Thursday, February 02, 2006
religious hatred bill and the offensive cartoons
Seems like religious bigotism is rearing its ugly head in the western front again. First we hear that UK "religious hatred bill" was defeated ...and my feeling is the ruling labour party was really not too keen to get this bill passed anyway..if not how can we explain the bill was lost by one vote and that was Tony Blair's himself ! ....i personally don't give a damn what happens in british parliament and anyway i'm all for freedom of speech and all that.... and of all person "Mr Bean" rowan atkinson wrote a very good defense on why the bill should not be passed and performers should be given the "right to criticise religion"....
well..i'm all for criticising religions and my biggest wonder is how on earth can billions of intelligent people can worship a bumbling mediocre jew at best and quite possibly not even a historical figure as GOD!!...but i respect everybody's right even if he wants to be an idiot...but but but...making fun , making jokes and insulting any religion is quite a different thing....
...and may be it's not a coincidence that immediately after this farcical defeat of the religious hatred bill today's guardian unlimited had a big news about more papers publishing controversial cartoons that allegedly making fun of Prophet Muhammad...I said allegedly becaus e I do not know how offensive they are as I've not seen them....
Well, we'll have to wait and see if there are any strong reaction from some sections of muslim world to this...may be this time ...when the hardliners are on the defensive in every corner of the world the reaction will not be too intense such as what happened to that fool salman rushdie - i in fact love his writings and have all his books with the exception of his latest but he just went too far with his ( ironically ) very good "satanic verses"....
it may be that the muslim response (to the insulting cartoons) this time is like the response to michel houllebecq's infamous "islam is the stupidest religion" outburst (which i think was the right one too) is just to ignore and let it die out....but then again despite winning dublin impac prize for 'atomised' houllebecq does not have a big enough stature for anybody to take him too seriously...and i agree with Will Self (who writes much better ) that he is just a little prick who doesn't get enough sex.....
i've tried to read atomised a couple of times but never get past page 30....but i did finish his short novel...more correctly a novella or just a long short story...Lanzarote...a forgettable book apart from one quite genuinely singular observation...on the third page he wrote this which i find quite amusing...
'it's not arab countries i don't like, it's muslim countries' I went on.'I don't suppose you have any non-muslim arab countries , do you?' It would be a tough question on Question pour un champion: a non-muslim arab country....you have forty second.
but again...we never know...may be we just need a couple of suicide bombers to blow themselves in some newspaper headquarters somewhere to teach these western bastards not to fool around with islam....
well..i'm all for criticising religions and my biggest wonder is how on earth can billions of intelligent people can worship a bumbling mediocre jew at best and quite possibly not even a historical figure as GOD!!...but i respect everybody's right even if he wants to be an idiot...but but but...making fun , making jokes and insulting any religion is quite a different thing....
...and may be it's not a coincidence that immediately after this farcical defeat of the religious hatred bill today's guardian unlimited had a big news about more papers publishing controversial cartoons that allegedly making fun of Prophet Muhammad...I said allegedly becaus e I do not know how offensive they are as I've not seen them....
Well, we'll have to wait and see if there are any strong reaction from some sections of muslim world to this...may be this time ...when the hardliners are on the defensive in every corner of the world the reaction will not be too intense such as what happened to that fool salman rushdie - i in fact love his writings and have all his books with the exception of his latest but he just went too far with his ( ironically ) very good "satanic verses"....
it may be that the muslim response (to the insulting cartoons) this time is like the response to michel houllebecq's infamous "islam is the stupidest religion" outburst (which i think was the right one too) is just to ignore and let it die out....but then again despite winning dublin impac prize for 'atomised' houllebecq does not have a big enough stature for anybody to take him too seriously...and i agree with Will Self (who writes much better ) that he is just a little prick who doesn't get enough sex.....
i've tried to read atomised a couple of times but never get past page 30....but i did finish his short novel...more correctly a novella or just a long short story...Lanzarote...a forgettable book apart from one quite genuinely singular observation...on the third page he wrote this which i find quite amusing...
'it's not arab countries i don't like, it's muslim countries' I went on.'I don't suppose you have any non-muslim arab countries , do you?' It would be a tough question on Question pour un champion: a non-muslim arab country....you have forty second.
but again...we never know...may be we just need a couple of suicide bombers to blow themselves in some newspaper headquarters somewhere to teach these western bastards not to fool around with islam....
