Month: March 2006

Mark Blumenthal gives the best account of the pros and cons of the controversial data. I might add that the notion that reports of rampant bombings, sectarian killings and terror are somehow deliberate media lies strikes me as absurd. The first-hand accounts I’ve published from Iraqi bloggers show a real climate of fear and violence and recrimination. It’s obviously a murky situation, but dismissing credible accounts of mayhem bespeaks denial, not engagement.

They’re up! Where’s Rocco? He’s wondering whether you should buy or burn your ashes. He’s got my vote.

An American Muslim student stands up for freedom at the University of Illinois. He also links to this study of Muslims in America. They appear to be much better educated and much wealthier on average than other Americans. Younger, on average, as well. Very few are journalists. We need to change that, it seems to me.

A few have emailed me with variations on this point, with respect to this post:

"Our freedom of speech, in this society, entitles us to say and express anything (other than direct incitement to violence, libel/slander, and a few similar conditions) we wish to without fear of government suppression, imprisonment, or violence.

However, Americans are lazy and spoiled when it comes to this right, and fundamentally misunderstand it.  A freedom of speech is not a freedom to say whatever you wish with no conceivable negative reaction or consequence.  My grocer is perfectly free to call me a "kike" without fear of being arrested and imprisoned, and needs not fear and violent response from me. However, he is not free from consequences … I can organize a boycott of his store, even successfully drive him out of business in this manner, without violating any principle of freedom of expression or his right to say whatever he feels like.

It is pretty clear to me, that Mr. Nicola (the man mentioned in the NYTimes article that postponed the show) is nervous about his own economic well-being, or his potential future in the theatre business, or negative attention and perhaps demonstrations against the play in question. Our freedom of expression is not a freedom to express ourselves while maintaining our easy, anonymous, middle class lives. To truly express controversial opinions, even in the United States, you put these things at risk."

It’s unclear from the article that Mr Nicola was actively pressured by Jewish groups to postpone the production; rather, "after polling local Jewish religious and community leaders as to their feelings about the work," he decided to take a punt. There are fine nuances here; and I should have been more attuned to them. Anne Applebaum has some relevant thoughts about this kind of thing today as well.

These are the ashen remains of a human being after Christian-Muslim rioting and mayhem in Nigeria, as documented by Time. It may well be a Muslim victim of Christian violence. Today strikes me as an appropriate moment to atone for all the crimes that have been committed in the name of faith; and to hope that all faiths can somehow rise above their current spasm of intolerance.

The Onion has the goods.

Here’s a link to a debate on Catholics in public life between James Carville,  E. J. Dionne, Ed Gillespie, and Peggy Noonan, moderated by Tim Russert.

I have no doubt I’d be repulsed by the play, "My Name Is Rachel Corrie," but I cannot help being dismayed that its scheduled production in New York has been postponed because of pressure from the local Jewish community. Similarly, I am repulsed by the statements of London Mayor Ken Livingstone. But it’s also dismaying when he is somehow suspended from his job for politically incorrect speech. Obviously there is a difference, a vast difference, between threatening violence against offensive speech, and merely using social, cultural and political pressure to silence people. But our silences are growing, through fear and intimidation of violent and non-violent forms. And that is never a good thing in a free society.

Every now and again, they blurt out the truth. Here’s Tom McClusky, a Catholic who is acting vice president for government affairs at the Family Research Counci:

"While other issues are important — such as helping the poor, the death penalty, views on war — these are things that aren’t tenets of the Catholic Church."

It is not a tenet of the Catholic faith that we should help the poor? Or that we should only support a just war? Or oppose the conscious killing of human beings when other options are available that protect society just as well? Catholicism is now solely determined by the most extreme position on the abortion issue? I’ve been reading Oakeshott again for my book, and he is worth quoting on this version of the moral life:

"Too often, the excessive pursuit of one ideal leads to the exclusion of others, perhaps all others; in our eagerness to realize justice we come to forget charity, and a passion for righteousness has made many a man hard and merciless."

These theocons are indeed hard and merciless; and it’s time take back our Church from them.

Why not reprint it in full?

"After having overcome fascism, Nazism, and Stalinism, the world now faces a new totalitarian global threat: Islamism.

We, writers, journalists, intellectuals, call for resistance to religious totalitarianism and for the promotion of freedom, equal opportunity and secular values for all.

The recent events, which occurred after the publication of drawings of Muhammed in European newspapers, have revealed the necessity of the struggle for these universal values. This struggle will not be won by arms, but in the ideological field. It is not a clash of civilisations nor an antagonism of West and East that we are witnessing, but a global struggle that confronts democrats and theocrats.

Like all totalitarianisms, Islamism is nurtured by fears and frustrations. The hate preachers bet on these feelings in order to form battalions destined to impose a liberticidal and unegalitarian world. But we clearly and firmly state: nothing, not even despair, justifies the choice of obscurantism, totalitarianism and hatred. Islamism is a reactionary ideology which kills equality, freedom and secularism wherever it is present. Its success can only lead to a world of domination: man’s domination of woman, the Islamists’ domination of all the others. To counter this, we must assure universal rights to oppressed or discriminated people.

We reject cultural relativism, which consists in accepting that men and women of Muslim culture should be deprived of the right to equality, freedom and secular values in the name of respect for cultures and traditions. We refuse to renounce our critical spirit out of fear of being accused of "Islamophobia", an unfortunate concept which confuses criticism of Islam as a religion with stigmatisation of its believers.

We plead for the universality of freedom of expression, so that a critical spirit may be exercised on all continents, against all abuses and all dogmas.

We appeal to democrats and free spirits of all countries that our century should be one of Enlightenment, not of obscurantism."

Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Chahla Chafiq
Caroline Fourest
Bernard-Henri Lévy
Irshad Manji
Mehdi Mozaffari
Maryam Namazie
Taslima Nasreen
Salman Rushdie
Antoine Sfeir
Philippe Val
Ibn Warraq