Piety
A little from that sickening interview in Prospect.
Taseer: It’s martyrdom, isn’t it?
Butt: Absolutely. It’s something that makes me really depressed being stuck in this country because I know I’m so far away from it. I know that if I was to pass away in my sleep, then I would not have the mercy of Allah upon me because I have been such a bad person. And I don’t see myself in any way as getting into heaven that easily, except through martyrdom.
‘Allah’ won’t give him ‘mercy’ if he just dies of gangrene from an infected pimple. No, he has to kill himself and a lot of other random people – then ‘Allah’ will be nice to him. And of course that’s the important thing – not to mention what a swell guy this ‘Allah’ must be.
Taseer: You’re looking forward to death?
Butt: Absolutely. As long as it’s done properly. I’m terrified of dying normally, growing old, grey.
Taseer: You don’t see that as a selfish impulse, to care for nothing but your own salvation?
Butt: Ultimately, that’s everybody’s. The mother loves the child more than anybody. But even she, on the day of reckoning, will not look at the child; Allah says she will think of herself, solely of herself. Ultimately, that is what it’s about: I’m going into my grave, you’re going into your grave, everyone is ultimately going into their grave. In this duniya (world), we have as much as we can want, but ultimately it is for the benefit of your soul. It is the only point in Islam where an individual is actually allowed to be selfish.
No comment required.
To almost, sort of quote Richard Dawkins:
To fill the world with religions of the Abrahamic type is like littering the streets with loaded guns, we shouldn’t be surprised when people start picking them up and using them.
It’s worth noting that 70% of British Pakistanis are Kashmiri. (I think I might have picked up that figure from Juan Cole, but maybe not.) Just the luck of the draw. Though it would make a certain amount of sense, as people from a troubled region would have a greater incentive to flee and settle elsewhere.
Also the interview is a year old, but only now is published. Given that the interviewer probably attempted to get his work published earlier, that does go to current media “ethics” and its incentives.
For a different perspective on the British Pakistani experience, y’all might want to check out the review in the 6/23/05 NYRB of Nadeem Aslam’s novel “Maps for Lost Lovers”. (It’s not on-line.) The author is a Pakistan-born British Muslim, who grew up in such neighborhoods. The reviewer, who is Indian, opines that the style and sensibility of the book, which, judging by the review and its citations, is quite accomplished, owes much to the poetic tradition of Urdu, the author’s mother tongue. Not knowing anything about that matter, I have no way of having such an opinion.
If the interview is in fact a year old, that certainly would invalidate it. Jihadists obviously do not have the same motivations now. A year ago they might have been all about narcissism, adolescent machismo, and murderous self-pity. Today, however, they’re all about sharing the love. This proves that journalists whose work makes it difficult for me to retain the worldview I picked up back in college and don’t ever dare re-examine are the scum of the earth.
Also, if all you ignorant racists would take the trouble read the great 18th-century Urdu poet Mir Taqi Mir, you would realize that no British Muslim of Pakistani ancestry could ever possibly be a so-called suicide bomber.
Hope I kill before I get old, as the Who nearly sung
John C. Halasz writes:
>Also the interview is a year old, but only now is published. Given that the interviewer probably attempted to get his work published earlier, that does go to current media “ethics” and its incentives.< That seems a lot to read into Aatish Taseer’s writing:
“When I interviewed him last year…”
Allen – it would appear that the story has only recently become ‘inflamatory’ lately; hence the suspicion of the editor’s motives I would imagine…
At least Taseer is honest about what he thinks, unlike some other folks we could mention …
http://mcbwatch.blogspot.com
But of course Prospect has been running articles on the overall subject for quite awhile – Goodhart, Malik, etc. So Halasz is probably wrong about what the publication of Taseer’s interview “goes to”.
Gee, Nick, why are you so bored with the left? Too much of a ‘straitjacket’ for you are they?
Oh, please, Halasz. Come on. You know nothing about Prospect by your own admission, yet on the basis of no knowledge you – made a baseless guess. You were wrong. Just cop to it, don’t give us pious blather about the public’s being better served instead. Prospect hasn’t ‘suddenly discovered’ its righteousness. Just because you’ve suddenly discovered Prospect doesn’t mean it has.
And another thing. What do you mean ‘media “ethics”‘? What’s with the scare quotes on ethics? What’s your point? That it’s unethical to react to new information or changed circumstances or both? Why would that be? In fact Prospect had already been discussing this subject, as I said, but if it had changed its mind after and because of July 7 – why would that be unethical? Why would it not for instance be possible to think that ‘radical’ or ‘extremist’ or ‘activist’ group X was radical and extremist and the rest of it but small and harmless, until group X did something that demonstrated its nonharmlessness? It might or might not be stupid or imperceptive or unimaginative to think that, but it would surely be possible, and could be seen as both reasonable and charitable. But if the situation changes, if new information (in the form of news bulletins and newspaper headlines, for instance, or alternatively in the form of an exploded bus and bits of bodies appearing on a street you cross every day on your way to work) appears, then why would it be unethical to change one’s thinking accordingly?
So what’s your point?
Sorry, john, no degree for you. Just a worldview. Guaranteed impervious to data.
John C. Halasz wrote:
>it’s worth remebering that brown skinned people,- (even Brazilians),- have complicated feelings in their inner lives amidst difficult circumstances.< Presumably John is referring to the Brazilian tragically shot by the police. Just one thing wrong. Jean Charles de Menezes wasn’t noticeably brown-skinned: http://dailyablution.blogs.com/the_daily_ablution/2005/07/guardian_staffe.html
I’ll thank Allen E. for providing the photos. Since I’d never bothered to aquire them myelf, that just makes it still more sad. The point I originally wanted to make was simply the blindness of perception under such “emergency” circumstances. We’re “used” to that in the U.S.A.,- (Amadou Dialo, Abner Loima, etc., etc.),- but isn’t that what the terrorists want to induce, the disruption of any possibility of civil dialogue in the name of an absolute, (if nihilistic), “cause”?
Typical. Bloody typical Halasz. Any questions that try to pin down his meaning or ask for consistency or suggest possible errors, simply ignored. Then after a suitable interval he comes back yet again, with more non sequiturs and pointless points.
Your just too shallow to grasp his deeper meanings, OB.
Any questions that try to pin down his meaning or ask for consistency or suggest possible errors, simply ignored. Then after a suitable interval he comes back yet again, with more non sequiturs and pointless points.
Perhaps Mr. Halasz suffers from Attention Deficit Disorder.
Hmm. If so I think it must be the kind of Attention Deficit Disorder that’s like the temporary deafness people get when it’s their turn to do the dishes or clean the bathroom.
Emm… I do have to work to a living, though I try not to do so much, and my attention may have been directed elsewhere besides. But the elliptical nature of my comment may have something to do with not wanting to get into the deep doo-doo of having to challenge point by point the tear OB has been on since the London bombing, with all its misprisions, selectivity, and obtuseness, but the terrible instance of the late Senor de Menezes was an indirect reference to the egregious Eve Garrard post she linked to and commented upon. (This is not normally directly a political blog, but if it addresses such issues, then it should answer for them.) Granted the horror of the London bombing(s),- (which had long been expected),- the Menezes case was an officially “authorized” summary extra-judicial execution of a contingent, entirely unrelated, legally innocent individual- that deserves pause. Ms. Garrard is comparing apples to oranges, compounding the error with the ineffable take of keeping score, (53 to 1), which makes one wonder who she’s keeping score with and with what motives. The whole post was an exercize in ideology masquerading pretentiously as ethical reasoning. Ms. Garrard presumes to speak in the name of “liberal democracy”,- native translation, capitalist plebescitary democracy,- inspite of the fact that her conception of such is apparently thoroughly univocal and identitarian. (But that no surprise around here, as B&W is a website dedicated to the identity politics of white folks with the depreciating human capital of a college degree.) A further instance of OB’s tear is the reguritation of Blairite boilerplate about the terrorist atrocity not being “caused” by the War in Iraq. That the terrorist attack(s) were caused by the intentional acts of the terrorists is not an argument, but a tautology. But aside from the poll results, the perfectly reasonable point is that the Honorable Mr. Blair’s decisions increased the probability of such attacks from, (picking numbers out of the air, say), 20% to 95%. And what counts is not the dead-metaphor cliche about “root causes”, but sober analysis about the factors involved and how to deal with them,- (not evident anywhere here). (But it’s too late: that train left the station a long time ago and is now whistling in the wilderness.) Another such case is the decrying of the loss of women’s rights in Iraq, as if it were not long known that Saddam Hussein was a champion of secularism, hence of women’s rights- (sic! snort.) And, just in case the point about identitarian mentality fails to sink in, take a look at the first comment posted on this thread. What is that but an expression of bigotry and uncultivated ignorance? Is the author of that comment advocating Aztec revivalism or mass conversion to Buddhism? Or is there a blessed isle of the atheists floating about somewhere? But I’m just wondering what data points I’ve supposedly missed, in order to maintain by inflexible “worldview”, when so many data points that I’ve been noticing are curiously absent here. Perhaps there’s a reason empiricism is commonly associated with the epithet “blinkered”. Yes, the world out there- and over here- is a cruel place, but also a complex and contradictory one. I’ve wasted enough of my low rent time on this precious website for now. Sweet dreams,
Translation: Nuh-uh, you’re the doody head, not me!
Halasz, you’ve wasted a year and a half of your time and mine on this precious website. Really – don’t waste any more of it. Life is far too short.
Karl:
As usual, an impressive insight, productive of much further discussion.
OB:
Life is short, art long. Ever will it be thus. But your (typical) nonresponsiveness only re-affirms the suspicion that you are only interested in a coterie of like-mindedness,- (“identity-thinking”). And on the internet, no less! You don’t seem to want to stand up to criticism and questioning of your apparent reasonings, because that’s painful, involving an exposure to dreaded otherness at the expense of the securement of “identity”. I just silently read a whole series of posts without responding, well, because I didn’t have time and the intricacies of wrong-headedness were exhausting. But I did choose to respond to your dismissive sneers, when challenged. Perhaps you should re-read the Garrard post you linked to, not just in terms of the snippet you commented upon, (since picking out areas of agreement from the complex of a whole text scarcely amounts to interpretive understanding), but in terms of the contradictory tenor of the whole thing. Do you really think it stands up to scrutiny, without considering the multivalency that its supposed logicality can quite disguise, nor master?
Hello, john. Back for more? Why do you torture yourself so? Aiming for canonization, are you? Keep pluggin’, boyo. One glorious day we’ll all realize how wrong we’ve been about you and belatedly recognize your ultra-specialness. Meantime, here’s a horsehair garment and a scourge for ya. Enjoy.
Oh, Halasz – for Christ’s sake. How often do I have to tell you – and how blind can you be. No, it’s not that I don’t ‘want to stand up to criticism and questioning of your apparent reasonings, because that’s painful, involving an exposure to dreaded otherness at the expense of the securement of “identity”.’ Don’t be so obtuse, and so self-flattering. I do want to stand up (or sit down) to criticism and questioning, I feed on it, as a goldfish feeds on peanut butter. But it has to be coherent, articulate, clear, understandable, rational criticism or questioning. And it has to have paragraphs – that’s an absolute pre-requisite.
Look – I’ve told you many times, and other commenters here have told you: you write so badly that no one can figure out what it is you’re saying, and furthermore, you write so self-indulgently, at such colossal length, with such lack of discipline, that most people refuse to make the effort to wade through your exceedingly long, disorganized, pompous, self-important, windy comments in order to try to figure out what you’re saying.
And then to top it all off, to put the icing on the cat food, when I do try to read your comments and try to continue the discussion by asking you for elucidation of your elaborately opaque meaning – you almost invariably ignore what I say and simply start from somewhere else. So don’t tell me I’m non-responsive.
So knock it off. Either engage in a rational discussion, or stop commenting here. Seriously – stop wasting your time.
Silence, foul temptress! Your demand for clarity, coherence, and relevance is just another tool used by the Hegemon to “objectivize” the Other and thereby nullify it.
Why so uptight, baby? Spark up a spleef with John. Free yourself and celebrate the multivalency of the multiplicity of Other discourses! Let the Stream of Consciousness flow and Just Be, man. It’s really beautiful.