Many dead in coordinated Paris shootings and explosions

[bimble]

Don't know who wrote this (someone emailed it to me) but it's kind of refreshing to see the thing framed with a bit of humour.

 

[andysays]

Of all the people ISIS are fighting and of all their targets how many are "western"? Is Ba'athism western? Does it have western values? Yes, in a sense (is this the sense Malik means?). In a sense ISIS is western itself, it has more western influence (via Qutb) than the typical the Saudi Wahhabi or Salafi. Why pander to this east versus west nonsense?

I suspect you misunderstand the sense in which he's using the terms west or western, and the point he's seeking to make.

The terms are certainly problematic, but you're imposing a narrow view on them which isn't Malik's, IMO. You're also ignoring the fact that the audience for his piece is primarily "western".

 

[frogwoman]

View attachment 79905

Pedantry alive and well I see

 

[Pickman's model]

Pedantry alive and well I see

i thought some of the newbies round here, like bimble, might not understand what to you and me is a common term.

 

[Knotted]

I suspect you misunderstand the sense in which he's using the terms west or western, and the point he's seeking to make.

The terms are certainly problematic, but you're imposing a narrow view on them which isn't Malik's, IMO. You're also ignoring the fact that the audience for his piece is primarily "western".

If the cornerstone of your analysis is a problematic term where does that leave your analysis? (In this broad definition of western are Yazidis western I wonder? I suppose they must be if ISIS is against them!) And if he's writing for a western audience why is he saying things that that western audiences hear 24/7?

Sorry, I'm pissed off with Malik because I used to hold him in high regard. He's backtracking on all the good writing he's done in the past.

 

[Pickman's model]

Sorry, I'm pissed off with Malik because I used to hold him in high regard.

so what you're saying is you're really pissed off with malik because you've had to change your opinion of him.

 

[frogwoman]

i thought some of the newbies round here, like bimble, might not understand what to you and me is a common term.

Well its not really common as i dont hang out a great deal with people who say it (hopefully you dont either)

 

[Pickman's model]

Well its not really common as i dont hang out a great deal with people who say it (hopefully you dont either)

nonetheless it's not something you or i need explained to us.

 

[Knotted]

so what you're saying is you're really pissed off with malik because you've had to change your opinion of him.

Perhaps he was always rubbish but I never noticed, but I do think framing the discussion in terms of attitude to the West goes directly against his previous writing which criticised the concept of monolothic cultural blocks. Further his previous article (which was very strong on the whole for what it's worth) calls for celebrating diversity. Pretty much a retraction of a lot of what he has said before.

 

[frogwoman]

nonetheless it's not something you or i need explained to us.

No because we're politics geeks who read about this all the time

 

[bimble]

Being picked on by Pickman is an honour, and I'll never have to use Wikipedia again.

 

[butchersapron]

Perhaps he was always rubbish but I never noticed, but I do think framing the discussion in terms of attitude to the West goes directly against his previous writing which criticised the concept of monolothic cultural blocks. Further his previous article (which was very strong on the whole for what it's worth) calls for celebrating diversity. Pretty much a retraction of a lot of what he has said before.

He's always been pro-diversity, just anti one authoritarian top-down model of managing it - one that imposes compulsory celebration and restricts critique.

 

[Pickman's model]

Being picked on by Pickman is an honour, and I'll never have to use Wikipedia again.

no it isn't and yes you will.

 

[Knotted]

He's always been pro-diversity, just anti one authoritarian top-down model of managing it - one that imposes compulsory celebration and restricts necessary critique.

But he has just proposed a top down (albeit non-authoritarian) policy of celebrating diversity. He used to write things like this:

Take Britain. The arrival in the late 1940s and the 1950s of large numbers of immigrants from India, Pakistan and the Caribbean, led to considerable unease about its impact upon traditional concepts of Britishness. As a Colonial Office report of 1955 observed, ‘a large coloured community as a noticeable feature of our social life would weaken… the concept of England or Britain to which people of British stock throughout the Commonwealth are attached’.

The migrants certainly brought with them a host of traditions and habits and cultural mores from their homelands, of which they were often very proud. But they were rarely concerned with preserving cultural differences, nor thought of it as a political issue. What inspired them was the struggle not for cultural identity but for political equality. And they recognized that at the heart of that struggle was the creation of a commonality of values, hopes and aspirations between migrants and indigenous Britons, not an articulation of unbridgeable differences.

WHAT IS WRONG WITH MULTICULTURALISM? [PART 1]

Why is he now calling for celebrating (and that surely entails preserving) cultural differences? (The answer is of course that he now thinks excusively in liberal terms with no time wasted on small matters such as class.)

 

[andysays]

He's always been pro-diversity, just anti one authoritarian top-down model of managing it - one that imposes compulsory celebration and restricts critique.

I agree that he's anti the authoritarian top-down model of diversity, but it's my impression (and I could be wrong) that diversity being a good in-and-of-itself isn't part of his core thinking to the extent that values like secularism, universalism, emancipation for all humanity are.

 

[butchersapron]

But he has just proposed a top down (albeit non-authoritarian) policy of celebrating diversity. He used to write things like this:

WHAT IS WRONG WITH MULTICULTURALISM? [PART 1]

Why is he now calling for celebrating (and that surely entails preserving) cultural differences? (The answer is of course that he now thinks excusively in liberal terms with no time wasted on small matters such as class.)

Maybe he has,maybe he hasn't - i've not yet read the piece but will do so now. My point was that your characterisation of him as being previously anti-diversity is inaccurate. It' a reading that he's actually gone to great lengths to resist in fact, being aware of the uses to whcih such a position could be put by ungenerous minds.

Having now read the piece i cannot see anything which demands celebration of diversity. Nor can i see any divergence with previous positions. The only shift i can discern is a slight move towards thinking of social things in categories taken from moral philosophy, which i can deal with given he's just written a book on moral philosophy and this is a 1000 word piece for a shitty paper.

 

[butchersapron]

I agree that he's anti the authoritarian top-down model of diversity, but it's my impression (and I could be wrong) that diversity being a good in-and-of-itself isn't part of his core thinking to the extent that values like secularism, universalism, emancipation for all humanity are.

As i just said, he goes to great lengths in his books to outline the benefits diversity - on certain terms - brings. In a way, this is actually the whole point of his 4 books on this.

 

[Knotted]

Maybe he has,maybe he hasn't - i've not yet read the piece but will do so now. My point was that your characterisation of him as being previously anti-diversity is inaccurate. It' a reading that he's actually gone to great lengths to resist in fact, being aware of the uses to whcih such a position could be put by ungenerous minds.

Having now read the piece i cannot see anything which demands celebration of diversity. Nor can i see any divergence with previous positions. The only shift i can discern is a slight move towards thinking of social things in categories taken from moral philosophy, which i can deal with given he's just written a book on moral philosophy and this is a 1000 word piece for a shitty paper.

The article I was refering to was this one:

An ideal policy would marry the beneficial aspects of the two approaches – celebrating diversity while treating everyone as citizens, rather than as simply belonging to particular communities. In practice, though, Britain and France have both institutionalized the more damaging features – Britain placing minorities into ethnic and cultural boxes, France attempting to create a common identity by treating those of North African origin as the Other. The consequence has been that in both Britain and France societies have become more fractured and tribal. And in both nations a space has been opened up for Islamism to grow.

AFTER PARIS
He's never been anti-diversity of course but he could have just said "accepting diversity while treating everyone as citizens". It's difficult to read the above and not say that he is for a policy of promoting cultural differences but treat individuals as citizens (which happens already of course).

 

[butchersapron]

The article I was refering to was this one:

AFTER PARIS
He's never been anti-diversity of course but he could have just said "accepting diversity while treating everyone as citizens". It's difficult to read the above and not say that he is for a policy of promoting cultural differences but treat individuals as citizens (which happens already of course).

There is nothing in that quote or the wider piece about 'promoting cultural differences'. That's coming from you. Recognition is not promotion. And the stuff he mentions as 'celebrating' would be the sort of bottom-up stuff he has always endorsed - this is is his ideal world remember.

 

[Knotted]

There is nothing in that quote or the wider piece about 'promoting cultural differences'. That's coming from you. Recognition is not promotion. And the stuff he mentions as 'celebrating' would be the sort of bottom-up stuff he has always endorsed - this is is his ideal world remember.

How do you celebrate something without promoting it? Celebration not recognition. He could have used the word "recognise" rather than "celebrate". He didn't. And he's talking about policy. National policy. You can't pretend that's bottom up.

 

[butchersapron]

Celebrate contains recognition, it has to - it can also contain promote but doesn't necessarily have to. In is ideal world we can assume that he wouldn't want it to, what with that being the central thrust of his many articles, talks and numerous books on just this subject. And of course when he talks about national policy it's going to be top-down but that doesn't mean he can't argue within those bounds for a position that's the least worst, and that would surely be the one he outlines. And if he was throwing overboard his previous 25 years worth of work then i would expect related work on the same issue at the same time to reflect this change, rather than - as has actually happened - them restating the previous position in very emphatic terms. You cannot turn one word against 25 years. How about a generous reading that puts his use of that word or term in the context of his past uses of it i.e:

The experience of living in a society that is less insular, more vibrant and more cosmopolitan is something to welcome and celebrate.

The aim of Multiculturalism and its Discontents is to celebrate diversity while opposing multiculturalism.

Ok, he used a term he maybe shouldn't have, whilst the rest of his arguments don't support that use. So what do we conclude? That he really thinks he was right to use it and the rest of his many years arguing the opposite is junk? Or that the years arguments are what he really thinks and he just let something slip by?

 

[Jimmy Turr]

Wahhabism isn't a "widely accepted interpretation of Islam".In the only state where it is hegemonic, it has to be enforced by a religious police. Everywhere else in the Umma, it's a minority current - often even more minority than Ishmaili Islam.

That's too simplistic. Leaving aside the fact that even the most authoritarian regime can't exist without the acquiescence, if not active support, of a substantial part of a population, Saudi funding has spread Wahabbi teachings throughout much of the Islamic world and beyond. Don't some Muslim commentators voice fears about the way Wahabbi teachings have infiltrated Western Islamic institutions-so much so that a younger generation of Muslims has grown up largely unaware that what they unquestioningly accept as Islam is heavily Wahabbi influenced?

 

[Pickman's model]

That's too simplistic. Leaving aside the fact that even the most authoritarian regime can't exist without the acquiescence, if not active support, of a substantial part of a population, Saudi funding has spread Wahabbi teachings throughout much of the Islamic world and beyond. Don't some Muslim commentators voice fears about the way Wahabbi teachings have infiltrated Western Islamic institutions-so much so that a younger generation of Muslims has grown up largely unaware that what they unquestioningly accept as Islam is heavily Wahabbi influenced?

i like your variation on 'millions of pms of support'

 

[Jimmy Turr]

i like your variation on 'millions of pms of support'

I'm gratified. I worry all night sometimes about what you think about everything.

 

[Pickman's model]

I'm gratified. I worry all night sometimes about what you think about everything.

so these anonymous muslim commentators, tell us more about them.

 

[Jimmy Turr]

so these anonymous muslim commentators, tell us more about them.

I'm not trawling the internet just for you, but it forms a major theme of that Ed Hussein book from about a decade ago, if I remember correctly. Try googling for more if you're interested.

By the way, I'm not sure I like your fluffier guise. I preferred it when you were still pedantic but less of mainstream left-liberal. Even if you were hatstand a lot of the time.

 

[Pickman's model]

I'm not trawling the internet just for you, but it forms a major theme of that Ed Hussein book from about a decade ago, if I remember correctly. Try googling for more if you're interested.

By the way, I'm not sure I like your fluffier guise. I preferred it when you were pedantic but less of mainstream left-liberal. Even if you were hatstand a lot of the time.

who were you again?

 

[Jimmy Turr]

Also just a nice little passive aggressive quote from the front page article entitled United We stand divided we fall:
"Co-operation is often spurred by the perception of a common enemy - as was seen when the West allied with Islamists against Russia in Afghanistan in the Eighties, at a time when communism rather than Islamism was seen as the primary threat".

I love passive aggressiveness. And it's actually true. To historians of centuries to come (assuming humans are still in existence), it will likely seem insane that market capitalism and state capitalism (if you like) couldn't unite to crush Islamism and instead went on to give it a boost with the two systems which, despite appearances, shared common values, traditions and aims fighting each other instead.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

How do you celebrate something without promoting it?

Is there a way out of this by saying that you don't 'celebrate diversity', you merely celebrate the good things that diversity produces? There's something rather patronising and heavy-handed about the idea of celebrating diversity itself, imo. It is the kind of thing that leads to 'hideously white'-type comments - implying that there is something inherently wrong with less diverse places.

The difference, perhaps, between someone not of Caribbean heritage going to the Notting Hill Carnival to celebrate the fact that there are people of Caribbean heritage in London and them going to the Notting Hill Carnival because they think it's a laugh.

ETA: And that approach might also leave more room for addressing problems and tensions that can, no doubt, be caused by diversity. So, for instance, you might not think it right or sensible to establish separate schools for different groups. That's the kind of area where catering for difference can end up reinforcing it and causing division. I'm guessing that's the kind of thing Malik is thinking of when he talks of taking the best bits from the French and British approaches.

 

[Pickman's model]

The difference, perhaps, between someone not of Caribbean heritage going to the Notting Hill Carnival to celebrate the fact that there are people of Caribbean heritage in London and them going to the Notting Hill Carnival because they think it's a laugh.

do you think people 'of caribbean heritage' go to carnival to celebrate the fact there are people 'of caribbean heritage' in london or because it's a laugh?