Mendieta and Misogyny.

An Earth-Body Dynamic.

 

Looking at the work of Ana Mendieta the cogs in my mind wound back four years to Lars von Trier's Antichrist. The reasons for this I will expand upon soon enough. The body of work she amassed could be taken for sanguineous and morbid if her recreation of rape scenes are misunderstood. The shock value of these pieces is appropriate as they were made in response to the rape of her fellow students. It was certainly the right time and place for a female artist to be engaging with the prevalence of sexual violence. The decline of an array of social conventions regarding the place of women in society was at its beginning in the early 1970s. It is often forgotten that what is described as the Feminist movement came about in the wake of 60s cultural revolution in reaction to its ambiguity on the question of women's liberation. So it was a ripe subject for exploration in art.

The depictions of femininity in Mendieta's work are particularly interesting in this regard. It reminds one of Antichrist where we are told nature is Satan's church, the locus of misogyny being found in suggestions of an absent autonomy: women as subjects of various natural forces outside of their own control. In ancient religion we find this is most overt in the aversion to female genitalia and the rituals imposed around the menstrual cycle. All of which feeds into the controls set on sexual conduct. This is not just the case in the monotheist tradition, it is even true of Eastern religion where, for example, we find the Buddha was born out of his mother's side. It then makes sense that Mendieta's work links together the Catholic and pre-Christian pagan traditions of Latin America with a certain conception of femininity. Not coincidentally Mendieta produced art on sexual violence as she was moving in this direction.

Death seemed to feature heavily as a theme, whether in the form of natural decay and peformative destruction in the burning of trees and killing chickens. Mendieta would later move away from performance art, which she disliked for its immediacy; and she was further exploring her Cuban heritage. Ochún (1981) was named after a water goddess in Santería - an Afro-Cuban religious movement based on a blend of folk Catholicism with Yoruba customs - who also the goddess of love, intimacy and beauty. According to Wikipedia, Ochún is said to be generous, beneficent and kind as well as capable of incredible chaos in the few occasions where she loses her temper. The extent to which she romanticised the syncretic cultural heritage of Cuba may be more of a matter of speculation at this point. Such a romanticisation may run as far as embracing this model of femininity. It would be easy to attribute this to her deracination as a Cuban-American.

Unfortunately, we will never know how her work would have developed if she had not died in 1985. Even with all of this in mind, Mendieta's work could be interpreted as a genealogy of misogynist themes. After all an earthly conception of femininity parallels what is to be taken from the traditional organic view of the family and a woman's position in said social unit. In Mother Jungle we find a portrayal of womanhood synthesised with nature comes across as much darker. The imposing dark figure with its jagged features and womb on display seems charged with angst; but this is an almost genderless depiction at the same time (aside from the emphasis on the womb). As Rachel Spence has noted, Ana Mendieta resisted attempts by American feminists to reduce her work to goddess worship. In a way the body of work she produced was far more ambiguous.

Spence notes that Mendieta claimed her work held to a particular culture and time. So it might be taken as a representation of womanhood in terms relative to a certain culture. The art made in a natural environment, carved out of rock and wood may seem to be a more warm-hearted a view of nature. Around this time Mendieta was becoming much more conscious in terms of a two-front struggle in feminism against racism and capitalism. She did describe her work as pre-industrial and situates herself in line with Neolithic paintings. If she had lived she may have become involved in the anti-globalisation movement, which shares this nostalgia for the pre-industrial past. In her work she situates humankind in relation to nature, life and death; and she condemned Robert Smithson for his brutalisation of nature in his invasive land art. Where this trajectory leaves women is another matter.

Make Bradford British?

If you heard about Make Bradford British a couple of weeks ago on Twitter you might be excused for mistaking it for a racist slogan. But then you might have found a link to the Channel 4 citizenship test and discovered that if you wouldn't pass the tests immigrants go through to get into this country. This was a step-up from the pinhead documentary Proud and Prejudiced, which almost portrayed the crypto-Nazi EDL as defenders of multicultural Britain against radical Islam. The stated point of Make Bradford British was the standard concern about the lack of integration in a racially tense place like Bradford to create a model for a multicultural Britain. The line that the liberal intelligentsia was the main proponent behind multiculturalism was quickly trotted out, but in terms that the mission had failed to deliver integration outside of London. The emphasis on a set of 'common values' came out at the beginning and end of the episodes.

A pair of 'diversity experts' invite us to watch this search for an answer to the question "What does it mean to be British nowadays?" The problem with this is that it assumes there is or should be a thing called 'Britishness'. We have forgotten that Great Britain is composed of a union between the English, the Scottish, the Welsh and the Irish. It is a marriage of convenience that has lasted a very long time. It was never about a nation, tradition or identity. It is almost as absurd as the French having a fit over the disappearance of the King of France. The standard spectrum on this debate runs from the view that we ought to respect 'other cultures' to the position that we need to reassert 'our values'. These are just empty signifiers and that remains so even if we are calling for a return to the values of Boudica. At best we can only tolerate the Other, which is especially easy if they fit into a neat unit which renders them 'one of us'.

Rashid and Damon were the most interesting to see 'interact', the rest was a standard mash up of fake lessons regurgitated for the camera upon command. The copper had to learn to look beyond the blackness of Desmond and the liberal bint had to find someone who won't tolerate her sinuous nonsense. Rashid and Damon are set up to share the same bedroom, but they move one bed out of the room so that the two can sleep separately from one another. It was an agreement that they both reached. Rashid was presented as a Muslim absorbed by his faith to the point of inconveniencing the team with the call to prayer. The cheap lesson in the first episode was Rashid putting aside going to his mosque to pray in order to go on an outing with the team. Whereas, Damon came out with the predictable lines about the Muslim community - the lack of integration demonstrated by women wearing headscarves etc. - that you can enjoy in our fine press. He went as far as to defend the use of the slur 'Paki' at dinner and admits that he viewed mosques as 'terrorist centres'.

Then Damon started to go to the gym with Rashid and visits the mosque in a predominantly Asian area which Damon had avoided for so long. It was warming to see these two men paint the bedroom of Damon's daughter. Even more heartening was the scene where Damon tells Rashid that it is he - the bearded Muslim - who is in fact closer to his grandparents and their 'British values' than he is. Damon has since attended the wedding of Rashid's sister. This moment went beyond the multicultural trite of liberals and the white whines of conservatives. Even though the rest of the participants regurgitated the same old platitudes and shallow ideas of what it means to live in a multicultural democracy. It may have meant to just reenforce the old narrative that there needs to be a national centre to a plurality of cultures in contemporary Britain. But it included a moment of great potential.

Projections: Islam and the West.

I was in the audience at this debate last year, though I've only just found this video and I haven't been able to find the rest of it online except for snippets. It was an interesting debate between Douglas Murray and Tariq Ramadan, I had seen both of them on YouTube before then but never on the same stage as one another. Douglas Murray is the director of the Centre for Social Cohesion, he's a notable political commentator and has been called the enfant terrible of British neoconservatism. Tariq Ramadan is a intellectual, concerned with Islamic Studies and known for an emphasis on the heterogeneity of Islam. Both men have been controversial for quite different reasons, Douglas Murray is scorned for his criticism of Islamic culture and Tariq Ramadan is attacked as being "too soft" on Islamic fundamentalism. Each figure is too invasive to be accepted into the realm of discourse, but that is precisely the reason that each of them has attracted so much attention in recent years.



The motion of the debate was "Europe is failing its Muslims", naturally Murray was in opposition and Ramadan in a defensive position. It was a very interesting night, with some booing of Murray at one point and yet in the end he won over the audience. The vote at the end of the debate was swayed in his favour by the last person to speak from the audience, who argued that Europe had not failed European Muslims because Europe was not represented adequately by politicians and the media. Personally, I found Ramadan's take on things imperfect but preferable to Murray's neocon posturing so I voted for the motion. Ramadan is a problematic figure for he still believes that the answers for the Middle East may still lie in the Qu'ran rather than in education, political change and development. Though Ramadan is not an opponent of any of the latter mentioned. We ought not be looking for a Muslim who is essentially a white liberal. The opposition to violence, support for reform and emphasis on heterogeneity are all positive qualities in his work.



The major reason for this article is to address the context in which the debate was held, a grand narrative which is hopefully coming to a close, that of the "War on Terrorism" which was re-declared by George Bush in 2001. Douglas Murray is a particularly important figure in this respect, given he is one of Britain's few self-described neoconservatives. The "War on Terror" emerged as the grand narrative by which Westerners held together our understanding of the world. With the beginning of this "war" shape and form were given to international events in a way not seen since the Cold War. In an obscene triumvirate the interests of politicians, journalists and Islamists converged to form this narrative. The Islamists struck to lure the US into a war against a Muslim country, the press and the politicians jumped at the opportunity to do so. The mutually assured projections of Western commentators and Islamic fundamentalists have played an interesting role in this narrative of terror. The projections onto Islam and the West are self-serving.

Fundamentalism envy can be picked up in the anti-Islamic rhetoric of neoconservatives like Douglas Murray. For such reactionaries the Muslim Other are the people who really believe in a moral cause and yet the neocons have their equivalent, military operations like 'Just Cause' and 'Geronimo, which no one really believes in. Even the neoconservatives are cynical liberals hiding behind a false belief, which they deem a noble lie necessary to bring unity in a liberal society. If we did believe then we would stop at nothing, thus the fixation with the beliefs of Muslims and the prevalence of "dhimmitude" in the West. For that very reason the Other are incredibly dangerous fanatics, whom we cannot negotiate with, whereas we are sane proponents of open debate and freedom of speech. The envy even runs deeper, not only is the Muslim Other the one who truly believes, the Muslim Other is also the one who butchers us. The neocons can't stand that the Muslims "get away" with this.

As the neoconservatives like to remind us that "Islamo-fascism", the preferred term of neoconservatives, rejects liberal values of democracy, freedom and human rights as absolutely binding moral frameworks. It is a concerted effort to undermine and destroy Western civilisation, these are the people who are capable of every imaginable and unimaginable horror. The splinter cells of "Islamo-fascism" can fly planes into buildings, send the retarded off to commit suicide-bombings and behead infidels on video. So we engage in cruel and degrading forms of interrogation in an international network of secret prisons and torture recorded at Abu Ghraib. We drop bombs on weddings, phosphorus on civilians and open fire on ambulances. All done in the hope of wiping al-Qaeda from the face of the earth, we suspend Western values like freedom and human rights in order to secure Western civilisation in a perpetual war fought for perpetual peace.

For the Islamist the secret truth of the "War on Terrorism" is part of a new crusade by the West. The combination of military conquest and religious conversion supplemented with the spread of jahiliyyah. The only appropriate response is the radical transformation of Jihad, the struggle for purity in Islam, into a militant struggle to defend Islam by means of force and to destroy the infidels. Notice that in this sense Islamism, in line with populism and fascism, offers a radical return to "fundamentals" but actually engages in systematic challenge of tradition and hierarchy. The Taliban were keen to destroy the Buddhist heritage of Afghanistan in order to reaffirm the country's Islamic values. The ultimate aim is to establish the preconditions necessary to build and expand a new Islamic Caliphate. Western civilisation has to be destroyed in order for this grand plan to progress. There is no room for tolerance of theological or political opposition, even along the lines of coexistence.

The Islamic fundamentalists project attributes of a cesspit of sexual depravity onto Western civilisation. The West is where people have the freedom to marry donkeys and children are taught about how to have sex at the age of 10. Apart from that the projection might be a lot like Ancient Rome through the eyes of the Marquis de Sade. There is nothing which demonstrates this more clearly than the provocative attire and behaviour of Western women, a constant temptation to men which leads them into perpetual masturbation to an endless supply of pornography. Sharia Law is posited as necessary for this very reason, the imposition of harsh penalties like the stoning of adulterers is required to constrain and suppress lust in all people. Otherwise the masses will start indulging in adultery and self-pollution on a massive scale. The fascination with sex is also mirrored in the West, where the 72 virgins have been of discussion on-and-off for years.

Liberalism with "Muscles".

 The Multicultural Dream?

In Britain the debate over multiculturalism has once again been jump-started by David Cameron, while the EDL protested against Islamism in Luton and just after the Oldham by-election was secured through flat out race-baiting on the part of Jack Straw. Notably Jack Straw was on Question Time, alongside Sayeeda Warsi, the same night as Nick Griffin and the programme quickly degenerated into a hour of narcissistic anti-fascism on the part of the establishment which gave Griffin a soap box to stand on and rail against the elites. No mention of the glass ceiling in the Lib-Lab-Con establishment which maintains it as a predominantly white, male and wealthy Parliament. It was Jack Straw who began the debate over "Britishness" and has since brought other xenophobic worries into the mainstream media. Warsi was also given a pass for her homophobia. The political class ought to ask itself why the BNP exists in the first place, for it is in part a creature of social deprivation which has been spawned by the economy and raised by a debauched political discourse.


David Cameron has called, presumably in the place of multiculturalism, for a "muscular liberalism" which does not tolerate extremism but has room for the Other. This comes from the neoconservative wing of government embodied in the presence of Michael Gove and Liam Fox. The intolerant brand of liberal values peddled by this wing is similar to the platform of the UKIP, which might be best summed up as a right-wing fruitcake of conservatives and ultra-nationalists brought together by Euroscepticism. Individual freedom is important to this kind of liberalism but with strict limits, which come in the form of bans on specific clothing in the case of UKIP. As for Cameron's "muscular liberalism", we have seen it has room for control orders in all but name which would make it no different to the supposedly "state-imposed multiculturalism" of New Labour. In this sense liberalism is being put on a pedestal as a neutral framework for all other cultures, but in order for this to work we must all be liberal and not impose our values on others.

The Conservative Party have long stood for a kind of liberalism that adheres to an idea of freedom which is tied to free-market principles. For the Tories, freedom is to be guaranteed by stripping away all constraints on the individual - but only in economic terms. So away with regulations and taxes for the sake of individual freedom. In the Thatcher years we saw the rise of unconstrained freedom in the market place along with Victorian moralising about permissive society.  We might describe this as a division between the private vices and the public benefits reaped through such vices, private meaning the market place and public meaning society as a whole. Freedom is acceptable so long as it is an economic doctrine, but in society as a whole it can be curtailed for the sake of "nationhood", "security" etc. So there are calls to "Ban the Burka" for the sake of "English values". The Tory rhetoric against multiculturalism should be understood in this context. A nationally defined leitkultur, as the Germans would say, which would constrain the multiple cultures in Britain whilst individuals are granted greater freedom in the market place.

In the 1970s the Tory alternative to the post-war settlement could be summarised as a restoration of national competitiveness through liberal economic reform, defence of British sovereignty in Europe; maintenance of national identity and the national state through a rigid public order. The Atlantic alliance with America was justified as a way of maintaining the standing of Britain in the world, though the alliance is certainly contradictory as the position is supposedly nationalistic whilst also a liberal hack for the Washington Consensus. Instead of providing a welfare state the Party would provide a nationhood for the masses. This is the tradition of which David Cameron is a representative and that would put his beliefs at odds with the consistently illiberal conservatism of Phillip Blond, the origins of the "Big Society" idea. As that vision adheres to a view of Britain as an organic society, in which socio-economic change ought to be slow for the sake of cohesion, held together by community and cooperation as opposed to the state or the market. Cameron has opted for a "muscular liberalism" as an alternative to multiculturalism because it doesn't exclude the economics of dispossession.

Relativism versus Chauvinism.

The right-wing commentariat have been cheering on Cameron for his critique of "state-sponsored multiculturalism". Multiculturalism, like political correctness, has been abandoned the established Left formerly known as the Labour Party and now it is openly attacked by one and all. The hard Right defining the rules of the game and positing the Left as a spectral source of a "cultural Marxism" determined to erode our freedoms. Now we hear David Cameron talking of "British values" as he invokes the failures of multiculturalism. This is nothing unusual and we have heard the same from the Blairites about tackling "militant Islam". The debate over "Britishness" and the veil are symptomatic of this type of discourse. The reactionary press have an agenda and there's plenty of room to pander to it in Cameron's hollow pragmatism. New Labour pandered to the 'little Eichmanns' in a similarly shameless display of opportunism and a deep contempt for the public.


It is no coincidence that the most dedicated exponents of US-led globalisation, from the Blairites to UKIP, have also been critical of multiculturalism along chauvinist lines, which might be summed up as a covert form of racism, positions itself as the working-mans' voice against the Establishment. It is a liberal elite posited as the engineers of multiculturalism out of a destructive experiment with cultural relativism. This elite of "do-gooders", often conjured up by the chauvinists, as the enemy of the working-man is an invention of the right-wing media. Supposedly there is an elite who want to see Shariah courts in Britain and halal meat in the supermarket, when in actuality the elites of this country are deeply critical of multiculturalism. The Conservatives and New Labour have both criticised multiculturalism over the years. Immigration has always gone on, there have been openings but always with enormous opposition along racist lines. There was even opposition to letting Jews come to Britain as the Nazis came to power, our reason was that Jews are too "left-wing". After the Jews and the Irish it was black people from the West Indies and then it was Asians.

It was only last year that the conservative German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the Man-Woman of Hamburg, declared that multiculturalism had "utterly failed". Months before the Rat Man banned the veil in France in a disgraceful display of poujadism and went on to expell the Roma from the country. Even before that a state of emergency was established in Italy in 2008, partly to defend the country from illegal immigration as well as sexual deviancy and organised crime. Before that a spate of racist attacks against the Roma in Northern Ireland shocked the public. These are not the cure to a state-sanctioned disease, multiculturalism was never been implemented as an official state doctrine in Britain and in a sense we have merely flirted with a particular kind of multiculturalism in Europe. In Eastern Europe we can see the Roma are still waiting for equal standards of education and remain the subject of frequent abuse. The liberals condemn this as racism, and rightly so, whilst the nationalists reflexively play the freedom card.


In the postmodern nationalism of today there is a "You may!" quality which presents itself as permissive in the sense of "You may use the n-word because they use it!" Freedom of speech and expression become umbrellas for racism, misogyny and homophobia. Meanwhile the liberals who actually defend multiculturalism are found "guilty" of trampling on such freedoms for the sake of "anti-British" agenda. The origins of this permissiveness can be seen clearly in history as the "Know Nothing" movement of the US campaigned against Catholic immigration, particularly from Ireland, on the grounds that it could undermine American democracy and lead to the rise of a Catholic state run by the Pope. This nativist movement called for severe limits on immigration from Catholic countries and restrictions on languages other than English. This is not so far away from what the EDL are doing to "defend" the country from Islamisation. Though the EDL, like the Tea Party and UKIP, are all effectively hacks for neoliberalism and globalisation led by the US through war. All under the guise of defending the values and sovereignty of Britain.

We are One!

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is not so much a name for a country as indicative of an expired compromise. There is no such thing as a "British nation", the tribes of the United Kingdom are English, Irish, Scottish and Welsh. So we should know what to think of the talk of "Britishness" and we should not be surprised we have no idea what it means to be "British". We know that "Britishness" is the sense of nationhood and culture shared by all. But the best we can do to define British identity is to make a risible list of football teams, brands of tea and take note of widespread binge-drinking. The words "Britishness" and "anti-British", or even "anti-English", are in the "blut und boden" lexicon of totalitarianism. Only in states like the Soviet Union were such concepts, e.g. anti-Soviet, used to stifle debate and clamp down on dissent. Only demagogues with a quasi-fascist agenda speak in such terms to divide and conquer the white working-class by pitting it against the minorities, who are in the same boat as white working-people. 

The real danger of multiculturalism is that it is a "benign" form of apartheid in itself. The official ideological justification of apartheid in South Africa was that it was necessary to put the African tribes into bantustans in order to prevent them from being "drowned" in the white civilisation. Of course the racism of the regime was barely concealed by the "official reason" for this separation of the African tribes, Indians and "coloureds" from the white Afrikaner. This is the logical conclusion of multiculturalism in it's liberal form, it is hegemonic as liberalism is itself and it clouds a whole array of inequality and prejudice. So the claims by nationalists that multiculturalism is racist to white people are utterly absurd. For the liberal defenders of multiculturalism the Other should be included, but only so long as the Otherness is strictly non-invasive and can be easily contained into a community. Note that the cultural chauvinists make a similar point, that the immigrants who integrate into our society are not the problem and it is just radical Islamism which is the "problem".

It is not that the EDL only targets Islam in it's most reactionary and violent manifestation, it is simply the old school rejection of the Other on the behalf of Western values. This is the reason that the EDL oppose Islam, which they constantly remind us is not racial, but actually only target Asian Muslims and chant things like "We love the floods!" in reference to the recent floods in Pakistan. The likes of Stephen Lennon, Nick Griffin and Nigel Farage latch onto the failure of the Left to adequately condemn homophobia and misogyny in the Muslim community to strengthen a reactionary platform. In the Netherlands nationalists have tapped into the anger of the gay community against homophobia among Muslims. In defence of freedom, women's rights and gay rights etc. the EDL calls for bans on veils, halal meat and mosques all the while chanting "We've fucked all of Allah's wives!" While it is true that homophobia is prevalent within the Muslim community, the EDL are not giving the answers and the Left must step in to take the side of the victim. 

For the alternative to cultural relativism, as manifested in multicultural rhetoric, which is actively opposed to racist populism we should turn to the recent events in Egypt. We have seen mass protests across the Middle East and the fall of Mubarak in Egypt where hundreds of thousands poured into Tahrir Square. Not only was the movement secular and democratic, it was grass-roots based and called for social justice. The most sublime moment of the protests in Tahrir Square were when Muslims and Coptic Christians were brought together in prayer and chanted "We are one!" In a common struggle against tyranny the oppressed came together regardless of religious and ethnic "divisions" to fight together. The "muscular" liberality offered by Cameron would have been insufficent, as would the liberal variety of multiculturalism. A common project is what is needed to bring us together, it ought to be constructed along the lines of universalism and militant egalitarianism. Of which the liberals and the fascists are both ideological enemies.

Rodent Populism.

 The rightly reviled ultra-nationalists of Europe, Jean-Marie Le Pen et al, are widely considered the modern proponents of fascism. This has recently manifested itself in the "exposure" of Nick Griffin to an aggressive audience and panel on Question Time. The programme may have shown Griffin up as he is, a repugnant bigot, but the political class represented on the show engaged in a display of masturbatory narcissism - forgetting about the prejudices of Parliament. Baroness Warsi conveniently forgot about the homophobic leaflets she had distributed in 2005. Let alone the way that Jack Straw fed the debate over the veil and the widespread opposition to Ghurkhas gaining British citizenship among politicians. Instead they portrayed themselves as the politically-correct, tolerant and liberal defenders of freedom and multiculturalism. We all know the horrors of fascism and the modern faces of it are no less despised.

Despite what we would like to believe about our modern politicians, it is from the political class that fascist tendencies are most likely to emerge. These tendencies will be depicted as "moderately" racist and "necessary" measures taken for national security. The Arizona immigration bill is a typical example, it came not from the American Nazi Party but it might as well have, as it stipulates that "foreign" looking individuals must carry the papers needed to prove their US citizenship. If not such individuals can face fines, arrests and even deportation. Let alone the disgraceful Berlusconian approach, which essentially encourages Italian fishermen to kill Africans trying to get to the continent by sea, and the state-sponsored torture of men picked up and accused of "terrorism" in the Middle East.

We have recently seen this theory partly confirmed as the French National Assembly has approved the banning of face-covering veils. 336 politicians voted in favour of the ban leaving only one in opposition, though the Socialist Party boycotted the vote, and the ban will go through the Senate in September. It is likely that by 2011 the veil will be banned in France and wearing it punishable by fines. The President of France, the "Rat Man" so detested by the Left, and his band of conservatives have given the bill their full support in a populist move to further perpetuate the time in power. As the spending cuts kick in, the ban will help keep the electorate on board with Sarkozy through thick-and-thin (in theory) as Muslims become a convenient scapegoat during the rough recovery.

This is a perfect instance of politicians, who are not considered extremist and are in fact liberal and politically-correct, actively cracking down on a religious minority. Out of the French Muslim population (estimated at 5 million people) around 2,000 women wear the veil. The opposition to the veil is supposedly derived from a concern for women's rights and the secular values of French society. Even though it could be argued that the bill is unconstitutional. There is no such legislation on the veils worn by nuns, but that could be because the majority of the masses are Catholic. The French government probably doesn't care about the issue, but it is bound to win over far-right votes at the next election given the delicate nature of the issue.

The logic behind the bill is to deter and prevent the subjugation of women and further integration of the Muslim community into French society. This logic is taken from liberal ideas about the equal rights and freedoms of all individuals. The penalties for wearing a veil include a fine or to be sent on a citizenship course. Notice, the assumption that if one wears a burka it is a rejection of Western culture and secular values. Paradoxically, it seems as though in a liberal society - where individuals are free to be whoever they want to be and live however they wish - the right-wing government of France expects Muslims to live according to a certain standard of "Frenchness". Naturally, not all religious groups are held to this same standard. It could be that there is a new version of the "Harm Principle" in France: you can do whatever you want so long as it is French and you do not harm others.

Unfortunately, this kind of attitude is common in European countries and we may see a similar ban in Britain. It's ironic as this ban is no better than the kind of chauvinistic legislation imposed on women in Saudi Arabia, among other places, where the veil is obligatory. Even the most simple of souls must see that it is contradictory to try and end paternalism through paternalism. Though this warped methodology is ever more common in the West. The "War on Terrorism" is a perfect instance: violence to prevent violence, terrorism to reduce the threat of terrorism. The subjugation of women in the Muslim community, or any other, cannot be resolved by further oppressing women. This should be obvious in this day and age, even to the "Rat Man" and the liberal hypocrites of Whitehall.

Related Links:
Sarkozy's cabinet approve ban on face veils
French Parliament approves ban on face veils
Constitutional confrontation looms over burka ban
Shopping for Burkas

Relativism Knocks...

... Absolutism Answered.

In the West there is often commentary on issues of multiculturalism, tolerance and political-correctness, especially in relation to "Western values" - which Gandhi deemed to be a "good idea". But these debates have developed in reaction to controversies, like the Danish Cartoons of Mohammed, which are part of the wider problems of relativism. The problem of relativism, in all of it's variants, is that there appears to be no rational way to adjudicate conflict as that would constitute absolutism. This is why the cartoons of Mohammed was such a difficult issue. Iconography has been an accepted part of Christianity for centuries, but iconography of God or the Prophet is not acceptable within Islam because it is feared it may lead to idolatry. To the relativist, both perspectives are equal, right and wrong change according to the culture, no culture is absolute. In that sense, freedom of speech cannot be promoted as a universal value, without reverting to a vulgar relativism, but neither can the perspective of Muslims on iconography.

In a world without being able to make moral judgements to bring such conflicts to an end leaves us in a limbo of cultural stagnation and moral segregation. At it's most extreme and terrifying, this would mean in one part of town drugs and prostitution are legal while in another religious law is enforced and discrimination against gays is common. The atomistic view of the human species, underpinning relativism, that we are made up of different societies and cultures in which certain practices and belief systems have resulted from the conditions in such places. This does not take into account the fact that human beings have always moved around, integration is possible and has occured in the past. Sadly it would appear that liberal intolerance has emerged to fill this void in the place of a real solution to the problem of relativism. To judge terrorists according to the standards of Western values, though this is even more paradoxical and misguided, it is expressed throughout society.

Even on the internet phenomenon that is YouTube relativism has become a subject, by proxy issues, of debates over related political and religious issues. The political community of YouTube are a varied bunch, ranging from socialists to libertarians, and share characteristics with radio-show hosts in the US. The videos are typically monologues delving into certain issues, occasionally these monologues are responses to rebuttals by other users. Just as in the US radio-show hosts often attack one another, Michael Savage has attacked Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck in the past. In regards to the problems of relativism, the coverage of related issues - such as whether or not the burka should be banned - on YouTube ranges from arguments that focus on the subjugation of women and verge on racism to those that shoot down all criticism as racist and a sign of the decadence of the West.

The internet is a great medium through which "cults" can be generated, just as radio and television, that are centred around charismatic personalities and entertaining shows etc. One such personality is Pat Condell, the face of New Atheism on YouTube, who endorsed UKIP in the General Election of 2010. Pat Condell was a comedian in the 1980s and has now made a come-back on YouTube over the last couple of years. UKIP is the leading Eurosceptic party in Britain today, it consists mostly of reactionary liberals and nationalists. Just like right-wing radio-show hosts in the US, Condell rants about the Labour Party and the hypocrisy of a liberal elite destroying Britain with multiculturalism and political-correctness. Mostly these videos are monologues, consisting of witty polemics, and are largely one-way in the sense that there is no interaction between the personality and the viewer, other than through emails and other videos.

Pat Condell stands for freedom, equal rights and secularism as part of his own liberal outlook - adding a dose of hippie anti-war rhetoric. He not only assumes rational and autonomous behaviour from others, he demands it of them and in doing so elevates such liberal ideals to an absolutist level. Thus, even multiculturalism and political-correctness are an obstacle to the "Good Life" Condell advocates. This clashes with the contemporary forms of liberalism which emphasise a neutral state over a pluralistic society based on relativistic assumptions about culture and morality. It could be argued that the liberal intolerance emerging today is a return to the days when liberals like JS Mill had a clear idea of how people should be living - a flourishing life free of constraint from absurd religious traditions and the masses.

These demands go largely unheard as society and the world are far more complex than a consensual arrangement upheld by free individuals, as liberals would have us believe. In a sense, the controversial way that Condell refers to Islamism as "Islam" is really derived from an overly simplistic understanding of complex religious and cultural entities. All of the Abrahamic religions are complex in that they are not just religious groups, made up of many sects, but are sometimes connected with cultural and ethnic identities - as well as political thought. The homogenous and static "Islam" that Condell describes is partly a figment of his imagination, the Qu'ran should not be thought of as the sole origin of Islamic extremism, given the extent to which the political turmoil of the Middle East has contributed to the rise of the phenomenon.

It is as if there is a kind of confrontation between the rational mind and the indifferent universe - similar to 'the Absurd', as Albert Camus wrote of it - taking place in the emergence of liberal intolerance. The ideals may be espoused, by the likes of Pat Condell and Christopher Hitchens, as a solution to the problems of relativism - how to judge religious extremism etc. But these ideals, of various liberties and rights, are commonly understood today as permissive and as a consequence the world remains indifferent. Promoting freedom of speech as a value for it's own sake seems quite strange as many would argue that free-speech is the protection of values, but is not a value in itself. Because people express their views because of some underlying reason or cause, not for the sake of expressing them freely. This is the point that liberals, like Condell, are missing.


If liberalism works best when everyone is a liberal, then liberalism is no more absolute than Christianity as it can then be written off as relative in the same manner. It could be that tolerance and pluralism should be ensured, while the ability to make moral judgements that transcend cultural boundaries is maintained and not taken to an authoritarian extreme. Multiculturalism does not go far enough in furthering tolerant pluralism, as it gives us pluralism but in practice we merely ignore the differences between us - as opposed to celebrating those differences. A benign form of ethnocentrism may be appropriate, as Rorty proposed. This view accepts that values differ from culture to culture, adding that we cannot help but favour the values we have been conditioned with. We cannot help but judge other cultures in accordance with such morals, though we should not repress others and should only promote our culture in the way we would recommend a book to a friend.

Related Links:
Albert Camus - The Absurd
Vote Small, Think Big
Richard Rorty's Ethnocentrism

The Noughties - A Solon's Calling.

Living in End Times.

"What would 'September 11th' have been without television?" - Jacques Derrida

In the late 1990s, people were speculating that the new millennium would herald the end of the world. Over 10 years later and Roland Emmerich has made movie with an apocalyptic vision, which might happen in 2012 apparently. We still cannot imagine the end of capitalism, so we imagine the apocalypse because that is easier to envision in this era of mass fear and cynicism. It would be too easy and cynical to simply describe this time period as a decade of shallow consumerism, horrifying atrocities, celebrity worship, impending environmental doom and avaricious excess. The Noughties were paradoxical, in that wondrous luxuries were now available at the click of a button on a keyboard. But all the while there was a sense that we are drifting obliviously into our own destruction - these are the end times. Yes, this occurred in previous decades, but in the Noughties this was taken to an extreme, pressing onwards as if there are no limits except there clearly are limits now. One question comes to mind: How long can we just keep going on like this?

As JG Ballard once wrote "The marriage of reason and nightmare that has dominated the 20th Century has given birth to an ever more ambiguous world." It could be that the ambiguity, born of that "marriage", is present in the undercurrents of our lives today. Botox is an interesting case in reflecting the strange juxtaposition, the horror and the beauty, the nightmare and the reason. It was during World War II that fears of Germany using biological warfare drove the Americans to develop the chemical botulinum toxin, the principle ingredient of botox, as part of a germ warfare experiment. Botulinum toxin is actually one of the most lethal substances in the world, it causes the disease botulism which has a rate of almost 100% mortality. But it was later found that non-lethal amounts could be used to treat wrinkles. It wasn't until the early 21st Century that botox became accessible to those who weren't the rich or the famous. At times it seemed as though there was a desperation to push consumerism further and further, breaking down boundaries and pushing the limit. But at the same time exhaustion, at the notion of very real limitations and there banality, leading to a increasing reliance on the past.

This feeling of exhaustion, limitation and banality is explicitly present in music. As it is evident that the mainstream music industry is increasingly dependent on past genres and eras to recreate itself, leaving the listeners feeling that it has all been done before. This reliance may have been what led to an abundance of goods and services which lacked the very thing which they used consisted of. Examples: decaffeinated coffee, nicotine patches, sugar free drinks, cyber-sex, even warfare and capitalism. Nicotine patches are cigarettes without the little white sticks of death, which you light up and smoke yourself to death with. Cyber-sex is sex without the physical act of intercourse. People talk about the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq as if no one on our side had to die, is this not a desire for war without war? Since in war, people on both sides inevitably die. What about the "liberal communists" like Bill Gates? Those who want capitalism without the inequality, poverty and enormous suffering caused by market forces, who promote the idea that all inequality, poverty and suffering can be eliminated through capitalism with a human face. However, capitalism is not about equality it is about competition, winners and losers,  and dog-eat-dog individualism. Therefore, it could easily be claimed that the liberal communists want capitalism without the very essence of capitalism.

We've seen the politics of fear, along with the most vile forms of Orientalism, put into action following the terrorist attacks on 9/11, which has also reminded us that we're still governed by liars and criminals. The politicians of the West have found a new enemy in "Militant Islam" to replace the communists with, so they can go on increasing defence spending and invading sovereign nations. After nearly 10 years, the "War on Terrorism" has failed to capture Osama bin Laden and bring down al-Qaeda. Though, it has resulted in 80% of Iraqi oil being grabbed by energy corporations and record profits for arms manufacturers - clearly, our leaders have their priorities in order. Never mind the hundreds of thousands who have died. We have seen the Bush administration begin in controversy and end appropriately in controversy. The Bushites were one of the worst administrations in history and has been succeeded by the Obama administration - who were elected by desperation for change. Unfortunately, it appears that the Obama is no dove and that his administration, as they've locked us into a war with Pakistan, are as hawkish as their predecessors. All the while, the media acts as if there should be no casualties of war, again they want war without war.

The truth of free-market fundamentalism has come out in the form of a financial crisis and a series of bailouts after the "liberalisation" in the financial sector. Once their policies began to fail, the Bush administration in the US and the New Labour government in the UK acted in direct contradiction to their rhetoric. In reaction to the monumental hypocrisy surrounding the financial crisis, there has been a rise in reactionary populism on both sides of the Atlantic. It's easier to scapegoat a minority and traditionally the far-Right have always benefited from economic turmoil. Though, in this case the vast majority of Europeans demonstrated maturity in not resorting to anti-Semitism - as Europeans have traditionally. The emergence of some form of racist populism seems inevitable, but at the same time it is certain not to be a return to fascism, as we have seen nationalists gain seats in the European Parliament. Instead, you should expect to see an shift towards increasingly racist immigration policies, as the environment deteriorates and people start to migrate to escape the consequences. The faces of such "moderately" racist policies are Nicolas Sarkozy and Silvio Berlusconi, not Jean-Marie Le Pen and Nick Griffin.

The Age of Pleonexia.

"Selfishness does not mean only to do things for one's self. One may do things, affecting others, for his own pleasure and benefit. This is not immoral, but the highest of morality." - Ayn Rand

Here are some interesting statistics about the world from the last decade. Between 1997 and 2009, in the UK, wages for low-earners increased by 45% while wages for high-earners increased by nearly 300%. Under the Bush administration, tax-cuts for the wealthy led to 1% of the American population accumulating over $1.5 trillion in less than a decade. 5% of the world's population owns nearly 90% of the world's wealth and consumes around 30% of the world's resources. $54 billion is spent on feeding every child in the world for a year, but we spend $97 billion on pornography. We literally spend more money on watching strangers have sex, than we spend on feeding the children of strangers. OPEC put $3 billion a year towards research into ways of decreasing damages on the environment every year, but we spend over $4 billion just on erectile dysfunction every year. Just compare the $1.5 trillion we in the West spend on aid, climate change, preventing deforestation, charitable givings and so on, to the $7 trillion  the state has spent on waging wars for oil and bailing out banks. There is clearly something perverse with all of this. Though, when you read of Alan Greenspan's objectivist beliefs or the fact that Peter Mandelson is a fan of Macchiavelli, it all seems to make a bit more sense.

During the financial crisis of 2008, we saw the emergence of previously invisible men who had been raking in millions as they drove the economy towards destruction. In the UK, we had Fred Goodwin who left RBS with a retirement package of £16 million. In the US, Dick Fuld ran Lehman Brothers into the dirt - to the point that it was losing $8 million a minute - and then walked away with $500 million from that year. And then there was Bernie Madoff, who soon became the favourite punch-bag of the media. Bernie Madoff, the man who illegally accumulated $65 billion. The media soon turned Bernie Madoff into the embodiment of the "irresponsibility" and insatiable greed which triggered the financial crisis. As Slavoj Žižek explained, to simply blame Madoff, and others like him for this crisis, is to ignore the fact that Madoff merely took the logic of the system to its extreme. Žižek views Madoff as the ultimate postmodern capitalist, who ruthlessly speculates up to the limit while half of your profits go to different foundations, charities etc. No different than Bill Gates, just taken to excess. But without the system, such an excess would not be possible or encouraged.

The Greeks of the ancient world had a word "pleonexia" used to describe that insatiable desire to own things which rightfully belong to others, in those times this was viewed as a sickness and even a form of enslavement. Pleonexia is similar to the Marxist concept commodity fetishism, which could be described as when people believe that a commodity has an innate value as opposed to the value subscribed to the commodity through labour. That in some way consumption of particular goods is a form of expression, that particular goods symbolise something about your identity. Thus, the obsession with the accumulation of things. If you're living to make money, you have fetishised money, and in a sense money rules you. You are not free as you are bound by that which you fetishise, whether it be money or shoes it doesn't matter. Though, this is not a new phenomenon, but once again it seems that it has definitely been taken further in the last decade. Never before has a crisis of such magnitude been caused by the spending of money which we don't even have. I am, of course, referring to credit. Not only do we want to shop till we drop, but we don't want to spend any money at that time. Shopping without shopping. It was new practices in the way of credit cards, loans, mortgages etc. which brought about this crisis.

Going back to the perverse factoid, that we spend around $44 billion more on pornography than on feeding impoverished children in far away lands, there is something more at work here. First of all, pornography is actually a deeply conservative genre, it is not as some may think a symptom of the permissiveness of our times. The fundamental prohibition, as Žižek points out, that as we cross one threshold - accessing close-ups of penetration, full frontal nudity etc. - but the price is the narrative, which acts as a justification for sexual activity, cannot be taken seriously. The screenwriters are not so stupid that they believe that such vulgar fairytales, misogynistic and even racist stereotypes can be taken as seriously as films or even TV dramas. This is because they not intended to be realistic, emotionally engaging or believable - this is the price of the "filth" on offer. Whereas, in emotionally engaging dramas, which screenwriters have clearly laboured over, always skip over the sexual act. What is most significant of all this, is the almost all pervasive influence of conservatism, as an ideology, parading as the product of permissive liberalism. Another example of this would be "Gangsta Rap" which could be seen as promoting the Hobbesian view of human nature, laissez-faire capitalism, as well as misogyny and racial stereotypes.

Spectators of Life.

"Everything that was directly lived has moved away into a representation." - Guy Debord 

The Situationist, Guy Debord once said "In societies where modern conditions of production prevail, all of life presents itself as an immense accumulation of spectacles." Debord, and those of the Situationist International, thought that the capitalist structures, of the late 20th Century, would be based upon images and spectacles, as opposed to the production of goods. In the consumer society, experiences themselves would be commodified and we would be encouraged more so to express ourselves through what we consume. Reducing individuals to mere consumers, fragmenting society along the way, and leading us into passive consumption. We become spectators to life. In the case of pornography, reality television shows, cookery programmes and soap operas this is literally true. This seems almost exactly true of a certain advent of the early 21st Century, think of social networking sites like Facebook and how they could function to replace social interactions. Social gatherings without social gatherings. Friendship without friendship, almost. This is an explicit development in late capitalism, which the Situationists detected in the late 1950s and continued to rail against until the early 70s.

If the Noughties is the preface to the trajectory the 21st Century will take, what is the significance of the worship of celebrities? The attention the media gave to the speeches at the G20 protests, they were mentioned in passing, wasn't anything near the kind of coverage seen at the funerals of Jade Goody and Stephen Gately. The media were sure to give the public access to speeches by mourning relatives. Of course, the magnitude of celebrities in our world is demonstrated best by Michael Jackson, the man who's fame drove many of his loyal fans into denial of his descent into drug addiction and the evidence of his sexual depravity. If their denial, and the failures of justice, is not evidence enough of our celebrity obsession one can find plenty of examples. Just like social networking, the obsession with celebrities is really a fixation over spectacles. Though, celebrities only affect our identities in terms of the opinions we have of them. The obsession with celebrities does not even appear to be an obsession with fame or the reason these people are famous. It is an obsession with the flaws and dysfunctional lives which make celebrities human to us. Deaths and births, marriages and break-ups etc. are all ordinary occurances of life today. To some, such things are represented more in the lives of the famous than in their own.

Take X-Factor, the reality tv-show which simultaneously feigns elements of grass-roots democracy whilst it churns out celebrities for us, as a target market, to fetishise and fixate over. The depth of this fascination the public has developed is evident in the fact that more people voted for Joe McElderry in X-Factor 2009 than they did in 2005 for Tony Blair. Though, at least Rage against the Machine beat McElderry to Christmas Number 1. Then again, either way Sony won. Even the increasingly shallow and cynical nature of democracy is being extended to reality tv-shows, the best we can hope for is the lesser of two evils - e.g. RATM over McElderry and Simon Cowell. The most disturbing thing about reality-tv is that it is almost the modern version of going down to the mental asylum to mock the mentally ill, as many did for entertainment in previous centuries. It should be noted that in the television industry many shows are referred to as "filling", whereas adverts are referred to as "content". It seems quite likely that the one-hit wonder machine that is X-Factor, is merely a bone thrown to the rabble to ensure they'll keep on consuming. After all that was said and done in the decade, it seems that we desperately need radical change to resolve many of the problems that now plague our civilisation. Before we drift off of the edge.

Where were you?
Goodbye Noughties - Freedom Press
Decade of Death (for journalists) - CNN
Decade of Debt - CBC
An interview with Slavoj Žižek - The Culture Show
The Situationist International

On Orientalism - Edward Said

Islam, Europe & Democracy.

Geert Wilders is a Dutch politician and an elected Parliamentarian, he is a member of the Party for Freedom and is probably best known for his merciless criticism of Islam. Wilders considers himself to be a libertarian and has named Margaret Thatcher as his greatest political role model. He is opposed to cultural relativism and has referred to Islamic culture as a retarded culture in the past. Wilders produced a short film, which depicts Islam as a fascist ideology, he called the film Fitna and he released the film in 2008. In his own words Fitna is "a call to shake off the creeping tyranny of Islamization and a push for Leitkultur".

Fitna is an Arabic word, which is difficult to translate, and is considered to be an all-encompassing word referring to schism, secession, upheaval and anarchy all at once. Leitkultur is a German concept and can be translated as "guiding culture" or "mainstream culture". The culture Wilders is referring to consists of the values and traditions of Judeo-Christianity, Humanism and Liberalism. In 2009, Geert Wilders was invited to Britain by the House of Lords for a viewing of his film Fitna and a debate on social inclusion.

Lord Nazir Ahmed is a member of the House of Lords and is the first Muslim life time peer of the United Kingdom. Most of his political activities relate to the British Muslim community, as well as the International Islamic community. In the past, he has openly criticised the British government for it's over aggressive Foreign Policy and the invasions of Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003.

Lord Ahmed was appalled by the decision to give Salman Rushdie a knighthood and stated that "It's hypocrisy by Tony Blair who two weeks ago was talking about building bridges to mainstream Muslims, and then he's honouring a man who has insulted the British public and been divisive in community relations." He went on to say in regards to Rushdie "This man not only provoked violence around the world because of his writings, but there were many people who were killed around the world. Forgiving and forgetting is one thing, but honouring the man who has blood on his hands, sort of, because of what he did, I think is going a bit too far."

Lord Ahmed was sent with Baroness Warsi to Sudan in 2007, to meet with President Omar al-Bashir, to secure the relase of Gillian Gibbons. Their meeting was successful in securing a pardon for Gibbons, a school teacher who had been arrested for blasphemy after naming a teddy bear Muhammad. In 2009, when Geert Wilders was due to make his appearance in the House of Lords, Lord Ahmed threatened to lay siege to the House of Lords, with a force of 10,000 Muslims, if anti-Islamist Dutch MP Geert Wilders was allowed to speak at the House. Lord Ahmed later denied the allegation, whilst Wilders was denied entry to the United Kingdom and has been banned from entering in the future.

Silencing Wilders simply because he holds anti-Islamic views is counter-productive, in regards to furthering integration between the Muslims and non-Muslims of Great Britain, and will probably generate more Islamophobia in the long term future. Fascist Nick Griffin and his racist thugs will no doubt latch onto Lord Ahmed's behaviour for propaganda. Their argument that Islam is incompatible with democracy and therefore has no place in British society, will win over even more people. Well, Britain is technically not a democracy it is a polyarchy. A polyarchy is a system in which the ruling elite of a nation is divided into two or three factions - which have some differences but fundamentally adhere to the same ideology - whilst the rest of society is kept ignorant, fragmented and distracted. In elections the ignorant and distracted masses are given a choice between two or three people who basically have the same policies. So, even if Islam is incompatible with democracy, that is irrelevant because Britain is no democracy. Lord Ahmed may have intended to defend his religion from criticism, but the methods he used to accomplish his end ultimately tarnished Islam as much as the Sudanese teddy bear controversy and the controversy over Muhammad cartoons have done.

Do you really want these people running the United Kingdom?

Banning Wilders and his Fitna from Britain - in an attempt to pacify a man, who was not elected, who is meant to represent British Muslims, and he is threatening violence - implies that the film has a formidable argument; that British Muslims are incapable of peacefully defending Islam. This is utterly insulting to British Muslims and it annoys me that no one is angered by actions like this. Actions that perpetuate the myth that Muslims are intolerant and violent bigots. If we continue to feed this delusion, we in turn feed the propaganda machine of fascist groups like the BNP, we've already got a member of the BNP sitting on the London Assembly like a turd on grass. But how many turds will we let land on our grass before we take a stand and say "No more"?

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.