Amis says he didn't mean it, but still says Islam is the problem

Martin Amis writes to Yasmin Alibhai-Brown of the Independent about his grotesque views. Here's the roll-back:

It was a thought experiment, or a mood experiment, and the remarks were preceded by the following: "There's a definite urge – don't you have it? – to say... [etc, etc]." I felt that urge, for a day or two. My mood, I admit, was bleak – how I longed, Yasmin, for your soothing hand on my brow! It was, in its way, one of the bitterest moments, one of the moments of wormwood, in the strange tale that began five years earlier, in September 2001.

The press interview took place in the immediate aftermath of the foiled plot (August 2006) to obliterate 10 commercial jets with explosives put together in transit. Which would have resulted in the deaths of another 3,000 random Westerners, the majority of them women and children (these were summer flights across the North Atlantic). Human beings, born of women, caressed such thoughts in their minds.

Yes, you may well have missed that apology. The letter also makes the whole problem out to be of Terry Eagleton's making. One thought - for Amis the problem is Islam:

There were two additional depressants. At least one of the alleged would-be mass murderers had taken the trouble to convert to Islam, suggesting that the exterminatory virus was about to mutate, like bird flu.

But he does not stop to think that he was ready to humiliate the entire Muslim community on the basis of an alleged plot at Heathrow. In the debate on the influence of our foreign policy, does he not consider there may be some Iraqis and other Muslims out there angry about actual bombs that went off in their land? He has the same logic as the Al-Qaeda bombers! But no, for him the bugbear is Islam:

Adherence, however "moderate", to a holy book that recommends (for instance) the murder of apostates and the beating of women (on suspicion of disobedience) carries certain consequences.

A woeful characterisation of the Qur'an, leading him to conclude you can't be moderate and follow it.

Comments

[Sohaib]

Amis revealed his ignorance at the outset of this letter. Not only does he have no grasp of the numerous possible manifestations of what's called "Islamism", he waffled on about Sunnis and Shias while clearly not having a clue.

QUOTE:
"[A]s far as I understand it, the Shia minority speaks for the more dreamy and poetic face of Islam, the more lax and capacious ... the more spiritual ... as opposed to the Sunnis, whose approach is known to be stricter and more legalistic. [...] Islamism, in most of its manifestations, not only wants to kill me – it wants to kill you [for being Shia]."

[Osama]

To be fair to him, he did criticise Iran in his letter, and not for being dreamy. So he is guilty of contradicting himself.

[joe90]

As well as Amis, lord snooty himself,
a shit-writer extolling on the virtues of his own perfection by taking it upon himself to judge whole sections of our own community (as well as that of the world community - such are the feeble thoughts of a pint-pot english snob),
but in the past week alone the English mass-media and its virus-like mouthpieces have stated their hatred of -
the French
and
the Scots

[Abu Sinan]

I wonder if this idiot would apply the same standards to his own society? What would the actions of the British Empire, lead by the "Defender of the Faith" say about Christians or Western society?

What would the words "To Hell or Connaught" issued by Cromwell as he launched his genocide in Ireland, say about Protestants?

What would the actions of the Nazi Party say about Catholics being it was born in the Catholic southern area of Germany?

What does 400 years of religious war in Europe which killed some 30% of the entire population of Europe say about Christians and European society as a whole?

It is interesting, but if youy apply the very standards these mental midgets use to their own societies and their own histories, they come up looking far worse than anything Islam has to offer.

But they wont do this, because they are hypocrites!

Sure, we as Muslims have issues we need to deal with, but lets keep them in historical perspective and not let those who are in no position to preach to get away with it.

[joe90]

100% correct Abu Sinan!

The crimes of the western establishment (for want of a more precise label) are awsome - who in the Global South celebrated the 500 year anniversary of Columus 'discovering' the 'New World'?

Nobody!

The first locals the West's first genocidist, Columbus, came across were almost extinct a mere 20 years later - the Taino of the Bahamas.

Within 50 years every local of the 'new found' Caribbean Americas were enslaved or under attack - and so it has continued to the present day.

Over 500 years of genocidal mayhem visited by the 'civilised' Christian West on our innocent defenceless sisters and brothers in the rest of the world.

ps
I never like to leave things on a downer, so it gives me unbelieveable joy to announce some good news out of Gaza!

I can't quite believe it myself, but that is Palestinians for you - nobody can keep them down for long, nobody!
Raising Yousuf AND...
Raising Yousuf, Unplugged: diary of a Palestinian mother
11 Oct 2007

pps
"Waiter, there's a spy in my soup!"

This newspaper story has to be a CIA 'plant' - I'm reading William Blum's history of the CIA at the mo, so I'll believe anything -
Killinging Hope: US Military & CIA Interventions since World War II