LONDON LETTER JUNE 2014
Camus, Penguins, the Shadow of Islamism and the Incompetence of Rebekah Brooks
Sometimes I just wish that time would slow down a
little. Already approaching July the year is passing at a giddy pace. I have
been busy with the citizen journalism class and a little teaching of history.
Today off to discuss co-facilitating a group on the origins of World War One.
The weather has been glorious and in the sunshine
London feels like a more civilised city. This morning I caught a little of
Farming Today, an early morning BBC radio programme aimed at the farming
community. Apparently it is the hay making season. Consequently some people
today will be making hay whilst the sun shines. I find this as strangely
satisfying as reflecting upon the fact that it was someone’s responsibility,
possibly a junior cabin boy, to both arrange and of course re-arrange the
deckchairs on the Titanic.
 |
| Albert Camus |
Both novels, permeated with an underlying sense of
unease, are deeply unsettling. Great writing should be unsettling, should make
you start to view the world differently. Camus’s writing consists of a series
of hand grenades thrown into modern consciousness.
I have also just finished reading Penguin Lost by Andrey Kurkov’s follow up to the remarkable Death and The Penguin. Kurkov, a
Ukrainian writer whose characters have to survive in the murky post-Soviet
republic, provides startlingly surreal images written in a realistic style. The
plots are in the true sense of the word fantastic and wholly improbable, but in
their very absurdity reveal more truth about the human condition than any
number of more ‘realistic’ accounts of the post-Soviet world.
 |
| Sam Harris |
Just this morning I read in the paper of a conference
in Sydney entitled, “Honour killings are morally justified,”- note that the
organisers did not even feel the need to insert a question mark. The keynote
speaker was to be Uthman Badar from that well known hotbed of rational thinking
the Islamic group Hizb ut-Tahrir, a group which welcomes the current operations
of ISIS in Iraq, describing it as part of the ‘Arab Spring!’
Of course being the old cultural imperialist that I am
it is not surprising that I am horrified by the prospect of such a conference.
I realise I still have much work to do to understand why a father would feel
himself justified in bashing out the brains of his fifteen year old daughter. I
don’t have the nuanced understanding of complex cultural issues that underlie
such murders. I should understand more and condemn a little less. I am it
seems, to quote Mr Badar just another of those “secular liberal Islamophobes
[who] would come out of every dark corner, foaming at the mouth.”[1]
Now for the record Mr Badar says he is against so
called honour killings, though I’m not sure how well this soft liberalism goes
down back at branch meetings. It also happens that the conference has been
cancelled and Mr Badar consequently was not allowed to enlighten the world with
his views. Now I deplore this and would defend the right of Mr Badar to be
heard,[2] this of
course is more than Mr Badar and his ilk would afford me should I choose to
speak at a conference entitled ‘Mohamed the Fraud.’ Now however Mr Badar whinges about the fact
that he has been denied the freedom of speech he would so happily deny to
others and that is so absent in the Islamic world. Whilst the conference
organiser whines, “I never wanted to
expose someone, who agreed to take on this issue for us in good faith, to a
barrage of criticism…”[3] Well he can reassure himself in one way in that
Mr Badar can sleep safely in the knowledge that no matter how angry his critics
there will not be an evangelical Christian suicide squad assembling in the
heart of the Midwest bent on separating Mr Badar’s head from his shoulders.
All the pathetic liberal apologists for Islamism bring
to mind an image provided by Pascal Bruckner when discussing his book The Tyranny of Guilt, he conjures up a scene from the film Mars Attack
when guitar strumming peace loving hippies greet the newly arrived Martian
hordes. “Hi man, welcome, peace and love, plenty for everyone man.” They are
all promptly incinerated.
Another much sadder image, pathetic in the real sense
of the word, is that of the Dutch film maker Theo van Gogh pleading for his
life as some Muslim fanatic hacked away at him with a knife. “Can’t we just
talk about this?”
The likes of Al Qaeda, Boko Horam, ISIS and the myriad
other Islamacist groups mushrooming across the globe are not for talking,
except if your idea of dialogue involves abject surrender of every principle of
freedom of conscience, individual liberty and free speech. They only really
understand force. If that thought makes you uncomfortable tough, you’d had better
acclimatize yourself to it.
 |
| Rebekah Brooks and Tony Blair |
Since I began writing this the verdicts in the phone
hacking trial have come in. It seems that Rebekah Brooks’ defence that she was
the most naïve and incompetent newspaper editor in the history of Fleet Street
in that she was clueless about how the paper she was editing was getting its
exclusives, was successful. If this victory I wouldn’t shout about it too
loudly if I were her.
On the day that saw the other former editor of the News
of The World convicted on the charge of illegal phone tapping, the case having
revealed the stench of corruption and criminality leading right to the very top
of News International, Rupert Murdoch’s tabloid The Sun chose to lead with the headline A Great Day for the Red
Tops.[4] This
propagates such a distorted version of reality that it would do credit to a
North Korean newspaper.
 |
| The News From the Republic of Rupert Murdoch |
Such are the thoughts that pass through my mind during
sunny days in London in June.
AT
June 2014
[1]
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/25/cancelled-honour-killings-talk-did-not-aim-to-justify-says-organiser
as to why we secular liberals, Islamophobes or not, should lurk in dark corners
I am unclear. Of course in truth the vast majority of secular liberals are
falling over themselves to appease the likes of Mr Badar.
[2]
Though would also, had the event been held anywhere near me have sought to
attend and protest.
[3]
Ibid
[4]
A cute reference to the colour of Rebekah Brooks hair and the colloquial name
for tabloid newspapers.
