normblog

Moderate democrats in disguise

According to this piece by Alastair Crooke, Hamas are 'Islamism's moderates'. This moderation is one they share, he thinks, with Hizbollah. Crooke is one of the directors of Conflicts Forum. On its website, the remit of the Forum is quoted as including a desire 'to challenge the prevailing Western orthodoxy that perceives Islamism as an ideology that is hostile to the agenda for global democracy and good governance'.

Moderation is a relative thing, so there is doubtless an extreme next to which Hamas and Hizbollah look moderate. The trouble is, not everything is relative in quite this way. Whether Israel is a legitimate state and whether the Jewish people have a right to national self-determination within its pre-1967 boundaries are yes-or-no questions. Both the Hamas charter and the programme of Hizbollah give non-moderate answers to these questions. They say things like: 'Israel will rise and will remain erect until Islam eliminates it as it had eliminated its predecessors'; and 'our struggle will end only when this [Zionist] entity is obliterated'.

The totalizing claims in Part I of the first document and the opening paragraph of the second (with the 'obeying the orders of one leader' stuff) suggest that the Conflicts Forum have a rather limited conception of what democracy and good governance require. (Thanks: SC.)

Jazz 13: The Hot Fives and Sevens

Something has to occupy the 'unlucky 13' spot, so I'll choose in a way that can't possibly damage the fortunes of the thing chosen. I won't say that you can't have a good or serious jazz collection without this music, since, as I've formally demonstrated in another connection, such claims are based on fallacious reasoning (See 'The life and soul of the western', old normblog site, September 14 2003). All I'll say is that if you don't have the Hot Fives and Sevens you're missing some of the loveliest sounds ever laid down within this musical tradition. There are two standout complete collections. And there's also a briefer compilation if that's what you want to start with. Listen to 'Struttin' With Some Barbecue', 'Once in a While', 'Wild Man Blues', 'Potato Head Blues' and 'Melancholy'. The ensemble playing is consistently good; some of Johnny Dodds's clarinet solos are unforgettable; but above all it's the horn of jazz's first great genius, capable of lifting your spirits on the greyest day, that makes these recordings a thing of enduring beauty and wonder.

[Links to the rest of the series.]

Short short story II/4

Tear Open The Velvet Curtain (by Paul Saxton)

She had just returned home from the summer ball. Her father, eyeing out from behind his newspaper, noticed, but didn't mention, her skirt crazily tucked into her knickers, her blouse held tight in her hands, her lipstick all over her face and her shoes somewhere, God knows where, maybe on the steps of the Old Ballhouse or wherever it was that the summer ball had been held.

The summer ball was, if you were that way inclined, the absolute event of the year. There was no way you could miss it. You'd have to be a bedwetter to miss it. A jabbernow. A mooncalf.

She lay in dreams and wet her bed slightly as she drifted back to the night's proceedings. Martha said she had never seen her looking so, oh I don't know, so daringly dramatic, so starkly beautiful, like a vampiress forced down the stairs by the unseen touch of her master.

But it's a mid-August night and the window, open, breathes in the closeness, the summer night's joy. She's on the bed, mere wisps, thinking she's asleep. The music of the night plays deep within her, her slow movements carrying her into dreams. And he's there. Of course he's there.

Downstairs, her father shuffles towards the kitchen. A standard lamp throws its empty light somewhere into the room which also, somehow, shuffles. He stops in the middle of the room, at the edge of the light, and aches, a little, for what is left of the summer.

[The second short short story series is announced and explained here.]

What's your poison?

Here's an application of Karl Popper by Michael Skapinker:

[T]he problem with Hitchens' thesis that religion poisons everything is how to explain those who use it to do good. How does Hitchens account for Martin Luther King? Here's how: King was not really a Christian. Really? Well, at no point did King suggest that those who reviled him would be punished in this world or the next. "In no real as opposed to nominal sense, then, was he a Christian." Let's leave aside the possibility that King's lack of interest in revenge came from the Gospels; instead, let's use the tools of a thinker Hitchens himself commends: Karl Popper.

Popper said that for any theory to be scientific, it had to be falsifiable. Is "religion poisons everything" falsifiable? Potentially - all we have to find is something that religion did not poison, and see how the theory stands up. Martin Luther King didn't poison everything. Ah, says Hitchens, he wasn't religious. Any student of Popper recognises this dodge: it is an ad hoc hypothesis, designed to explain away uncomfortable facts that refute the theory. (I notice that Hitchens doesn't try the King trick on Desmond Tutu. But then Tutu is still alive and we can imagine his response to any suggestion that he is not a real Christian.)

One could also ask about the 'poisoning' effects of religion in the case of the many Christian rescuers of Jews in Nazi-occupied Europe - people who, when asked why they took the risks they did to help Jews in danger, said things like this:

'I hope God will know I did the best I could to help people'; 'My faith... commands... me to love my fellow man, without exclusions'.

And like this:

'I ache for them in my whole being, I ache for my Jewish brothers and sisters... Humanity is the body of Christ. One part of that humanity is being tortured...'; 'Christ stands behind every human being... He stretches His hand to us through a runaway Jew from the ghetto the same way as He does through our brothers'; 'When I saw people being molested, my religious heart whispered to me, "Don't kill. Love others as you love yourself"'.

And this:

'[N]o matter what a person's colour, race, religion, or language, we are created by one God.'

And this:

'Every wasted life is another nail in Christ's body. When a child is destroyed, all of us become orphans.'

A uniformly poisonous influence? Possibly not. (Clive Davis relays an interesting anecdote about Christopher Hitchens.)

Car bomb explosion averted

A massive terrorist strike which could have killed hundreds of nightclub revellers in London has been foiled by chance.

A car bomb packed with petrol, gas canisters and nails was found in the early hours of Friday in the capital's West End. Senior officers said the explosion could have caused "significant" injury and loss of life just yards from the landmark neon lights of Piccadilly Circus.

Also here, here and here.

The normblog profile 197: David Thompson

David Thompson has written for The Times, The Observer and Eye: the International Review of Graphic Design. Bad Faith, his irregular column for 3:AM, is usually about dishonesty of one kind or another. David is also an executive board member of the Committee for the Scientific Examination of Religion, based in Amherst, New York. He lives in England, but not in London, and blogs at David Thompson.

Why do you blog? > Rage, joy, curiosity; not necessarily in that order.

What has been your best blogging experience? > 'Meeting' people I otherwise wouldn't have, and whose perspective I enjoy. Being told I'm right, sometimes.

What has been your worst blogging experience? > Being told I'm wrong, quite emphatically, by people who don't know why.

What would be your main blogging advice to a novice blogger? > Be prepared for people to dislike you because of the above.

What are your favourite blogs? > The Daily Ablution, Butterflies and Wheels, Protein Wisdom. And normblog, naturally.

Who are your intellectual heroes? > Why would a person have intellectual 'heroes'?

What are you reading at the moment? > Keith Windschuttle's The Killing of History: How Literary Critics and Social Theorists Are Murdering Our Past, and Austin Grossman's Soon I Will Be Invincible.

What is your favourite song? > Today, it's 'La Degustation' by The Lovers.

Can you name a major moral, political or intellectual issue on which you've ever changed your mind? > That all religions are – somehow, mysteriously - equally prone to intolerance, violence and dysfunction. (See below.)

What philosophical thesis do you think it most important to disseminate? > That one should not become stupid or dishonest in order to seem 'fair'.

What philosophical thesis do you think it most important to combat? > Islamists, jihadists, and the socialists who service them.

Can you name a work of non-fiction which has had a major and lasting influence on how you think about the world? > Celia Green's The Human Evasion. It captures quite vividly, and in a rather unusual way, just how dishonest people can be.

What is your favourite piece of political wisdom? > 'It is only through the collision of adverse opinions that the truth has any hope of being brought to light.' - John Stuart Mill

If you could effect one major policy change in the governing of your country, what would it be? > I'd scrape away the misapprehension that peace and security can somehow be achieved through weakness and timidity, or the appearance thereof.

What would you do with the UN? > Disassemble it. Think again.

What do you consider to be the main threat to the future peace and security of the world? > Islamic fanatics, especially if equipped with tools of indiscriminate destruction, and the spread of the ideology in which they swim. Oh, and the so-called 'anti-war' movement doesn't exactly help.

Do you think the world (human civilization) has already passed its best point, or is that yet to come? > Yet to come, perhaps.

What would be your most important piece of advice about life? > Never rely on people who use the words 'hegemony' and 'discourse', and never leave your children with someone who claims to know what God wants.

Do you think you could ever be married to, or in a long-term relationship with, someone with radically different political views from your own? > Doubtful.

What do you consider the most important personal quality? > Reciprocation.

What personal fault do you most dislike? > Dishonesty; habitual mooching.

In what circumstances would you be willing to lie? > In desperation.

Do you have any prejudices you're willing to acknowledge? > When people use the words 'discourse' and 'hegemony' I sometimes imagine they're evil, rather than just stupid.

What is your favourite proverb? > 'Theory, like mist on eyeglasses, obscure facts.' - Charlie Chan

What would you call your autobiography? > Bastards, They're All Bastards.

Where would you most like to live (other than where you do)? > The United States.

What do you like doing in your spare time? > Cocaine.

What talent would you most like to have? > Perfect pitch.

What would be your ideal choice of alternative profession or job? > Emperor.

How, if at all, would you change your life were you suddenly to win or inherit an enormously large sum of money? > Operation Overlord would begin.

[The normblog profile is a weekly Friday morning feature. A list of all the profiles to date, and the links to them, can be found here.]

Short short story II/3

Dedication's What You Need (by Jessica Ruston)

Philip Frog and the Foghorn, 1963 (unpublished).

For Mummy and Daddy, but not for Jemima because she scribbled on the cover.

The Soul's Solipsism, 1965 (unpublished).

Dedicated to the lost souls, the wandering souls, the souls that burn in the fiery flames. Mankind. Man. Kind.

Call of the Dogs, A Memoir, 1970.

This book is dedicated first and foremost to my wife, without whose constant and unstinting support and nurturing it would have withered and died before it had bloomed. I'm sticking with you, my darling Clare.

Also to The Littleton Press, who took a chance, and The John Ashburton Trust, whose generosity enabled me to finish the work at a time when it looked like it was doomed.

The Roar of the Wild, 1974.

For my dearly beloved son, Michael, and, as always, for Clare.

Kinloch, 1976.

Special thanks to the best agent in the world, Pen, with memories of Campari and Cluedo. Cheers! Also my editor Maria and the team at Penguin, especially the lovely girls in publicity! Also Norman, Iris and Kingsley, for their wise words and friendship.

Starbright, 1978.

For Maria, the fizz in my gin, the cherry in my pie.

Cupboards of Doom, 1980.

"The golden apple devoured has seeds." Bette Davis.

Loyalty, 1990 (unpublished).

For all of those that do not know it, so that they may learn it.

Creative Writing Without Fear! 2000.

For my students, past and present.

Roman Roads of England and Wales, an illustrated history, 2004.

No dedication.

[The second short short story series is announced and explained here.]

Nuke deputy

I don't much worry about nuclear war, though there was a time when I did. It's not that I've become more optimistic over the prospects of its happening or not; it isn't to do with anything about the state of the world in fact, so much as it's that I haven't been thinking lately about the actual experience of it should it come about. This, though, has got me worrying:

After the pomp and ceremony of his departure from Buckingham Palace, his speech on the doorstep at No 10, and a partial reshuffle, Gordon Brown's role as prime minister began with an onerous and somewhat sobering task. Tony Blair, when faced with the duty, immediately went white in the face, said onlookers. John Major couldn't face it: he went home for the weekend.

As prime minister, with ultimate responsibility for Britain's nuclear deterrent, Mr Brown has to write a letter, in his own hand, giving instructions detailing what the UK's response should be in the event of a pre-emptive nuclear attack.

The letter will be opened only by the commander of a British Trident submarine, who would have to assume that the prime minister was no longer in a position to take "live" command of the situation. The options are said to include the orders: "Put yourself under the command of the US, if it is still there"; "go to Australia"; "retaliate"; "or use your own judgment".

I worry about it not in a personal, but in a detached way. At a time when, precisely, judgement, the weighing of options, a knowledge of the situation, are likely to be needed, some guy - OK the commander of a Trident submarine - may have to act on a written order decided on a while in advance. It would be better to have a PM's deputy, renowned for his or her practical wisdom, permanently floating about under water in case of such an emergency.

A first in British politics

I refer to Gordon Brown's appointment of David Miliband as foreign secretary. You know what this means, of course. You don't? Then I'll tell you: Miliband is the first ever British foreign secretary to have done the normblog profile interview.

Ne Me Quitte Pas

Je creuserai la terre
Jusqu'après ma mort
Pour couvrir ton corps
D'or et de lumière

No other language, or musical tradition, does this sort of thing as well. It's a very fine song. Listen to Jacques Brel here. (As prompted by this post.)

Update: See the follow-up post here.