Condell's Chauvinism.

The YouTube anti-theist Pat Condell has come out as a sympathiser, if not a supporter, of the English Defence League. You can watch the video above and decide that for yourself. I first encountered Condell's online videos in 2007 after I googled the word 'Islam' and I immediately found 'The Trouble with Islam' video which kicked up a fuss in Berkeley and has since racked up about a million hits. That was when Pat Condell really exploded onto the internet scene. He has faced challenge and accusations of racism. I remember when his video 'Welcome to Saudi Britain' was banned from YouTube and the ban was reversed after many people uploaded the video again and again in protest. That's not the only triumph Condell has enjoyed. He has brought out a DVD with a quote from Dawkins on the front, as well as a compilation of transcripts and racked up millions of hits.

After clicking on Condell's profile I found the video 'Hello America' in which Pat railed against the Christian Right, George Bush and Tony Blair, the unforgivable wars they had started and the subsequent abuses of civil liberties. He was even critical of Israel, or rather those on "both sides" stubbornly refusing to compromise for peace - but he insisted that Jerusalem should not belong to Israel. He described the Patriot act as a charter for fascism. These points differentiated Condell from the right-wing strain of anti-Muslim sentiment, which we find on the right-wing of American, British, French and Israeli politics. It appeared as though Condell stood outside the neoconservative narrative in his insistence that Bush and Blair were 'evil evil' cunningly disguised as 'good evil'. He described the 'War on Terror' as a war on freedom, and pointed out that Osama bin Laden's activities fed into this very same poisonous narrative.

For a while Condell stuck to his guns, consistently committed to individual liberty, humanism and secularism. All the while the former comedian lacked the cuttingly posh accent and mannerisms of fellow anti-theists Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens. He was scathing about scientology, the Saudi regime, the GOP and televangelism; but it was always clear (as with the 'New Atheists' in general) that Pat had a special place for Islam on his hit list. He has issued calls for the burka and halal meat to be banned. When talk of 'Islamization' first emerged Condell was quick to join in with the Muslim-bashing. He came out in opposition to the so-called 'Ground Zero Mosque', which was actually a religious centre funded by Sharif el-Gamal - himself a realty developer who probably votes Republican. It was in 2009 that Condell came out to distinguish himself from the liberal Left, which he dubbed the multicultural appeasement lobby.

At the time Condell struck back at accusations of racism by insisting that the human species constitutes one race, but it still holds a variety of religions and cultures within that scope. He then went on to claim that we are being 'invaded' by the cultural values of a religion which is inherently fascist. It's standard for rightists to use 'culture' as a convenient synonym for 'race' in its opposition to immigration, particularly Muslim immigration. The line between criticism of Islamism, Islam and Muslims is repeatedly and deliberately blurred to this end. All the while political correctness and multiculturalism provide easy targets for people like Pat Condell. One would think that this freedom-lover might welcome new citizens to join his free society and get away from the dictatorships of West Asia. But these people aren't fit for freedom in Pat's mind. The welcome reaction on the radical Right to Condell should surprise few outside of the bubble of post-political 'New Atheism'.

Just in time for the 2010 General Election the online face of 'New Atheism' came out in favour of UKIP. It was a surprise for many of his subscribers. He was soon thundering about the Guardianista Left, repeatedly accusing the liberal newspaper of anti-Semitism and of supporting Hamas; as well as slamming the BBC for being apart of the 'progressive consensus'. It's not clear whether Condell changed, or if this is how he always felt. It's plausible that he was always a reactionary hiding behind the tenets of bourgeois liberalism. By now Pat had developed a much less enlightened line on the Palestinians and had ranted about the London riots with ferocious reactionist bile. He pinned it on a culture of welfare dependency conducive to "mental disablement" and going on to compare the rioters to vermin and parasites. He fell in line with the gutter press in calling for stripping the rioters of their benefits and arming the police with guns.

There is an obvious nexus binding together a variety of forces with anti-Muslim prejudice. It's the hatred of Islam that forms the common ground between certain clumps of nationalists, conservatives and liberals. It's a cultural chauvinism with underlying orientalist assumptions about Arab and Muslim culture. It is no coincidence that there has been a resurgence of anti-Muslim bigotry since the attacks of September 11th 2001. For the neoconservatives and other assorted hawks the attacks on the World Trade Centre provided the pretext to declaring war on Iraq. The new obsession became Muslims and their way of life, almost succeeding the traditional place of the Jews in the far-right imagination - as a force that the Left is using to destroy Christendom. Then there are the liberal guardians of tolerance and freedom, who were so unsettled by the events of 9/11 that they found themselves unable to resist taking the side of civilisation.

Pat Condell on Norway.

So the face of New Atheism has commented on the recent massacre in Norway perpetrated by a right-winger who was wound up about multiculturalism, radical Islam and cultural Marxism. Pat Condell is probably sincere in his condemnation of the use of violence whilst he speaks of a war between violent barbarians and civilised people. The same can be said of his tirade against the suggestion that the right-wing critique of multiculturalism has contributed to the pool of hate from which Breivik emerged armed to the teeth. The problem being that the ideas expressed in Breivik's manifesto come from the mainstream and can be traced from the standard conservatism to the outer reaches of ultra-nationalism. We find he read columnists Jeremy Clarkson and Melanie Phillips as well as Bernard Lewis, Bat Ye'or, Pamela Geller, Geert Wilders, Daniel Pipes, Ayaan Hirsi Ali and the Unabomber. Breivik took the words of the Unabomber and replaced words such as "blacks" with "Muslims" and "leftists" with "cultural Marxists".

So the way that Pat Condell just objects to the implied "complicity" of all critics of Islam in this crime is absurd. It is not the case that the common responsibility falls to neoconservatives, Zionists, right-wing liberals and fascists because of the commonality of ideas, it is the shared ideas which are the problem here. The tendency towards a form of anti-Semitism which hides behind a philo-Semitic love of Israel but draws a distinction between "loyal" and "disloyal" Jews is symptomatic of right-wingers in the mainstream as well as on the lunatic fringe. Then there is the fervent opposition to political correctness and multiculturalism as an outgrowth of a left-wing conspiracy to undermine Western civilisation. You can find plenty of talk about the PC Brigade on the mainstream along with the line that there is a left-wing elite in the shadows of public policy. These lines only become more extreme in tone at the outer-reaches of ultra-nationalism. The same goes for the bile that the Right spews over anything remotely Islamic.

You must notice that the line Condell takes is that the use of violence is counter-productive and will never win over the people. The restoration of democracy in Europe can only come with the mass-support of the people according to him, by which he means the end of the European Union. Only the fanatics believe otherwise, a distinction which Condell uses to separate Breivik off from the discourse which he himself is embedded in on YouTube. It is about method more than anything then and yet he calls for a "defence" of freedom of speech no matter what. He may not have meant those words in any violent way, but it is the case that the radical Right have taken an interest in him and for good reason. The issue for Condell is still Islam in Europe, there is no mention of the media's immediate reaction to the massacre. Instead he rages over the suggestion that the right-wing opposition to multiculturalism might have something to do with this event. He goes onto reiterate the old lines that Islam is a "totalitarian ideology" and a threat to freedom, while political correctness is "cultural Marxism" and multiculturalism is a "lie".

Justice for Pat Condell.

The face of New Atheism on the internet Pat Condell has come out in blind support - 'blind' as in ignorant of the implications - of the assassination of Osama bin Laden. Though it is hardly a surprise as Pat Condell has come out as a supporter of UKIP, which sheds some light on Condell's populist anti-theistic rhetoric as an extension of postmodern nationalism. It is the characteristic "You may!" quality of this brand of nationalism which is what makes it permissive. Only in the sense of "You may use the n-word because they use it!" Freedom of speech and expression become umbrellas to shelter racism, homophobia and misogyny. By his own admission he no longer believes in social justice, he has embraced UKIP and Daniel Hannan, making his anti-theism a cover for an effectively conservative outlook. Just like the majority of New Atheists, Pat Condell sees history as Progress and the only things that stand in the way of Progress are barbarous myths like Islam.

Take note of the language used in the video above. Condell mocks compensation and counseling early on before insisting that the aid to Pakistan be cut-off. How far does his commentary differ from Fox News? Apparently, Pakistan is living on "welfare" but can afford nuclear weapons and can't be trusted to hand over wanted terrorists to the country that has been bombing Pakistan for years now. It was under General Zia ul-Haq, a US-backed dictator, that began the nuclear weapons program in Pakistan. The US supported the program, it was hardly undertaken as a choice made by the Pakistani people. It is true that Osama bin Laden survived in Pakistan for so long because of institutional corruption, incompetence and sympathies with Islamism in the establishment. But the radicalisation of Pakistani Muslims was initiated by Zia ul-Haq in the 1980s as a way for him to legitimate his rule over the country.

As Noam Chomsky has pointed out the US has a history of habouring mass-murderers, like Luis Posada Cariles, and Orlando Bosch (who died just days before bin Laden), which the media forgets in it's criticism of Pakistan. Condell seems to acknowledge that the assassination was not justice, but he also seems to revel in that it was revenge. I wonder how Pat Condell would react if Iraqi commandos landed in Texas, shot George W Bush in the head, photographed the body and then dumped the remains in the Atlantic Ocean. After all Bush led the way for the invasion of Iraq in 2003, which was a war crime that has led to the deaths of over 1 million Iraqis. The Bush administration will never see a trial for the "supreme international crime" it indulged in with the enthusiasm of a child burning ants with a magnifying glass. Uncontroversially, the crimes of George Bush exceed the crimes of Osama bin Laden and yet Bush is not a "suspect" but the "decider" responsible for the millions dead, mutilated, displaced and dispossessed in Iraq.

We should also keep in mind that the same weekend the Obama administration attempted to assassinate Gaddafi as well. The method in that case was an air-strike against Gaddafi's compound. In that case it is also important to reverse the rationale as Alexander Cockburn has posited: "If a Libyan bomber had blown up the wedding couple and a goodly tranche of the British upper crust in Westminster Abbey under justification that the whole place and its human contents, down to the grandchildren, not to mention the hats, were fair game because Cameron was there." What would Pat Condell say if this actually happened? You can guarantee he would be throwing the word 'terrorist' and 'Muslim' around, just like the reactionary press would be. Even though the standards applied to Gaddafi do not apply to us, we can bomb whoever we like and everyone else can go to hell.

The natural bogeyman for Pat Condell are the liberal Left, who defend multiculturalism and political correctness which are contrary to his idea of freedom. For him the Left are apologists for evil because they oppose a ban on the veil, he has even lashed out at feminists over this. Naturally, the radical Right have taken an interest in Pat Condell and have tried to latch onto his videos in the past, which he has railed against in his usual contrarian manner. But it is no doubt that the nationalist populism of UKIP appeals to Condell, and many others, as a supplement for the weaknesses of liberalism. The problem is that the trajectory of the market is towards relativism, individualism and pluralism, this will inevitably undermine national pride, tradition and culture. The liberal doctrine of multiculturalism is partially a product of that tendency, the reaction against it is the need of the system to defend itself through recourse to nationalism and traditionalism.

Sort it out, Pat! You're no better than Enoch Powell, who wanted freedom from the EU and the end of the NHS but he also knew he needed someone to blame when the shit hit the fan. Here you are elated at the death of a wanted terrorist, the pursuit of whom has justified the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of people. Where is justice for them?

The Face of New Atheism.

"Well it's a gloomy, rainy old day to be here in London, but it could be worse; I could be in Saudi Arabia where men are men, and women are cattle. Can I say that?" - Pat Condell

If you've used YouTube regularly over the years since its launch, you've probably come across anti-theistic lectures by New Atheists like Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins. But in early 2007 a new anti-theist popped up and it could be argued that he makes Hitchens look like a devout Muslim, I am talking about Pat Condell of course. Since February 7th of 2007, Pat Condell has posted over fifty videos on YouTube and shows no sign of stopping any time soon. The videos consist of vicious monologues usually aimed against Christianity or Islam, but he has targeted Judaism and Scientology in the past also. Pat Condell is truly the voice of New Atheism on YouTube.
Condell has released a DVD through the website of Richard Dawkins, a fellow New Atheist who shares his love for nature and liberal values, the DVD consists of the monologues Pat posted on YouTube between February '07 and February '08. He's even selling his own memorabilia, which advocates his brand of Atheism, through his own website. Pat Condell, he who criticises Pat Robertson for using Evangelical Christianity to make millions of dollars by exploiting his audience, seems rather hypocritical in this sense. However, as Condell would argue, the rantings and ravings of a man such as Robertson are far more harmful and dishonest than Condell's. It is easy to point out that capitalism transcends the materialism of Atheism and can now be found in the idealism of Theism. But I am more concerned with the disturbing qualities of New Atheism, and how Pat Condell unfortunately actualises such qualities in his videos, than how capitalism penetrates everything known to man.

"Pat Condell is unique. Nobody can match his extraordinary blend of suavity and savagery. With his articulate intelligence he runs rings around the religious wingnuts that are the targets of his merciless humour. Thank goodness he's on our side." - Richard Dawkins

The values espoused by Pat Condell are definitely of a liberal origin and there seems to be a sort of "hippyish" quality to his delivery of such values. He once said that he believes "there is more spirituality in a single flower than in all the sanctimonious sky pilots who've ever lived". Condell's liberalism can be "detected" in his optimistic view of human nature, his opposition to authoritarianism as well as to the conservative view of human nature as fundamentally rotten, and his love of freedom. Which is probably why he has stated his reason for making his videos as "because I want to live in a free world, full of free people who can say whatever they want to say and be whoever they want to be one thousand percent of the time. And where no one is allowed to shut them up, because their crackpot religious beliefs have been offended." The love of freedom and liberty he espouses, may be shared by many libertarians, seem paradoxical when combined with a contempt for anyone who doesn't share such sentiments. Condell equates religion with evil, which he accuses a "misguided and arrogant liberal elite" of fragmenting British society by tolerating, the toleration of such an evil is clearly paradoxical.
This appears to be a common trend amongst New Atheists a devout love of Enlightenment values, an almost mystical view of nature, and a disdain for intolerance, which is paradoxical in itself. Interestingly most of them appear to have been "Flower Children" of the 60s that rebelled against conservative social norms, protested against Vietnam, marched for equal rights and led a sexual revolution into the 1970s. For instance, Christopher Hitchens went to Cuba in 1968 to plant coffee beans. Hitchens later criticised Noam Chomsky for "effectively explaining away Islamic Jihadism as a function of American policy mistakes" and sided with pure neoconservatives, such as Paul Wolfowitz, on the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. Condell and Hitchens both make the mistake of explaining away the ugliness of religious extremism as innate to religious beliefs themselves. It is as if they have lived as rebels long enough to have lost an enemy to fight, having seen their revolution sold and their values demolished, they go in search of a new oppressor to rebel against and sustain their identity in doing so.

"So I really don't care about anything he [God] has got to say, and if he came down from heaven right now, in a big pair of hobnail boots, waving the book of Judges in my face, I'd simply tell him what I tell every other evangelising prick I meet: "No thanks. I'm not interested in your phony salvation. I'd prefer damnation. Now piss off, I've got some sinning to do." - Pat Condell

Most New Atheists ignore the socio-political and economic turmoil, which led to the intense emergence of such destructive belief systems as Islamic extremism, which has intensified over the last century. The same century in which the US expanded it's influence into the Middle East in order to gain access to oil and the state of Israel was "formed". There is a tendency in capitalism to enforce repressive social policies to sustain undemocratic economic policies. Religion can be used to justify repressive social policies, as seen in countries such as Saudi Arabia, which have crushed all political opposition, unions and labour movements. The Saudi bourgeoisie depend on the Wahhabi Islamic establishment to sustain their position of wealth, power and privilege. This compromise between the ruling dynasty and the religious establishment is the foundation of the Saudi Kingdom. All kinds of ideology are suppressed except for one, any form of dissidence is not tolerated and the population is kept under total control. In such a totalitarian environment there is predictability and security, for the elite, democracy lacks these things and is opposed by Western states because a democratic Saudi Arabia would threaten oil prices.

Religion can be used to distract and fragment people with debates regarding the teaching of evolution in schools, abortion and gay rights. Such issues are meaningless to the average CEO who is more concerned with health, education, economic issues and wages. While the masses are distracted by arguments over evolution and creationism, the ultrarich can crush labour unions, slash wages to increase profits and construct a political system which is only beneficial to themselves. As seen in America over the last 30 years, the Christian Right have "crusaded" against gay rights and abortion, while wages for most of Americans have either stagnated or decreased and working hours have increased. Social benefits have plummeted and any attempt by politicians to increase such benefits through government spending is dismissed as "socialism". Which is why the people of France live 3 to 5 years longer than the average American, because universal healthcare is mutually exclusive with socialism apparently. The New Atheists fail to notice that religion is merely the shadow of the enemy and not the substance of that enemy. The worse aspects of religion should be criticised as a function of capitalism and not as an independent phenomenon.