Category Archives: Liberal

Amis and McEwan – reinforcing stereotypes

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Letter in today’s Guardian:

“Ian McEwan’s defence of his friend Martin Amis (Letters, November 21) rests on two arguments, which are conflated. The first is the freedom of speech argument. But just because one has the right to express an opinion does not mean it is right to express it. In any case, Ronan Bennett’s article (G2, November 19) did not argue that one should not criticise Islam or Muslims per se; rather, it was the manner of the criticism – sweeping generalisations and stereotypes, holding all Muslims responsible for the opinions and actions of just some – that he found objectionable, and rightly so…. McEwan’s logic would have us believe that a non-religious or secularised Muslim is an impossibility for fear of the repercussions – an Orwellian vision of a totalitarian Islam that is itself a stereotype. In defending his friend, he merely confirms that both of them do not really know what they are talking about.”

Dr Anshuman Mondal
Brunel University

Amis and McEwan – reinforcing stereotypes

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Letter in today’s Guardian, by Dr Anshuman Mondal of Brunel University:

“Ian McEwan’s defence of his friend Martin Amis (Letters, November 21) rests on two arguments, which are conflated. The first is the freedom of speech argument. But just because one has the right to express an opinion does not mean it is right to express it. In any case, Ronan Bennett’s article (G2, November 19) did not argue that one should not criticise Islam or Muslims per se; rather, it was the manner of the criticism – sweeping generalisations and stereotypes, holding all Muslims responsible for the opinions and actions of just some – that he found objectionable, and rightly so…. McEwan’s logic would have us believe that a non-religious or secularised Muslim is an impossibility for fear of the repercussions – an Orwellian vision of a totalitarian Islam that is itself a stereotype. In defending his friend, he merely confirms that both of them do not really know what they are talking about.”

Ofcom rules against ‘Undercover Mosque’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Channel 4 logoAs had been leaked in advance, Ofcom has rejected complaints made by West Midlands Police, the London Central Mosque and the Saudi embassy over the notorious Channel 4 documentary Undercover Mosque. (Ofcom did however uphold a complaint about George Galloway’s Talk Sport radio programme. So you can see a sort of consistency here.)

Ofcom’s ruling has met with the approval of the Daily Mail, the Daily Telegraph, the British National Party, Jihad Watch, Harry’s Place and the Lib Dems (whose reputation as friends of the Muslim community – based mainly on the fact that they opposed the Iraq war for a couple of months before the invasion was actually launched – is looking increasingly threadbare).

Meanwhile over at the Spectator Melanie Phillips is calling for the West Midlands Police themselves to be investigated.

Martin Amis and the new racism

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“Amis’s views are symptomatic of a much wider and deeper hostility to Islam and intolerance of otherness. Only last week, the London Evening Standard felt able to sponsor a debate entitled: Is Islam good for London? Do another substitution here and imagine the reaction had Judaism been the subject. As Rabbi Pete Tobias noted on Comment is Free, the so-called debate was sinisterly reminiscent of the paper’s campaign a century ago to alert its readers to the ‘problem of the alien’, namely the eastern European Jews fleeing persecution who had found refuge in the capital. In this context, Rod Liddle’s contribution to proceedings – ‘Islamophobia? Count me in’ – sounds neither brave, brash nor provocatively outrageous, merely racist. Those who claim that Islamophobia can’t be racist, because Islam is a religion not a race, are fooling themselves: religion is not only about faith but also about identity, background and culture, and Muslims are overwhelmingly non-white. Islamophobia is racist, and so is antisemitism.”

Brilliant piece by Ronan Bennett in the Guardian, 19 November 2007

‘The abuse of Muslim women shames us all’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Yet another anti-Muslim piece in today’s Observer from Jasper Gerard who tells us that “it’s not racist to defend Asian women who need help”, although it’s unclear how his insistence on criticising the Muslim community (or “Islamic sorts” to employ Gerard’s preferred term) provides any help at all to Asian women. On the contrary, it merely legitimises the prevailing culture of anti-Muslim bigotry, of which hijab-wearing Muslim women in particular are the frequent victims.

But what can you expect from a writer whose response to the Eagleton-Amis controversy was to opine that “it’s a blessed relief that Amis and co have latched on to Islam” and assert that “Eagleton, not Amis, is the problem”? As for racism, perhaps Gerard might ask himself how he would characterise a non-Jewish journalist who demonstrated a similar obsession with criticising the Jewish community.

Gerard observes that “a study claims to show an analysis of British media reports on Islam demonise Muslims. I’m sure this article will also be chalked up as another ‘attack’.” Only too happy to oblige, Jasper.

‘How Ken whitewashed the Muslim extremists’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Nick Cohen 3Nick Cohen is upset at the suggestion in the Mayor of London’s recently-published report on media coverage of Muslims that “journalists – including me – conveyed ‘negative associations’ when we wrote that Jack Straw was standing up for the rights of women when he criticised the full veil”. Poor Nick. How could this well-known friend of the Muslim community be so unfairly criticised?

Worse still, “a large chunk of the report was a devious attack on a Panorama exposé of the Muslim Council of Britain by John Ware of the BBC”. And to cap it all, Cohen reveals that the Mayor’s report was compiled with the assistance of that notorious extremist, Inayat Bunglawala of the MCB. Cohen concludes that we have here yet another shocking illustration of how “the Left is going along with the Islamist Right”.

Evening Standard, 14 November 2007

Is Islam good for London?

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Is Islam good for LondonThe Evening Standard reports on yesterday evening’s discussion, organised around this question.

Rod Liddle is quoted as saying: “Islam is masochistic, homophobic and a totalitarian regime. It is a fascistic, bigoted and medieval religion.” He and Joan Smith argued the case for the negative. However, when you see that those presenting the case in favour included Ed Husain and Michael Burleigh, it would appear that Inayat Bunglawala was the only voice of reason in this skewed debate.

Video links here.

See also Inayat’s post at Comment is Free.

Amis finds another supporter

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Henry Porter joins the likes of Ruth Dudley Edwards in rallying to the defence of poor misunderstood Martin Amis:

“Amis prefaced his remarks with: ‘There’s a definite urge – don’t you have it too? – to say…’ He was confessing to an urge that millions of people felt after the 7 July attacks or the attempts to blow up a nightclub full of young women in the summer. He was not recommending a campaign of persecution but owning up – bravely, as it turned out – to what amounted to a revenge fantasy. This is what writers are meant to do – to experiment, to give vent to the things so many of us feel but do not express, to allow reason to assert itself and to come out the other end with a view.”

Observer, 21 October 2007

For Amis’s actual words, see here. You’ll note that, in the same interview, Amis also came out with a “Muslims are outbreeding us” line that was plainly inspired by paranoid right-wing fantasists like Mark Steyn: “They’re also gaining on us demographically at a huge rate. A quarter of humanity now and by 2025 they’ll be a third. Italy’s down to 1.1 child per woman. We’re just going to be outnumbered.”

But that’s par for the course with Amis. Just over a year ago, to take another example, he wrote an article for the Observer containing formulations that were indistinguishable from the sort of bigoted nonsense that appears on sites like Jihad Watch:

“Until recently it was being said that what we are confronted with, here, is ‘a civil war’ within Islam…. Well, the civil war appears to be over. And Islamism won it…. Islam, in the end, proved responsive to European influence: the influence of Hitler and Stalin. And one hardly needs to labour the similarities between Islamism and the totalitarian cults of the last century.”