All The More Reason

I would’ve added this as a comment within the recent post on free speech but I don’t know how to add links within comments. It turns out that a French professor and teacher, Robert Redeker, has had a fatwa placed on him for a recent editorial he wrote within Le Figaro. I tried in vain to find the piece within Le Figaro itself but I think it has been removed. There is a piece though by Francis Morel condemning the fatwa. The original piece, assuming that it has not been altered, can be read here. Here’s a quote:

Comme jadis avec le communisme, l’Occident se retrouve sous surveillance idéologique. L’islam se présente, à l’image du défunt communisme, comme une alternative au monde occidental. À l’instar du communisme d’autrefois, l’islam, pour conquérir les esprits, joue sur une corde sensible. Il se targue d’une légitimité qui trouble la conscience occidentale, attentive à autrui : être la voix des pauvres de la planète. Hier, la voix des pauvres prétendait venir de Moscou, aujourd’hui elle viendrait de La Mecque ! Aujourd’hui à nouveau, des intellectuels incarnent cet oeil du Coran, comme ils incarnaient l’oeil de Moscou hier. Ils excommunient pour islamophobie, comme hier pour anticommunisme.

This article has some interesting details, including the reaction of Villepin as well as the fact that Redeker is now under guard 24 hours a day.

Jonathan Smith

Well, after dancing a little while with the idea of running for President next year, Lionel Jospin has decided not to run. The last time I checked, Jacques Chirac has still not ruled out the possibility of running next year. For now, it’s looking like that race for President next year shall be very, very interesting.

Jonathan Smith

In the following piece, Anne Applebaum claims that people in the West should do more basic defending of free speech.

…I don’t feel that it’s asking too much for the West to quit saying sorry and unite, occasionally, in its own defense. The fanatics attacking the pope already limit the right to free speech among their own followers. I don’t see why we should allow them to limit our right to free speech, too.

Perhaps one way that free speech could be defended a little better would be to help defend the legal cases of those whose opinions we find odious. I’m thinking, for example of David Irving, a holocaust denier who got in trouble with the law in Europe.

Jonathan Smith

If ever asked to give a public speech where some serious head nodding and hmmm hmmmmms are wished from the crowd, then one could do much worse than to use the antimetabole. This rhetorical manoeuver is well recognised when used, although I would bet most individuals would not readily identify it as a formula all its own. It consists of reversing the main ideas and often to contrary effect. Some famous examples include:

– Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.

– The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

What is interesting and so powerful about the antimetabole is how easily one can invent new ones (although no doubt already existing one google search away), and yet how timeless they can sound. (at least to my ears)

– I thought I was going to teach my child, and she ended up teaching me.

– If you smile a lot, then you’ll have a lot to smile about.

– Share with no one, and there shall be no one to share with.

– We shouldn’t be worried about jihadists as much as jihadists should be worried about us.

Jonathan Smith

One of the more interesting radio documentaries that I’ve heard in a long time can be listened to here. It concerns a drum beat originally recorded in 1969 as part of a drum solo which then came into popularity as a breakbeat of its own. It is the Amen break (as in the Ahh we would say at the doctor’s office). Perhaps what’s most impressive about the delivery of the narrator Nate Harrison, is the way in which he manages to explain so much detail about the Amen break without it sounding like he’s reading off a cue card. That, and the somewhat uncanny resemblance of his voice to Stephen Wright.

Jonathan Smith

If some of the utterances of Pope Benedict in his Bonn speech have inflamed the ire in the delicate souls of the Muslim Brotherhood, may I offer this quote from the same text as a rallying call for believers in reason.

 In the Western world it is widely held that only positivistic reason and the forms of philosophy based on it are universally valid. Yet the world’s profoundly religious cultures see this exclusion of the divine from the universality of reason as an attack on their most profound convictions. A reason which is deaf to the divine and which relegates religion into the realm of subcultures is incapable of entering into the dialogue of cultures. 

This distinction between ‘positivistic reason’ and ‘reason’ more generally, by which the act of faith and superstition is elevated to the plain of the rational is mealy-mouthed. The Pope is not saying that there is an equivalence between these two standards- that would be one thing- but, rather, that ‘positivistic reason’ should be subordinated to this spurious species of ‘super reason’. I find that offensive in the extreme.  
 

Here is an official statement by Jack Layton, the leader of the New Democratic Party in Canada. In it, he calls for the withdrawal of Canadian troops in Southern Afghanistan (where Canadian soldiers are currently fighting). Here’s a quote:

New Democrats have a clear, comprehensive vision that moves Canada in the right direction – where our role in Afghanistan is through humanitarian aid, reconstruction, and a comprehensive peace process – not a George Bush-style counter-insurgency war.

What is a George Bush-syle counter-insurgency war? What does that mean? How would you, Jack Layton, wish to engage in a comprehensive peace process with the Taliban? How does one go about humanitarian aid if the territory itself is not safe for doctors and nurses to practice their wares?

Since this statement of his, the New Democrats have voted their opposition to Canada’s current combat mission in Afghanistan.

Jonathan Smith

Occasionally, one comes upon a writer that writes that so simply and so clearly that it is really quite humbling to read. The linguist Geoffrey K. Pullum is such a man. Here is a link to his writings. Although there are so many pieces of his to choose from, and I may delve into them in the future here, today I thought I would draw attention to a recent piece of his about Islamic Fascism. Here’s a quote:

“Fascism” is not a bad term to pick for the kind of nightmare that would probably result if a global Islamic caliphate were to be established by the sort of Waziristan cave denizens who issue taped messages encouraging disaffected young Pakistanis in Britain to go out and blow themselves and a few hundred passengers to pieces on a train or a plane to glorify Allah. (Yes, I despise this corrupt cult of mass slaughter and theocratic bigotry. Did you think I would be all latte-sipping gooey-relativist about it?) The opposition to individual rights, free markets, choice in lifestyle, tolerance in religion, and expression of dissent of the jihadists is plangent.

Now plangent is a word I did not know until a few minutes ago. I define not knowing as to mean whether or not I would have felt comfortable giving a definition as opposed to simply being aware that it was a word. I would bet other writers on this blog are not so ignorant. Nevertheless, in thinking and writing about politics, we can only do ourselves benefit by casting the net long and wide in choosing whom to read.

Jonathan Smith