Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Pat Condell on Fitna

Psychic coincidence? I didn't see the last post before making this one.

I am happy to report that Pat Condell has contracted with the Dawkins website to make available a CD of his extraordinary YouTube comments. Here he is talking about Fitna. His elucidation rivals Dawkins or Harris, and he says things they aren't allowed to.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

I received the same notice from the Sam Harris website. I have some mixed reactions to Pat Condell.

I think he's 'right on' in particular cases, but not in general. What he has to say is frequently overly sweeping. He can't be bothered to respond to specific Muslims or groups of Muslims, and they *are* out there, by name. And that's too bad because he comes off as smug and arrogant when he paints them all with the same brush.

And he's all but said that he doesn't give a damn whether he offends *all* of them.

Well, OK, but that's not being a comic, a critic or even smart. That's just bigotry - in the fullest sense of the word. I'm a little surprised that Dawkins would want to be associated with him.

He's saying the right things, but he should direct his anger where it belongs.

Aaron said...

He probably doesn't want to weaken his message by making too much of a distinction between the radicals and the so called moderates. Maybe this is a bit unfair, but it gets the message across.

Anonymous said...

I like Sam Harris' approach.

You have a point about Condell's approach, but I wonder if he hasn't crossed the line somewhere.

On the other hand, if no one else has the guts to respond to these "Islamic" thugs, if European governments are going to tuck their tails between their legs and hide under the table, then maybe there's a place for a Condell.

Anonymous said...

I have to interject here in response to the last comment which accuses European Gov's of tucking their tails between their legs... This is not an accurate depiction of all of reality.

But for the Government/s working through the police and intelligence services, we could possibly have had thousands of people blown up over the Atlantic by the psychopath idiots who are now on trial for the conspiracy to blow up some 5 or 6 or 7 (I don't remember the number) of large, transAtlantic airplanes.

The Governments are hard at work to catch the criminals, of that I am sure. What remains is for the Muslim communities to come out really strongly against those criminals and root them out and hand them over themselves. If there was just ONE incident of this happening, I believe a lot of Europeans and Americans and Westerners of all colors would feel considerable relief that at last this worldwide faith-based community is acting to stamp out its sick members who think that violence is the appropriate political action.

I know I would. I am waiting for those Islamic leaders to openly betray their sick, violent 'brethren' - and learn to stand up for true brotherhood/sisterhood or let us say civilized citizenship, instead of this pathetic spineless accommodation to the violent ones.

They have to show they are working harder to integrate with Western values because we AIN'T going into Islamic, women-men Apartheid, retrogressive cultural norms. NO WAY!

Anonymous said...

//I have to interject here in response to the last comment which accuses European Gov's of tucking their tails between their legs...//

Sure, European governments may be playing tough behind the scenes, but no one can know with any certainty. It's left to those same governments to tell us the extent of their efforts and their successes, which is always dubious.

What I'm referring to is what we know: their reluctance to defend freedom of speech, freedom of expression, freedom of choice as it relates to religion and Islam in particular. I stand by my comment in that regard.

Rather than cite example after example, look here for a starting point:

http://www.religionnewsblog.com/
20969/islamization-3

Here is an extract:

'Balancing respect for religious beliefs and free speech remains delicate across Europe. In Germany, federal law bans references to religion “deemed able to disrupt the public peace.” In Greece, only blasphemy against Christianity is objectionable.

The Netherlands makes “scornful” blasphemy a crime. The last major case, in 1968, involved a novel depicting God as a donkey with particular mating habits. The author was acquitted when the prosecution failed to prove he was “scornful.”'

These 'laws' sound faintly reasonable, especially after centuries of internecine wars, but if one thinks about it, these laws are like nursery school guidelines to keep little children from further squabbling. It's time for the Europeans to grow up. They need to *recognize*, *allow* and *defend* individual liberty and freedom of expression - among those, the freedom to criticize religion.

I was dumbfounded when NOT ONE GOVERNMENT, including ours, defended the right of Dutch cartoonists to criticize Islam.

upinVermont said...

From a related article at the same site:

Hirsi Ali has reason to feel aggrieved. As a six-year-old in Somalia, her mother and grandmother forced her to undergo female genital mutilation.

After her father was forced to flee Somalia, the family went to Saudi Arabia, where she and her sister were veiled and kept indoors. Her chance for freedom came when travelling overland to Canada to an arranged marriage with her cousin. She fled her relatives in Germany, and caught a train to Amsterdam. After completing a degree in politics, she began to work for the Dutch social services.

She met women who had been locked inside their homes for years and she interviewed others who had been raped and beaten. She heard about girls who had been killed for holding hands with non-Muslim boys and she was outraged to find that the Dutch authorities chose not to interfere in such family conflicts. She says that multiculturalist policies aimed at protecting ‘culture’ often end up repressing women and children.

Aaron said...

For instance, honoring a culture's right to exercise cannabalism, and assimilating them into your society, then not speaking out because you're afraid to piss them off. A line must be drawn.