The Bad satire, with memorable quotes from famous people
-"The Muslim community will have to suffer until it gets its house in order. What sort of suffering? Not letting them travel. Deportation - further down the road. Curtailing of freedoms. Strip-searching people who look like they're from the Middle East or from Pakistan ... Discriminatory stuff, until it hurts the whole community and they start getting tough with their children..." (Martin Amis, English writer)
- "brown-skinned peoples cooking strange foods and not exactly maintaining Germanic standards of hygiene." (Daniel Pipes)
- "Individuals may appear law-abiding and reasonable, but they are part of a totalitarian movement, and as such, all must be considered potential killers... This is what I have dubbed the Sudden Jihad Syndrome, whereby normal-appearing Muslims abruptly become violent. It has the awful but legitimate consequence of casting suspicion on all Muslims." (Daniel Pipes)
The quotes from Daniel Pipes, who is among the organisers of the Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week (IFAW) with a special theme this first year on Muslim women, have now vanished from the web. At the time I published them they were still available. By the way, Lebanon's highest shiite authority has condemned recently honor killings but you will not see this anywhere during this IFAW.
Now the satire that, because of the bad satire, isn't a satire anymore.
And I will leave the conclusion to Ali Eteraz.- "An ex-senator that opposes individual rights of women; a pundit that calls people "faggots" and considers Islam a "cult"; a Christian scholar who is considered a "polemicist" and an "Islamophobe" by conservative Christians themselves; and an intellectual who has received millions from "far right" organizations since 2001, are rising up for the rights of women, gays, and religious minorities in the Muslim world. This laughable spectacle is called the Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week. It will be coming to a university near you on October 22 - 26."
Also: Stef's Shiny Happy People and Rory's European Race Hate.
UPDATE: Amis wrote on October 12th to the Guardian denying that what he said were measures he condoned for Muslims. In his defence, he wrote:
"And my remarks were preceded by the following: "What can we do to raise the price of them doing this? There's a definite urge - don't you have it? - to say that the Muslim community will have to suffer until it gets its house in order. What sort of suffering? Not letting them travel. Deportation - further down the road. Curtailing of freedoms. Strip-searching people who look like they're from the Middle East or from Pakistan ... Discriminatory stuff, until it hurts the whole community and they start getting tough with their children......"
Well I am glad Amis does not advocate such measures, but as a writer knowing the weight of words and his own status in the UK, he must know that his words mean something. This correction doesn't make him any better. It makes him appear as a man unable to control his racist 'urge' and who spits hate at other human beings.
Since March 29th 2006
2 comments:
i want to attend one of these seminars, and wear a witch's halloween costume, complete with green face paint, giant mole on nose, black pointy hat, and broom. fun!
IBJ,
I think that's a good idea but you shouldn't tell it before. Something similar should take place. You know like this spoof that Physics professor Alan Sokal did to the social constructivists of science by sending a fake article to one of their prestigious journals completely full of false and vague physics notions but which got accepted because it was also made to please them. The spoof was revealed later by Alan Sokal himself when he published an article and a book with belgian physicist Jean Bricmont titled intellectual impostures. Soical constructivists of science tried to ignore their it but the discipline has never been the same since then.
Something similar should be made to these people (Pipes and company) to discredit them. Laughing at them is the good way I think, even though their hate is serious.
Post a Comment