Tuesday, September 04, 2007

Democratiya 10

The new edition of Democratiya is out and is as stimulating as ever.

Terry Glavin shares the pain of a terrible review of the book of a friend with whom he disagrees and I have dipped my toe in the water by reading Dave Rich's excellent review of Ed Husain's, The Islamist (together with Inside the Global Jihad by Omar Nasiri & Gordon Corera).

I like Husain's book and have posted on it here, and this review is an excellent rebuff to Sunny Hundal's side-swipe* in his CIF piece yesterday, compounded by his link to a sneering article by Ali Eteraz.

Rich is respectful and perceptive. The key section for me is how he deals with those who argue that the 'root cause' of terrorism lies in the foreign policies of Western powers.

Husain and Nasiri both write about a time when the recent invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, the War on Terror and the second Palestinian Intifada were not available for people to cite as 'root causes' of terrorism, but the 1990s were not short of alternatives. The first Iraq war, Bosnia, Chechnya and Kashmir were all conflicts that caused genuine grievances amongst Muslims. But it requires an ideology and an organisation to take these transitory political triggers and convert them into the rationale for radicalism and violence.

Quite so. Read it all.

* Will takes a characteristically more robust exception to Hundal's article at the Drink-soaked Trots

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

I love your euphemism "robust" for Will's writings.

I am robust
You are vitriolic
He swears his head off

The Plump said...

I actually enjoy Will's writing kb player. It isn't just invective. At his best he can be funny, perceptive and, in his way, lyrical. The one word I would use to describe it is 'moral'. He is the most foul mouthed moralist I have come across, but he is full of indignation at injustice and sloppy thinking.

And sometimes he has a funny knack of saying almost exactly what I would say if I was slightly pissed, in private, and among friends.

Terry Glavin said...

I'm with you on Will, Mr. Plump.

Anonymous said...

Apropos the origin of the Islamist hatred for the west, I tried and failed to post these reflections on UK media sites before. They appear in full on a US site.

From 1984 to 1997 I lived in district in a north east England city with a large, docile, Pakistani component.

Lamp posts and informal poster sites were plastered with anti-Iraqi, anti-Iranian flyers during their Gulf war (1980-88); when this terrible war ended the flyers took up a new theme: Destroy Israel, destroy the west. In English and Arabic posters appeared extolling the coming of 'Planet Islam', the primacy of the Qu'ran, the indolence of the 'kuffars' – non believers, infidels – my first encounter with this word. Meetings in London and Luton were advertised to encourage Moslem youth to 'come and find out about Islam'. This was in 1990-92.

In about 1992, whilst helping a Kasmiri friend with his English, I met at his home a very well dressed and articulate young man. Having discovered the reasons for my presence in my friends house, this individual bagan what I can only call 'brainwashing' by continuous argument: The west was degenerate, my own core beliefs were markedly inferior to those of Islam and in any case, like all westerners, riddled with contradictions I could not resolve. After about half an hour he obviously felt he had demonstrated his and Islam's moral and intellectual superiority, and gave every sign of having enjoyed it. My friend, embarrassed, got rid of him.

At the time I was puzzled and a little abashed; puzzled as to why this man was visiting a very humble and simple man as my friend, abashed at having walked into an ambush, under restraint of hospitality. It all makes sense now. The notion that what we are being subjected to by Islamists worldwide is in any way a consequence of the liberation of Iraq is convincing only if you woke up on 12th September 2001 from a deep sleep.

Anonymous said...

All right Plump Person - my only exchange with Will was when he told me to "fuck off you posh twerp" so naturally I find it hard to read him impartially.

Will said...

Diddums Player.

kB Player posts regularly in the comments at HP Sauce so gets every fucking thing she deserves. Obviously anyone who attends to the crap at that particular shithole is suspect.

Also -- she lies about the 'only exchange' shit. She/it joined in wholeheartedly in a 'defend the nazi' thread there once, giving voice to HP Sauce fratboyness tendencies inherent in her stupid and ignorant ideology.

On top of that, her Normblog profile is such a fucking piece of shit she is lucky I haven't bothered my arse further with the dipshit.

Anonymous said...

A drop or two of blood in the thread and watch the shark of invective strike. . .

The Plump said...

Bloody hell Will, I want to keep my readers!

Anyone want to talk about the post?

Will said...

The Democratiya review of Husain's book is very good Peter.

The Plump said...

The Democratiya review of Husain's book is very good Peter.

:-) :-) :-)

xx