Martin Amis
I wanted to return to these comments by Martin Amis:There’s a definite urge—don’t you have it?—to say, “The Muslim community will have to suffer until it gets its house in order.” What sort of suffering? Not letting them travel. Deportation—further down the road. Curtailing of freedoms. Strip-searching people who look like they’re from the Middle East or from Pakistan...Discriminatory stuff, until it hurts the whole community and they start getting tough with their children.
I am surprised, and disappointed, at the lack of outrage over these comments. Let's look in some more detail at what he is saying he has 'definite urge' to happen. He is demanding 'curtailing of freedoms' and 'discriminatory stuff'. More specifially, he wants to ban Muslims from travelling.
Where would this lead? It's not rocket science. Obviously, a lot of Muslims would not be able to do their jobs if they were not allowed to travel. Thus you would have a increasingly impoverished community, ever more reliant on state handouts to remain alive. They would also be increasingly angry, as to this he wants to add 'strip searching people who like they're from the Middle East or from Pakistan'(this section, as Mukul Kesaven notes, puts pay to the idea that this is only about Islam). And what would they be searched for? The Koran?
Finally, 'down the road', we have 'deportation'. Given the travel ban, this might be difficult, but more is the point - where do you deport a British-born Muslim man to? Presumably not the EU, as then they could come right back. Other countries aren't going to willing play Amis's game. Obviously you can't, unless Amis plans to find an empty island somewhere. This is chilling stuff.
I think this particularly shocked me as I was quite a fan of some of Martin Amis's earlier works, and also because I am going on a trip (to the United States) with a friend of mine who happens to be a Muslim, in a month's time. Amis not only doesn't think he should be allowed to go, but he wants to make him suffer if he remains in the country.
As I said, there should be more outrage. Does the Jewish Chronicle know what it is paying to put on? Does Manchester University know who they are about to employ?
ps I should say, as I did last time, that I retain some hope that Amis was misquoted. That he has made no effort to correct this, or inform his best mate Hitchens before he quoted it, suggests not, but it remains a possibility.
Labels: Decent Left
posted by Matthew @ 2/21/2007 08:14:00 PM
Comments: 1
