Terry Eagleton is interviewed by the Culture Editor of the New Statesman. Asked about his very public spat with Martin Amis two years ago, Eagleton replies:
I’m interested in the way a whole stratum of the liberal literati (Rushdie, to some extent Ian McEwan, A C Grayling, obviously Amis and Hitchens) – the very people you’d have expected to be guardians of the liberal flame of tolerance and understanding – have, at the very first assault, rushed into these caricatured postures driven by panic. I’m very struck by how those who are making ugly, illiberal, supremacist noises about the superiority of the west are precisely the sort of literary and liberal characters from whom you’d expect more imagination, openness and sensitivity.
Teachers in England should not be banned from membership of the British National Party or any group which may promote racism, a review has concluded.
The government commissioned the report last September after a leaked list identified 15 BNP members as teachers.
Review author Maurice Smith added his recommendation should be reviewed every year, which ministers have accepted.
Mr Smith, a former chief inspector of schools, said a ban on BNP members in schools would be “taking a very large sledgehammer to crack a minuscule nut”.
“I do not believe that barring teachers or other members of the wider school workforce from membership of legitimate organisations which may promote racism is necessary at present,” he said.
I cannot disagree with that.
However, predictably enough the usual assortment of fashionable muddle-headed leftists and faux-liberals are up in arms about the decision. Such as Pickled Politics, Islamophobia Watch, and a collection of Trots, for example.
Salil Tripathi writes in the WSJ of the continuing attacks on freedom of expression by both Muslim and Hindu fundamentalists in the “most populous democracy in the world”:
In a little-noticed case on Feb. 26, police in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh arrested Macha Laxmaiah, an author who writes using the pseudonym Krantikar (“revolutionary”), and his distributors, including Innaiah Narisetti, president of the Hyderabad-based nonprofit Center for Inquiry, for “hurting the sentiments of Muslims.” Their alleged crime? The distribution of “Crescent Over the World,” a book including contributions from Salman Rushdie, Bangladeshi author Taslima Nasreen, and a cartoon from the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten. Mr. Narisetti is out on bail now; Mr. Laxmaiah remains in custody.
In fact, you may have guessed by now, and it might upset some of you to hear me say this, but I’m not, by any standards, an animal-lover. Unless the said animal is dead and on my plate. For me, animals, as they say, have two functions: to taste good and fit well.
But, in particular, I despise and loathe dogs (which, of course, have neither a culinary nor a sartorial function — unless you live in South Korea). They are disgusting, dirty animals that should never have become pets, let alone such popular pets (there are an estimated eight million dogs in the UK. I feel like vomiting as I type out this gruesome and dispiriting statistic.)
One of the strange ironies of the Southasian immigration experience to Great Britain was how the near-universal levels of racism in the host community dissipated at the same time levels of religious identity politics and radicalisation became endemic. White racism started to fall back but at the same time secular politicisation receded in the immigrant Muslim community. We are now living in times when the kind of visceral racism we Southasians experienced in the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s is at an all time low, but Muslim immigrant communities have organised themselves into political structures which are emanations of reactionary political groups from “back home”, such as the Muslim Brotherhood and Jamaat-e-Islam.
Support for the Amnesty-Begg partnership now follows a predictable shape and form. There is even a template for it. It follows these 6 simple rules-
1) Mention as many times as possible the statements made by present and former officials of Amnesty International, who are paid to tow the official Amnesty line, viz a viz Claudio Cordone, Irene Khan, Widney Brown, Sam Zarifi, Kate Allen et al.
2) Never mention Cageprisoners’ support of jihadi terrorism despite the extensive documentation that demonstrates this support.
3) Never mention Moazzam Begg’s association with Cageprisoners.
4) Never mention the words “partner” or “platform”
5) Never mention the fact that Gita Sahgal has always spoke about the need to protect the rights of Islamists and terrorists from torture, renditions and arbitrary detention.
6) Never acknowledge that Gita Sahgal’s fundamental point is that Amnesty should never have made the individual(s) of point #5 into poster boys or torch bearers of those human rights.
A short video of the “Stop the Violence Against Paharis” demo held at Altab Ali Park, yesterday.
This was the statement which was read out at the meeting:
Honourable Prime Minister,
We, the Bengali and Jumma people living in the United Kingdom (UK), express our deepest concern about the recent attacks and acts of violence against the Indigenous peoples in Baghaichari, Rangamati and Khagrachori districts in Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT), that occurred between 19-23 February 2010.
L-R: Hasan Le Gai Eaton who passed away today, Fuad Nahdi, the late Martin Lings (Shaykh Abu Bakr Siraj Ad-Din), Shaykh Hamza Yusuf and Peter Sanders.
Charles le Gai Eaton, also known as Hasan Abdul Hakeem, died today. He was 89.
Born in Lausanne, Switzerland in 1921 and raised as an agnostic by his parents. Gai Eaton was educated at Charterhouse and King’s College, Cambridge. He worked for many years as a teacher and journalist in Jamaica and Egypt, and joined the British Diplomatic service in 1949. He converted to Islam in 1951.
Gai Eaton’s books include Islam and the Destiny of Man, King of the Castle and Remembering God. Many British Muslims regard his books as influential.
I had the pleasure of keeping a correspondence with sidi Hasan when I was a younger man, and met him a number of times. He was a gentle, generous man with a very bright, wry sense of humour. I shall miss him.
