I love this, from the “in fact” section of the July 2002 issue of Prospect (quoted in its turn from The Guardian World Cup guide):
In Paraguay, duelling is legal if both participants are registered blood donors.
This sublime example of the art of contriving to practice a politically incorrect past-time by attaching it to something politically very correct is an inspiration to all. What next? Feminists Against Income Tax? (Nice Acronym, that on.) Gays For Globalisation? Guardian-readers for the Right to Hunt? (We already have Feminists Against Censorship and those gay gun guys in America called, if I recall it right, the Pink Pistols.)
And this is the first sentence of an excellent review article in the same issue of Prospect by Malise Ruthven, called “Radical Islam’s failure”.
The attacks of 11th September were the last gasps of a moribund Islamist movement. Terror is a sign of failure, deployed when political mobilisation has failed.
With each passing day, the number of intelligent people focussing their intelligence on 9/11 and all that grows. If this article is anything to go by, the whole mess may get settled sooner than pessimists like me now fear. I do like Prospect.
