Saturday, May 07, 2011
"Unmitigated evil" posted by Richard Seymour
This is amazingly bonkers:Labels: 'new atheism', 'secularism', christianity, cruise missile liberals, imperialism, islamophobia, liberal imperialism, missionaries, the liberal defence of murder
Thursday, February 10, 2011
The selfish gene turns racist posted by Richard Seymour
I think it is well arguable that the bio-reductionism of Dawkins has always been inter-woven with a Thatcherite project of vicious, competitive individualism, egoistic bourgeois self-interest, and authoritarian national chauvinism, and now grounds an avowedly 'secularist' agenda which is a major vector for the revival of racism among middlebrow liberals who have already swallowed the neoliberal kool aid. I think it is more than arguable, an absolute certainty in fact, that Condell represents the rage of a post-imperialist white British middle class that has never adapted to its new circumstance. You can't tell jokes about paddies and blacks any more, because they'll get 'offended'. You can't tell the truth about Islam without some uppity leftie thug leaping to his feet to denounce you, before the Muslim interlopers trail you off to be beheaded. You can't tell a woman to shut up and do as she's told any more, without Andy Gray getting the sack. "Not in my country," Condell, Dawkins and their whole terrified, stupid, solipsistic, self-pitying troupe expostulate. So, resolutely, with considerable courage given the immense wealth and resources at the disposal of their opponents, they tell the truth that has been repressed for too long, that not all cultures are equal, that immigrants are rapists, that no one invited them here and they can fuck off if they don't like it, and that the British way-of-life-dammit is worth defending against these intruders. These people are no more secularists than Richard Desmond is a feminist. Dawkins doesn't embrace this ranting, reactionary idiot because he favours the separation of Church and State, but because his politics of resentment and Anglo-chauvinism (no surprises that Condell is a UKIP voter) chime with his own long-standing beliefs. These people represent the basest elements, the ordure, of an imperialist culture whose degeneration is spiralling now that the crisis is eating away at even the perks and security of middle class employment. And there is further still to go. The adventures of the selfish gene have not ended at this nadir, I am sure.
Labels: 'british values', 'secularism', british empire, britishness, dawkins, imperial ideology, islamophobia, middle class, nationalism, racism
Thursday, July 09, 2009
Consequences posted by Richard Seymour
You know how we've been told that the constant vilification of the hijab and women who wear it has something to do with liberating women? Yeah:It was while Marwa el-Sherbini was in the dock recalling how the accused had insulted her for wearing the hijab after she asked him to let her son sit on a swing last summer, that the very same man strode across the Dresden courtroom and plunged a knife into her 18 times.Her three-year-old son Mustafa was forced to watch as his mother slumped to the courtroom floor.
Even her husband Elvi Ali Okaz could do nothing as the 28-year-old Russian stock controller who was being sued for insult and abuse took the life of his pregnant wife. As Okaz ran to save her, he too was brought down, shot by a police officer who mistook him for the attacker. He is now in intensive care in a Dresden hospital.
...
Unemployed Alex W. from Perm in Russia was found guilty last November of insulting and abusing Sherbini, screaming "terrorist" and "Islamist whore" at her, during the Dresden park encounter. He was fined ¤780 but had appealed the verdict, which is why he and Sherbini appeared face to face in court again.
Even though he had made his anti-Muslim sentiments clear, there was no heightened security and questions remain as to why he was allowed to bring a knife into the courtroom.
Labels: 'secularism', hijab, islam, islamophobia, misogyny, racism, religion, women