama, the Uncle Tom, racism:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/nov/30/obama-white-house-barackobama

Agreed MattG.

Anyone under the impression it is worthwhile debating with TheIdiot should read his dishonest performance in this previous thread :

http://www.hurryupharry.org/2008/11/20/venezuelas-violence-crisis/

TheIdiot is not on here in good faith - do not try to engage.

Dalrymple is a particularly nasty piece of work, it is great to see some coverage of him on HP at last.

Anyone who has read ‘The Last Mughal’ will be in no doubt about where his sympathies lie, suffice to say that modernity’s post at 1.32 sums him up perfectly. I am presuming the latter must have read this book.

At the risk of being lynched, I think we should see a grain of truth in Thelrie’s arguments. After all, he is entirely opposed to the killers and thinks they should be brought to justice. He is going beyond the immediate present and trying to understand history.

That phenomena like the Taliban and Hitler should ever have come into existence was and is a disaster for mankind. Israel and the Jews should be venerated for the fact that they have not returned to theocratic fundamentalism. If irrational anti-Jewish sentiments can be traced back to the Koran, there is, if I remember rightly no lack of this sort of thing in the Old Testament.

I will take the example of Hitler, to distance myself fron the immediate present. Obviously, the only thing to do with him was to get rid of him and his suipporters.This does not stop me from going back into history to try to understand why such a hoorror could have arisen. with the aim of preventing its reoccurence In the case of Nazism one has to go back beyond the Treaty of Versailles, the depression and the humiliation of the Gernans after the first world war. I have already written about the Jewish German poet Heinrich Heine, who lived in exile in Paris. He prophesied the nazi disaster close on a hundred years before it happened. I have found ugly German nationalism and anti-semitism fomenting even in the correspondence of favourite Romantic poets. Heine saw through their politics, but was alas, an isolated figure.

It would have required a super-himan intelligence to nip this weed in the bud. And yet, it is not so difficult to identify what is wrong: but most people, including capitalists, don’t want to know, as they are pursuing their immediate interests. Adorno, Horkheimer and others at the Institute of Social Research in Germany killed themselves to identify what is wrong with all of our world, not only Islamic fundamentalism - which had only just arisen during their lives. - The ‘kids’ in Mumbai where brainwashed automatons, no longer people capable of reasomimg.

I would like to understand why.

But I’ll spare you more of my sermon as I have to go. Harry’s Place is like a Satanic temptation.

I’m posting this in fear and tremblong.

“Fancies himself as a sort of Lawrence of Arabia and does archeology programmes.”

Matt, that was EXACTLY what I was thinking, and how the TE Lawrence’s spirit is alive and well across the media, all lovely Oxbridge chappies don’t you know!

Can’t think who you mean, and I always watch the archeology programmes being a fat lady of a certain age. Surely the point is that the Kashmiris may have a valid argument with the Indian state, but howd is this going to solve it? Socialist Worker had an article saying that the piracy off the Horn of Africa was a response to pollution and overfishing by industrial trawlers. Dare say it’s true, but how is capturing other countries vessels going to stop it? And, it’s not like they spend the ransome money they receive of doing good for the population like Robin Hood, building schools and hospitals they would be some point to that, no doubt the money gets spent on more weapons and quat.

What I mean is that I am all behind them fighting for a more equitable distribution of the worlds resources etc, but terrorism isn’t going to achieve it. Perhaps the apologists for murderous scum could explain hodw they see a juster social settlement resulting from such actions?

modernityblog:

I don’t think it coincidental that so many of the trend setters and apologists for “anti-Imperialist” violence are the products of an elite Oxbridge education.

Here are some “lovely Oxbridge chappies”: Tony Blair, Nick Cohen, Norman Geras, Oliver Kamm, David T, and, er, me.

Do you mean Boris Johnson? or Terry Jones?

I would like to understand why.

So you don’t understand that humans are capable of great cruelty in group conflict situations ?

What are you - a mad utopian ?

I’d even say that India’s Muslims are quite spoiled and pampered, and that their inferior economic performance and second-rate levels of edcucational are the result of Islam’s diktats, its myraid of restrictions and and limitations, that discourage initiative, innovation, dynamism and ambition.

Your right - and the nonperformance of Muslims vs Hindus from the subcontinent brings to mind someone a while back whom made the same point. This well known passage from Winston Churchill’s River War - 1899 ….

How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live. A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property, either as a child, a wife, or a concubine, must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men. Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities - but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science, the science against which it had vainly struggled, the civilisation of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilisation of ancient Rome

Of course, India has more Muslims than Pakistan, indeed it has more Muslims than any country save for Indonesia - and even then, it’s not far behind.

Anyway; the problem at hand …..I think if 10 or 20 appropriately indoctrinated Jihadis with AKs, grenades and rucksacks full of ammo, and a few weeks very basic infantry training under their belt - rocked up doing their Jihadi holy duty thing at rush hour, split between Waterloo, Paddington and St Pancreas… or at pretty much any football match…. 300 dead would be getting off lightly.

It’s not that difficult to get hold of AKs, especially in Europe. I hope this is being given due consideration by the government of the day.

PooterGeek,

and I know that you, as a lovely Oxbridge chappie, would never dream of deliberately misconstruing my arguments, as that is a basic academic no-no, however, if you are in any doubt as to my point (they are set out in several comments, not just one), please do re-read them or ask me to elaborate :)

I would like to understand why.

It’s the the sort of dogma, the sort of religion, that in it’s pure form, promulgates the mindset that puts up 11 or 12 year olds - a kid the age of my son - to do the sort of thing depicted - warning don’t go there if you havn’t got a very strong constitution….I mean it! - here

‘I would like to understand why’

Isn’t that called faux-naivite?

I rather think Mod was only referring to some Oxbridge chappies (like the arabists at the foriegn office in the 30s) and not trying to sweep them all into the same basket.

… retired colonel in Hampshire spluttering over his cornflakes and Telegraph …

The Muslims are proud of their imperialism. They don’t cringe with embarassment, or scoff at their ancestors for being old-fashioned. They don’t think they have committed the greatest crimes in history and sit unfairly at the top of the pile. They don’t do self-hate. They are going to win.

Good strategy John P. You are appointed Admiral of The Fleet (honorary)

It’d have to be honorary; I don’t know bow from stern!

Seriously, though, I can’t understand why western leaders aren’t more concerned about Pakistan’s nukes and the risk some will fall into the hands of freelance jihadists. The county’s gov’t and military are just chock full of islamists with mentalities identical to those of the Mumbai attackers.

That said, we shouldn’t forget about Iran’s posturing.

@ Nick IN S.A. I first read that quote while in high-school in the 70s, thought it completely racist and colonialist, but now see it as spot-on!

We can write about how Protestantism was a boon to capitalist initiative and ambition and acknowledge the connection between faith and behavior, faith and economic success, and even congratulate ourselves on our insight. However, when it comes to making parallel connections between the solvenly habits and dearth of achievement, no matter the field of human endevour, so characteristic of the Muslim world, any such connection with Islam, in the eyes of leftists, becomes vulgar bigotry.

If the islamic faith is beyond rapproach and without blemish, then I can only conclude that leftists consider Muslims inherently dumb.

Religions/ideologies have legs. Some call forth positive, constructive qualities in people, whereas others clearly appeal to and promote the darker side of human nature.

I agree with Maven @ 1.33pm, much common sense spoken there, and the Winston Churchill quote is similarly a truth.

There is a difference between revenge and justice. If Mumbai was about justice, then God help us all.

And then of course there was Gandhi, “an eye for an eye, makes the whole world blind”. And has made many angry.

We can write about how Protestantism was a boon to capitalist initiative and ambition

Yeah, right. Gordon Bruin is archetypically the Ur-Protestant and we’ve all seen how well that is working out….

Pooter,

in fairness to your comment, I should elaborate, Graham’s correct that’s how I meant it.

I think there is a strain of thinking which has existed for hundreds of years within the English upper-classes and their elitist discourse, that patronizing attitude to foreigners, a notion running along the lines of:

‘nearly all natives are savages in one form or another, but occasionally they are “noble” and should be admired for their vigour, whilst their brutal excesses are to be deplored, they are a force of pure nature, there is nothing that can be done to civilize them, so why try?’

That is not a modern way of thinking, but more a legacy of Imperial paternalism, a relic of the past, not always found in such stark contrast as above, however, it can occasionally be seen amongst the rebellious youth of the aristocracy.

They might have thrown off their excessively privileged upbringing, but have never quite left behind their Praetorian mannerism, which was fed to them along with that silver spoon.

It is that quasi-Praetorianism, detached from real people’s existences, embodied in colonial thinking and an attitude that seeks to find something redeeming in the violence of Jihadists.

Thankfully, until now it has been limited to a small minority, the TE Lowrance’s and FCO types, but it seems that the under current of those ideas have found some refuge at the Guardian and other parts of the media, so have spread wider than they deserve.

If irrational anti-Jewish sentiments can be traced back to the Koran, there is, if I remember rightly no lack of this sort of thing in the Old Testament.–Felix

You do not remember rightly; there is absolutely no comparison at all between the OT and the Koran in terms of admonitions to do harm to others. First off, and I’m quite sure this has been examined in much greater detail and by far more knowledgeable people than I, the OT is not generally a model for behavior, Leviticus aside. Not only is it not in theory a model for behavior, it has not been so in practice. Much of the rabbinical tradition is devoted to making the OT work in the modern world; i.e., reinterpreting, etc.

But more importantly, Mohammad is held up in the Koran as the Model Person; that is, his actions are to be emulated exactly. This means that the cruel, vicious Medina sura are to be emulated, with all their Jew hatred (among other hatreds).

So, Felix, in my humble opinion, you are way off the mark. I’m sure equating the OT, NT and Koran, making them both equally good and equally bad, has a wonderous multi-culti feel about it, but it has nothing to do with reality.

“So you don’t understand that humans are capable of great cruelty in group conflict situations ?

What are you - a mad utopian ?”

Re cruelty: You obviously didn’t read my letter and let your brain get befuddled by mad utopianism when someone is trying to reason about the world they are living in. You obviously can’t reason beyond your nose and maybe it’s as well, because you might be accused of utopianism. You are part of the reason why this world is in a sorry state. I am now accustomed to the fact that some stricken right-wingers scream ‘utopianism’ every time you try to think. NONE of the dictators - Lenin and co - had the slightest trace of utopianism in them. A little of it might do you good.When an accusation becomes repetitive it’s time to stop and think.

Nick from South Africa, like me, I haven’t got the slightest intention of going ‘there’ and am glad I live in Verona, which is not a primary target. I’ll look at your ?here’ link when I have time.

“That is not a modern way of thinking,”

While the attitude you describe is not a modern way of thinking, there is also another mindset, very much modern, which I believe developed out of the 60’s, that is similar, in some ways to what you described.

Third World people, or basically any one not from Europe or America, are held to be more noble, as they are more “natural”. They live simple, close to the earth, dare I say, Organic lives, which are apparently morally superior.

Those with this mindset believe that humanity, or the influence of humanity, is the cause of all wrong, and so highly developed nations, with our affluence and our technology, must be inferior to the purity of the “savage”, who is held to be less corrupted by human constructs.

This has combined with a neo-Marxism, and has led to a philosophy which holds that all the world’s problems, from poverty to terrorism, and the ultimate catastrophe Global Warming, are all the fault of the corrupt West.

It has also led to a idolisation of “natural” over man-made, of tribal culture over Western culture.

And so if “Noble” denizens of other lands slaughter innocents in bestial ways, it must deep down be the cause of the cancerous West.

Yeah, right. Gordon Bruin is archetypically the Ur-Protestant and we’ve all seen how well that is working out….

Never heard of a certain little tome by a guy named Max Weber?

In addition to my mail above, ‘group conflict situations’ won’t do as an explanation.

You obviously can’t reason beyond your nose and maybe it’s as well, because you might be accused of utopianism.

WTF ?

Felix - I’m sorry you’re so upset, I really have no idea why.

In fact on reviewing your “letters” I now realise I don’t know what you’re on about at all. Best leave it there I think.

YossiUK, - I’m in a passiom - how can you take this idea of the noble savage seriously? It’s utopian and goes back to the middle ages. I know what you mean by the mixture of left and Marxism - sometimes it’s just Liberalism. But instead of just attacking them we should argue with them rationally, point by point. Maybe I’ll try to do so in another mail if I have the strength.

MoreMediaNonsense - all is forgotten and I embrace you like a brother.

Have you ever asked yourself what motivated these young Lebanese Phalangists to enter the refugee camps and slaughter hundreds of Palestinian civilians?

I really do not see what relevance this has to the motivation of a group of people who are in essence predators, as were the Mughals. But the motivation of the Phalangists was simple - revenge for Damour and other atrocities committed by the PLO. What could the PLO have done? Try not attacking Christians simply for being Christian. They (Muslims) are still at it.

Again - if you saddle global warming with the left and liberalism, this is a perfect excuse to evade a serious topic which should concern everyone. Otherwise we rush to our doom like the Gadarene swine. Think of the gift this planet has been to us with its infinite variety in people, flora and fauna, every colour in the rainbow. Oh for the day when we rejoice in our differences! No more ayatollahs. No more cruelty.

Felix,

YossilUK is essentially correct. The reason that one can’t reason with them “rationally, point by point” is that one can’t reason with true-believers. This odious, naive, condescending mixture of Marxist secularism and liberal utopianism which holds that they are everyone’s intellectual bettors and that they, and only they, have the “Vision of the Anointed” puts them far, far beyond any sort of reasoned argument.

TheIrie “Danny - yes, ideology is third on that list. I agree, those are probably the three most important factors. I happen to think ideology, and principle, are extremely shallow factors in man’s activities in general.”

The problem with Irie’s point of view is that one can’t easily define either “oppression or occupation.”

Is Tibet occupied, are women oppressed?

It’s ideology that guides most such definitions.

Further point if you can justify killing Jews Mumbai because they Palestinian are oppressed (and there should be a Palestinian Stat along side an Israeli State) then what if Christian terrorist were to spring up to kill Muslims because Christians are oppressed in say Nigeria, or in Egypt?

If you along with the Muslim Brotherhood hold all Jews responsible for Arab oppression, then why can’t others hold all Arabs or all Muslims responsible for the oppression of non Muslims?

One it make more sense to hold perpetrators of massacres responsible no matter who they are without trying to justify it by pointing to “root causes?”

John P. @4:21 makes a good point about Pakistan’s nukes. I used to console myself in the belief that, as the majority of Pakistan’s senior officer corps were Sandhurst graduates, or heavily influenced by the Sandhurst tradition which formed the basis for the original structure of their officer corps, sanity and discipline would prevail. To my horror, I read a short interview with a senior colonel in “The Atlantic” circa 2004 that made my blood run cold. This was not some hot-head junior officer molded more by religious zealotry than Sandhurst; this was one of the “old-school” types speaking. And what he said basically in very plain, unambiguous terms was that he would prefer a nuclear war with India sooner rather than later in order to settle the matter once and for all. It couldn’t happen fast enough for his tastes. Upon putting down the article, I came to reconsider my beliefs and realized that I, along with many of my contemporaries, may have been whistling past the grave-yard
for far too long about the “calming” influence of the senior officer corps. A chilling thought that I could no longer take comfort in what I thought was a moderating factor in a nuclear
Pakistan.

Sorry– The Atlantic Monthly magazine proper, not online.

“But the motivation of the Phalangists was simple - revenge for Damour and other atrocities committed by the PLO.”

Hmm, partly. The rather more current cause was the assassination of Phalangist leader Bashir Gemayel, although Elie Hobieka wjho was said to have been in charge of the death squads lost family at Damour.

“What could the PLO have done? Try not attacking Christians simply for being Christian.” Ignorant or deliberately disingenuous? Damour was one of a whole series of tit-for-tat massacres, in which the Palestinians came off worse if anything. It’s also worth noting that the Phalangists could be just as ruthless at knocking off fellow Maronites. Ask the Frangieh family.

Possibly the main thing the PLO could have done was not to accept the assurances of the international community that the refugee camps would be protected if their fighters left Beirut, however since that might have ended up with Ariel Sharon reducing the city to rubble, the outcome might have been worse.

shriber - that is one of the most slanderous comments I’ve read, and I’ve read a lot here. “Further point if you can justify killing Jews Mumbai because they Palestinian are oppressed” - nowhere have I, or would I ever justify killing Jews. The problem is that you can’t have a grown up discussion here, as I said at the begining. You can’t go beyond platitudes without being accused of justifying the killing of Jews. Its absurd, offensive and pointless.

See how the BBC supports Antisemitic scum who deny & minimise the Holocaust (started as a Mumbai post)

so 9 Israeli dead out of 170+, hardly a crime againt the Jews or Israeli, not is it?

Why must you always play the “poor victim”?

“awakeHuman” is the oxymoron who also spouts an Islamist line

BTW - HP code stops posting the URL

Why oh why are some people never help responsible for their actions? Are they truely ignorant children that are held to lower expectations?

What’s the objection to Dalrymple’s remarks? His criticism of “the West” is for its failures in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Going by the passage quoted he says that India’s policy in Kashmir- which has indeed been unscrupulous, vile and murderous- and the persecution of muslims in India are the main inspiration and that anti-Israeli policy combined with antisemitism is now part of the jihadist mindset anywhere in the world. Dalrymple speaks of “the gross injustice they [the jihadis] perceive being done”, not of “the gross injustice done”, though in the case of Kashmir at least he well could.

interesting YossiUK, but wouldn’t you say that it pre-dates the 1960s?

I think elements of it are to be found in the 1920s, Lawrence, British attitudes towards the Middle East and the Arab states

later on you can see that upper class disdain which was obvious in the attitudes of Chamberlain, Halifax and Eden’s

certainly pre-WW2 descriptions of British officers during the Mandate of Palestine indicates a degree of intellectual romanticism with the “natives”

So I’d suggest that it comes in many forms and what we see now is just one of them

This guy Dalrympale is the author of the book, “The White Mughals”. He has a particular affection towards the effect of the Muslim Mughal culture on Europeans. No wonder his remarks echo the remarks made by Islamists who yearn for and indeed work for the return of Islamic Mughal rule in India.

TheIrie “shriber - that is one of the most slanderous comments I’ve read, and I’ve read a lot here. “Further point if you can justify killing Jews Mumbai because they Palestinian are oppressed” - nowhere have I, or would I ever justify killing Jews.”

But you are ready to look for root causes and excuse murder done in the name of various liberation ideologies.

“The problem is that you can’t have a grown up discussion here, as I said at the begining. You can’t go beyond platitudes without being accused of justifying the killing of Jews. Its absurd, offensive and pointless.”

Translation it’s alright to accuse Zionists and Jews of all kinds of imaginary crimes which justify their murder but when Jews fights back than they not “grown ups” and not to be taken seriously.

Like it or not Irie when you talk about Zionists/ Jews they will talk back.

Your complaint, btw, has a long history among some leftists who like to dabble in antisemitic rhetoric but don’t want to be called antisemitic.

Here is an example:

“The Deadly Jester”

http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=097a31f3-c440-4b10-8894-14197d7a6eef

“It is an odd way to demonstrate a point of linguistic theory. Odd, too, is the passage in Iraq: The Borrowed Kettle where Zizek discusses the ideological function of Nazi anti-Semitism: “one could say that even if most of the Nazi claims about the Jews had been true (that they exploited the Germans, that they seduced German girls, and so forth…) their anti-Semitism would still have been (and was) pathological, since it repressed the true reason why the Nazis needed anti-Semitism in order to sustain their ideological position.” Why this need to keep open, as if for the sake of argument, the possibility that the Jews really were guilty of all the things of which the Nazis accused them? Why, when Zizek returns to this same line of reasoning in Violence–”even if rich Jews in the Germany of the 1930s ‘really’ exploited German workers, seduced their daughters,” and so on–are there quotation marks around “really,” as though the truth or the falsehood of Jewish villainy were a question to be postponed until it can be given fuller consideration?”

Your rhetoric though different in intensity is similar in tone.

“..What we have to do is understand and empathize with their feelings and, as we can’t expect them to dilute their rage with reason or to seek methods to vindicate their claims that don’t involve hand grenades or AK 47s, we must make ourselves constantly ready to indulge their homicidal tantrums….”

Well I won’t and I suspect that after the latest savagery they are very overdrawn at the world’s sympathy bank and very soon that bank will call in its debts.

And shriber to theirie:

“…Your complaint, btw, has a long history among some leftists who like to dabble in antisemitic rhetoric but don’t want to be called antisemitic….”

Calling a turd a rose doesn’t make it smell sweeter, likewise calling theirie anything but an antisemite is dishonest.

And theirie the killing of Jews is already becoming more and more justified by the likes of you. And next in line will be you, mark my words.

Hard to judge a writer’s tone from two sentences, Shriber, but it doesn’t look as though Ziizek is keeping open “the possibility that the Jews really were guilty of all the things of which the Nazis accused them” but that he regards it as irrelevant to the nazis’ guilt. After all, the communists really were guilty of most of the things of which the nazis accused them but that didn’t justify the nazis’ behaviour.

Here’s an odd thing. On Rod Liddle’s page in yesterday’s Sunday Times, the following appears in a box at the end of his page, but is missing from the online version of his page:
“Words and phrases not used by the BBC in its continuous coverage of the events in Mumbai; Islam, Islamist, fundamentalist, Muslim, jihad, die you western infidel cockroaches, etc.
Probable perpetrators of the Mumbai atrocities: Muslim extremists. If you can’t tell us that, why pretend to tell us anything.”

I have had to transcribe the above from the printed version, as this item on the online version has been mysteriously replace with something about shooting pets.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/rod_liddle/article5258075.ece

Roger

“Hard to judge a writer’s tone from two sentences,….”

read the whole article, Roger.

There is no causal link between poverty and terrorism, none. In fact, in the poorest countries of the world–with far greater debt-burdens than any of the Middle Eastern countries–there is little or no terrorism.

There is much evidence to support the position that the core issues are ideological and psychological, not social. A large dose of dashed expectations rather than material deprivation is what drives people to political extremism and political violence whether of the right, left or religious variety.

Whether Islamist groups like Al Q, or secular terrorists such as ETA, PFLP, etc. many of these people come from the middle classes and quite a few of them have some level of graduate education. These are not “the masses” as is so often assumed.

To simplify, these terrorists—whether religious or secular—have a vision of the “good life” that is not reflected in contemporary society i.e. reality. They are quite often educated people who have utopian expectations of their society that are not being met. In frustration, they resort to violence to achieve their goals.

Walter Laquer, writing in “Policy Review Online” has this to say:
http://www.policyreview.org/aug04/laqueur.html

“It is not too difficult to examine whether there is such a correlation between poverty and terrorism, and all the investigations have shown that this is not the case. The experts have maintained for a long time that poverty does not cause terrorism and prosperity does not cure it. In the world’s 50 poorest countries there is little or no terrorism. A study by scholars Alan Krueger and Jitka Maleckova reached the conclusion that the terrorists are not poor people and do not come from poor societies.

A Harvard economist has shown that economic growth is closely related to a society’s ability to manage conflicts. More recently, a study of India has demonstrated that terrorism in the subcontinent has occurred in the most prosperous (Punjab) and most egalitarian (Kashmir, with a poverty ratio of 3.5 compared with the national average of 26 percent) regions and that, on the other hand, the poorest regions such as North Bihar have been free of terrorism.

In the Arab countries (such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia, but also in North Africa), the terrorists originated not in the poorest and most neglected districts but hailed from places with concentrations of radical preachers. The backwardness, if any, was intellectual and cultural not economic and social.”

Thanks for this post and the comments, particularly those by Yossi K and Felix. Dalympre’s nonsense is good example of the rationale we will no doubt be hearing from the knee-jerk it is always the West’s fault type liberals and leftists. Can imagine one family member and couple of friends in partiucular who would say such nonsense repeating uncritically whatever they got from the politically correct media like the Washington Post, the New York Times, etec.

One good thing that hopefully come out of the Mumbai Massacres will be the realization that selling out the Jews, i.e. abandoning Israel will not bring about Peace in Our Time now anymore then it did in the 1930s. That it is not just Israel, Iraq and Afghanistan, but India and Europe as well that the Islamic Hatemongers want. Like the Nazis they are insatiable and can only be stopped by force.

David All,

What constitutes selling out Isreal? Wouldnt selling out the Palestinians prove just as useless?

Virgil Xenophon

Yes I know its impossible to reason with a convinced Marxist, but I was thinking more of Liberals without the Marxist component. They are culturally bred to disapprove of Bush, all the attacks on Iraq and Afghanistan etc. etc. and with them it may be possible to argue. When they were on the warpath about Afghanistan, I said, “Isn’t it wonderful that women are no longer imprisoned at home, that girls can go to school and music is allowed.” And they had to agree with me. I lived through it all, the Marxism in London, knee-jerking feminism, student revolutions and so on. On Thursday I’m going to have lunch with a Liberal woman and I’ll try some discussion with her.

Marx was contemptuous of people who repeat the same philosophy for decades, despite changing circumstances.

I’ve been running from computer to lessons all day, so now I’m going to bed!

David A,

seriously, there is NO good thing to come out of the murders in Mumbai

Nick (South Africa)

Exactly how Islamic does one have to be in order for your personal and intellectual growth to be stunted? Al Qaida comes across as a very innovative, imaginative, disciplined, and well organized group of individuals dedicated to some very bad things. If perhaps they were dedicated to the service of humanity or industry, good things will come from them.

This preception may explain some of their appeal to Muslims in countries with very moribound industry or none at all. They see someone actually accomplishing something.

As a terrorist group, they have to produce. They cant just sit idly by like so many politicians, despots, and monarchs in the Muslim world who inherit their positions as opposed to having earned it, as is probably the case with organizations like AQ.

There is no incentive in the Muslim world to do much. AQ seems to have the right attitude with their emphasis on incentives and results.

Wasnt Churchill describing fuedal Pakistan? If had had travelled to another part of the Muslim world, would he have drawn the same conclusions?

The New Centrist,

I wouldnt describe the Qutbs, Bannas, and Muadudis of the world as intellectually backwards. They just didnt have the best ideas. Bad ideas are still ideas. They had plenty.

“…it doesn’t look as though Ziizek is keeping open “the possibility that the Jews really were guilty of all the things of which the Nazis accused them” but that he regards it as irrelevant to the nazis’ guilt. After all, the communists really were guilty of most of the things of which the nazis accused them but that didn’t justify the nazis’ behaviour.” Roger

The Nazis didn’t just kill communists, Roger, they killed Russians because they were Slavs another inferior people.

They murdered Communist not out of a sense of justice but because they saw them as being able to organize resistance against the Nazis. In Poland they went after intellectuals for the same reason.

The River War is about Kitchener’s campaign against the Mahdi ending at Omdurman, Black Voter. Having bad- bad as in untrue, deranged and all-encompassing- ideas is being intellectually backward. Everyone has some bad- wrong or mistakenly-based- ideas; a collection of ideas cobbled together to make an inclusive and internally coherent “theory of everything” which can be applied to any situation means having bad ideas different in kind to common or garden bad ideas.

I’ve read the article, Shriber, and Zizek doesn’t look like a very nice- or sane- chap, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he had weird ideas about “the jews”- he has weird ideas about many other things and weird ideas tend to go together- but the article’s quotations don’t actually make a case for thinking he leaves open “the possibility that the Jews really were guilty of all the things of which the Nazis accused them” but rather that he thinks the nazis and their acts were unequivocally vile and the “guilt” or “innocence” of their victims is irrelevant to that. If- as I surmise- he doesn’t want to get into long statistically-dominated debates about late nineteenth century and early twentieth century German science, scholarship, economy and industry and the role of jews in their developments or who precisely was “a jew” by nazi definitions or the whole tedious debate about these matters because they are irrelevant to the nazis’ vileness, I don’t blame him. The books’ contexts may confirm Kirsch’s view, but those quotations alone do not.

“They murdered Communist not out of a sense of justice but because they saw them as being able to organize resistance against the Nazis. In Poland they went after intellectuals for the same reason.”
…and they murdered jews for similar reasons, Williams. As far as the nazis were concerned it was justice to kill people who could or might organise resistance to the nazis. The nazis killed communists because they were communists and for no other reason. Equally, the nazis killed jews for no other reason than that they were jews, regardless of what individuals had or had not done.

“Clearly, the oppression in Kashmir, Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan should stop”

There is no oppression in Palestine.

There is a war between Arabs, dedicated to the removal of the Jewish sovereign presence in the Land of Israel, and Israelis, defending themselves against genocidal aggression and seeking to achieve peaceful coexistence with their neighbours. That the Arabs have abjectly failed in their criminal enterprise is a cause for celebration, not an occasion for anti-Israeli calumnies.

“Well, if I was in the PLO, or a Palestinian refugee in Lebanon, maybe that would be a sensible question. However, given that I’m British, and what happened was that Israeli proxies commited a massacre,…”

The Phalangists massacred civilian Palestinians in Sabra and Shatilla in revenge for Palestinian massacres of Lebanese Christian civilians, and not because Israel told them to. The Phalangists in Beirut were not Israel’s proxies, and stood on the sidelines during the entire time of the fighting preceding the massacre, without participating in the battles.

It is not known exactly when Elie Houbeika, who led the Phalangist forces at the camps, became a Syrian agent, but it is entirely possible that he was one already at the time of the killings. Certainly the massacre diverted attention and anger away from Syria’s killing of Lebanese President Bashir Gemayel and his entourage a few days before.

ami

“Here is yet another dopy young woman whose column made me very very angry at the Guardian which saw fit to give paid column space to such tosh. We decents are an angry bunch.

“Here is a quote from her piece, and an excellent response from one of the regular, sane contributors to CiF comments:”

Presumably they have deleted it by now. And perhaps banned him.

What are the odds?

black voter:

Nick (South Africa)

Exactly how Islamic does one have to be in order for your personal and intellectual growth to be stunted?

Good question! - certainly as soon as you accept as gospel (pun intended) that the Koran is the perfect Word of god, dictated by the Angel Gabriel to Mohammed….just as soon as you start studying the Koran with that unshakable premise…personal and intellectual growth WILL be stunted.

In addition to that, being subject to Islamic traditions, practices and modes of thinking ….women as chattel, non Muslims as filth worthy of contempt, and so on….will tend to have a negative effect on personal and intellectual growth.

Wasnt Churchill describing fuedal Pakistan? If had had travelled to another part of the Muslim world, would he have drawn the same conclusions?

I think the point is that his conclusion was based on considerable travel in the Muslim World by the time he’d written the book. Oh and in 1899 there was no Pakistan, modern Pakistan, along with Bangladesh, was at that time incorporated into British India - The Raj.

For starters, at time of writing, he’d just been present as a young reporter at Omduman in the Sudan, the associated campaign being main subject of the book. And of course earlier, he had served as a young subaltern in the Hindu Kush - Afghanistan.

seriously, there is NO good thing to come out of the murders in Mumbai

I tend to agree, with the possible point that it’s given us in Kuffardom a heads-up to this mode of attack. Are the Brits going to do anything to mitigate the risk, other than possibly posting a few more MP5 carbine toting bobbies, chewing gum wandering around concourses….I doubt it.

Maybe we should look to appoint thousands of civilian volunteer ’special constables’ who carry on life as normal, but are trained to use and carry concealed weapons in the normal course of their lives. Off duty policemen and ex servicemen would be a good place to start.

Nick (South Africa)

The treatment of women in ancient China didnt stunt its intellectual and personal growth. The revilement of the lower caste of India probably didnt have much of an effect on how it developed intellectually or personally.

You dont view Islamic jurisprudence, its codification, its exposition, exegis of the Koran, etc, as intellectual developments?

How much of the worlds population in the late 19th century resembled those places visited by Churchill?

How do you measure faith? You would have to have great insights into the person in order to do that. I am sure there are many poor skeptics in the Muslim world. By the looks of it the only wealth generated by sceptics is through sponsorship and celebrity.

Ben

That’s a fabulously imaginative rewriting of history. Well done.

Black Voter:

You dont view Islamic jurisprudence, its codification, its exposition, exegis of the Koran, etc, as intellectual developments?

Well perhaps, but only in the way that the black-death and avian flu, have been ‘health developments’.

How much of the worlds population in the late 19th century resembled those places visited by Churchill?

Churchill’s observations stand on their merits; do you want me to bang on about the agricultural revolution and the wet rice culture in Southern India, the far East - including Anchor?

How do you measure faith?

Around the margins it’s not immediately obvious…but generally, behavior is a bit of a give-away. God/ Allah bothering, demanding special privileges for your superstition, rioting over it, shouting Allah Akbah whilst doing bad things or whilst committing atrocities, threatening people, blowing them up and shooting them with AK47s in the name of the one’s dogma would seem to hint at a certain attachment to it.

You would have to have great insights into the person in order to do that. I am sure there are many poor skeptics in the Muslim world

I hope so, I suspect there are more Muslims that are in essence indifferent Muslims and a goodly number that - like many Christians - cherry pick the good bits using a sense of morality derived from outside their religion. Unfortunately the Islamic meme is such that recidivism is all too common, modern communications and Saudi funding is facilitating the re-proofing process and the results are there, written in blood and suffering.

By the looks of it the only wealth generated by sceptics is through sponsorship and celebrity.

And yet over 90% of US top scientists are atheists, as are Bill Gates, Richard Branson, Warren Buffet….and countless other businessmen, entrepreneurs and wealth generators.

No, if you really are honest, attachment to religious superstition, believing stuff without good evidence - ‘faith’ is not the best harbinger for being effective in empirical endeavours.

Black Voter: “What constitutes selling out Israel? Wouldn’t selling out the Palestinians prove equally futile?”

Selling out Israel would mean forcing it into a position, most likely through forced unilateral withdrawls, where the Israelis could no longer defend themsevles. Something like the Czechs were in when Chamberlain forced them to give up the Sudentland with its fortified moutainous border and industrial plants to Hitler at Munich in 1938. And yes, selling out the Palestinians would not lead to peace, either.

I Apologize, Black Voter for the delay in replying to you. I have been away from my PC since my comments in this thread.

Black Voter - “The treatment of women in ancient China didnt stunt its intellectual and personal growth.”

I know of little evidence that women were treated that badly in ancient China. Or even much worse than in the West in the 1950s for example.

So why would it?

I’d have to check, but Dalrymple spent the best part of a chapter (in To Holy Mountain?) blaming the Armenians for the Mongol sacking of Baghdad. Deeply unpleasant.

Hello Irie

I’ve just discovered you. Keep up the good work.