Al-Quaeda has called Queen Elizabeth II an “enemy of Islam”, not least for her being the ceremonial head of the Church of England. I of course hope that the vast majority of Muslims living in this country do not think the same way. In any event, let’s hope Prince Charles takes notice.
|
|||||
|
We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people. Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house] Authors
Arts, Tech & CultureCivil LibertiesCommentary
EconomicsSamizdatistas |
Prince Charles, consult your motherNovember 13th, 2005 |
 107 comments to Prince Charles, consult your mother |
Who Are We?The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling. We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe. CategoriesArchivesFeed This PageLink Icons   |
|||
All content on this website (including text, photographs, audio files, and any other original works), unless otherwise noted, is licensed under a Creative Commons License. |
|||||
The enemy of my enemy is my friend.
Islam. Out. It’s not compatible with civilisation and its presence has already damaged ours with tranches of new laws that favour them.
Joshua, yep.
The lady was doing her duty to The Fallen today at the Cenotaph. She knows what the issues are, I am sure. Interestingly, if one goes to some of the huge monuments in France and Belgium, some of the surnames of British soldiers are like Khan, for example. Muslims have died in defence of the British Empire, and that is something that young Muslim men and women need to be reminded of, if only to get around this idea of an “us and them” mindset.
@Jonathan Pearce
“Muslims have died in defence of the British Empire”
Yes, they’ll have to start teaching history again; perhaps the kind of history that explains why many Muslims felt it was their duty to fight for the Empire.
Prince Charles: “Here, try this croissant, Mum.”
Iolis, indeed!
Verity is right on. These people come from countries where their culture has created a hell on earth for 99 percent of the population. They come to Europe for a ‘better life’ and then refuse to assimilate but are hell bent on recreating just the same hell on earth that they have left by maintaining that culture.
The brain washing madrassah approach to education blinds them to this truth.
If they will not abandon their alien culture and I cannot see that as very likely, then there is no hope for the immigrants nor for the hosts.
I would reconsider when there is a cathedral in each of the two cities of Mecca and Medina.
This article written in the Times by Julie Burchill may be of some relevance to this subject.
What’s not to like about Islam if you’re the Prince of Wales – Julie Burchill.
(Link) http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,21132-1857888,00.html
Of course Charles has taken notice! He’s the one that tipped AQ off!
I guess they just discovered the Supreme Governor of the Church of England bit, and, knowing nothing more about how the CofE is actually governed, decided a press release would sound good. These people know next to nothing about the world. They would like to be thought a threat, but there’s no reason we should oblige them.
Of course the number of British Muslims who think this way is tiny. Though among 2 or 3 million people one probably can find some people with the right combination of ignorance, gullability and resentment.
First a question: What is Burchill’s prose like for British readers? I (American) found it really jarring and close to unreadable, I got through the first paragraph or two on sheer force of will. Is it just me or is she tapping into British speech styles that I’m just unfamiliar with?
Second: I’m not so sure that declaring his mother an enemy would distress Prince Charles very much.
Slight correction: I’m not so sure that AQ (or other Muslim crazies) declaring his mother an enemy would distress Prince Charles very much.
Michael Farris – I find Julie Burchill a bit mannered sometimes and sometimes her King Charles’s heads get in the way, but on the whole, I think she’s funny and clever. Usually a good read.
guy herbert writes:
“Of course the number of British Muslims who think this way is tiny”
How do you know this? May we have some figures, please?
Yes, like GCooper, I’d like to see some figures referring to these mythical moderate Muslims who don’t approve of jihads and suicide bombers. I’d also like to see some names. I’d like to read their actual quotes. I say this because in Muslim quotes, it is laughably easy to detect the circumlocations and equivocations which are the verbal equivalent of crossing your fingers behind your back.
For a good laugh, read anything that “Sir” Siqbal Sacranie or Innuit Banglawangla have to opine.
If she is going to be the enemy of a religion, perhaps she would do well to review the methods her namesake against the religion then scheming to gain a foothold in England.
triticale, why is HM going to be the enemy of a religion? Because bin Laden has a bee in his turban? Since when did bin Laden saying something make it so?
Michael Farris,
Likewise I find Julie Bitchall’s prose to be more akin to someone with long fingernails dragging them down a blackboard. After reading just a few lines of her text I had to stop, since my head began to hurt.
Yes, they’ll have to start teaching history again; perhaps the kind of history that explains why many Muslims felt it was their duty to fight for the Empire.
Do you suppose it might be worth mentioning how many muslims were killed by the ones fighting for the British Empire?
Seriously, who do you think the people recruited in muslim areas were fighting most of the time? Lutherans?
rosignol – Then why are so many of them lying in graves in French war cemetaries?
“The religion then scheming to gain a foothold in England” ?
That would be Protestantism would it?
Triticale would do well to flip back a page or two in his Ladybird Book of British History, to Henry V111 and the dissolution of the Monestaries.
Protestantism was in the overwhelming majority by the time of Elizabeth 1
“The religion then scheming to gain a foothold in England” ?
That would be Protestantism would it?
Triticale would do well to flip back a page or two in his Ladybird Book of British History, to Henry V111 and the dissolution of the Monestaries.
Protestantism was in the overwhelming majority by the time of Elizabeth 1
I’m quite sure Ms Windsor can take it: being called an “enemy of Islam” can’t be much worse than being the “Whore Of Babylon”, a title often ascribed to her by Rastafarians and Ian Paisley. I don’t recall urgent appeals for the recanting of Protestantism because of Paisley’s inane extremist rantings, and I don’t see any reason to assume that every Muslim in Britain is secretly nurturing fiery agreement with these weak attempts at attention-grabbing by another mad priest, either. It’s spin.
I didn’t assume the quiet churchy family next door shared the Reverend’s views, and I equally don’t just assume that 2 million UK residents all share the views of a raving cleric in a foreign country on TV just because they read the same book. But it certainly managed to get your attention and that of the UK press and media, as intended.
It does make me wonder what Charles will be when he ascends to the throne – The Pimp?
Up to 2m now, is it? It was 1.2 last time I looked. about a month ago. I’ve read figures as high as 3m. Do you think the government might be lying to the British people?
Could you explain this: “It does make me wonder what Charles will be when he ascends to the throne – The Pimp?” Do you understand that Prince Charles has been investigating religions since he was in his teens and has continued throughout his life? He goes to a Greek Orthodox monastery for annual retreats. He consults with the Dalai Lama (he is very interested in Tibetan Buddhism), he is also interested in the medatative aspects of Sufism, and holds regular meetings with the heads of the Roman Catholic Church and the Anglicans.
Charles is interested in the human spiritual journey and has proved this for 40-odd years. I do not like what I know of the man, but this is more steadfast and enquiring than what we know of most people.
Re: the Julie Burchill piece – the first few paragraphs were tolerable for me, but then she descends into this…
“And as for those eternal suck-up monkeys the French; well, let’s be honest, no woman looks good — no matter how many things she can do with a Hermès scarf! — with a shaven head and a big sign saying “I screw Nazis, I am scum!” on her back. Trust me, I’ve tried it!”
Alright, French-bashing is fair enough – but that bit at the end? “Trust me, I’ve tried it!” – what kind of sloppy journalism is that?! Are we simply supposed to take her word for it? I want details! And pictures!
Verity,
Interesting how you leap from an assertion by me that the number of British Muslims who think the Queen is an enemy of Islam is tiny, to a rant about suicide-bombing.
If I said that the number of British Protestants who think the Pope is the Anti-Christ is tiny, then no one would bother asking me for figures. There are almost certainly some, but you aren’t frightened of them because you don’t attribute their crazed beliefs to everybody.
I say this because in Muslim quotes, it is laughably easy to detect the circumlocations and equivocations which are the verbal equivalent of crossing your fingers behind your back.
Only if you have the mindset of Julius Streicher applied to a different religious group.
There are a lot of undesirable things in Muslim societies (plural note) and in Islam, which are worth pointing out. But this Ewige Muselman gibbering is beginning to get to me.
Comments on this blog that dealt with Jews the way you and some others handle Muslims would get the commentator more or less instantly banned. Consider: “I say this because in Jewish quotes, it is laughably easy to detect the circumlocations and equivocations which are the verbal equivalent of crossing your fingers behind your back.”
For a good laugh, read anything that “Sir” Siqbal Sacranie or Innuit Banglawangla have to opine.
Iqbal Sacranie is a knight. The Queen has knighted him. Only you think it doesn’t count because he’s a Muslim (tell that to the Queen) and that by deliberately mis-spelling his name you make a joke. Very funny.
There may be a limited amount Sir Iqbal Sacranie and I can agree on, but he is an urbane, bright, and articulate man and utterly courteous to his opponents.
Moslems are the Jews of the 21st century, it would seem.
EG
Euan, I you and Guy H. are correct to warn against paranoia. I happen to think the great majority of Muslims are no different from the rest of us: we want to get on with life. I certainly don’t want this blog to become a sort of obssessive echo-chamber.
Um, yes, it was a frivolous end-of-post musing on the gender inversion of “whore”, Verity. If I’d said “rentboy” would it have been clearer? Or do you think Charles’s willingness to pop into mosques will change theoretical Rastafarian dogma? In spite of your ceaseless quest to prove Muslims devoid of humour by claiming jokes about Allah nonexistent, it appears I’m not about to be flippant about our proto-monarch without the click of a tongue and appeal for respect? Hm.
Oh Liz is in good company: Islam has a thing about queens.
guy herbert writes:
“Interesting how you leap from an assertion by me that the number of British Muslims who think the Queen is an enemy of Islam is tiny..”
While excoriating Verity might be a useful diversionary tactic, it doesn’t answer the question posed earlier. How do you know these things about the majority of Moslems, of which you (and Johnathan Pearce) speak with such apparent certainty?
Personally, I am far from sure I know what the majority of anyone thinks about anything and particularly so British Moslems, in the light of the Sunday Times poll in which 40 per cent of British Moslems asked were willing to admit they believed that bin Laden, ‘has cause to wage war against the US’. That was in 2001. I wonder what the figure is now, post-Iraq? And I wonder even more what it might be if everyone who responded did so honestly.
As for the tired old non sequitur about Jews and Moslems, as has been pointed out repeatedly, being Moslem is a choice. Being Jewish, like being black, is not. But you knew that, didn’t you?
You also write:
“… Ewige Muselman gibbering is beginning to get to me”.
As righteous liberal certainty is to me.
CGooper, if most Muslims were up to no good, I suspect we’d be well aware of it by now. One should not have to prove a negative. Until one can say with certainty that most of them are hostile to this country, it is downright inflammatory to suggest otherwise. Which is why I agree with Guy on this occasion.
Judaism is a religion, not a race (or at least, it is not a race other than in the same sense that “British” is a race, i.e. not at all). It is as much a matter of choice as is being Moslem.
EG
Johnathan Pearce writes:
“…if most Muslims were up to no good, I suspect we’d be well aware of it by now”
That depends what you mean by ‘up to no good’ doesn’t it? It also depends what you mean by ‘most’.
What I am trying to do is probe this apparently rock-sure liberal certainty that is used to silence even the possibility of doubt.
I don’t like it. It smacks of dangerous complacency and if such blithe assumptions were made on any other subject on this blog, then they would be torn to shreds.
I do not know what the majority of Moslems living in our Northern cities really think. And I’m damned sure that neither you, nor Mr Herbert, does either. Please, let us not pass off what we wish to believe as the truth. If we do, we are no better than the Guardianistas we like to mock for their sentiment-driven claptrap.
Euan Gray writes:
“Judaism is a religion, not a race (or at least, it is not a race other than in the same sense that “British” is a race, i.e. not at all). It is as much a matter of choice as is being Moslem.”
I said, ‘Being Jewish’. Stop trolling, there’s a good chap.
GCooper, I prefer to give folk the benefit of the doubt unless I have a strong piece of evidence to suggest otherwise. So should you.
Although I, as an atheist, would like religion to be a straightforward matter of choice, and would prefer most people to choose not to have one, I have, as a realist, to accept that it isn’t. Religion is not generally speaking a choice any more than mother-tongue is a choice. The large majority of people in the world who believe in a religion bring up their children to do so, too.
Of those children, it is relatively easy for some of those living in modern, liberal western societies may repudiate their family’s religion or convert to another. It is not however easy for all of them. Renunciation is an effort. It upsets Aunty Maud. And plenty of otherwuse secular souls feel the comfort of belonging at a distance.
There vastly more lapsed, non-practicing, people who still think of themselves as of a religion than frank recusants. This surely accounts for the remarkably high Christian-count in western Europe while most of the churches stand empty.
The problem of upsetting Aunty Maud is more difficult for those born into Muslim families, since most branches of Islam still treat apostates very harshly. It is at very least a severe social embarrassment for their still observent families. But that doesn’t mean lapsing isn’t an option, and most Muslims I meet in Britain are very lapsed indeed–though my metropolitan sample is assuredly biassed, and I have certainly met Islamists too, though scarcely socially.
One suspects, too, that in immigrant communities, the lapsing process is assisted by a generational divide: the young don’t know the language in which their parents’ piety is expressed. I do have a couple of friends for whom this is clearly the case.
However, in formally Muslim countries, and indeed in all countries where religion is taken seriously by the state as part of national identity or as a threat to it, changing one’s religion-by-birth may be difficult, perhaps dangerous, perhaps even lethally so. Such places tend to reinforce the religious identity of individuals and the self- and other-consciousness in communities, and have official and unofficial constraints keeping even the lapsed within the fold.
One does not have to go very far to find this, even nowadays. The Balkans would be obvious. But how about Germany?
GCooper:
I also don’t claim to know what goes on behind the curtains of the majority of Welsh people living in our western cities. Is this dangerous complacency on my part? Is it terribly foolish of me to apply Occam’s Razor, nevermind principles of natural justice, and say that they’re probably watching Eastenders and thinking about having some toast like the rest of us?
Guy – Iqbal Sacranie is full of bile and mal intent, and he is a skilled practitioner of taqqya and kitman. He wanted Salman Rushdie murdered. I have nothing but contempt for him.
Johnathan Pearce writes:
“I prefer to give folk the benefit of the doubt unless I have a strong piece of evidence to suggest otherwise. So should you. ”
I quoted you evidence and received none in return. Just more of the same liberal sentiments.
Forgive me, then, if I disregard your moral advice. I find it pretty hard to take from clerics – let alone strangers on a blog.
Honey writes:
“I also don’t claim to know what goes on behind the curtains of the majority of Welsh people living in our western cities. Is this dangerous complacency on my part?”
If the provisional wing of Plaid Cymru were implicated in bombing the London undergound, yes, it might very possibly be complacent of you.
I’m afraid yours isn’t a very good argument. There is no possible comparison between the two groups.
GCooper:
I do not know what the majority of Moslems living in our Northern cities really think. And I’m damned sure that neither you, nor Mr Herbert, does either.
I did venture to guess what British Muslims think, or rather that they don’t think anything about, the question of the Queen’s function in the Church of England. I concede I don’t know. But then I don’t know what I think myself half the time, far from being filled with liberal certainties.
But it really isn’t an implausible speculation. What proportion of Anglicans (who might at least be expected to know about it) have an opinion of any kind about the Queen’s governing role. It really is in the realms of theology, and for Muslims an alien theoloogy at that. If the numbers of British Muslims who hold the Queen an enemy of Islam were at all significant, would Iqbal Sacranie (how useful he is), whose Muslim Council of Britain is a confederation of hundreds of Muslim organisations, have consented to be knighted by her?
Jonathan, on the other hand, is on much stronger ground. He is not concerned with what people think but what they do. He suggests that if a significant proportion of British Muslims were genuinely dangerous to their fellow citizens that we would have seen widespread problems, and we haven’t.
A handful of loonies can hurt a lot of people of course, and have done. Even a single murderous madman can do a lot in that line. But if even 1% of the Muslims in Britain were bent on communal violence then it wouldn’t be safe to go out for a curry.
Guy Herbert: A. The Jews are not on a mission of conquest. To equate them with Muslims is outrageous. Second, You quote me: Consider: “I say this because in Jewish quotes, it is laughably easy to detect the circumlocations and equivocations which are the verbal equivalent of crossing your fingers behind your back.”
Do not have the towering cheek to put words in my mouth. I did not and would not make such a horrible statement about Jews.
Taqqya and kitman is an actual part of Islam and is a wholly admirable and legitimate means of deceiving the infidel. There is nothing to compare with it in any other major religion. Look it up and learn. If Susan is reading this topic, she is more than capable of explaining it to you if she is so minded.
No one cares that you are an apologist for Islam. It’s your right. But don’t put words in my mouth and do consult the facts.
Jonathan – “… if most Muslims were up to no good, I suspect we’d be well aware of it by now”. Where did anyone, anywhere claim that “most Muslims are up to no good”? Where, Jonathan? Where?
What is at issue is, are “most Muslims” seeking to protect Britain from suicide fanatics and hate preaching or not? The evidence is that, for the most part, they are not. There have been instances of a few brave souls going to the police with evidence, and they are to be commended and thanked, but “most Muslims” stay schtum.
Euan Gray – I’m only responding because your post was mercifully short and I actually read it: Jews are a race and a religion. They are genetically a race.
There is no possible comparison between the two groups.
Why not?
Guy Herbert writes: The problem of upsetting Aunty Maud is more difficult for those born into Muslim families, since most branches of Islam still treat apostates very harshly. Yes. They kill them.
One suspects, too, that in immigrant communities, the lapsing process is assisted by a generational divide: the young don’t know the language in which their parents’ piety is expressed. This may well be true in some instances. In other instances, even for third generation Muslim children, English is their second, and poorly understood, language.
An important point to remember is these children grow up in households where only one parent speaks English, and he most likely has a job and is therefore away until the early evening. The mother was imported from Pakistan and never learned to speak a word of English and never will.
I’m glad that Mr Herbert and I appear to have reached agreement that his original statement (and the one to which I objected: “Of course the number of British Muslims who think this way is tiny.”) was based not on knowledge but supposition.
However, when he goes on to say:
“Jonathan, on the other hand, is on much stronger ground. He is not concerned with what people think but what they do. He suggests that if a significant proportion of British Muslims were genuinely dangerous to their fellow citizens that we would have seen widespread problems, and we haven’t.”
Here, I’m afraid, we must part company again, because, if that is Mr Pearce’s contention, it is codswallop.
The psychopaths who commit murders do not exist in isolation. They subsist in a “community” (dread word) which cannot convincingly pretend it does not know where their sons’ religious and political inclinations are leading them. That “community” also harbours the clerics who indoctrinate and the recruiting sergeants who draw in these jihadis. It is a “community” which, as far as we can tell, quite widely holds some beliefs largely at odds with that of the majority of the population. It may not have risen up and taken to the streets en masse and it may never do. But that does not make it unreasonable to pose the question, what is the majority Moslem opinion in this country?
Nor is it unreasonable to reject blithe assertions that everything is fine when it might very well not be – and particularly where there is strong evidence that it is not.
Verity, GCooper cited a Sunday Times poll about the views of Muslims higher up on this thread. He then went on to speculate about what they might think now. That strikes me as the sort of insinuation that I think is wrong and why I prefer to judge people by their deeds rather on the basis of some sort of opinion poll.
Verity,
I did not and would not make such a horrible statement about Jews.
Which was precisely my point.
They are genetically a race.
What does that mean?
guy herbert-
I think the reason why Verity would not make such “a horrible statement” about Jews is because it wouldn’t stick. It simply isn’t the case that Jews generally speak in circumlocutions when asked to condemn the actions that other Jews may have committed in the name of Judaism. One need only look at the Israeli press and the healthy debates over policy – present and past – to see what I mean.
The frustrating thing about muslims is that it’s very difficult to find one who will unambiguously condemn certain trends in Islam. Now – I haven’t done any disciplined research into this, so it may be that my impressions are skewed by lack of exposure – but my general impression is the same as Verity’s. It seems like every time the MSM holds up an example for all to see of a “moderate” muslim who is “willing to condemn” the actions of some muslim extremist, there is always a subtle hedge of some kind built into the statement. I depart from Verity in believing that there are moderate muslims out there – and in greater numbers here in the West than in the Middle East – but I share her impression that most muslims in the world today seem to either have a general contempt for infidels or else cover up for those who do.
It’s worth noting that – at least here in the west – no one is generally afraid of publicly criticizing any religion save Islam. There is a reason for that – and it can’t be chalked up simply to western prejudice.
Euan Gray claimed that Jews aren’t a race. They are. They have genetic links. There are diseases that are specific to Jews. Tay-Sachs is the most famous.
Jonathan,this is a blog. People write in their opinions and back up their opinions with argument. You are not a robust debater. When someone disagrees with you, you try to shut down the discussion, which, to my mind, negates the idea of a blog. You write: GCooper, I prefer to give folk the benefit of the doubt unless I have a strong piece of evidence to suggest otherwise. So should you.
Who elected you as a moral authority from whom GCooper should seek guidance?
You write: Euan, I you and Guy H. are correct to warn against paranoia. I happen to think the great majority of Muslims are no different from the rest of us: we want to get on with life. I certainly don’t want this blog to become a sort of obssessive echo-chamber.
We are discussing a controversial topic. On a blog. Some people agree with other people’s opinions. This does not create a sort of obsessive (three esses will suffice) echo chamber. “Euan, I you and Guy H” are all warning “against paranoia. Sounds like an echo chamber to me.
This is blog, for god’s sake, Jonathan!
Joshua, thank you for articulating my point about Jews. There is no more self-analytical and self-critical race in the world than the Jews. Three Jews, four opinions, forthrightly expressed.
Taqqya and kitman is written into the Islamic religion. It is a legitimate weapon to be used not among themselves, but only against us. That Bakri fellow (whose family – I think he has around 10 kids – gets £1,000 a week in “benefits” – I just throw this in gratuitously) was driven to admit that when Muslim “community leaders” and “spokesmen” condemn suicide bombers for murdering innocent victims – sounds fair enough – do not include us among “innocent victims”. You cannot be “innocent” if you are not a Muslim, you see.
The wily, oily use of words, as per “Sir” Siqbal Sacranie (created a knight by a frightened Tony Blair) is an integral part of their religion. They are schooled in it. It is a formal discipline. Taqqya and kitman. They use it all the time. Next time you read of a “community leader” or “spokesman” apparently condemning suicide bombers, analyse it carefully.
Then let me put it like this: being Jewish is no less a choice than being Moslem, or being Christian, or being French. There is no fundamental difference, we’re all human. Even the French.
So what? We all have genetic links to all other humans, simply because we are all the same species. Finer distinctions than that cover only local adaptation (e.g. melanin levels in skin) or inbreeding (e.g. so-called “racial purity”). They’re meaningless.
BTW, do these special genetic links connect the Caucasian Jews of Israel, those of Eastern Europe and the black Jews of Ethiopia? If not, are Jews still a “race” or are they just a group of people who happen to share a religion?
Judaism is a religion. Jews aren’t a race, any more than the French are a race.
EG
Euan, indeed.
Verity, I know this is a blog. I am not trying to shut debate down (fat chance with someone who is as opinionated with you, to put it politely). I am merely pointing out that when people insinuate things about group X or Y, they’d better be ready to do so with a bit of logic and supportive evidence, rather than impressions. In the absence of impressions, I try to give people some benefit of the doubt, as I have said repeatedly.
BTW, do these special genetic links connect the Caucasian Jews of Israel, those of Eastern Europe and the black Jews of Ethiopia?
Yes. That is one of the ways they determined that the Ethiopians are indeed Jewish.
Judaism is a religion and a race. You can leave the religion, but you can’t leave the race.
Ych yr fi Honey!
You rumbled us!!
Who told you! (we always suspected we had informers that’s why we talk in phlem)
I have been part of a sleeper cell, waiting for the return of this land called Britain back to the glorious kingdom of Cymri!
But you’ve buggered it.
That’s a wrap then lads- might as well go down the pub. The rugby highlights are on.
Several centuries after they had been generally accepted as authentically Jewish? I didn’t know they had DNA testing in the 17th century, but one lives and learns.
Apart from anything else, how does the propensity of the Jewish communities to keep accurate records and marry within their own communities make them a separate race? In what way does it actually mean anything more than saying that the English are a race, or the French?
You raised the issue of Tay-Sachs Disease. This is a recessive genetic disorder, and although it is found in Ashkenazi Jews it is found to a tenfold lesser extent in Sephardic Jews (at about the same level as the global population, interestingly), and is also found markedly in two non-Jewish communities noted for a high level of inbreeding – French descended Canadians in parts of the St Lawrence river area and Louisiana cajuns. Inbreeding vastly promotes the possibility of recessive genetic disorder, and this is exactly what we see here. Tay-Sachs is not unique to Jews, but it and conditions like it are common enough among highly inbred communities.
Still doesn’t make Jews a separate race, though. There is only one race, the human one.
EG
That is one of the ways they determined that the Ethiopians are indeed Jewish.
Or not, as the case may be.
For an explanation of takiya and kitman, of which Guy Herbert is disturbingly uninformed, go here:
(Link)
This is deception practised against the infidel and is an official weapon in jihad. Every word uttered by “Sir” Siqbal Sacranie is for purposes of deception. Analayse what he says carefully.
If, in a couple of years time, a particularly nasty squad of murderous white supremacists start a campaign of bloody murder in the name of individualism as a reaction to Al Qaeda, while clearly perverting libertarianism’s core principles and freedoms for their own ends, I won’t be scrutinising every new Samizdata contributor, or indeed Cameron voter (just in case he has a secret agenda behind the quiff), as a potential bomber. Nor would it be fair of me to expect apologies, explanations, or any more from a Samizdatan for such actions by said death squad than I would from the person on the blog next door.
Anyone with a pinch of history knows that “they act differently to us and resemble X: they might be up to something” is the seed of suspicion from which systematic persecution very often grows. It’s not innocuous to cast aspersions on one group based on the actions of a tiny minority because of association, even when you call that “not being complacent”.
I’m being very careful to avoiding invoking Godwin’s Law here.
Gcooper:
The size of the population of Wales isn’t wildly different from that of the Muslim people of the UK. Throughout the 80s and beyond, Meibion Glyndwr pursued a fire- and letter-bombing campaign in the name of Wales and “the sons of Glyndwr” – at the time I don’t remember hysteria about anyone with a streak of Celtic blood being a potential harbinger of cell activity, nor do I remember the Welsh nation being called to account for, apologise and recant the activity: all I remember is jokes on Not The 9 O’Clock News. No-one thought for a minute that this was what the average Welsh teashop owner thought; doing so about the average Bradfordonian smacks of selective thinking.
The difference between the Welsh way of asserting our Identity (such as it is) and our cousins the Irish,has been realism.
The Irish went the way of the bomb and the bullet.Thought that they could kill their way to the promised land.
The Welsh went the cultural and Language route in the main.
Oh there were the bombers in the late 60’s but they bombed tv transmitters not pubs. Half arsed is what it all was, and remains to be.
Wales is happy with The Assembly, god help it and S4C. Northern Ireland is still the gangsterocracy the Irish have so lovingly made it. And still has direct rule from Westmister. Who do you think were smartest? the Welsh or the Irish?
As for our Muslim friends, They have no claim on this country whatsoever in any historical or cultural sense in the way the welsh and irish do so why should we, the indiginous population take any notice of their views?
A little gratitude instead of complaints would be in order.
Johnathan Pearce writes:
“I am not trying to shut debate down (fat chance with someone who is as opinionated with you, to put it politely). I am merely pointing out that when people insinuate things about group X or Y, they’d better be ready to do so with a bit of logic and supportive evidence, rather than impressions.”
You have yet to post any. And when I did you responded by implying that the hard data should be ignored.
Perhaps you would explain to us how this squares with your remarks about logic and supporting evidence?
Honey writes:
“The size of the population of Wales isn’t wildly different from that of the Muslim people of the UK”
And there the resemblance ends. I’m sorry, but I simply can’t take this hopeless comparison seriously enough to bother arguing with it (you could at least have given yourself a sporting chance by using the Irish as an example).
If you are unwilling to acknowledge the essential and fundamental differences between a minor outbreak of Welsh separatism several decades ago and the current threat from Islamic extremism, then I can only, once again, marvel at the spectacle of liberal flight from plain, common sense and wish you well out of harm’s way, should, as I really fear it might, blood begins to flow in the streets.
Honey writes:
Ok, true enough, but that is not what’s going on here. No one is, for example, complaining about Hindus and Buddhists and members of any number of other immigrant religions. Mostly because a large number of members of these religions is not threatening our anihilation.
Maybe. But neither were large numbers of Welsh teashop owners publicly supporting the actions of these terrorists. In fact, it is not difficult to find examples of muslims who condone the actions of Al Qaeda and list Osama bin Laden among their heroes in the Middle East. The tendency is not so pronounced in the West, but it’s still too great for my comfort.
I’m sure I could be better informed.
I regret I started and quickly abandoned the study of Arabic in the early 80s, thinking it was probably important but too hard to do on my own. But I have at least taken an interest on and off for a while, not suddenly acquired a millennarian panic in 2001. It does seem more profitable to me to read the various differing things that Muslims say about their own religion than those pushing a view of them as a single collective world-peril.
For example, Taqiyya (here’s a Shi’a reading) is usually discussed as a matter of concealing ones beliefs in order to avoid persecution–which is something the many people of eccentric belief here will have experience of, albeit at a very mild degree of persecution. Protestants, Catholics and Jews have all taken this option in diferent parts of Europe at different times. There’s a Christian community in southern Japan that was in hiding for nearly 500 years. Given the conflict between how dangerous it still is to be a heretic in the Islamic world, and the emphasis on profession of faith there, it is not surprising that it is a big issue for them.
It is a crazy leap from noting that Muslims are permitted to adapt the profession of their religion in order not to anatgonise their neighbours, to saying, as Verity does (supported by Chinese whispers from the rabid end of the blogosphere), that all Muslims are lying about everything all the time and that the only things we can actually believe about them are the freestanding assertions of scaremongers.
“Honey” has an agenda. She’s a chronic sufferer from one of those initials only diseases. If you click on her email address out of curiosity, it takes you directly to “her” website where “she” discusses, in turgid detail, her chronic condition of ME and CFS and this all seems to be tied in in some way with the way society treats the “transgendered”.
It was the prose style, not just the thinking, that raised my suspicions.
So it’s not just the lying Muslims out to get us, but the chronically fatigued as well… We’re doomed! Doomed!
Under Islam you are “allowed” to be by Allah.
Under western democracies you are “Free” to be by the collective will of us all.
When do we start the “Get Real” party?
Guy – You really must stop trying to put words in my mouth. ” …to saying, as Verity does (supported by Chinese whispers from the rabid end of the blogosphere), that all Muslims are lying about everything all the time and that the only things we can actually believe about them are the freestanding assertions of scaremongers.”
I expect a better and more creative standard of insult from you, Guy Herbert. I did not say all Muslims are lying blah blah blah. I said that Muslim “spokesmen” and “community leaders” employ taqqya, deception, which, whether you like it or not, Guy, is an official weapon in Islamic jihad. For someone who studied Arabic, you certainly don’t seem to have done much reading about the local religion!
Also, I don’t know that Daniel Pipes can count as a Chinese whisper in the blogosphere!
I would take the liberty of advising you to do much more reading about Islam in the West, including reading people like Hirsi Ali and other apostates, and that very intelligent and articulate woman in Toronto whose name I’ve forgotten. I’ll post it when I remember.
Here it is: Muslim Refusenik. http://www.muslim-refusenik.com/aboutirshad.html
Her name’s Irshad Ali.
“You have yet to post any,” writes Verity.
I will try to lay out what I do think. I think a significant minority of radical islamists, some of them recently in this country – and probably illegally – pose a serious threat to life and limb. A small minority of home-grown Islamists are also such a threat. I also happen to think, judging from my own admittedly limited experience as well as reading up on various surveys and so on, that most Muslims want to live in peace, raise their families and so forth. It was not all that long ago that writers like Roger Scruton, hardly a bleeding heart-liberal, were describing Muslim businessmen as natural Tory voters. How short our memories are.
As I said before several times, unless there is significant practical evidence to the contrary, I do not share the doomonger scenario. I may have to eat my words of course, but that is the peril of having an opinion.
Jonathan, I would agree with most of what you say, although I think there may be more native born fanatics than you are bargaining for. But we don’t know.
You say that most Muslims want to live in peace, raise their families and so on. Again, agree. And they probably wish all this ugliness would go away.
But, when it does happen, they cannot bring themselves to condemn it because it is done in the name of their deity and it is for the holy cause of converting dar-al-harb (the house of war) to dar-al-salaam (the house of islam).
That is what I am saying. And they will not pass information on to the police, because jihad cannot be wrong. This is what makes them so dangerous. If it were just a bunch of loose nuts in any normal society, people would go to the police, they’d go and file complaints about them, they’d call in with details – one way or another, the police would know what these fruitcakes were up to from complaints by the neighbours. In Islam, they stay quiet.
Again, Verity, I would agree with some of what you say although I cannot be sure — unless you know better — whether no Muslims have ever passed on details to the police in this country.
I think it is a bit dangerous – which is why I got a bit cross with you up on this thread – to assume that all Muslims would never grass up a Muslim suspect. After all, quite a lot of islamists have been arrested in Britain in recent years. Pc Plod must have got his data from somewhere, and not just from CCTV.
And they will not pass information on to the police, because jihad cannot be wrong.
Is it not also possible they don’t pass on information to the police because there isn’t any information to pass on? That they don’t actually know anything?
I’d need my neighbour to be doing something more than mildly suspicious before I’d denounce him. I’m relaxed about a good deal of actually criminal behaviour, too, unless it violates my own code of ethics. There are not many people, I’d suggest, whose code of ethics extends to endorsing mass-murder. That, however, appears to be what you are suggesting about “them”, the entire vast and varied British Muslim population.
Jonathan – are you Guy Herbert posting in disguise?
You both put words in my mouth that convey thoughts I have never had.
Not only have I never, anywhere, claimed “no Muslims have ever passed on details to the police in this country.” but I have posted several times that some brave people do go to the police with information! Of course they do! There are always brave people and people who can think in the long term and are driven to do what is right.
The vast majority do not. They are cowed by the imams and the community and they stay quiet – partly, I am guessing here, out of fear, but definitely also because they have had it drummed into them that the creation of dar-al-salaam is the wish of their diety and they must not oppose it under fear of being declared an apostate.
I most definitely have never written, anywhere, that no Muslim has ever gone to the police with information.
Johnathan Pearce writes:
“”You have yet to post any,” writes Verity.”
No she doesn’t. I wrote that and, flattering though the comparison may be, it suggests you might be suffering from some confusion – not least about with whom you should be losing your temper.
Verity argues I am putting words in her mouth. Read this:
Folks, I urge people to read those words, expressed with Verity’s trademark understatement and finesse, and ask yourself who is putting words in people’s mouths around here.
You are more than entitled to state your opinions forthrightly on this blog, Verity, but be prepared to stand by what you say rather than shout “s’not fair!” when someone else calls you out for it. I think it is not a very “robust” attitude to debate, as you might put it.
I have no use for the royals, but then, I am not British and not interested in insulting an institution still largely venerated in the UK. Prince Charles should consult not his mother, whom I respect, but his keeper. The man is a positive moron. That said (I couildn’t help it!), better than Chuck consulting with his mum, the SAS will most definitely be consulting. That the islamonazis should target the Queen is, while perfectly believable, also quite beyond belief. Is there a sense out there that it will require an outrage beyond comprehension for the Brits to move against the Islamonazis? We Americans are certainly whistling past the graveyard. I suspect the US will not pull its colllective head out of its ass until the Islamonazis nuke us.
Jonathan, this is getting tedious. Again, I did not say “everyone”. I did not say “none”. I am talking in generalisations. I did not say 94.9777% are cowed. I am not submitting a footnoted Phd dissertation. I have said elsewhere that there are a small number of brave people who do take information to the police. I have also said we have cause to be grateful to them.
I have never, on this blog or anywhere else, claimed that anything’s “not fair”. You are projecting again. Anyone who goes around thinking some things are “not fair” is in for a hard life.
With respect, you are ethnocentric and you seem to have a cozy sense that everyone adheres to the same belief system as you do, except with minor diversions which can be explained away with reasoned argument.
You wilfully refuse to acknowledge that there are people with a mindset that is opposed to everything you hold normal and that that mindset may not be predictable and may be dangerous.
“Verity” puffed her pipe and said:
Oh my God, I’ve been outed. And there was me thinking that purposefully linking my weblog directly with every invocation of my name on every post on Samizdata, when I could have just added a hotmail address as seems popular here, wouldn’t be spotted by Verity’s intrepid detective work. Verity, you’re not clicking on an email address, it’s a URL to a website. I put it there.
In what sense does having a chronic illness, and being differently gendered from birth give me an agenda, any more than the death of your poodle? Did it occur to you for one moment that I’m not actually ashamed of the above, and that may be why I linked to it, purposefully and repeatedly? My God, you must work for the Met’s cybercrime unit to work that one out. Presumably anyone gay, old, young, black or not from your village equally has an agenda and you’ll find them out.
My “agenda” in staying here yesterday when I first popped in was to talk to some people intelligently about stuff I might not agree with them on, in order to test my own beliefs and the cogency of my arguments; and to strive to be true to myself in the world. I just don’t see the point in staying in a ghetto and spending my life talking to people who share the same views as me. But if this is the level of debate, I can’t honestly see the point, Verity. This may bore the rest of you to tears, but allow me the courtesy of this one off-topic reply as Verity swerved so dramatically away from the topic in her comment, ending in a heap of paranoid delusions based on details of my own life. No, I can’t see the relevance either.
Verity, if you’d read a little further into my oh-so-secret life, you may have found that a friend of mine was one of the 52 killed on the 7th of July. No, this isn’t to elicit sympathy; it’s to point out that if anything might give someone an agenda to suspect all Muslims of murderous intent, as you seem to do, then one might expct that to. I, however don’t feel the world’s quite that full of demons yet, and nor would my friend.
Thanks for some of the other thoughts here, some of you make very valid points that give me pause for thought. I’m learning who’s worth replying to.
RAB, I don’t understand your point with regard to ethnicity and “us” as indigenous not paying any attention to “their” views. Have a stumbled across a forum composed solely of those of Celtic descent, and do you mean Anglo-Saxons and Normans shouldn’t have a voice?
Well Honey, let’s draw a long breath.
You’ve had a hard and hectic time of it on this thread and it doesn’t sound from your comments that it gets much different when you sign off.
The point I’m trying , obviously oblequely, to make is that The People Of Great Britain are the same if they call themselves Welsh, Irish , Scots or English. Make that Viking/Norman (fancy Vikings) and a few left over Romans. The Titles are the cultural overlay.
How many people lived in Cardiff in 1850? Around 2000.
(The biggest town in Wales then was Merthyr Tydvil.)
It was a village until the Coal iron and steel happened and the docks at Cardiff ,Barry and Newport were built.
The population of Cardiff went from 2000 to 50,000 in the twinkling of an eye.
That population was not “Grown” it was imported. So Ipso Facto most of South Walians are not Welsh in origin but from different parts of the UK.
But the FACT is they FEEL Welsh!
I’m afraid our little muslim buddies feel , well if not nothing, nothing but contempt.
P.S. the quiet ones are the worst.
RAB makes a well observed point about assimilation and integration.
Of course, one doesn’t have to suffer the former to experience the latter. North London’s ultra-orthodox Jews are not very assimilated, but they are very integrated. They certainly don’t seem to have felt the need to commit mass murder on London’s Underground system.
The difference, as any fule kno, is religion. Islam, like Christianity, is a religion of conquest and conversion. On a purely personal note, I happen to think the world would have been a happier place without either of them. As it is, we have a problem. And no amount of liberal wishful thinking is going to make this genie vanish, simply by wishing it so. We have a militaristic, conquest and conversion-born and driven, Middle Eastern religion in our midst. We are experiencing the inevitable (and entirely predictable) consequences.
Pretending that is not the case because it offends liberal sentiment isn’t going to help. In fact, it might very well prove lethal.
RAB: breathing remains steady and no imminent invasion of smelly bed-bound sick people about to throw their sinister hot water bottles at anyone, I promise.
I take your point. It’s just that you seemed previously to be suggesting that some measure of the history of inhabitance and definition of indigenousness could be used as factors in assigning “claim” to a country to individuals, and to have ones views taken into account, which presumably includes the vote in a democracy:
But you’re now suggesting that the quality that would grant a British Muslims a “claim” to this country (to voting? staying here?) is actually them feeling internally some intangible quality which amounts to someone’s definition of Britishness? I mean, I bet I don’t feel British in the same way you do if we compared homework. And I’d suggest that it’s possible that a 2nd+ generation British Muslim feels as British as his British Muslim friend next door in the same way as a British Scot does. I just wonder who gets to define it.
Nope Honey,
I’m just saying that some folk fit in and some don’t.
Some folk never get it , and “will never let it lie”
I have come to a conclusion on that one as to which is which. Have you?
Honey offers stark evidence that being “differently gendered” – different from what? gendered? and when did gender become a transitive verb? – and a chronic sufferer of an initials-only mental condition still doesn’t make a person interesting – or even readable.
The thickets of florid prose and preachy provincial, little lessons tipped me off to become suspicious of Honey: “Gay with an agenda.” Disclaimer: Most gay people do not have an agenda. They just want to pay less taxes and watch their property prices rise. Like the rest of us, including tens of thousands of Muslims.
Which is why I clicked on his email address. And got a URL that I don’t believe had the permission of the owner of the Samizdata site. Just goes to show. No matter how depressed you are, you can always spot an opportunity for biggin’ up.
Oh, as to this “claim” folks have on land.
Everywhere a muslim walks he considers a part of the Califate for evermore.
Imperialism HO!
Ah but is that good or bad Imperialism Rab?
Well…..
RAB – so if I walk across a hotel lobby in Jordan (not one that was bombed by splodeys, of course; one does have standards), that makes it part of the Democracy Califphate? I can go with that.
Yup,
that’s what they recon anyway.
What your talking about is fine by me too.
With the Allman Bros thundering out of the speakers ,I will bid you all goodnight , er early morning.
I think we’ve seen the back of Honeytraps for now.
Verity, enlighten me, how are my remarks “ethnocentric”; that is pure Guardian-speak!!!
If you really do think that some brave muslims have done their law-abiding duty, then the paragraph I highlighted in italics conveys a very different message.
Verity, the breathless excitement of your initial bulletin to the Samizdata world that you’d “uncovered” my agenda, makes you sound like a child rushing to mum and dad to tell them she’d discovered the gunpowder plot. I’m still deep in the backwaters of trying to understand what you think my agenda is, other than being guilty of being ill for a decade or so, and not being quite like you. Why are you prolonging this excavation of my character that’s irrelevant to the point at debate? Does anyone else want to listen to this?
I’m not sure what the relevance of “initials-only” is: there are lots of conditions referred to by using initials, see for instance: MS, AIDS. ME isn’t a “mental condition”, it’s a physical condition with rafts of evidence of immunological, vascular, cardiac and mitochondrial dysfunction. Most recently it’s been robustly demonstrated that gene expression is uniquely different in ME populations. I could suggest some reading up, but I suspect it’d find thorny ground.
I’d ask you to use the pronoun that everyone else I know uses for me, but I suspect you’ll continue to use “he” as a blunt instrument, reminiscent of the tactics of bible-belt evangelicals. It stopped hurting me some time ago, Verity, but coming afresh to a site for rationalist individualists, it surprises me to find it being used as a weapon. And this “gay agenda” thing has me too baffled to enquire further.
Owner of the Samizdata site, do I have your permission to link to my site, by entering in the URL in the box where it’s specifically requested whenever I post a comment? If so, could you explain to Verity the difference between an email address and a URL? And either shut this strand of conversation down as off-topic, or explain why such snipes are relevant to Islam in the UK. Thanks.
Back on-topic, it seems to me that what’s largely happened to this thread is that everyone’s claiming that they know better the mind of the average British Muslim, and accusing the other side of not offering facts to prove their unwarranted suppositions. Which isn’t getting very far. And all will agree this is an important issue: on the one side, the possibility of GCooper’s echo of Enoch’s rivers of blood, on the other, collective suspicion by the majority leading to mass suppression and discrimination.
It seems to me that the only way forward, presuming none of us are British Muslims, is to go and talk to some. Ahmed from another thread would be great to have along here, should he be willing to enter the lions’ den.
I used to poke fun at an acqaintance of mine who spent his weekends popping into Mosques and other places of worship “for a chat”: I thought it quaint and rather cub scouty at the time. Now I wish I’d gone along too, as I’d feel more solid ground on which to build my lack of willingness to believe a large proportion of British Muslims are on the verge of violent revolt. When I get well, I swear I’m going to do so.
Honey-
Accusing you of having an “agenda” qualifies as an attack, yes, but calling you “he” does not. Not everyone shares what I assume to be your view that gender and physical sex are largely distinct things. I myself am highly skeptical.
Whether or not it is being used as a weapon here, I’m not sure why you would have ever been “hurt” by someone calling you by the physically obvious pronoun. People who know you may or may not choose to adjust to your standards, but I would insist that the choice to do so or not to do so is their perrogative and not yours. Among people who do not think that physical “plumbing” is the end of the story on gender the question of what gender actually is is far from decided. Anyone, therefore, who does not share the “it’s all plumbing” theory really ought to show more respect to individual perrogative on this question. Being “hurt” by someone’s decision not to adopt your view of your gender when that person has a completely consistent view of gender of their own shows a certain lack of respect, I think.
I’m glad to hear that you yourself are no longer offended by people entertaining different views of what gender is from your own. But since you were accusing Verity of using “he” as a “weapon,” I thought it worth mentioning all the same.
Jonathan – pure “Guardian speak”. I wouldn’t know. I’m not really familiar with the Guardian, except by reputation. I can’t imagine anyone actually reading it.
Ethnocentric means you are focused on the mindset of your own kind. (Yes, yes, I know we’re all humankind.) But everyone in the world is not “just like us”. The evidence is all around you, yet you haven’t internalised it. Millions of people practice horrific female genital mutilation. You know this to be a fact. This should tell you that the world does not share common values.
These same people keep their women in the house, only allowing them out when they’re accompanies by a family male, and even then, as mobile tents. Women are property and the man doesn’t want other people looking at them. They murder their daughters for a dating a boy of her choice.
This is a mindset we find first hilarious and then horrifying. But there are great tranches of people in Britain and Europe who think it is not only normal, but that we deserve to die for not leading our lives along the insane rules set out by their diety. They mean us terrible harm, and they are aided and abetted by the silence of others who quietly approve.
As in any human society, there are mavericks, and those people do go to the police with information, as I have now said around 95 times, and we thank them because by so doing, they place themselves in danger.
Jonathan, it is evident from reading your posts over the last couple of years that you want to think the best of everyone, which is rather a nice trait. But this current situation calls for a less sunny analysis.
Honey, I don’t fight my way through the thickets of your aggressive, preachy, provincial, drab writing. When I see your name, I scroll down to the next post.
Gallantry is not dead! Thank you, Joshua!
Oi! Where’s that David Carr, then? This is the third time I’ve asked.
Verity, wow, I take that as a compliment. Seriously. I think part of it is that I am one of life’s optimists, though I like to think that I avoid being naive. Lord knows there’s no room for complacency right now.
My optimism actually explains my libertarianism. I actually think most folk do want life, liberty and a bit of fun along the way. If I did not think that I’d be a gloomy Tory. It is not my temperament.
David Carr, as I said a few days ago, is incredibly busy and the last time I spoke, had decided to give the blog a break. He will be back, trust me. He loves the format. Stay tuned.
Verity:
Thanks Verity, that’s probably best in the interests of actually staying on the topic here, which wasn’t actually me until you introduced it. I’m glad you finally managed to claw back the demon voices into their cave.
Jonathan, yes, you are an optimist and I have noticed over the last couple of years that you always incline to give other people the benefit of the doubt – even when, to my mind, it’s neither justified nor wise. If we didn’t all come at things from different angles, there’d be no point in blogging …
Melanie Phillips has a good piece up (Link) about undigested Islam in France, and it is quite chilling. The MSM have decided that the riots have nothing to do with Islam. They’re all in denial because they are frightened to death.
Thanks for the news about David Carr. I thought he must be wearing a panama hat and sipping coffee on a tree-lined boulevard in Buenos Aires.
Point taken, Joshua. I probably shouldn’t be allowed to require that anyone refer to me in any particular way, so you’re right, it’s not usually an attack, unlike the other. But it’s often seen by the opponent as an attack, and is a pointed key feature of death-calls in transgender murders. It’s however legitimate for me to request it, as it is for any woman or man, in the same way that you could request I don’t call you “Joshypants”, or “she”.
It’s just that in the absence of handy terms like “poof” or “nigger”, you get accustomed to the signature of those attempting to inflict hurt or irritation to very suddenly and pointedly swap pronouns for transgendered people, in a way that indicates more than just rational dissent from the picture of gender represented.
I’d question whether opposing views are “a completely consistent view of gender of their own” upon examination and with reference to recent reseach, in the same way that I’d question whether the Islamic or Christian views of the world are consistent with reality, but you’re correct that I should respect others’ rights to be wrong, as they should mine.
As to why it used to hurt, the answer is much more to do with the personal and cultural significance of gender identity and too long a topic for someone with imminent guests.
I am not sure I am always inclined to give people the benefit of the doubt, Verity. I backed the invasion of Iraq precisely because I did not give such a presumption to Saddam, for example. I certainly do not put a sort of optimistic disposition ahead of preserving my own skin!
The evidence against Saddam was so overwhelming, Jonathan, you’d have had to be a drooling idiot – or at least Michael Moore or Maureen Dowd – to demur!
But you do have, insofar as I can deduce from this blog, a sunny disposition and you do think along Rodney King lines.
Rodney King? You’ll have to explain that one.
Well, quite a few people whom I respect – like Sean Gabb, for instance – did not think Saddam was a direct threat to us, so it is not just “drooling idiots” who opposed the war (though a lot of the antis are indeed idiotic).
Honey writes:
“… the possibility of GCooper’s echo of Enoch’s rivers of blood….”
Not an accidental allusion, either.
I realise it is an unfashionable point of view (particularly among the young and inexperienced) but I am not convinced Powell was wrong.
Though, of course, I hope he was.
There’s an important difference here, though. Generally speaking, people that use “she” toward me are trying to pick a fight by challenging my manhood. They’re claiming, in essence, that I don’t live up to the socially accepted standards of “manhood,” specifically that I don’t live up to the expectation that men be brave and willing to accept consequences for their actions. There is no corresponding insult for the feminine (itself a socially interesting phenomenon) with the same power. Feminine is “default.”
I take this to mean that my gender as such isn’t being
questioned in these situations – but rather that I am being accused of not “living up to” my gender. Having a resource illegitimately, as it were. Crucially, the insult only works if the person making it assumes I share his/her view of gender. If I don’t, the insult has no power.
So I don’t think that this is a complete analogy, and while you may well request that people use the term you prefer, you may not infer any undue impoliteness if they refuse for that reason.
You’re right that many people do mean it as an insult (and I’m sure you have developed a keen sense of when by this point). You’re probably wondering at this point why I’m belaboring this point….
The reason is that as someone who is skeptical about your definition of “gender,” I often feel insulted by social pressure to adopt what is still a nonstandard view of gender. It makes me uncomfortable to say things I disagree with just to be polite – unless I in some sense feel condescension toward the person making the request and don’t mind “humoring” them.
I feel the same way about attempts in the US to legalize homosexual marriage. As a libertarian, I believe marriage should – in legal terms – be nothing more than a property contract between the individuals involved. Consequently, I have no legal problems with marriage between two men, two women, or a group of any combination thereof, etc. What I DISlike about attempts on the part of homosexuals to encode this into law in this country is the following:
It is this second that they absolutely DON’T have the right to do. There is a reason why the law restricts marriage to “traditional” couples – and that is that there is an established tradition for the existence of these couples as a social institution. (It is not unlike the way that Catholic priests, and no others, have the privilege – the DUTY, in fact – not to testify on the content of what they’ve heard in confessional. Extending this to Presbyterians would rightly raise a lot of eyebrows.) What I resent about the homosexual lobby on the question of marriage, in short, is that they are asking the general population to take their word for it that this institution exists in their population, and the general population has no evidence that it does. It may well be that we’re wrong about that, but it is nevertheless the case that that this tradition is not established in our society. Homosexuals seem to want this recognition for free, in other words.
Likewise, you are asking the general population to accept your word about your gender, despite the fact that your gender is not established in traditional society and that most people have no experience with it. Just as gays have experience with heterosexual marriage by default, people in your situation have experience with traditional gender by default. The reverse – unfortunate as that may be for you – is simply not true. Like homosexuals asking for “legal” marriage, there is a sense in which your asking people to call you “she” is asking for recognition for free.
I personally resent this. I respect the rights of homosexuals to marry and share property, adopt children, whatever. I do not respect their right to demand that I not entertain questions about the validity of their “preference.” Likewise, I respect your right to call yourself “she,” but I do not respect your right to infer anything from my unwillingness to accept it in my own speech. (If you sense that you are being deliberately insulted, however, that is, of course, your business and I leave that to you to decide.)
I’m sorry to the others for taking up space on this point – but I feel rather strongly about this. People absolutely have the right to be homosexual – but they do not have the right to demand that I entertain their views about their sexuality. Ditto non-standard genders. And it is not the same thing as when people call me “she” trying to pick a fight.
Johnathan – Well, I felt sure someone else would have posted it by now, but “Can’t we all just get along?” R King.
Verity, you will have to excuse me but I haven’t the faintest idea who this person is, so I fear your point goes over my head.
Jonathan – The LA Riots? When Rodney King was filmed by TV stations worldwide being beaten up brutally by the Los Angeles Police? And at one point, when they’d stood him up, he tried to make peace with them, holding out his hands and saying, “Can’t we all just get along? Why can’t we all just get along?”
You must have seen it. It’s been replayed 85m times. For some reason, the phrase struck a chord throughout the English speaking world, and he is remembered for it. I wonder where he is today.
(Link)
This brings us up to date on Rodney King, just to tie this loose, maverick, end up.