the latest blethering from the egregious dr miller is that the “conservative thinktanks” policy exchange and the centre for social cohesion are soft-pedalling the racism and violence of groups like the bnp and edl because it “might deflect attention” from islamism – defined by him as:

“the catch-all term for politically active muslims”

now i carry no particular brief for either of the thinktanks he mentions, but this is breathtakingly brazen doublespeak: come on, dr miller – everyone knows what is meant by the term “islamist”. are the muslim brotherhood, jamaat-i-islami, tablighi jamaat islamists? of course they bloody are! are the quilliam foundation, of british muslims for secular democracy “islamists”? are the muslims who work for csc or policy exchange, “islamists”? or, for that matter, the muslim authors at the spittoon? of course not. there is no reason muslims shouldn’t be politically active – either as muslims, or as british citizens, but there’s plenty of reason to be rude about people who are pushing extremist, clerical fascist, racist and homophobic agendas – unless you’re a doctrinaire leftie, that is.

it gets worse – dr miller now appears to be attempting to suggest that by attacks on islamists bolster islamophobia, which ultimately results in things like the breivik atrocity in norway. this is an outrageous caricature – the sort of thing we’d normally expect to see coming out of exeter, not strathclyde! as any regular reader will know, we are not exactly fans of the bnp or the edl.

on the other hand, as we know very well here at the spittoon, “spinwatch” is not exactly careful with its analysis:

http://www.spittoon.org/archives/9428

perhaps we should not be surprised that dr miller can’t tell the difference between islamists and liberals; it seems to be a bit of a theme on the left these days.

i have for some time been aware of the powerful analytical frameworks for bio-psycho-social systems developed by the american psychologist dr clare graves and systematised for practical application by don beck and chris cowan in the excellent book “spiral dynamics” (i’m not affiliated with anyone concerned, incidentally). at the risk of sounding like somewhat of a “fanboy”, as i believe it is called on teh interwebs, i am convinced it constitutes an important piece of intellectual real estate for the understanding of complex socio-political systems, particularly in behavioural terms.

you can read more about the basics of spiral dynamics here and here - and i strongly encourage you to do so, but perhaps the easiest way to demonstrate its unique way of enabling insight into human nature is by a review of the various behaviours that have been exhibited during the riots. in the table below you will see a number of different types of responses and the messages associated with them, which you will have seen reflected by the proponents of these value systems in the various media channels. the vast majority of these types of response can present in either healthy or unhealthy forms – thus “C-P” (“red”) behaviours and messages were used both destructively (wanton destruction) and constructively (arresting looters) – in both cases, the behaviour was the demonstration of dominance and power, with corresponding public messages (a cartmanesque “RESPECT MY AUTHORITAAH!”) sent to the media.

you’ll see that whilst most of the operational trouble has functioned at C-P/red systems level, most of the discussion and analysis has been conducted by politicians and the media at blue (mostly “societal breakdown”, good-and-evil) orange (intellectual, opportunistic and tactical) and green (communitarian, progressive and inclusive) levels – and if the reactions are to be systematic, they will have to be a combination of green, blue and orange solutions appropriate to the situation, just as identifying looters using website photos (orange), communally organised clean-up squads (green) and attempts to strengthen traditional family structures (blue) have already been used. i note that ed miliband (who i usually have little time for) has supposedly come out against knee-jerk reactions and i think he’s correct in this at least; david cameron will not get very far if all his responses are couched in “blue” terms to appeal to the “respect for society must be restored” brigade and executed in “orange” technocratic action plans by community workers who are uncomfortable with anything which doesn’t take account of “green” inclusion. if he is serious about the “big society”, he will need to understand that the big society needs *all* these things, it is not a blue, orange or green concept, just as it needs “red” defences and alternative “purple” clan and kin affiliations than those of gang, patois and skin colour – and that includes the purple affiliations of the non-rioters, too! the “big society” could be second-order policy thinking and leadership, but that needs a shift in both our understanding of the situation and the strategies we use to manage it.

in all these cases i would say: if you want to find a constructive, insightful way of discussing the value systems that led to the events of the last couple of weeks, you would do worse than to look at how spiral dynamics sheds light on the tensions, relationships, structures and messages involved.

all comment and discussion welcome.

“More precision needed. There should be a stamp for that. MPN should be like LOL or TMI.”

i agree. what narks me somewhat (and no doubt there are all sorts of reasons why i am wrong about this) is that this is *precisely* what bothers me about statements about a) religious people and b) the tendentious-as-feck word “judeo-christian”.

“But there again – that’s a matter of fact, not something that can just be declared from the armchair as if it were self-evident. Are Muslims as “diverse” as any other group of people living in the UK? Are all groups living in the UK exactly as diverse as each other, neither more nor less? I don’t see why that would be the case. It’s certainly not impossible that there is something about Islam and/or the history of people who emigrate from majority-Muslim countries that makes Muslims as a group tend to be different from other people as groups, including being less “diverse.” That’s something to find out, not just to announce as a necessary truth. Or a sacred cow…”

i would argue that this is exactly what annoys me about statements about religious people in which jews and judaism are included. jews in the uk are *extremely* diverse – this is an ongoing issue which pops up every time someone decides to say something about how we have a monolithic view, or “the community thinks”. in fact, the community, generally speaking, disagrees on nearly everything. on the other hand, it seems to me that the idea that muslims are somehow less diverse is equally mistaken. on the other hand, i am often attacked for suggesting that there is a “significant minority” (i usually quote 13%, based on a survey done some years back for channel 4) that are problematic particularly if you look at what they think about jews. the *real numbers* that can be attached to this, in this case 260,000 based on 2m muslims (again, if that’s correct) is still a very large number compared to the number of jews in this country. in other words, it is nonetheless possible that a) muslims are not monolithic in their views AND b) there is a significant minority of muslims whose views are problematic – and that one can therefore conclude that this minority is big enough to cause a sizeable problem. please note here that i am not intending to essentialise, demonise or whatever. this is just a numbers game. if 13% of these guys are arseheads, 13% of 2m people adds up to a LOT more arseheads than the corresponding number of jews, especially given that there is no evidence whatsoever that a “significant number of jews” hold views that are problematic for a) the UK b) liberal democracy or c) muslims. on the other hand, there *are*, i would say, a “significant number of jews” whose views on the middle east are problematic for a “significant number of so-called ‘progressives’ and muslims and people in the house of lords or the foreign office”. this, for me, is the source of the false equivalences.

the below the line comments are also quite revealing of the issues that are raised.

i came across this particular gem of an essay  from his website today. it is an elegant argument for the ability to reconcile scientific and religious viewpoints:

“…Even if the Darwinian mechanisms were inadequate, presumably G!D had some sort of means of transforming creatures via natural law, which science would eventually discover. Dissing the neo-Darwinian explanation would mislead people into thinking that it necessarily happened in a supernatural manner.

Together with further contemplation of the topic, in which it occurred to me that the “random” nature of Darwinian evolution was no more theologically problematic than the “random” nature of the events of Purim or of a lottery, I realized that it didn’t make a whit of theological difference which mechanism powered evolution. As a result, I lost all interest in whether the neo-Darwinian explanation of the mechanism made sense or not. It was no more relevant to me than any other obscure problem of science.”

you can read the rest here.

r. slifkin’s continued writing, in the face of the continuing unjustifed attacks on him, is something that we at the spittoon should support. we are against obscurantism and nuttery and attempts to stifle discussion – and we are entirely in favour of the assertion of principles that are both rational, clearly expressed and both scientifically and spiritually honest to a degree that is all too rare in todays polarised debate.

with this in mind, i thought it was worth setting out a few of the principles that i think are fairly basic to pursuing both the more aggressive and the more peace-loving sides without compromising the integrity of either. i believe we can both aspire to a more peaceful future at the same time as defending ourselves against those who threaten our society; i think these might be the things that we hold in common and the things which we believe are not held in common by those we oppose:

1. the belief that muslims have the potential to integrate into british (and other western) society as productively as jews have.
2. the belief that eventually mainstream islam will decisively reject the path of taking practical steps to take over the world and relegate this safely to the realm of the eschatological – at present the islamist movement still actually thinks it can win over this debate.
3. the belief that peaceful coexistence is possible even in the middleeast, given goodwill and a real desire to find a workable solution.
4. the acceptance that, islamism aside, there are a lot of people out there who have an unreasonable prejudice against any and all muslims, not just the fundamentalist sort – and that if we can only get the mainstream communities committed to a pluralistic, polycultural modern world rather than a salafist 7th century cloud-cuckoo-land, a commitment to standing shoulder-to-shoulder with muslims in fighting those islamophobes for their rights to be a part of that future.
5. the acceptance that 1, 3 and 4 also have ethnic dimensions and that we have nothing against arabs, persians, turks, pakistanis, bangladeshis etc qua arabs, persians, turks, pakistanis and bangladeshis etc.

if these can be accepted, without significant reservation, then we can begin to accept and deal with the following challenges that we believe to be real:

• a. that there are some muslims, whether individuals, groups, sects, parties or tendencies, that have the downfall of our society in mind and consequently hold what we consider to be unacceptable points of view – let’s say 13%, for argument’s sake; not even a particularly sizeable minority in relative terms, but in absolute terms, given the number of muslims there actually are, enough to cause problems for both their own communities and wider society.
• b. that some of these groups are busily trying to co-opt and own all the islamic community structures that presently exist, as well as present their narrative as that of “all” muslims.
• c. that these people have, over the years, received large amounts of funding and inspiration (with strings attached) from saudi and other insalubrious middle eastern places, as well as from credulous, starry-eyed orientalists in the guardianista / multiculti camp – without strings attached.
• d. that these people are busily engaged in not only political entryism a la tower hamlets, but in hoodwinking well-meaning liberals into acting as figleaves for their disingenuous political and religious programme and thereby bolstering their own credibility.
• e. that if you take a look into the history of many of these socalled respectable “community leaders”, you don’t have to look very hard before you start finding the bloody trail of the bangladeshi genocide as well as the knuckle-prints of the global islamist movements like the ikhwaan and hizb ut-tahrir, let alone all the dodgy things that get said in arabic, farsi, urdu and so on compared to what gets said in english for the benefit of the western media.

if one can accept all of these things, perhaps dialogue can get beyond the ceremonial and cynical to the meaningful and productive. i myself have to do some serious thinking about where i stand on “platform-sharing” issues in particular. on one hand, i try and follow mandela’s excellent principle of “talking to anyone that will talk to me”, but on the other, my deep distrust of certain people and groups, not to mention 16 years of experience, have led me to conclude that there are some people that it is not worth engaging with, like, say, the al-muhajigoonies of this world, who deserve nothing but merciless lampooning in the most liberal of terms (of late the ahmadis have been added to this list – so i saw with displeasure this morning an advert for them on the side of a bus). similarly, i have to consider the rabin principle – that it is one’s enemies that one makes peace with, not one’s friends and that platforms for dialogue will sooner or later have to address the points that i raise above – but you have to suspend certain questions until trust has been established; you can’t jump straight into a conversation about israel, for instance.

i would be most interested in whether people think i have the basis of the argument down correctly. alternatively, you can all call me an islamophobic racist or something.

“Nationalism”. I believe the word instantly causes thoughts to materialise in one’s mind – of extremists, such as skinheads, thugs, nazis, people with “dark agendas” and violent or deceiving methods to fulfil said dark agendas. This is not me – but I still consider myself a nationalist. If you’re interested in more detail, I consider myself a “territorial nationalist”. That is to say, I don’t see colour / race and such as important, or a necessity to be “a part of the club”. I personally see it this way: everyone is a part of the club and should pull together and make this club a better place. I think most people are truly nationalists, even though they wouldn’t use that exact word to define themselves: “Hi, I’m ABC, I’m a nationalist.” But the dictionary definition tells us it is a person who loves his or her country, with synonyms such as “good citizen”. I am sure that we would all like to consider ourselves good citizens, people who care for the wellbeing of the nation and our neighbours. Sure! So, when a party brings a slogan to you like: “Putting British people first!” “People like you!” “Bring our troops home!”, they feel like reassuring statements, noble statements. Can they inspire to a degree and draw you in? Well, I thought so. I wanted to see how they were doing this and see these “people like me”. Obviously, there was a multitude of people saying this party was full of bad people, people not at all like me. As I saw myself as a nationalist, I thought they must be wrong and that I would be much, much more satisfied finding out what’s what for myself. This is how I am – always having to see for myself rather than taking someone’s word for it. Just because many people say so, that doesn’t necessarily make it true.

I wouldn’t deny for a moment from the beginning that there were bad apples within the group; you’re always going to get a few, (see if you spot the irony and please place answers on a postcard) and I feel it is unreasonable and lacking in logic to define an entire group by the actions of a small percentage. I spent months before the general elections and a few months after that becoming affiliated and trusted within the “online ranks” of the party. It got to a stage where in a relatively short time I had become respected and given Moderation / Administration authority within the groups. If I’m honest, this fuelled my ego. I started to try and educate and moderate the bad apples and promote the good parts of the party, always, always having to defend its past mistakes and errors. But I began to tire of defending the past, which I wasn’t a part of. Each time, I was assured by all the others that things such as that wouldn’t happen again – we were building a righteous nationalist party the land could be proud of, they just needed to realise we had changed! United, we had the power to change anything!

As time passed – especially after the elections – I saw more of the entrails of the beast; saw what it was and how it worked. The deeper inside, the uglier it got. Many people, making a racist remark here or slandering another who opposed them… I still held onto the idea that ‘Well, perhaps this is still just the bad apples; I need to reach the higher echelons.’ I was frustrated, because when I wasn’t there, keeping everyone in check, people would just come on and instantly start spouting hatred. There was no reason behind many people’s rants; they were blinded. “Nationalism seems to just draw this kind of people”, I thought. I finally got a meet with the area representatives; now I was buzzing, it was all going to be different, more positive, more progress, get to meet leaders – it’s going to be awesome. I had planned out so many ideas and suggestions and wanted to put them forward.

But at the meeting, all the ideas and topics I had to offer were shot down or ignored. They were much more interested in and – dead set focused on – ranting about “those damn blacks” and how “they didn’t belong here” and they were “invading inferior beings”. No matter what topic I tried to raise – always the same. It really came down to a personal hatred of black people. Now it was confirmed to me, finally. I had gone on to meet three influential people within the party, whose jobs and duties it was to encourage and promote to the members… All had blinding grudges and unreasonable hatred of other races; they had no interest in speaking to me about education, economy, health, welfare. So what are they teaching the rest of the group? Not many of those I encountered would second-guess them, or follow up on their statements -  they just wished to get people pissed off, because pissed-off people can be manipulated very easily. I felt sad, because I gave them the opportunity to prove me wrong and they, in my opinion, had sadly not done so.

These people just breed hatred and anger.  Maybe there’s something valid they’re upset about, something that looks like it needs looking into or stopping, but this sort of hate only breeds hate. The way they offer misinformation makes this a vicious cycle. I was asked to represent them, to encourage people my age and younger to join. That I just had to decline; I couldn’t encourage anyone to join a group which is so blinded.

Thank you for taking the time to read this.

given that the board of deputies and, by the looks of it, the community as a whole, has withdrawn cooperation with the programme, as it was clearly interpreted as a hatchet job, the same way that “the root of all evil?” was – tendentiously edited and, wherever possible, using extreme examples as if they were the norm. of course whenever the jewish community was mentioned, it was invariably accompanied by a shot of someone strictly orthodox – small boys with giant peyot, or behatted, abundantly bearded, penguinish yeshiva bochurs staring through bottle-top glasses. as we all know, all jews look just like that.

the jewish community yesterday, apparently

a salient example was that of the british humanist society researcher pulling out the “shocking” example of the jewish school that does 8 hours of “religious education” a week compared to 6 hours of science. i wonder which school it was? they didn’t say if it was a mainstream united synagogue school or a strictly-orthodox school, of course.

what the anti-faith-schoolers don’t seem to get is that in this “8 hours of religious education”, they’re *not teaching theology* or “how to be unscientific” – they’re teaching practical skills of language, textual analysis and interpretation. in this sense, the correct analogy is not between a “faith school” and a “secular school”, but between a “specialist school” and a “generalist school” – i don’t see dawkins jumping all over sylvia young because her schools devote 10 hours+ a week to performing arts compared to 6 hours of national curriculum science. these kids need to PRACTICE – and so do religious kids, whether they’re learning Qu’ran or Torah or gita or granth. most religion – and this is an area where the preponderance of christianity in this country distorts the debate – requires considerable grasp of both practical techniques and core knowledge, in the same way that you’d expect a specialist technology college to spend extra time on programming languages to an level of detail not matchable by a specialist modern languages college.

anyway, stereotypes apart, like most of the jewish people (and christians and muslims) i know, religious or not, faithschoolers or not, i do struggle with whether we’re doing enough to encourage critical thinking. and i think it is worth mentioning that, in my opinion, in general, we’re not, which is part of the reason that the kiruv and dawah organisations which are, as far as i’m concerned, the vanguard of clerical fascism, are gaining ground. whether pro- or anti- people don’t know enough about religion to make informed choices and, as a result, many are either accepting it for badly-thought-through, poorly-rationalised reasons, or seeking to have it eliminated for equally misguided reasons. there isn’t a strong enough voice saying that you can be both traditionally religious and a clear, critical thinker, or that even though you don’t believe something yourself you still think it has a role to play. and, in point of fact, i don’t hand over the programming of my kids’ minds to their school, to teach them “the correct way” to think, that has to be my responsibility as a parent as well. part of the problem with the faith schools debate, it seems to me, is that focusing on theology and the problems with critical thinking misses why faith schools are really needed – it isn’t to teach them to “think correctly”, it is to teach them the skills to live in that particular community, which are time-consuming to learn, the same way as if you wanted to grow up to be an orchestra player, you’d need to go to music lessons and spend a lot of extra time practicing in order to be able to perform to the required standard. because christianity does not, generally, require these sorts of skills (say, for example, latin and greek, or scholastic argumentation) it is a lot harder to say how they clearly add value, other than that by all the motivated parents competing to get in increases the performance of the school – i think it might in fact be just another variety of the hawthorn effect.

getting back to the main point about the critical thinking deficit, however, i think a major part of critical thinking is the ability to debate with people of differing opinions. this, i feel, is typified by the current debate over free speech and offence. i analyse the issue and i see a continuum, starting with unintentional offence, going through intentional offence, through harassment to ultimately incitement to violence. it seems to me the debate is currently polarised between those who see all offence as tantamount to incitement to violence and those who see even incitement to violence as merely an expression of free speech. considering the vehemence with which my religion and ethnicity is attacked by the former and their apparent inability to comprehend the continuum connection, one might think that i would go to that opposite extreme – as indeed i have been accused of many times, when pointing out instances of jew-hatred and being told i was merely being hysterical. in fact, i am naturally far closer to faisal’s espousal of the “fry/hitchens standard”, if you like – “so you’re offended? so fecking what?”, as i believe in free speech. my difficulty is where the line should be drawn, which needs a far more nuanced perception than i can currently bring to the debate.

an excellent example of the challenges of critical thinking is currently being debated at harry’s place and elsewhere in this intellectual neighbourhood of the blogosphere between edmund standing and others:

“why would anyone want to take books that manifestly do make assertions about ultimate reality and give clear commands about how humans should behave, the punishments they should incur for thinking or behaving differently, and so on, and then delude themselves and others into thinking that actually those books don’t say what they clearly do say, or attempt to ‘reinterpret’ those books in a way obviously at variance with their intended meaning?”

in other words, if someone says “kill the bastards”, he means “kill the bastards”, not “engage them in debate” – and you should take that statement at face value. the trouble is, mr standing, that *isn’t the way we do it in judaism* (and, i would argue, not the way many people do it in islam) – we take challenging statements like that as a jumping off point, assuming that there is more to the basic statement than meets the eye. it is, for us, clearly established by the talmudic debate about the “oven of akhnai” (BT baba metzia 59b) that human interpretation has the power to overrule a “voice from the heavens”, but our *authority* to do this is derived from the Torah’s plain meaning: “it is not in heaven” (deuteronomy 30) – in other words, that it is for us to interpret how the Text should be interpreted, that’s how it’s designed in the first place, not as an instruction manual free from ambiguity. jewish texts are based on cardinal principles of interpretative methodology and it is understanding how these work that constitutes a large part of the training that jewish children undergo when they are understanding their texts. i would go so far as to say that you can see the difference between people with this training and people without it is abundantly evident from the attitudes of, say, your average bible-belt christian and those of your averagely educated student of jewish law – the latter would not consider carrying out a punishment from leviticus, or even suggesting that it should be carried out as stated in the plain text without the full range of checks, balances and protective safeguards detailed in hundreds of folio pages of Talmud, commentaries and halakhah, under the precise circumstances in which such conditions apply. yet what some people seem to object to is interpretations based on simplistic misunderstandings. the objection then is:

“We don’t look at the work of medieval cartographers and then try to ‘reinterpret’ their maps so they fit with modern understandings of geography.”

well, no, but this isn’t a physical phenomenon here, it’s a legal framework, so its application is always going to be a matter of interpretation. i really don’t see what’s so hard to understand about that – but nonetheless, i don’t see an authoritative argument being made in return for the benefit of those who might not understand why interpretation is important; G!D Forbid, someone might think that that’s what those texts actually mean, or that G!D actually Wants us to behave like bronze age maniacs, when nothing could be further from the truth.

r. jonathan sacks once said, in conversation with john humphrys i believe, that the Torah seeks to teach us to learn to think for ourselves; initially, like a parent, G!D Chastises us and then Picks us up – but there is an expectation that we learn, over time, to pick ourselves up and eventually, not to fall over in the first place. i would argue that developing critical thinking is a salient example of precisely that and that the Commandment to do so is itself a Divine Mandate – so objections such as this:

“In every other area of human thought and writing, we turn to the latest, most advanced ideas, not to the primitive ideas of men of the past.”

should be shown as the red herrings they are. of course, this objection is foreseen:

“There is absolutely no rational basis for ‘reinterpreting’ ancient texts to make them appear relevant to today, nor any objective criteria for how this should be carried out, or to what extent such texts should be ‘liberally’ reinterpreted.”

but why should such criteria be objective? do we demand objective criteria against which to measure the Torah? do we demand that the world be judged against the Torah’s criteria? no, we do not – by the Torah’s own command. nor do we always demand a “liberal” interpretation. the point is that the giants of Torah throughout history to the modern era have always provided for the best of modernity to be understood, whether as “the wisdom of the nations” or as “Torah and wisdom”, but this perspective is in danger from the tendency to look inwards, to assume we have all the answers, from fear and suspicion of the outside world. simply to assert that “it’s not a valid question”, or that “it comes from an impure source” is not going to cut it in the long-term, whether or not you’re able to control the sources of people’s knowledge; and, if this is what is sought, it is both immoral and contrary to the justice that the Torah commands us in the most emphatic terms to pursue.

we need to understand and respond to these questions and attacks as a bona fide challenge, as if they were asked in an open-minded way – because regardless of whether the people conducting the public polemic are open-minded or not, similar questions will always be asked from “inside the camp” – and not to be able to address them effectively will prove the case of the public polemicists.

recently, i gave up posting on pickled politics, partly because of the level of personal animosity i was facing, but mostly just in frustration at my apparent inability to get my point across. now, i suppose i have nobody very much to blame for that apart from myself, but i’ve never felt that was a problem before now. now, i think i’m starting to work out what it is that is bothering me; certainly, it’s not about the denizens of one blog, or even the blogosphere, or even the media. it’s not any one set of views, not any one person, but a set of trends, a collective movement i sense in wider society.

one of the things i like about the spittoon and my co-contributors is that they take a robust approach towards the cosy relationship between the left and the various apologists for, supporters of and partisans of islamist extremism. they take, of course, an equally dim view of other forms of clerical fascism, whether it be jewish, christian, or hindu, although, of course, we are often excoriated for not writing sufficiently on these subjects. and why is that? well, the answer that “they’re not as big a problem” simply won’t do. clearly, the activities of the likes of rss/shiv sena in india, or hardcore fundamentalists in the american south ultimately affect all of us. for me personally, the behaviour of both the extreme west bank settlers and that of rejectionist ultra-orthodoxy evokes both profound heartache and deep anger – just as the “as-a-jew” clique that only appear as jews in order to display their preening self-importance whenever an opportunity to attack israel arises. however, i would nonetheless argue that, from the perspective of wider UK society, these concerns are less immediate, in that these groups have no meaningful accommodation with either our government or the UK media, however influential they may be in the communities they come from. what bothers me, really, is what the effects of ongoing and intensifying fundamentalism on me, my family and community and wider society – in this, locally speaking, islamists are in the vanguard, as the leading proponents and practitioners of violence against my community specifically and, generally, against UK civil society.

the question inevitably arises – who’s really worse? well, i think i would on balance come down in favour of the idea that wherever a particular group becomes influential and the closer they come to the levers of power, the more of a problem they are in a particular country. thus, in the UK, the utterly misguided, racism-of-lower-expectations the-west-is-ultimately-responsible-for-everything-bad-y’know attitude has allowed the entryism of islamist organisations and sympathisers everywhere from the police to government to the left-wing media. but would it be any different anywhere else? i expect not – militant fundamentalist christians are busily inching closer to the levers of power in washington, india has had already had one bjp government and i think we’re all aware of the subversion of mainstream democracy and the processes of civil society in israel by the religious parties and the settler lobby. we’ve got a lot of muslim fundamentalists here in the UK and, in a profound act of ignorance and credulity, we’ve allowed islamic education to be systematically outsourced to salafi and wahhabi dawa organisations for a generation, with entirely predictable results – i think we can say the same of many european countries, although i would fall well short of the apocalyptic and hysterical “eurabia” scenario – in fact, i’d be more worried personally about the behaviour of the catholic party in poland led by an anti-semitic priest and any prospective alliance of a russian political party with the orthodox church – not trend anyone jewish can afford to ignore.

of course, in europe particularly, this isn’t the first time we’ve been here. there was of course an “enlightenment”, which consisted in large part of reaction against the authoritarianism of various forms of christianity, whether by trying to eliminate it altogether and replace it with a sort of ersatz state paganism, as in france, or whether to regulate it as a sort of national industry, as in germany and scandinavia, or whether to simply satirise and philosophise it into a manageable social pressure and community support lobby, as in britain. the enlightenment taught that religion was nothing but a corrupt power structure which only the mad, the bad and the deluded would indulge. as we also know, removing religion simply forced the mad, the bad and the deluded to find other channels for their unpleasant attitudes and activities. we still see this outdated and reductionist position being reinvented for modern times using all the tools of modern cultural influence, from popular science to childrens’ books to comedy. religious people are portrayed as knaves or fools. there appears to be no middle ground, no compromise possible – religion must be rooted out, cleansed and exterminated.

of course, we’ve been there before too – modern fundamentalism, as karen armstrong (before she started to become part of the problem by sucking up to the goons at MPAC-UK) pointed out in her still masterful study of fundamentalism “the battle for G!D” evolved largely as a reaction against the enforced, clumsy and often brutal imposition of modernity on societies all around the world. the fundamentalisms we have today have reached their current forms because of the political, technological and social realities of the societies in which they evolved. their priorities and obsessions are driven by the battles they originally fought, against pluralism, liberalisation of dress, behaviour, increased social equality (or inequality), against practically irreversible geopolitical realities, against the aftereffects of wars and economic dislocation. those who give aid and comfort to fundamentalists are inevitably picking and choosing where they have shared priorities and obsessions – anti-imperialism, anti-abortion, anti-homosexuality, anti-israel, social breakdown, the emancipation of women, the legacy of slavery – but they are always at odds with fundamental features of the societies they criticise.

what i see developing, however, is a sort of multi-lateral polarisation in which the first casualty is moderation, the second is tolerance and the third is social consensus. the effects of this, however, touch all of us, but the effects are peculiarly corrosive on those of us who are able to combine amd integrate reason and religion and deal with the subtleties of creation, revelation and evolution. we are frequently at odds with obscurantists and bigots within our faith, but we are now fighting a rearguard defence against anti-religious forces, without any letup in the attack on reasonableness, complexity and dialogue that continues from reactionary fanatics. both sides, naturally, accuse us of giving aid and comfort to the other in its mission to destroy them – if we’re not with them, we’re against them – and no prisoners will be taken.

so, on one hand, we have the forces of militant anti-religion mounting attacks on everything from headgear to faith schools, on the other we have the walls of the ghetto being built anew, only with gun-ports this time. we can also see the social contract of the enlightenment renewed; previously, the deal was “give up your difference and you’ll get rights as a citizen” – this time, it’s “you’ve abused your rights as a citizen, we can no longer tolerate your differences”. the behaviour of religious fanatics, in their quest to dominate their own communities, has destroyed the delicate balance which allowed religion to be an integrated part of civil society. naturally, comes the response: they want all or nothing? fine – let them have nothing. but what of those of us who always wanted to co-exist? who prize our cultural and spiritual distincitiveness? oh no, distinctiveness is still allowed – but religion will no longer be a valid reason for it. diversity in sexuality, gender, disability, intelligence, talent, wealth – all these are permitted, but not religion. we are offered the choice – everything or nothing. well, we want neither.

i refuse to hide in the ghetto. i contribute to this society. i work. i pay my taxes. i don’t walk about naked, nor do i hide my face from the world. i will not assimilate, nor will i act as if i am living in another country or another century. i refuse to eat foods that are forbidden to me and i refuse to forbid those foods to others who may want them. i refuse to give up the sabbath, the festivals, the Torah and my other sacred texts – and i refuse to impose my vision of them on those who do not share my perspective. if i am attacked, i will defend myself. if i am insulted, i will respond in kind. i am not looking for a fight, but i will not shrink from one. i will not allow others to define what i am. the search for social consensus has been a long and painful one – and now it has been destroyed again, by the hubris and arrogance of religious and anti-religious fanatics. i do not know if we can put the pieces back together again, but there has to be a basis for us to live together – both enforced segregation and enforced assimilation are fascistic responses.

judaism has always been not so much a culture or a religion as it has been a 3000+ year-old argument. there is nothing so boring as loads of people violently agreeing with each other – except perhaps two groups of people refusing to concede anything that the other is saying has any value or validity. the counter-enlightenment is in full swing, without any sign that it has learnt anything from the enlightenment.

a reptilian overlord yesterday

anyway, we’ve had boobquake, gayquake and immorality-inspired flooding so, predictably, our new icelandic friend eyjafjallajökull has been pressed into surface for this purpose, proving variously that:

1. we should never have turned on that large hadron collider

2. iceland is being too tolerant of neo-paganism and europe of gay rights

3. G!D Disapproves of “obamacare”

4. people are having a go at the pope

5. aliens (or satan) are doing space paintings with ufos

6. G!D Disapproves of the british advertising standards authority ruling that the israeli tourist board can’t show the western wall as part of israel, because they’ve never taken the trouble to annex the Temple mount.

and my personal favourite:

7. the iron core engine of the planet is today becoming reenergized by the huge magnetic force field of the incoming twin binary dark star to our solar system (called “nibiru” in ancient sumer, or “nemesis the destroyer”)

personally, my money’s on deepak chopra’s laxatives.

“Do Anglicans, even moderates, really think of G!D as a sexless being? I was under the impression that most moderate religious people still think of G!D as male. People could use the singular ‘they’ and refer to a ‘parent’ if they were really that bothered.”

i think she could with some justice aim this question at judaism, but it is, nonetheless, a bit of an old chestnut. the best way i can answer it is that in the same way that we deal with anthropomorphism in the text: G!D Isn’t male any more than G!D Has a “hand”, or a “back”, G!D Forbid. when the Text speaks in these terms, it is only to be understood as the way *we* understand the interaction, not the *actual reality* – hence, when we speak of G!D as “Father” or “King”, these are merely the interactions and relevant relationships that are being described, not the Ultimate Reality of the Divine. by the same token, a number of incredibly important Divine Names and interaction/relationships are *female*, such as “E-L ShaDaY”, which comes from the word ShaDaYiM (breasts) and “Ha-RaHaMaN”, which comes the word ReHeM (womb), not to mention the considerable symbology of the Divine Feminine in kabbalah around the SheKhiNaH (Divine Presence) and “Matronit” and the male-female interrelationships actually *within* the G!DHead. one might also mention the idea that the “community of israel” is synonymous with G!D’s “bride” on some level, so that would require one of us to be “male” and the other “female” in that particular situation.

“And then there’s Jesus – no-one could lead themselves to believe he was genderless. Judaism has Moses, Islam has Mohammed – all these prophets are male. How does a person get around that one?”

perhaps by mentioning the seven major jewish prophetesses, sarah, miriam, deborah, hannah, abigail, huldah and esther – (talmudic reference: BT megillah 14a)? according to the great authority rashi, rebecca, rachel and leah should also be included.

a more serious criticism, i believe, is the following:

“If one accepts and follows traditions without question purely on the basis that they are traditions, this leaves the door wide open for all kinds of nasty things. In general, it silences and disables those who disagree with the traditions and would like to do things differently. It’s those ‘harmless’ traditions which can make people feel stifled and like there’s only one right way to do things. At the very least, they discourage creativity, critical thinking and independence.”

this is certainly a position with which we at the spittoon can identify – certainly within judaism (and, i and others would argue, within islam as well) the idea that there is One True Way Of Doing Stuff is a corrosive and oppressive idea not borne out by a truly insightful examination of the texts involved. however, the accompanying analysis is flawed:

“One can usually assess how harmless a tradition is by examining what the penalties are, if any, of not following it. In your example, I would imagine that a Jewish/Muslim pork-eater would face many negative reactions from their community, plus residual religious guilt, and that this is probably the real reason why they ‘like following the tradition’.”

now, this might be a perfectly adequate summary of how the uneducated “feel” about the law in question, in fact, the penalty in halakhah is the indication of exactly how important the principle incurring the penalty is in the first place. in fact, halakhically, the penalty is thirty-nine lashes, a comparatively light penalty compared to breaking shabbat, which is a stoning offence. now, before you get all bent out of shape on how unpleasant it is to get lashed, you’d have to also consider the standard of evidence, which required five further tests before the lashes could be administered:

1. the pork-eating in question would have to be done in front of two kosher witnesses (many, many difficulties in establishing what one of these looks like)
2. the two witnesses would need to have absolutely no discrepancy in their statements.
3. the pork-eater would have to receive a warning from the witnesses that by so doing, he would incur a penalty of lashes.
4. the pork-eater would have to respond that he had understood the warning and the penalty, reiterating precisely what they both were.
5. the eating would then have to occur within 3 seconds of this response.

incidentally, to be binding, the verdict would also have to be handed down by a properly constituted and duly authorised religious court – and there hasn’t been such a court for approximately 1500 years, but considering the re-establishment of such courts is a religious duty, i personally would prefer to rely on the other safeguards. even so, i hope you can see from the standard required that anyone who actually meets it is clearly out to make a point. oh, and, incidentally, if you ran away before the verdict was carried out, you couldn’t be re-arrested. in such a case, the negative feeling from your community is likely to be the only sanction.

another interesting challenge is made here:

“To what extent, for a religious person, is their holy book really their holy book, if they disregard most of its teachings (or haven’t even read it all the way through)?”

for jews, as we were born into a covenantal relationship, we are as subject to it as to the laws of the country we were born into. the same obtains with UK law. presumably amy’s not suggesting that i’m not obliged to follow the regulations of her majesty’s revenue collectors despite the fact that i may never have read them or heard of their provisions? by the same token:

“To align oneself with a movement, an organisation, that one disagrees with at least in part, knowing that in doing so you are giving it power – numbers at least, and in many cases, money too?”

i am not sure how this is different from being a citizen of a country whose policies you may or may not agree with – you’ve still got to pay your taxes.

as part of this discussion, i analysed deuteronomy 22:29 in its context. this provoked a number of further responses including:

“Regarding the Deuteronomy verse (22:29), it says that ’she shall be his wife, because he hath humbled her’ – humbled? That’s rather chilling, no? Is that a mistranslation too?”

not only that, but it is also misrepresenting what the text says, which is ‘AiNah” – “forced”, but not in a *physically* violent way, as in verse 25, more in such a way as to give her no choice but to marry him. i would say that this represents bringing about a marriage by “putting the woman in a compromising position”; if you know pride and prejudice, it’s what wickham does to lydia bennet to get money out of the family; he has to be bribed to marry her. the Torah is trying here to prevent the woman becoming unmarriageable; there is nothing to say that she can’t *then* divorce *him* (after betrothal and before final marriage), thus retaining her autonomy and a hefty divorce payout; it is just that *he* is forever prevented from divorcing *her*, not the other way around. i would understand this verse as a face-saving exercise.

amy then goes on to say:

“Regardless of whether rape occurred or it was ‘just sex’, isn’t it a bit sexist to generally suggest that it’s okay to buy a woman in this way?”

now, i’m not sure you can really project your attitude back to the bronze age as if human values and relationships have always been the same; i mean, that is the same sort of point of view that would reduce shakespeare’s “merchant of venice” to simple antisemitism. the initial audience of the Torah (as opposed to G!D) wouldn’t really understand what you’re getting at here. the thing is, you aren’t “buying a woman”; you’re contracting for procreative services, as it were, which can only be done by ensuring exclusivity on the woman’s part. the woman must enter into the contract without coercion and of her own free will and can exit it at her discretion on virtually any grounds (including bad breath) and is, for the duration of the contracted marriage, entitled to a statutory level of maintenance (and alimony), clothing, housing and sexual satisfaction, breach of which by the husband is, needless to say, grounds for divorce. this quite simply was revolutionary within the context in which the Torah was given; not only in that the woman had to agree, but that she maintained her rights, her property and right of cancellation. in fact, it compares positively to modern civil law in most respects – most people agree that merely falling in love is a rather worse basis for marriage than shared values and clear responsibilities on both sides! both sides contribute assets – the wife’s contribution is *not* a dowry, but her reproductive capabilities, hence:

“(Following your interpretation, it’s a bit like having to pay for something you broke in a shop – fair enough if it’s a vase, but a person? Why does having sex make you a broken person?)”

well, it doesn’t, nor is this implied, although permit me to observe, tongue-in-cheek, that most of us would pay more for new underpants than for second-hand. the statutory levels, in any case, are nominal – in reality, these would in the past have been negotiated, in the case of a woman who had emancipated herself from her father (or previous husband by divorce or widowhood) possibly by the woman herself. and there’s more:

“If God is a supremely knowledgeable being, with ultimate powers, and is perfectly good and moral, why couldn’t he send a clear message – even in the bronze age – that women are people, not property?”

the same reason that G!D also didn’t send the clear message “don’t drive on the wrong side of the road” – it wouldn’t have made sense at the time, only now. the clarity would in fact have been precisely the opposite.

“What stopped him from telling these citizens in no uncertain terms that it’s okay for women to have sex, they don’t have to be virgins until they’re married, and it’s not right to buy and sell them?”

the fact that this wasn’t a student dorm at berkeley, it was bronze age canaan – and if you hopped behind a bush with someone, you’d be liable to end up with your throat slit, or sold into slavery, thus precipitating a blood feud; it wasn’t like there was a police force and cctv; this was the wild fecking west! people took what they could get and, like it or not, if a woman didn’t have protection from a father, guardian or husband, she might be fair game, unless she stayed within the protection of the law. to be honest, this feels somewhat anachronistic reasoning, based on a very different axiomatic substructure, as the following statement identifies:

“I find it quite convenient that you’re explaining away misogyny as mistranslation, and contradictions as just not knowing the ‘right’ context of the verses in question. You seem to be taking it as your a priori assumption that there can’t possibly be any real inconsistency in the texts, there can’t possibly be any real misogyny. Why not? Why can’t there be?”

the answer to this is that if, axiomatically, one believes, as i do, that the Torah is a Divine document, any inconsistency in the texts is there to teach us something and the basis of traditional methodologies is the ability to identify the root cause of the inconsistency in order to illustrate the teaching point concerned. this has certainly been our approach as long as we can remember -and, more to the point, this is documented quite a long way back. secondly, in the conception we have of G!D it would make no more sense for G!D to Be a “misogynist” than it would for G!D to have a “hand”, or to “be angry”; these things are simply expressions of how we experience what we interpret out of the text. we believe that G!D Expects us to behave with respect and compassion to each other, not to systematically disadvantage half the human race. now, obviously, if you have different assumptions, then these might include a priori that any statement in the Torah reflects bronze age sensibility and capability in terms of gender relations, science and critical reasoning and therefore there can’t possibly be any real lessons to be learned from it. on this i suspect i might have to differ from you, seeing as how our culture is based almost entirely on this document and in most respects is generally considered to have produced major leaders in each field who are also committed to some of the same assumptions about the document. this is not to say that they are all going to agree with each other all the time:

“Why is your ‘methodology’ necessarily going to result in a clear, unequivocal message?”

because it is based on a clear set of assumptions and underpinned by a unified philosophical structure – i’m not saying that this necessitates clarity and unequivocable messaging in all cases, because it doesn’t, but in the case of this particular verse, it clearly precludes certain interpretations such as “G!D Is a misogynist” as nonsensical. there are some other pertinent questions that obtain:

“On what do you base your faith in it?”

on the fact that this way of doing things has preserved the sole remaining diaspora culture of the ancient world through several millennia of unremitting and occasionally genocidal hostility. in other words, it works.

“How do you know that the eventual interpretation is right, in any case?”

the principle we test it against is “after the majority shall you incline” (exodus 23:2) but we *also* preserve minority opinions (BT bava metzia 59b) in case eventually they become majority.

“What do you check it against?”

it’s peer-reviewed. all jewish law has been aggressively picked apart, analysed, defended or amended on this basis. that is what the talmud documents.

“Then you say that two contradictory positions can both be the word of the ‘living god’? How is that even possible – how can a creator of the universe not make his mind up?”

of course – but “it is not in heaven” (deuteronomy 30:10), so we are told we have to work it out for ourselves, on the authority of the Torah itself, so the majority opinion came down on one side at that time. G!D may well Have an opinion, but in the famous talmudic debate of the “oven of achnai” (the reference given above) the majority decision was to say “bugger off, G!D, this is a human decision now, You Said so in the Torah”.

“Not be 100% clear about his message? Do you not find it slightly odd that all this interpretation is necessary?”

no, we find it incredibly empowering that we are being treated like grown-ups responsible for our own actions, not children with no sense of right or wrong.

“Why doesn’t God reiterate his message and clear things up? Hasn’t he got the power to do this?”

well, yes, obviously, but during the “oven of achnai” debate, the position of the majority was “we do not make legal decisions on the basis of Divine Voices from Heaven”.

we still haven’t quite got to the bottom of the equality debate here, however:

“When I talk about a sense of equality, I am talking about equality between men and women – e.g. what is it that leads you to know that stoning a woman to death for not being a virgin is wrong? Would you only know that it’s wrong if you’d read all the scriptures? Or would you know that it’s wrong based on your own empathy and reasoning? I would argue the latter, seeing as I know it’s wrong, and I haven’t read all the scriptures or engaged in textual interpretation.”

i would argue that the case that you are basing it on your own “empathy and reasoning” alone is not a strong argument. nobody grows up in a vacuum. you have these attitudes because you developed them, based on your upbringing. i would argue that you *have* been influenced indirectly by them because they have influenced the society you grew up in. i can even point to the bit of Torah that it comes from: “you shall love the stranger [person who is different from yourself] for you were strangers in egypt” (leviticus 19:34) nor am i saying that my own reasoning is inoperative – obviously, i needed to use it to apply the verse to this situation, similarly the sages needed to apply it in order to get the relevant safeguards in place to prevent it happening unless it really, really, really, REALLY applied. if you’re going to do something as drastic as stoning a woman to death for not being a virgin, you’d better be really sure that’s what the text says – and that what the text says applies to this EXACT situation.

“This is what I’m talking about. A religious person reads such a horrendous verse, thinks ‘That can’t be right’ and proceeds to delve more deeply into the scriptures to find some way of justifying it.”

i don’t really understand why this should be so wrong – it is the way the Torah does thought experiments; under what circumstances might such a penalty apply? what might justify it in *practice*? are you sure? are you really, really sure? what principle is being upheld? that’s not the same as “justifying” it – you can’t be “justifying” it if you end up effectively prohibiting it, which was the actual effect – but then again, you wouldn’t know that if you didn’t know the proper context for Torah, which is as the written component of jewish law, not as a copy of “gender relations for dummies”, which is how it is so often abused by literalist protestants and bible-bashers in particular.

“I doubt that a person starts reading scriptures and then concludes ‘Well whaddaya know? Stoning women is immoral!’”

i agree – and so do the sages! although there are more morally complex issues in the Torah than this one.

amy is also good enough to address a criticism i make of her that she is generalising about religious people:

“Sure, not all religious people follow their religion in exactly the same way, but they do believe in a god/gods, and their holy texts do mean something to them. These are the two aspects of religion that I critique in my piece, and they appear to me to be pretty universal among the faithful. The rest is a critique of the arguments used by religious feminists to defend the misogyny in their holy texts, and examples of religiously-inspired misogyny. What is it that I’m generalising about? What is it exactly that you object to?”

well, i suppose what i object to is the implication that religious feminists are “defending misogyny”, because as i have attempted to show, i don’t think the misogyny is there either in intent or in application – except by people who really don’t understand either the text concerned, or who don’t follow an acceptable standard of textual interpretation. i accept that it *could* result in misogyny, because it *has* – but human beings do get things wrong from time to time and Torah is not easy.

anyway, i hope this is not too irrelevant and that there are enough interesting nuggets here for the conversation to continue here; certainly i would encourage people to take a look at the original piece.

Psychologist Sam Gosling analyzed the Facebook profiles of 236 college-aged people, who were also asked to fill out personality questionnaires. The study, which will be published in an upcoming issue of the journal Psychological Science, included surveys that were designed to assess not only how study participants viewed themselves in reality, but also what their personalities would be like if they had all of their ideal traits. Specifically Gosling and colleagues measured openness, agreeableness, conscientiousness, extraversion and neuroticism. And when they sized up the survey results against participants’ Facebook profiles, it quickly became clear that, instead of putting out gilded versions of themselves, people’s online profiles were in keeping with what they were actually like in real life.

Not all personality traits transfer equally to the internet, however, Gosling points out. While extroverts are consistent, whether in person or on Facebook, nueroticism is more evident in person than it is online. For the most part, however, Gosling suggests that online profiles—which some 700 million people around the globe currently have—are relatively accurate depictions of personality, either because their owners intend for them to be, or because people are trying, but failing, to present an idealized version of themselves. In what will likely strike a chord with Facebook devotees, he concludes that, instead of presenting a false alternative social world online, social networking sites are simply another medium for sincere social interactions. (In other words, if you’re a jerk in real life, you’ll be one on Facebook too.)

And that, it seems, is reflected in blog comments too.

good luck to him, i say – he deserves our support. unfortunately, i believe the whereabouts of the courageous and farsighted iranian blogger hossein derakhshan still remain unknown. i wonder if we’ll ever see the guy again?

Yusuf Smith, a white convert to Islam who runs the popular blogistan website under the pseudonym of ‘Indigo Jo’, wrote an extraordinary blog last week in which he states that converts to Islam who then renounce Islam have ‘no excuse’.

Writing about some western Muslim women who recently left Islam after their involvement in the Kharabsheh Sufi community in Jordan, Smith wrote:

“The theme of someone leaving Islam after coming to associate it with a particularly unpleasant or rigid variant is not new – the essay The Wahhabi who Loved Beauty gives an example from Saudi Arabia – but it’s not an excuse at the end of the day; a person may be forgiven for it if it’s temporary, but at the end of the day accepting Truth is a duty and this means accepting that the extreme behaviour of one group is not the same as Islam itself.”

I’m sorry but what on earth does Yusuf mean when he writes:

“it’s not an excuse at the end of the day; a person may be forgiven for it if it’s temporary, but at the end of the day accepting Truth is a duty”

I’d like to think that Smith is simply saying that a person will not be forgiven by God if they leave Islam (such views are common, if slightly unpleasant, and are held by most religions and their followers). However, his phrase “it’s not an excuse at the end of the day” is certainly ambiguous if not worse. People who wish to change their beliefs do not need “an excuse”.

Smith’s other assertion that “accepting truth is a duty” is even more unclear and is arguably even potentially sinister. Individual human beings do not have “a duty” to accept any beliefs whatsoever whether this in the fields of religious beliefs, politics, geography, physics, economics or anything else. Why then does Smith think that any person has a “duty” to believe in Islam?

Needless to say, Smith was recently given a platform by the Radical Middle Way, a government-funded ‘counter-extremism’ outfit, that looks increasingly drawn towards the “radical” rather than the “middle way”.

She wrote,

Last weekend the BNP’s annual shindig ‘Red, White and Blue’ took place in a small town in Derbyshire. Reports said that the number of attendees was only marginally more than the number of anti-fascist protesters who congregated outside the gate. Unfortunately, these anti-BNP protesters soon became violent – leading to a total of 19 protesters being arrested. Although it is good to see ordinary people protesting against the BNP, such protests become ineffective when they descend into thuggery and hooliganism. Just a week earlier, for example, violent clashes erupted between the English Defence League and Unite Against Fascism in Birmingham, leading to bottles, sticks and banners thrown, and brought police in riot gear onto the streets.

Bob, however, wilfully distorts Lucy’s words by cutting off that final sentence.

“Unfortunately, these anti-BNP protesters soon became violent – leading to a total of 19 protesters being arrested. Although it is good to see ordinary people protesting against the BNP, such protests become ineffective when they descend into thuggery and hooliganism.”

Lucy James, research fellow at the Quilliam Foundation, writes at Progress Online, 18 August 2009

No other account has alleged “thuggery and hooliganism” on the part of anti-BNP protestors at Codnor, so far as I’m aware. The worst that was reported was “minor scuffles” as some demonstrators tried to push through police lines.

Lucy did not allege the existence of “thuggery and hooliganism” at the Derbyshire protests, she was alleging its existence at the Birmingham protests. “Thuggery and hooliganism” was documented there by a multitude of sources so this crude attempt to discredit Quilliam (Bob concludes his article saying “How much lower can the creeps at Quilliam sink?”) completely fails to convince. Not least because even anti-fascist magazine Searchlight shares Lucy’s concerns.

[W]e also have to change our tactics on the streets. The hammer attack on a BNP activist in Leigh, Greater Manchester, in March was an unmitigated disaster. When we learnt about the BNP’s intention to hold a fundraising event in a local nightclub we got almost 5,000 people, including 400 from the local area, to sign an open letter from a local vicar calling for the event to be cancelled. Our pressure proved successful but what should have been a great media story, showing the strength of people power against the BNP, became three days of appallingly negative local headlines after an anti-fascist struck a BNP member in the head with a hammer. [...]

There is also a need for an honest debate about the use of rallies, marches and pickets. While one could argue that it is important continually to oppose the BNP gaining any legitimacy, such protests are increasingly ineffective and, probably more importantly, a distraction from the real work required in the communities.

But Bob is not concerned with the finer points of anti-fascist tactics; he just wants to attack Lucy and her employers, Quilliam. If he were genuinely concerned with beating the BNP then he would’ve mentioned what makes up the majority of Lucy’s article, discussion of her new paper dismantling the BNP’s attacks on Islam.

Violence is not the answer to countering the BNP. The BNP is best opposed through a systematic deconstruction of their slurs against ethnic and religious minorities. In a paper entitled In Defence of British Muslims: A response to BNP racist propaganda [pdf], I aimed to do just that. Since about 2006, particularly post-7/7, the BNP has consciously changed their rhetoric from being anti-Asian, -Black and -Jewish, to being ardently anti-Muslim. Released last week, the paper takes 10 of the key accusations thrown against Islam and British Muslims by the BNP, and points out their intellectual inconsistencies and factual weaknesses. Rather than simply dismissing the BNP’s ideology as racist or bigoted (an approach which the BNP’s steady popularity proves is not working), there needs to be a greater focus on intellectually undermining and countering their arguments.

Which would’ve been the end of the affair, but then Inayat Bunglawala jumped into the ring. Crediting Islamophobia Watch with first pointing this issue out, Bungle’s iEngage today also published an article under the title Quilliam accuses anti-BNP protestors of ‘thuggery and hooliganism’.

The way to challenge the BNP’s anti Muslim racism is certainly through a sustained, fact based critique of its wildly false ideas on Islam and Muslims and its exaggerated anti Muslim scaremongering, as Lucy James claims. But that would require an interest in accuracy and facts, something QF’s James appears to have lost sight of in her portrayal of anti fascist demonstrators in Codnor.

Laughably, Bungle seems completely unaware of Lucy’s “sustained, fact based critique” of the BNP and instead reiterates Bob’s flaky arguments which were based on a misunderstanding (and misquoting) of what Lucy wrote.

Bob and Bungle, what a pair. So desperate to attack Quilliam that they can’t even be bothered to read to the end of Lucy’s 614 word article. If they had bothered to do so then they would’ve realised that, far from slandering the name of anti-fascist protesters, she has put together a devastating attack on the BNP. She deserves applause, not condemnation.

******************

Where to begin with all this? While I unravel the issues here I implore you, gentle reader, to persevere. It gets good. Trust me.

Muhammad Idrees Ahmad is a snotty paranoiac doing a PhD at the University of Strathclyde. In his own words he is currently ‘researching the role of lobbies, think tanks and foundations in furnishing the propaganda for the war in Iraq’.

Now then, the crackpot theories of an overworked and undersexed postgrad do not usually merit much attention. But then, I discovered that Idrees has been going around compiling ‘wiki’ pages on all my friends for his new website ‘Neocon Europe’. It is the invasive nature in which he sought out that information that first brought him to my attention. The website supposedly aims to:

help people find out more about the Neoconservative networks operating in Europe. It is an attempt to monitor and publicise the sometime covert and not always visible activities of Neoconservatives attempting to internationalise their movement.

The problem is, they brand almost everyone from Martin Bright and Sunder Katwala to Irving Kristol and Leo Strauss a ‘neocon’. Almost all my friends have a wiki there. Idrees was behind most of them.

So I decided to look into the background of my new friend. After all, if Idrees is so keen to shine the spotlight on the rest of us – maybe we should shine it right back.

First, a brief bio: Muhammad Idrees Ahmad was born in Pakistan’s North-West Frontier Province. He likes to think of himself as a musician, writer and traveller and is also a lecturer at the Universities of Strathclyde, Glasgow and Stirling.

Last year he ostensibly reviewed a book called ‘Voice of Hezbollah: The Statements of Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah’ while actually offering us a remarkable insight into his own thinking on the matter. His piece, titled ‘there will be blood’ starts by explaining that Nasrallah is important because he ‘restored dignity and trust’ to the ‘Arab mind’. With Nasrallah Hezbollah has evolved:

…from its ragtag origins to [become] the world’s most effective resistance movement, twice defeating the vaunted Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) in battle. As a testament to [Nasrallah’s] intelligence and organization skills, Hizbullah has also developed an efficient and extensive social service network…

He goes on to tell us:

The modest Shia cleric is a living legend in the mostly Sunni Middle East.

For Idrees, Nasrallah is not a terrorist. Of course not. Firing rockets into Israel? Calling for the extermination of its people? It’s all just a misunderstanding!

Hizbullah remains a largely misunderstood phenomenon in the West where media demonology often conflates Hizbullah with al-Qaeda and Nasrallah with Usama bin Laden.

And the reason for that Idrees tell us is because:

Few in Europe or the US have heard Nasrallah’s voice.

He might have a point there – I’m told Nasrallah does a wonderful rendition of Auld Lang Syne at the annual Hezbollah jamboree. But now this new book gives us a chance to hear from the ‘modest cleric’ directly, about which Idrees tells us:

Nasrallah’s pronouncements are invariably thoughtful, nuanced and carefully worded, eloquence rarely giving way to rhetoric. At times fiery, they remain grounded in fact, and adversaries often ignore his promises at their own peril.

The thing is, Idrees doesn’t just write for ‘Neocon Europe’ – he’s also involved with another equally absurd website called ‘Spin Profiles’ which:

catalogues descriptions and details of PR firms, activist groups and government agencies as well as the criticisms that are made of these groups from different perspectives.

And what does Idrees do at Spin Profiles, I hear you ask? Well, he’s the editor of the Israel Lobby Portal which aims to be:

your guide to networks of power, lobbying and deceptive PR.

That must come in pretty handy considering he delivered an ‘academic paper’ on – you guessed it – the ‘Israel lobby’ at the University of Strathclyde in the department of geography and sociology.

You see a pattern developing here, don’t you?

After ploughing through piles of rote rhetoric, I finally found an article where Idrees didn’t pontificate about some global Jewish conspiracy conducted through ‘lobby groups’.

This time he turned his hand to Darfur – one of the most brutal genocides of our time. In the ‘Darfur deception’ Idrees laments the lack of coverage given to African conflicts by the Western press. He notes Darfur as an exception and credits the ‘Save Darfur Coalition’ (SDC) for getting it onto the news agenda.

They’ve been so effective that Idrees concludes their:

advocacy has been central to turning this into the biggest mass movement in the United States since the anti-Vietnam mobilization, bigger than the anti-apartheid movement.

And just who is behind this sophisticated campaign Idrees?

The SDC was established in July 2004 through the combined efforts of the US Holocaust Memorial Museum and the American Jewish World Service.

Oh.

The apparent diversity of the SDC’s affiliates also obscures the fact that its agenda is mainly driven by Zionist organizations and the Christian Right.

But why Idrees, why?

Ned Goldstein has suggested in his investigation of the Zionist interests behind the SDC that Darfur is being deployed as a strategic distraction from Israeli crimes against the Palestinians

Aah, I see. All roads lead back to ‘that’ agenda, eh? Apparently so…

…the real interest of [the Save Darfur Coalition] is to perpetuate the conflict so as to continue using the image of the Arab as the perpetrator to distract from the regional reality of the Arab as the victim.

Got that? The Save Darfur Coalition wants to perpetuate the conflict!

What’s interesting is that Idrees says the US Holocaust Memorial Museum is involved in this SDC conspiracy. It completely shatters his hackneyed argument that he is ‘only anti-Zionist, not anti-Semitic’. Of course, the US Holocaust Memorial Museum has nothing to do with Zionism and simply marks one of the darkest chapters in world history – the systematic and institutionalised attempt at exterminating an entire people. The museum is therefore active in promoting awareness, and trying to prevent, new genocides today. To any reasonable person that makes perfect sense. To Idrees it’s all part of a global conspiracy.

Next, the young Idrees turns to the Iraq war which he tells us was:

formulated by a small group of unaccountable neoconservative political appointees and rammed through in the face of strong resistance from career civil and military professionals in the State and Defence departments. The architects of the war in the administration were Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle, who have no connections to the oil industry.

What, no oil connections?

Ritualistic denunciations of “Big Oil” are convenient and cost-free, and also eminently ineffective. Unless the real source of the war-agenda is identified and challenged, it is unlikely that the next war could be averted.

Ok, ok, so it’s not about oil. In that case, Idrees, any idea what could have possibly motivated them?

Their [Wolfowitz and Perle’s] devotion to Israel, however, is well established.

Silly me!

The same is true of Elliot Abrams and Douglas Feith, strong proponents of “Jewish Purity” and Israeli expansion and settlement policy…[they] cherry picked intelligence and used uncorroborated evidence to prepare talking points which were then passed on to the vice-Presidents office via Irving “Scooter” Libby – another Zionist zealot.

But how did they manage to wangle all that influence? Won’t you tell us Idrees?

Money plays an important role as close to 60% of the funds for the Democratic Party and 35% for the Republican Party come from pro-Israel Jews. But for every dollar spent, Israel receives $50 in aid.

Typical, eh? Those Jews don’t just run the world but also ensure a good return on investment.

Idrees is pretty much obsessed with Jews and Israel, a theme to which he returns with breathtaking regularity. He even signed this utterly bonkers petition:

We the undersigned ask Facebook to not allow users of Facebook who live in Jewish settlements in the West Bank to choose their country of residency so that it appears that they are from the State of Israel. Their resident status should be listed as what it is internationally recognized as: The Occupied Palestinian Territories.

While we’re on the topic of Facebook, that’s another place where Idrees tries to ‘educate’ those of us who just don’t realise that the whole world is run by a handful of powerful ‘lobbyists’. Even Obama has fallen for it:

[Obama] has offered the position of Chief of Staff to Rahm Emanuel, the son of an Irgun terrorist. Back in ’91 when the US was on its way to war with Iraq he volunteered for the military — not the US military, but the Israeli Occupation Force. This hardline Israel-firster also helped diminish the margins of the Democratic victory in 2006 by giving preference to pro war candidates over the more popular antiwar ones. Now he’ll be the gatekeeper for all Middle East policy, and the keys — once again — will be held by the Israel lobby.

It is also being suggested that Dennis Ross will get the State gig. This former AIPAC lobbyist had been accused by Aaron David Miller, one of his own Zionist surrogates, of behaving as ‘Israel’s lawyer’ in negotations over the Israel-Palestine conflict.

[...]

So, to sum up, while in the best US governments used to act as surrogates for Israeli interests. Now, Israeli interests are the US government.

Because that was taken from his Facebook page I can’t link to it – but you can click on this picture here for verification of what he wrote.

I think the Facebook groups Idrees has joined also reveal a lot about his politics. A brief glance through the 79 groups of which he’s a member reveals that he:

• Supports Osama Saeed – of Scottish Islamic Foundation fame
• Is a fan of the Iranian backed Press TV
• Is against sanctions on Iran
• Is a member of the “John Mearsheimer is my homeboy” group

But I digress. Idrees also thinks that the BBC has a

long tradition of relaying state propaganda while maintaining a veneer of respectability.

This was apparently evident during the Gaza conflict when, it was through sneaky ‘chicanery’ and:

…subtle – and not so subtle – manipulations of language that the BBC has shielded its audience from the ugly realities of Occupied Palestine. In the BBC’s reportage Palestinians ‘die’, Israelis are ‘killed’ (the latter implies agency, the former could have happened of natural causes); Palestinians ‘provoke’, Israelis ‘retaliate’; Palestinians make ‘claims’, Israelis declare. Schools, mosques, universities and police stations become ‘Hamas infrastructure’; militants ‘clash’ with F-16s and Apaches. ‘Terrorism’ is something Palestinians do, Israelis merely ‘defend’ themselves – invariably outside their borders. All debates, irrespective of fact or circumstance, are framed around Israel’s ‘security’. If the Apartheid wall is mentioned, it is in terms of its ‘effectiveness’.

Ok, so now that we know what’s really going on what should we do about it Idrees?

The [Israel] lobby, as one of its stalwarts colorfully put it, is like a “nightflower” which wilts in the sunlight. Those seeking justice for the Palestinians and accountability for the disastrous course of foreign and domestic policy under the lobby’s tutelage could do worse than to ensure constant sunlight.

Right, constant sunshine it is. Reviewing the sum total of Mohammed Idrees Ahmad’s writings (and there are many more not listed here) reveals him to be a poor man’s Asghar Bukhari; a rotten anti-Semite who sees conspiracy and intrigue everywhere.

There are several of these websites that Idrees is involved with. He loves to ‘watch’ people.

Just so you know Idrees – now we’re watching you sunshine.

The websites Idrees writes for are registered to Professor David Miller at the University of Strathclyde. More on him and his group of kooks later in the week.

“Veteran Islamophobe Martin Bright criticises MCB libel win”.

Martin was rightly upset with that slur observing:

“I object in the strongest terms to the way the insult  “Islamophobe” is thrown around so casually. It is essentially a charge of racism: the cheapest of shots and utterly without foundation”.

He was much too kind. The charge was not just without foundation – it was an outright lie. At the Observer, Martin mentored the headscarf wearing Fareen Alam. And, while he was Political Editor at the New Statesman regularly gave a voice to newly emerging Muslim voices including: Ed Husain, Shiraz Maher, and ‘Umm Mustafa’ (a pseudonym).

The Engage article nonetheless made a number of lazy accusations, one of which said:

“Bright himself is no stranger to making allegations against the MCB that play cavalier with the truth.”

This assertion was entirely unsubstantiated.

It had to be, because there is no evidence to support it. What really annoyed the bungling Bungles was that Martin exposed the Muslim Council of Britain in a series of sensational scoups based on leaked documents from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. His revelations lead to a shift in government policy resulting, in part, with the MCB losing favour with ministers. So, how could Engage claim that Bright was playing ‘cavalier with the truth’?

Well, they couldn’t. Instead, the accusation was quietly watered down, now saying:

“Bright himself is no stranger to making controversial allegations about the Qur’an, Muslims and the MCB”.

They also thought it would be wise to drop the rediculous charge of ‘Islamophobia’, changing the title of their article to:

“Martin ‘The Great Koran Con Trick’ Bright criticises MCB libel win”.

This is a glaring admission of guilt by Engage. Notably, however, they haven’t bothered to apologise to Martin. He should really insist on one, particularly as the bungling Bungles loves to sue and always insists on receiving an apology.

He should really be much more careful in future.

This sent certain individuals into a tailspin. Not because of what was suggested by the article (none of its many critics attempted a refutation of the points it made) but because its author had the audacity to pick on moderates. These critics missed the point. The post was not a bitter attempt to blacken the name of people doing good work, rather it sought to point out to a moderate organisation that some of its allies were letting the side down.

The point is, we all make mistakes. If we do not criticise our friends when they make mistakes then what do our values mean? If you disagree with the arguments made in any article at the Spittoon then you have an immediate right of reply in the comments (which largely go unmoderated) or, if you feel very strongly (and can string a few sentences together coherently), we’d be happy to give you a guest post. And if we have made any factual errors then we are always glad to correct them.

Which is a very long preface for the post I was intending to write.

The Home Office and FCO funded (pdf) Radical Middle Way describes itself as “a revolutionary grassroots initiative aimed at articulating a relevant mainstream understanding of Islam that is dynamic, proactive and relevant to young British Muslims.” Although it has had its wobbles in the past, this is pretty right on stuff. They organise events involving a variety of speakers including Abdal Hakim Murad (Timothy Winters). His excellent writings are available online. Also Tariq Ramadan and Usama Hasan. All of these speakers provide interesting and valuable contributions to a developing modern British/European Muslim identity. I would not want to detract from their efforts.

There are other speakers though, like Jamal Badawi and Kemal Helbawy.

Jamal Badawi often gives the impression of being a moderate, but there are legitimate doubts about his moderate credentials. Here he is trying to clear up misunderstandings about jihad and terrorism.

A military act or violent act [which] violate[s] those principles laid down in the Qur’an and Sunnah it is non-Islamic no matter what title he give[s] to it. Call it jihad, Islamic, it has nothing to do with the true jihad. Nothing to do with Islam. [...]

But I must add also that these cruel acts, such as hijacking airplanes, bombarding them, carbombs that destroy the lives of many innocent bystanders did not just come from thin air.

Some of the other things Badawi which stands for are not exactly easy to reconcile with Radical Middle Way’s goal of creating a modern, youthful, British Islam. Here he is defending polygamy.

The question is, however, far more than the inherent flexibility of Islam; it also is frank and straightforward approach of Islam in dealing with practical problems. Rather than requiring hypocritical and superficial compliance, Islam delves deeper into the problems of individuals and societies, and provides for legitimate and clean solutions that are far more beneficial than would be the case if they were ignored. There is no doubt that the second wife legally married and treated kindly is better off than a mistress without any legal rights or security. There is no doubt also that the legitimate child of a polygamous father, born in the “full light of the day, ” and who enjoys all the rights and privileges of a son or daughter, is far better off than the wanted or unwanted illegitimate child (especially if it is a girl).

He has also written arguing that a Muslim man has a right to strike his wife if she misbehaves.

There are cases, however, in which a wife persists in deliberate mistreatment and expresses contempt of her husband and disregard for her marital obligations. Instead of divorce, the husband may resort to another measure that may save the marriage, at least in some cases. Such a measure is more accurately described as a gentle tap on the body, but NEVER ON THE FACE, making it more of a symbolic measure then a punitive one. Following is the related Qur’anic text:

And that suicide bombers can, at times, be considered martyrs.

Not every martyr is a “suicide” bomber. As indicated earlier, a person who is killed in the battlefield is also a martyr; also a woman who dies in a difficult child birth is also a martyr (of a lower degree).

Not every “suicide” bomber is a martyr if that action violates any of the conditions detailed in [a previous question on the same page].

Here he is discussing exactly when it is legitimate to kill an apostate [UPDATE: Link Corrected].

There are scholars who distinguish between apostasy on a personal level, which is not punishable by death, and apostasy that is accompanied by what we call today high treason, in which case the punishment is for high treason, not for apostasy.

However, some scholars do not distinguish between the two types.

Such immoderate views from Badawi, in the context of Radical Middle Way, are highly surprising. But they should not be for he has strong connections to the Muslim Brotherhood and, in particular, its Jew-bashing, female circumcision-justifying, spiritual leader Yusuf al-Qaradawi – who, like Badawi, would allow a man to beat his wife . For example, they taught together at the Islamic American University and Badawi set up the Muslim American Society, an organisation which has been revealed as a Muslim Brotherhood offshoot.

Kemal Helbawy has even stronger links to the Muslim Brotherhood. He joined at an early age and then proceeded to set up the Muslim Association of Britain and the Muslim Council of Britain. He also has some quite shocking views about Jews.

Oh Brothers, the Palestinian cause is not of conflict of borders and land only. It is not even a conflict of human ideology and not over peace. Rather, it is an absolute clash of civilizations, between truth and falsehood. Between two conducts – one satanic, headed by Jews and their co-conspirators – and the other is religious, carried by Hamas, and the Islamic movement in particular, and the Islamic people in general who are behind it.

And Israeli children.

Dr. Kamal Al-Hilbawi: “I condemn the targeting of any civilian, but incidentally, I believe that every Israeli civilian is a future soldier.”

Interviewer: “He is what?”

Dr. Kamal Al-Hilbawi: “A future soldier.”

Interviewer: “Even if he is two years old?”

Dr. Kamal Al-Hilbawi: “Even if he is a child. A child born in Israel is raised on the belief that [the Arabs] are like contemptible sheep, and that this is a land without a people, and they are a people without a land. They have very strange concepts. In elementary school, they pose the following math problem: ‘In your village, there are 100 Arabs. If you killed 40, how many Arabs would be left for you to kill?’ This is taught in the Israeli curriculum. What would you say about that? Should a child studying this be considered a civilian? He is a future soldier.”

Quite apart from the unpleasantness of the views expressed by these two Radical Middle Way speakers, it is deeply concerning that they should have such strong links to the Muslim Brotherhood, the global Islamist movement which Egyptian press recently reported retains a secret armed wing.

So what has the Radical Middle Way been doing? Whilst Kemal Helbawy no longer appears on RMW’s website – possibly a good sign that RMW has seen sense – why do they maintain their association with Badawi when they clearly know a wide array of speakers with far more moderate views?

When Press TV was launched two years ago, Yvonne Ridley, one of the station’s presenters, was effusive in her praise of her paymasters: “I see it as an antidote to Fox TV that will give a different perspective to the coverage that you get from the mainstream media. It’s not shock TV, tabloid TV or propaganda promoting reactionaryism.”

While Press TV is clearly light years away from Fox in political terms, the channels could be described as simply two sides of the same coin when it comes to the way they manipulate their viewers. Ridley’s line of defence, that Press TV is neither a propaganda machine nor a proponent of shock or tabloid broadcasting, hasn’t really held up since the station’s launch – all the more so in the wake of its coverage of the Iranian elections.

He also destroys Press TV’s credibility argument by argument.

Of course, there are those defenders of Press TV who believe that only those free from sin ought to cast the first stone – including President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who claims there is “scarcely … a media that does its duty correctly”, and that “our media should be a standard bearer of peace and stability”, as well as a counterweight to the “propaganda” of western news outlets.

I’ve seen for myself the major discrepancies between reporting on western stations and some of their counterparts in the Middle East. While I don’t have a problem with the markedly different terminology employed by, for example, al-Aqsa TV and the BBC, it is the underlying editorial line that can make a channel unpalatable and untrusted by viewers.

And

Press TV surrounds itself with controversial presenters and guests, to the discredit of both the individuals and the station as a whole. George Galloway’s pathetic performance against Dispatches’ David Henshaw was laughable in itself, but more disturbingly characterised Press TV’s worrying trait of obfuscation surrounding Muslims accused of wrongdoing, a habit its presenters can team with shifting blame on to Israel and supporters of Zionism.

Freedman also discusses his own experiences of appearing on Press TV.

I have had several dealings with Press TV, agreeing to be interviewed by various reporters in the belief that dialogue with interlocutors of any persuasion could only be a positive move: that as long as I was not coerced or censored in what I said, my input could prove useful to those watching the channel or reading the site. However, when I appeared on Lauren Booth’s weekly show, the blinkers came off and I realised quite how counterproductive playing any part in the Press TV pantomime actually was.

I had written an op-ed piece for the Jewish Chronicle, and Booth relayed her admiration of my article by telling me she was “surprised to read something that was true” in the Jewish Chronicle. The implication was clear: the Jewish Chronicle is full of lies.

She then proceeded to ask me, along with two other panellists, about our opinions on the viral email comparing photos of children in Gaza to Nazi-era photos of children in the Warsaw Ghetto. While we three guests roundly condemned the employment of such disingenuous analogies, she stuck to her guns, defending the email author’s right to draw such parallels – again, leaving the viewer in no doubt that to compare the situation in Gaza to the Holocaust is a perfectly acceptable way to view events in Israel and the occupied territories.

And his conclusion should be read by anybody vaguely considering having dealings with Press TV.

Booth is as entitled to her views as I am to mine. But for Press TV to claim impartiality and independence on one hand, yet toe the Iranian government party line and employ biased presenters and reporters on the other, gives the lie to any of their supporters’ statements that they are in any way reputable or to be taken seriously.

For all that there are clearly occasions when unacceptable bias pervades western media outlets and news organisations, such occurrences pale in comparison to the unabashed partisanship pumped out by Press TV round the clock. It can only be hoped that the actions of Kamm, Ferrari and others will be emulated by the station’s army of viewers around the world.

Amen.

الى اللقاء

George