“The novelist Ian McEwan has launched an astonishingly strong attack on Islamism, saying that he ‘despises’ it and accusing it of ‘wanting to create a society that I detest,’ ” reports The Independent of London. “His words, in an interview with an Italian newspaper, could, in today’s febrile legalistic climate, lay him open to being investigated for a ‘hate crime.’ ” McEwan was speaking out in defense of his friend and fellow novelist Martin Amis, who has come under attack for expressing anti-Islamist views.
David Thompson, writing at Harry’s Place, doesn’t think McEwan has anything to apologize for.
At this point, perhaps it’s worth bearing in mind just what kind of world Islamist groups wish to share with us, whether we like it or not. Consider, for instance, the Muslim Brotherhood, perhaps the foremost Islamist group, which declares its aim as the “widespread implementation of Islam as a way of life; no longer to be sidelined as merely a religion.” In 2004, the Brotherhood’s president, Muhammad Mehdi Akef, told the Egyptian newspaper al-Arabi: “Islam will invade Europe and America because Islam has a mission.” Later the same year, Mehdi described the Holocaust as “a myth” and insisted that, when in power, the Brotherhood would not recognise Israel, whose demise he “expected soon”. Mehdi views “martyrdom operations” in Palestine and Iraq as a religious duty and has described all Israelis — including children — as “enemies of Islam.” The Brotherhood’s literature and website still bears the charming prophesy: “Islam will dominate the world.”…
In light of such statements, and many others like them, what is astonishing is the notion that a dislike of Islamism, or of Islam generally, should invite fears of “hate crime” investigation. As I’ve said before, religious freedom does not entail sparing believers any hint that others do not share their beliefs or indeed find them ludicrous. There is, after all, no corresponding obligation for believers to embrace ideas that are not clearly risible, monstrous or disgusting. But, again, perhaps I’m stating the obvious.
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Those who value tolerance cannot allow the political ascendancy of intolerance whether promulgated by religious or secular dogmatists.
— Christian VanSchaykHate crimes laws are illegitimate, and should be removed wherever found.
I fully sympathize with the situations that caused them to come to pass. However, a law is not the correct response. In some cases, the authorities failed to respond correctly because of their prejudice. In that case, the new law should punish the authorities responsible, and only them.
Every sane country has reasonable laws against assault, murder, theft, slander, and libel already. We do not need special laws discriminating on the basis of motive. ESPECIALLY! when they trample on freedom of speech.
Fundamentalist religion causes enough problems, and requires forceful response, not to need any distraction by reactionary legislation.
— MattHooray for Sanity! I must add I’ve liked both Amis’ and McEwan’s novels. Intelligence in both literature and politics married to courage. What a concept!
— JeffDavid Thompson has it right. I only wish that we Americans had more courage to denounce the religious extremists in our midst instead of being so delicate with our words. When nearly two-thirds of Republican legislators believe in creationism (I won’t honor the absurdity by capitalizing the word), it makes me question why we have universal voting rights. What more proof of evolution does one need than examining the pre-hominids posing as Republicans.
— Philip RossettiHallelujah and amen! It is about time someone took an unambiguous stand against the reality of Islamism, instead of wallowing in political correctness and facile righteousness.
— J. B. YahudieIslamism is an obnoxious ideology, but an ideology all the same. I would like to see more people become skeptical of ideologues in general. Besides Islamists, I am annoyed by right wingers, left wingers, right to lifers, tree huggers, supply siders, global warmers, and all religious proselytizers. What many ideologues excell at is hubris. They think they know “God”, they think they understand all there is to know about the earth’s climate, they think they understand “economics”. We all need more humility (me too). If there is a God, how likely is it that we pea-brained humans know so much about Him/Her/It/Them? With all the trillions of other intelligent life-forms in the universe, what makes humans so special? We are just star-dust (which is great, of course).
As to Islamists, they are just our generation’s Communists. They are wallowing in their 15 minutes of fame now, but over time, they will be relegated to the dustbin of history because their ideology is so stupid. They have nothing meaningful in their lives, so they make up fairy tails where they are more important than the rest of us. News flash: there are no Chosen People, just people. We need to all become people who need people, not people who hate people.
— Timothy BalYes, religion should be fair game for criticism, but the criticism should be honest. Millions of people consider themselves Muslim. Not all share the same views. Wouldn’t it be more honest to say that this particular Muslim or Muslim group ways something hateful?
— Arthur RifkinI’d like for someone to tell me how Islamism and it’s desire to dominate the world is different from the Christianist desire to win the world for Christ, bring Christ back into public life, battle the evils of atheism, spread the Good News (by hook or by crook), etc. Both religions have been “shared” by force, and although one seldom hears Westerners complain about the spread of Christianity at gun point, one seldom hears Westerners talk about Islam without hearing them say that it was spread at swords’ point.
I have equal contempt for Islamists and Christianists.
Now, if you’d like to discuss the current geopolitical impact of the merger of millenialist religions and nationalism in the post-cold war environment, that’s different. You’d actually have to look at socio-economic factors at play, and not just say, “Islam, yucky.”
— phein“Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.” Pascal
— FelixWhile I was delighted to read this and responded exuberantly earlier I’d like to add that I hope nobody attacks Dr. McEwan the way Mr. Theo Van Gogh was attacked in Holland. I believe that the only answer to free speech is more free speech and hold that to be true for the speech I hate as well as the speech I support. I think Dr. McEwan may be a target from here on in.
— JeffIan McEwan has it right along with the poster who sees no need for “hate laws”. Islam, is practiced in this country by haters like Farrakhan and his followers, but if they commit crimes, there are already laws to deal with them. Criminals are haters by nature and the expansion of Islam within this country is a cause for concern especially since Louis and company endorses Barak Hussein.
— Mel MackWow. Amazing levels of bigotry in this comments section. Prosecuting people for hate speech does indeed fly in the face of the idea of freedom of speech for all, but people who espouse such hatred should be shunned for the bigoted swine they are. I am not going to attack all of Islam or all of all of Christianity, or any religion because some of their members are loonies.
— Mike De LucaHow different is the view of the Islamists from the Christian Conquistadors or the many Missionaries of the Christian faith who have gone around the the world proselytizing their faith and converting people to change to their religious view.
— whoindatgardenI believe that if anything any one of these monotheistic religions should do some introspection and not be arrogant about their way being the best way to live life.
If it wasn’t for Christian Missionaries South America or Africa or many parts of Asia would not be Christian/Catholic, systematic destruction of native peoples in the name of religion has happened time and time again this is nothing different just it is coming back to those who started it.
Phein -
If you’d bother to read the article, McEwan puts it quite well:
“I find [all religions] equally absurd,” McEwan replied. “I don’t like these medieval visions of the world according to which God is coming to save the faithful and to damn the others. But those American Christians don’t want to kill anyone in my city, that’s the difference.”
— PatrickI’d like to echo the comment by “phein” that not only should present day socio economic factors be considered — for the there no such this as “pure” ideology (including religious beliefs) absent the physical and social reality that it seeks to make sense of, represent, or mystify — but also the historical perspective. As they say, where there’s smoke there’s fire.
A cursory examination of the history of colonialism in the Middle East and elsewhere, then imperialism (i.e., economic domination leading to political subjugation of so-called backward” nations by “advanced” ones), the discrediting and retrenchment, if not collapse, of Arab and other 19th and 20th century nationalist movements, especially in the wake of the fall of the Soviet Union, and more recently semi-naked, colonial occupation by imperial powers — aka Iraq — suggests there’s plenty of smoke to sift through. That is if one is serious about doing the hard work of trying to understand the roots of Islamic fundamentalism and its pathological offshoots, and potentially, how its widespread and enduring appeal in many areas of the “developing” world might be challenged constructively.
Anything short of this, even from the lips or pens of arguably accomplished writers such such as Ian McEwan or Kingley Amis, is just empty, simplistic phrase-mongering at best, or consciously divisive, even racist propaganda, at worst. Such simplifications can only exacerbate social tensions between Muslim minorities and other communities in W. Europe and possibly in the U.S. at a time of rapidly worsening economic distress affecting broad sections of working people.
— D. CurtisI don’t know how I feel about these statements as a Muslim because I dont really understand them. I don’t know who exactly they are refering to when they say Islamists. I have heard that term a lot lately. What does it mean? Is it supposed to be followers of Islam? The example used was unhelpful. The Muslim Brotherhood is a radical organization that isn’t representative of Islam as a whole. In so much as he detest fanatical radicals I support the opinion. If he detests Islam simple because he doesn’t agree or believe in the religion then I have a serious problem with such think.
— SuhirAs to the other issue most hate crimes are just the thought police in disguise. Use them at freedoms peril.
Denouncing a hate crime must never be considered a hate crime even if strong language is used.
All civilized people should agree on this.
The Muslim Brotherhood lives in a state of hate crime based on what they say about themselves.
— Terence GaffneyTo paint an entire group of people or an entire religion as barbaric and evil based on the actions of one particular group seems remarkably ignorant.
— bA dislike “of Islam generally”?
Yeah sure, anybody’s generally free to “dislike” any and all religions, I suppose, whatever that means.
But if someone came out and said “I dislike Judaism generally” he’d rightly be condemned as an anti-Semite.
There’s no shortage of violent extremists in various religions. Even mainstream religious parties hold views I consider objectionable. Hamas denies Israel’s right to exist, Likud still has as part of its party platform a denial of the right of the Palestinians to have a state of their own. Both are motivated, I suppose, by religious beliefs.
Every time I read the belligerent rhetoric of Islamic extremists, I shudder, and I denounce it.
And I also remember that while more loud threats come from the Muslim world than from the West (maybe), Muslims have a way of outnumbering Westerners in casualties. In Iraqi, in Afghanistan, in Palestine.
— JimI too abhor both the Islamists and Christianists. Both have oppression and suppression in their agendas disguised as “God’s Will.” My question to them is what kind of God would impose such a life on its people and what kind of people would follow such an entity. It is a god or a demon?
I’m glad the rhetoric is turning against the blanket acceptance of all religious belief. We need to start asking the hard questions about what place religion should have in public as well as private life and expose the needless violence to the human spirit these agendas bring.
Maybe then will we begin to see that we don’t need religion as much as we need to understand and accept our commonality as humans on an ever shrinking planet.
— Lynn AllenReligion is poison. The concentration on Islam is understandable considering it’s without doubt the most violent of the organized “faiths”. It’s “defect” is rooted at it’s beginnings. Christianity also has a violent past but remember Jesus (Christianity’s central figure)was just a capenter-turned-street preacher. Mohammed, on the other hand, actually commanded armies and waged wars.
— Pyrrhus S.I, too, dislike the sort of Islamo-fascism implied by Mehdi’s remarks and in the same way that I dislike the sort of Christian-fascism invoked by almost every word out of the mouths of fundamentalists like James Dobson, Pat Robertson, etc., etc., etc., seemingly ad infinatum and definitely ad nauseum. My reason for disliking both brands of fascism is the same for both: Islamo-fascism and Christian-fascism can thrive only in a climate of ignorance, superstition, and suspicion of anyone who thinks or speaks differently from those in their thrall. In order to ensure such a climate, stringent limits are placed on speech (political correctness and hate laws, anyone?) and learning. Humanities studies, especially literature and history, are drained of intellectual content, for which read, philosophical and ethical ambiguity. Public discourse is limited to easily remembered and repeatable “sound bite” which are spoken in the reverent tones of mantras. Rote learning takes the place of literary analysis and probing discussions of cause and effect. Invisible walls are erected around certain topics–sexuality, “sacred” texts, racial inequities, and so on–such that broaching them risks one being branded as an extremist by the very extremists who erect and then insist upon the maintenance of such walls. In short, I see no difference in the religious extemists in this country who have hijacked language and nailed it to the cross of perversion and anti-intellectualism and those in the mid-East who do the same. There is no difference in kind between them and decreasingly less difference in degree. The fear that drives both fascisms, as is clear from their obsession with feminine sexuality, is of the individual’s commitment to his or her own desire. Since desire is the essence of difference–which is the very definition of life–their efforts are directed toward stamping out life itself.
— Sara CordellOne need not be especially tolerant of
those who are themselves intolerant.
There is the particular belief that
muslims & others have, that culture,
government & religion are all one.
That is an insurmountable problem for
those outside, in the ’secular’ world.
It wasn’t always this way. Moderation
is still possible, however unlikely.
It does not include disrespect for
others’ religions, even by cartoonists (for example). It does mean that *everyone* gets to wear
headgear as strange as they like.
As the atheists will tell you, there are a lot of very strange beliefs going around, none better than any other.
— Barenegat LeightNumber 8 - phein - has hit the nail on the head. Christianity has been responsible for many crimes - aimed at anyone who doesn’t believe as they do. Yes, the extremists in Christianity will voice the exact same words as the extremists Muslims do - but it is not commented on in this country due to fear of the far right. Contrary to both sides - no one has the whole truth about god. Christians believe god made man in god’s image - backwards - Christians visual god in man’s image. The Star Wars movies had it right - the word force substitutes for god. Remember - if horses had gods, they would look like horses! irene
— IreneIslam is the new Nazism. Disregard of human rights,hateful and murderous towards women, what is to honor….nothing.
— j.m. rasmussen