In one breath you dismiss the faith of millions of your brothers, writing them off as sell-outs, apostates and hypocrites, while in the next you agitate on behalf of millions of others, unknown. Here are the contradictions of the Muslim propagandist. A brutal oppression is raging out there, elsewhere, in distant lands, and it is the duty of every believer to respond. Yet in times of peace, those same oppressed would stand repudiated by your tongue, their faith undermined, their words and deeds attacked. Yours is a call to action which demands no questions be asked. Your propaganda paints a compelling portrait, edited, refined and contorted: Muslims alone are victims, persecuted around the world, relentlessly. But about Muslims killed by Muslims of a certain kind, you are silent. Of those maimed and cut to pieces by a bomb in a marketplace, you have nothing to say. About Christians killed by Muslims, Christians killed by Christians, Hindu-Buddhist rivalries, ethnic conflict, drug wars, persecution of other minorities… not a word. There is no room for acknowledgement of the suffering of others in the propagandist’s toolkit. We must be moved, by whatever means possible. Yours is a humanitarian mission that demands that nobody asks, “Where is your compassion for your neighbour and brother near at hand?”
I have read Tony Blair’s Bloomberg speech in full, long winded though it was. It contains some truths, and some realities for Western interests.
I don’t know anybody who would deny that Muslim extremists are a threat to many communities around the globe; other Muslims are as much victims of their words and actions as non-Muslims. Yet history attests that these groups have always been there; it is just that modern communication media has amplified their reach.
Blair touches on certain truths, but he also glosses over other unfortunate inconvenient ones. The elephant in the room, of course, is his intervention in Iraq, which in no small part accelerated the religious sectarian anarchy he now laments.
Saddam Hussein’s loathed Arab Socialist Ba’ath regime was brutally effective in rooting out so-called ‘Islamist’ groups. Blair’s defence of the military recoup in Egypt today is no different from the Reagan administration’s relationship with Saddam Hussain in the 1980s: this is just realpolitik. Muammar Gaddafi was good for Libya, it now transpires, as Blair tells us that the democratic experiment has well and truly failed.
People are dismissive of Blair’s warnings and advice for sound reasons. It is not that he is a harbinger of ideas that nobody wants to hear. It is because he himself — personally — has played an active role in the region’s unrest.
Islam is indeed an important factor in the region, but so too are those unbelievably straight lines redrawn on the map by European powers at the end of each World War. Faith and visions of religious utopia play an important role in people’s lives, but so too do the malevolent excesses of Secret Police acting on behalf of undemocratic governments.
Who would blame anyone for seeking an ideal — suspect though it may seem to literate minds — when reality has proved so hideous? What serves Western interests is not necessarily good for the lived real lives of individuals and their families.
Blair tries to concede that other factors come into play early on in his speech, but he goes on to brush them out of the way in pursuit of his overarching agenda. An agenda that quietly mixes up facts. None of the countries he mentions by name have been actively funding and proselytising that narrow minded and dangerous ideology he refers to. But key British allies, conveniently overlooked? Can a thesis about the Middle East which does not once mention Saudi Arabia be taken seriously?
Particularly when his closing remarks refer to the atrocities of 11 September 2001, an act of terrorism said to have been perpetuated not by Afghans or Iraqis, but by a group of Saudi men.
I suppose this is what he means by “taking a side and sticking with it.”
There shall come upon people years of deceit in which the liar will be believed, the truthful one disbelieved, the treacherous will be trusted, the trustworthy one considered treacherous; and the Ruwaybidah shall speak out.’ It was said: Who are the Ruwaybidah? The Prophet, peace be upon him, said: ‘The lowly, contemptible one who will speak out about public affairs.’
Whether we like it or not, Campaign Islam’s response to the now infamous Honest Policy video will resonate with many young people, unable to sift through propaganda which presents Muslims as permanent, exclusive victims. Most of us have mellowed with the passing years and have forgotten that the young are often attracted to those who appear to be straight talking.
The middle-aged amongst us watched a few frames and found our in-built Omar Bakri Alarms going off. Long gone are the days plastering lampposts with sticky labels promoting Islam as a way of life. Today, whatever our view of style and substance, theirs is a social media just as creative as any Channel 4 Short.
Such is the effect of our aversion to the HT / Al-Muhajirun circus of the 1990s, that we can no longer listen to those who sing from a different hymn sheet. Women in niqab should be silent, we announce, without the faintest trace of irony. Women moved by the desperate lot of others elsewhere should direct all their energies in that direction, and leave the rest of us alone to enjoy our skinny lattes.
20 years ago, I was one of those annoying youth banging on about hideous slaughter in our midst: in my case it was genocide in Rwanda. I was found pinning up posters around my college, begging people to take notice and do “something”. But we were the Brit-pop generation — the Boo Radleys were singing, Wake Up Boo! — and few of us really cared about the world beyond our Walkman mix tape.
In truth, this debate is replayed in every generation between the gloriously entertained and the boringly serious. CND would march while Punk rocked. Bosnia burned as Blur and Oasis battled for another nation’s heart. The chasm between today’s Mipsters revelling in Islampop and their angry campaigning counterparts is hardly peculiar. Of course there is crossover: thousands have been moved to support the people of war-torn Syria whilst listening to Adam Saif perform live in concert. But that has always been the case too, from Band Aid in 1984 to U2’s Sarajevo Tour.
When we were young, we tended to think that only our way was right. Sometimes it is tiresome to encounter those who still believe that, but surely we are old enough now to accommodate competing voices, however much we may find ourselves disagreeing with both.
Had a splendid week away in Ireland. In disconnected remoteness, missed much of the happenings of one world, but experienced the greater realities of another, such as the beauty of gardens, rivers, lakes and mountains, the sweet sound of bird song and waves washing the shore, the peace that descends when no mobile or wi-fi signal can be found. Wonderful weather, a family reunion, lovely walks. A soul replenished and refreshed.
Dearly beloved,
When I was first getting into graphics, I yearned for a Mac (but could not afford one). That was way back when they were beige: not cool, but highly functional.
However, when they started that whole PC vs. Mac (Geek vs. Mr Cool) campaign, that really killed it for me. I can see why it worked: it played on base emotions, because nobody wants to be called a Geek – and you still see it played out in forum discussions: the superior, smug, “we’re cool” attitude. That marketing approach was pure genius, and the only fallout was to lose people like me who had already experienced too much of that in real life. No big deal, for the Cult of Mac had been well and truly cemented.
So it didn’t really matter if the marketing campaigns that came after it were boring and unimaginative: the consumer already had in mind that the product was the personification of cool. And I think Apple rested on its laurels, marvelling in this apparition it had created.
Now they need to do something, because that Cool has been tarnished by the likes of Samsung, which has used a similar strategy to say, We’re Young, We’re Really Cool, We’re Not Smug… Or to put it another way: Think Different… don’t be an Apple Sheep. It’s the same emotional marketing technique, simply updated and turned around.
However, I think Apple’s marketing team were not entirely wrong in their criticisms. Apple has some great products, but they are falling behind.
At work I use both a Dell with Windows 7 and a Mac with OSX Mavericks. I think the Apple hardware is generally unmatched, but if you were to ask me which OS I prefer, Windows 7 wins hands down.
There’s no danger that Apple will lose out to Microsoft of course, because MS is simply rubbish at consumer marketing and their brand-name is too tarnished with alleged Geekery, Greed and Arrogance.
But they will lose out to newer, younger companies, who have marketing clout and the ability to say We are New and Different.
Apple needs to find a way to say, We are not middle-aged and boring. That might mean fewer commercials featuring old men rambling on about technical matters against a white background. But they also probably need to realise that most of us are happy buying a compromised, less perfected product that hits the right price point.
If I had the money to buy my own Mac Book Pro, I’d buy a Dell XPS 18 instead.
And here ends my sermon for the day.
To be honest, there’s very little nobility or goodness in our actions these days, and all that’s left is an odious caricature of faith.
For all the claims a decade ago, that journalists are a far superior species to bloggers, somebody needs to explain why so many newspapers now quote stories in other papers verbatim, without verifying the facts; how Twitter became a trusted authority; why so many spurious claims which are later found to have no basis get circulated worldwide. If journalists are the upholders of standards, then standards have certainly slipped.
We will most likely learn in weeks/months/years to come that the plane* simply crashed and that all the other information about military radar, diverted flights and pings were mistaken or misidentified items, or ideas or theories provided by semi-official spokesmen, which the media has simply seized on in its effort to tell a story. We have witnessed many of these cases over the years: eventually the story will be corrected with facts reanalysed in hindsight — although this will never satisfy conspiracy theorists who will cling to the earliest reports as the only true testimony. With One are the keys of the unseen.
* Malaysian Airlines flight MH370
Sometimes the action required of us is to do nothing. To not fly into a rage. To not demand revenge. To say nothing. To not forward emotional blackmail. To not charge into battle, to not add suffering on top of suffering, anarchy on anarchy. Inaction is not always indifference. Sometimes it is absolute wisdom.
My companions are brilliant, erudite, learned and wise; perceptive, with piercing insight. I sit with them, flummoxed by my own ignorance, confounded by my dumb tongue and my outbursts of unmistakably unhilarious humour. They are the hyperliterate intellectuals our community so desperately needs. I am the court jester, muttering incoherently, constrained by my unmatched, unfailing witlessness. I have been blessed to count these sages amongst my friends. Perhaps they have been blessed to count this fool amongst theirs. All together we keep each other in check.
I listened patiently and quietly as they talked and talked for minutes on end, but when I finally opened my mouth to speak, I could not even finish my sentence. Momentarily I was irritated, until I thought to myself: training for my ego. A gift, when you think about it. Speak good or remain silent. Diminish your self-regard. Minimise your inflated self-importance. Refocus your centre from I to the One. Yes, a gift from above, when you really think about it.
