Thursday, June 21, 2007
sir dickhead
now here's the thing. suppose a muslim country confers a prestigious state title , say the equivalent of a knighthood to osama ben laden for his service to islam , what do you think would be the response of bush and other western world?
not very hard to imagine what the response is, i'm sure. conversely it is rather stupid of the british government pretending to be surprised with the backlash & furore from some muslim countries by that decision to confer knighthood to rushdie.
it is good to see that apart from Iran and Pakistan the response from other muslim countries (so far) has been rather mute but still, we never know. things may pick up and it's going to be interesting time again for the newly honoured sir dickhead. the wonder of it all is that as micheal white in the guardian recently wrote, why did rushdie bother to accept it at all? him being a leftie and having said rather bad things about britain when he absconded to live in NYC? my guess is that the old pompous dickhead like anyone else is not immune being feted and honoured like anyone else - even at the expense of turning his back to his principles.
Pleasantly surprised to see that Will Self seems to be one of those that has the sensible attitude to this. but perhaps it's not too surprising. He once called the anti islam michel Houellebecq a little prick that that deon't have enough sex ...or something to that effect.
"Given the furore that The Satanic Verses occasioned, it does strike me that any responsible writer might ask himself whether the fallout from accepting such an honour was really worth the bauble ... it is surely better that writers decline any form of honour."
and unfortunately it's the like of hari kunzru (who is not a westerner) is the one we can depend on to give stupid comments typical of a wog and a coconut. this guy doesn't know shit about muslim world view.
"The idea that it is some kind of calculated insult is an absurdity. The real insult - to the intelligence and decency of 'the world's 1.5 billion Muslims', for whom people such as Mohammed Ejaz ul-Haq presume to speak - comes from the ignorance and paranoia of leaders who feel so threatened by a novelist that they'll call for him to be killed
Tuesday 26 June
a little update.
a guardian blog discussion on sir salman knighthood can be read here.
not very hard to imagine what the response is, i'm sure. conversely it is rather stupid of the british government pretending to be surprised with the backlash & furore from some muslim countries by that decision to confer knighthood to rushdie.
it is good to see that apart from Iran and Pakistan the response from other muslim countries (so far) has been rather mute but still, we never know. things may pick up and it's going to be interesting time again for the newly honoured sir dickhead. the wonder of it all is that as micheal white in the guardian recently wrote, why did rushdie bother to accept it at all? him being a leftie and having said rather bad things about britain when he absconded to live in NYC? my guess is that the old pompous dickhead like anyone else is not immune being feted and honoured like anyone else - even at the expense of turning his back to his principles.
Pleasantly surprised to see that Will Self seems to be one of those that has the sensible attitude to this. but perhaps it's not too surprising. He once called the anti islam michel Houellebecq a little prick that that deon't have enough sex ...or something to that effect.
"Given the furore that The Satanic Verses occasioned, it does strike me that any responsible writer might ask himself whether the fallout from accepting such an honour was really worth the bauble ... it is surely better that writers decline any form of honour."
and unfortunately it's the like of hari kunzru (who is not a westerner) is the one we can depend on to give stupid comments typical of a wog and a coconut. this guy doesn't know shit about muslim world view.
"The idea that it is some kind of calculated insult is an absurdity. The real insult - to the intelligence and decency of 'the world's 1.5 billion Muslims', for whom people such as Mohammed Ejaz ul-Haq presume to speak - comes from the ignorance and paranoia of leaders who feel so threatened by a novelist that they'll call for him to be killed
Tuesday 26 June
a little update.
a guardian blog discussion on sir salman knighthood can be read here.
