Over at the Big Hollywood site – one of many started by the late Andrew Breitbart – it points to how the singer Lady Gaga (full confession – I have some of her tunes on my iPod) pulled out of a tour in Indonesia, a country with a big Muslim population, on the grounds that her material would offend some of the locals. She has cancelled the tour, although she has made rather mealy-mouthed comments on it. Now just imagine what typically happens if, say, a Christian organisation complains about the tone and content of a singer’s material? I remember back in the 1980s when Madonna’s lyrics and videos incurred the wrath of some. And yet such singers regard it as almost a badge of honour to offend Christians. But with Islam, or certain varieties of said, somehow that delight in causing offence does not exist. And we know why: because those who cause such offence, such as Theo van Gogh can reach a very sticky end. As some of our more colourful music entertainers are finding out, there are limits on your willingness to test freedom of expression in the face of potential violence.
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The, er, underwhelming coverage of a cancelled music tourJune 1st, 2012 |
 14 comments to The, er, underwhelming coverage of a cancelled music tour |
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My question is who had the great idea to send Lady Gaga on a tour of a Muslim country, and what were they smoking?
And – to be fair – this may not be a decision that Lady Gaga – whover she may be – had anything whatever to do with. The whole thing may have been effectively decided by the promoter’s (re)insurer.
llater,
llamas
But of course you’re right,the only reason Lady Gaga backed down and Madonna did not was that the demonstrations against Lady Gaga would probably end in bloodshed while those against Madonna consisted of a bunch of clerics and blue-rinsed old ladies with placards saying ‘Down with this sort of thing’.
Frankly, I don’t hold it against her, she’s a pop star, not a freedom fighter.
There seems to be quite a bit of ‘liberal’ attention paid to Mitt Romney’s religion at the moment.
I get the feeling we are not being invited to celebrate the diversity his religion and its culture brings to the world.
The problem with certain Muslims does seem to be that they tend to slaughter people at random when something upsets them. I’m not sure Lady Gaga would want to be held responsible for a whole load of random deaths.
The msm is ignoring it because it’s inconvenient.
Gaga’s bailing because she realized these guys are serious when they say they’re offended.
Fun times.
The fundamental point here is coercion (or lack thereof). Nobody is putting a gun to the head of a righteous Indonesian Muslim and saying, “You’re buying a ticket matey”. The more fundamental point is that cultures only repress what they fear and spending a Friday watching Gaga is more fun than droning in Classical Arabic some ancient text dictated by a mentalist. They fear us. We scare their pleasant little settlement sideways. Puritanical monoculturalism of any form is always upset by the alternative. It is all to do with choice and control. That is why it always needs to use force. It can’t compete in the market-place of ideas. This is actually what is so wrong with multi-culturalism. Dubya and Obama are more than happy to drop JDAMs on Muslims but would have a jippy fit if we exposed the “happy natives” to the average women’s magazine published in the USA or Europe. There are even US academics speaking-up for FGM as “culturally authentic”.
“I’m not sure Lady Gaga would want to be held responsible for a whole load of random deaths.”
Or even one decidedly non-random one.
“There are even US academics speaking-up for FGM as “culturally authentic”. ”
Male US academics, to be precise.
(A beheaded and beclitted Lady Gaga would also no doubt be “culturally authentic.” Problem is, the culture sucks.)
No doubt but of course unless she starts personally killing people randomly, she would not be “responsible for a whole load of random deaths” regardless of which numb skulls hold her to be.
It would have been really cool if she wore clothes made of bacon, but I think she usually uses beef – by the look of it.
Currently the readiness to use force in furtherance of one’s aims is concentrated among those who riot and burn viz the Islamofascists. They lay themselves open in their backwardness and fanaticism to provoking the use of force among those who butcher armies and incinerate cities. Obviously a cancelled Lady Gaga concert is not going to be the tipping point, but every increment of annoyance inflicted hastens the day the wrath is unleashed of a civilisation that throws away the scabbard when it draws the sword.
“Can not compete in the marketplace of ideas”.
Nick you are wrong – Islam competes very well.
Far more people are being converted to Islam than are being converted from it.
And far more nominal Muslims are becoming strict Muslims than strict Muslims are becoming nominal Muslims.
Hard core Islamism is outcompeting “moderate” (i.e. nominal) Islam.
And the Islamic faith is outcompeting other faiths – including atheism.
One can not “compete” against a philosophy (and Islam is a philosophy) with a women strutting about and singing songs about homosexuality.
Young men may enjoy seeing the near naked “whore” – but Islamism has a solution for that.
Enslave the “whore”, rape her, and sell her (or keep her – if you prefer the chance to abuse her, to the money you would make by selling her).
Nor does Islamism even have to do this.
Eventually young men (at least young men who matter) get tired of vice.
Drinking, drugs, watching near naked women sing songs about sex – eventually it just does not satisfy.
The young men want an answer – a philosophy, the meaning of the universe.
Although it being a philosophy that allows them to plunder, rape and murder as much as they like – well that hardly hurts as a selling point.
But, I repeat, Islam does not even need to promise these things.
It offers an answer – a clear and detailed answer about this world the next.
An answer that is a mountain of lies – but that does not matter.
It offers an answer – Lady Ga Ga does not.
The left?
They claim to believe in the rights of women and the rights of homosexuals.
AND to love and respect Islam.
That is a contradiction – it does not work (the international left are caught in one of the biggest contradictions of human history).
Of course with some of the leftists it is not a sincere contradiction – they are cynically USING Islam (as an ally) in their war with “capitalism”.
But the left are fools.
What answer does leftism offer to the human condition?
“Collective Salvation” (Barack Obama style Liberation Theology) offers nothing to people who want INDIVIDUAL survival after death in this world.
And the promises of a perfect society here on Earth are so absurd that they make doctrines of Muhammed look perfectly senseble by comparison.
For all the talk of “Islamic Socialism” the average terrorist does not believe in the absurdities of socialism – Islamist terrorists are using Marxist fools like Mr and Mrs Ayers (when they are no longer useful these Marxists, who think themselves in charge and as manipulating their “tools” the Islamists, will be used as DOG FOOD).
And this world?
Islam does have an answer.
It had an answer to the Byzantine (and Imperial Roman) world – by returning to the idea that “all free men fight” (the docrtine of the Classical World).
The Germanic barbarians had the same idea – they also defined a free man just as the Classical World (the world of the Greek City State and Republican Rome) had. All free men have the right to buy and keep weapons, and are expected to fight.
A world that has an unarmed “free” population and depends SOLELY on a professional army – such as world is doomed.
And that is the modern West – with a few partial exceptions (most noteably the United States).
For example, the British do not have to be enslaved by the forces of Islam – the British are already slaves (as the Classical Republics would have understood things – “someone who is not even allowed to own a weapon – clearly a slave”, all Islamification would mean is a change of masters.
A strong and violent minority (and for centuries Muslims were a minority in the Middle East) can easily rule a unarmed servile population.
“But what about economic matters”.
Islam (inspite of its faults) is not socialism.
It is not a free market based on private property either.
But then neither is the modern West.
The modern West has levels of taxation and regulation of the late Roman and Byzantine Empires – indeed higher and worse.
Islam does not have to compete against a theorectical free market.
It only has to compete against the bankrupt West.
Islam even has an answer to banking (yet another 40 billion bailout in the works – this time in Spain, the Economist magazine wants a 100 billion bailout in Spain).
The Islamist answer?
Not a careful distingishing of lending out REAL SAVINGS and building credit bubbles.
No nothing so subtle.
Islamism (real hardcore Islamismism) would just BAN lending out money at interest.
Real savings? Compared to Credit Bubbles?
No – just ban the lot. No need for subtle distinctions.
Cutting the knot with a sword.
Crude – a waste of rope.
But it would work.
It would not “work” in the sense of being the best option – but it does not have to be.
All it has to be is a better option than the Credit Bubble West.
And that is EASY.
Of course (as the hard core Sunni Islamists have pointed out) the Shia have failed.
Iran follows the same credit bubble policies the West does.
We will know when real hardcore Islam (economically) has returned – when gold and silver coins (with verses from the Koran written upon them) are the normal money, and when someone who even suggests setting up a “Central Bank of …..” has his head cut off in the public square.
Harsh, perhaps even crude.
But it would work.