Talk To Rex

Well, I’m shocked – that the BBC should want to hire someone with experience of an important area for news coverage, especially since, according to al Jazeera’s own coverage he formerly worked for the BBC anyway – something that doesn’t appear to be terribly unusual for al Jazeera folk.

Except that, again from the al Jazeera report, Ibrahim Helal will be working on “media training projects” – hardly the sort of power-wielding, corporation-rousing position the Express presumably had in mind.

So why does the Express have such a problem with this? Is it just because they’re racists? Or just because they hate the BBC? Or just because they’re stupid?

Or perhaps it’s just a slow news day – nothing else to grab the front page. Yes, that must be it.

The London News Review asks why liberals seem to have a problem with Islam, pointing out in the leader that generalising about Islam is wrong – but then falling into a worse trap, that of attempting to be balanced yet coming off as critical of Islamic writings and practices. In the context of such an emotional topic, this is a bad mistake – and is it any surprise that Robert Kilroy-Silk, backed by half the readership of the Daily Mail, shoots his mouth off and offends half of the Muslim world when reasoned, intelligently-written articles themselves come off as barely-checked criticism?
Generalising about Islam – about anything – is wrong. But dwelling on certain actions carried out in the name of Islam, while ignoring similar actions claiming ties to Christianity, or any other religion, is worse. For instance, most of the LNR article focuses on the attitude to women in some Islamic states, and while it is true that to Western liberal ideals the treatment of women in, say, Saudi, falls short of (the Western liberal definition of) acceptable, it is important to remember that Islam is not the only religion whose teachings have been used to ground this sort of culture. Indeed, Islam is the new kid on the block of monotheistic religions; the limitation, oppression and even persecution of women was prevalent in Western society long before the birth of Muhammed.

There’s not much point in trying to do a blow by blow comparison of passages of the Koran and the Bible; any attempt to show that the scriptures of the two religions are equally restrictive and abusive of women and their rights would either be incomplete and open to criticism, or unreadably long. However it is worth noting that Corinthians, one of the most-quoted parts of the New Testament, has the following:

Few Christians would, I hope, argue that this passage should be followed literally these days. Women’s position in society has changed since the time of St Paul, and to deny women full participation in congregation on the grounds of this passage would no longer seem an appropriate interpretation of the teachings of Jesus. Society has moved on since then, and so has the religious interpretation of scripture.

However it isn’t valid to argue that Islam’s youth compared to Christianity means it will in time ‘mend its ways’ as it co-exists and develops alongside other religions; for hundreds of years after the birth of Islam, the Christian church’s hold over state in Europe prevented women appearing on the stage, and could give hold over a woman to her husband, father or brothers; later, Christian scripture was used to justify apartheid, anti-semitism, and continues to be used to give a moral grounding for wars all around the world. Christianity may be founded on an all-encompassing and unconditional love, but that will never stop people hijacking its name. Throughout the history of humanity, people have invoked positive, respected ideas and ideals – be it Christianity, Islam, Science or whatever – as a justification for all manner of actions that are neither acceptable to the rest of the world nor, in truth, countenanced by the religion or movement claimed to back up those actions.

This, then, is the crux of the problem. Making a link between any extremist and his claimed religion should no more tarnish the religion itself than John Hinkley’s attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan should make us suspicious of people who like Jodi Foster – but, in the case of religion, and particularly in the case of a religion of which many Westerners still are fairly ignorant, that link can have a very negative effect.

We should not blame Islam that its popularity makes it a target for people looking for a moral justification, but rather we should be condemning the nutters, psychopaths and others who claim its backing yet deviate from its tenets as understood and practiced by the majority. Focusing on the religion is about the most dangerous thing we can do right now; the danger of inadvertently generating another Kilroy-Silk, another little racist, a bigot by misunderstanding rather than by choice, is too high.

Perhaps it is true that ‘progressive Muslims should openly admit that Islam lends itself to unsavoury interpretations’ – but more urgently, liberals (and everyone else) should openly acknowledge their responsibility to clear and accurate communication.

I just bought a Cornish pasty and the man gave me all my change in 20 pence coins. HOW annoying.

Well, hello!

Yes, it’s me. James. The other James.

“Where have you been?” you all gasp.

Well, I’ll tell you. I’ve been in the cinema.

Not, as the length of my absence might suggest, watching the final installment of the Lord of the Rings trilogy. No, last night I went to see a film that makes Peter Jackson’s recent efforts look about as significant as Road Trip.

The film I am talking about is Cold Mountain, the latest offering from Anthony Minghella, who is somebody I aspire to be. And it’s superb. I won’t go into unnecessary palpatations over the details, but screenplay, acting and (needless to say) cinematography are all exceptional.

It had me in tears after about twenty minutes, and I spent the rest of the film in a constant state of near-blubber. Interestingly, what set me off wasn’t Nicole Kidman going all weepy, it was Jude Law screaming as he helplessly joined a desperate crowd of soldiers killing everything around them. This depiction of the dehumanising effects of war is the film’s strongest aspect, which relentlessly persists throughout – as the film progresses all sense of the two sides of the war, any idea of “good” and “bad”, are lost in the cruelty and violence; there are just people killing people, and all death is sickening. It’s possibly the strongest anti-war film I’ve ever seen, and ought to be shown to people who think the Army’s “99.9% need not apply” adverts are cool.

Except that, when the film’s “villain” was finally killed, a man in the row behind me chuckled and said “Nice one!” and I was filled with a desire to kick his head in. So perhaps we both missed the point.

• I believe for every drop of rain that falls, a flower grows.
• I believe I can eat three Shredded Wheat for breakfast.
• I believe the Conservatives will win the next general election.
• I believe in miracles.

As reported by Footlights and by James Bachman, Harry passed away earlier this month; I only found out this morning, and today is colder for it.

I was going to write a quick entry about life imitating The West Wing in the announcement today of the first case of BSE in the United States, but I haven’t had time to do the research to do a proper comparison, so you’ll have to just imagine what I might have written.

Even by our sporadic publishing history, this will probably be a fallow period; you certainly shouldn’t expect anything from me until next week sometime. I can’t speak for James, but as he’s awfully busy I wouldn’t hold out much hope.

This week’s edition of The Friday Thing has an article about BBC’s The Big Read which conjectures that everyone who voted for Ulysses (#78) actually mean the cartoon.

I actually have a copy of Joyce’s book, and I’m happy to say that it belongs in the part of my collection that I never intend to read, along with War And Peace, Frankenstein, and a book I bought in New York while making a film called How To Make People Like You In 60 Seconds Or Less (I’m pretty certain the first thirty seconds are “burn this book”).

The cartoon, however, I have fond memories of (refreshed of course by listening to the theme tune at TV Cream). Its playful adventures, with some vague moral dimension, were a lot more enjoyable than, say, Tom and Jerry. Plus, the nerd inside me kind of liked the not-terribly-subtle naming rip-offs.

Of course, by comparison with some of the stuff around now – indeed, most of the stuff around ever – Ulysses 31 is crap. But then so are most books, and perhaps this is where the BBC ultimately went wrong – who cares what books people like? Most of what’s read is rubbish, because most of what’s written is rubbish. The only way of feeling in the slightest bit proud of mankind’s artistic outpouring is to consider all of it, not just one medium. For every bad, there is a good – Henry Moore balances the Sistene Chapel, the Flumps makes up for Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick and Titch, and for every Mills and Boon novel used to build a motorway, we’ve got another bar of Bach’s St Matthew Passion. Is Lord Of The Rings truly the best book of all time? Of course not – but it’s useful, because otherwise we’d have to spend more time thinking about Universal Soldier III: Unfinished Business.

Metro has a fantastically incomprehensible headline today: “Teachers flunk test boycott poll”. After reading the article, I managed to figure out what the hell it meant, although it still wasn’t easy figuring out which words were verbs and which nouns. “Teachers flunk test”, I read, before being stumped by “boycott”. Maybe there’s a missing comma, I wondered: “Teachers flunk test, boycott poll” – but no, Mr Doug McAvoy of the NUT seemed pretty happy (if stolid and resolute) – his members aren’t failing any assessments.

The headline writer was clearly trying to be clever – ooh look, we can talk about teachers flunking things – but completely missed that the result firstly uses two pairs of words that mean similar things, and secondly has the object noun at the end of the sentence, after two auxiliary nouns. Why no one looked blankly at them while it was being typeset I have no idea.

The trouble is, it’s difficult to come up with anything significantly better. “Teachers’ test boycott poll flunked” has many of the same problems, but at least makes it clear what the verb is. “Teachers skip test ballot” is the best I can manage; it’s almost impossible to misunderstand, accurately describes what the article’s actually about – but isn’t nearly so zingy (although it does still get a teacher joke in). Any other attempts?

On the subject of headlines, The Sun today has “Klum to be mum”, which is simply beautiful.

There are many things I no doubt could – and possibly even should – write about the final capture of Saddam Hussein, following a six month campaign by the coalition forces to find an Identikit with a big enough beard.

Two things, however, strike me:

• Time crowed about the capture, along with everyone else, in an edition on the shelves today – but dated 22nd December. How easy it must be for them to have an extra week to get their front page done and still be bang up to date! Pity the cover looks shit, really.
• Saddam is denying he had WMD, which I’m inclined to believe. However he’s making matters worse for himself by denying that he did anything else wrong at all. Come the trial – in Iraq, in the Hague, wherever – I thoroughly expect him to still be denying having Kurds shot (no – they were dangerous traitors who would undermine the entire region), having Shias shot (no – more traitors), and having horrible gilted faux-rococo furniture in his palaces (who knows – perhaps they’re made out of traitors, to ensure the maximum damnation for their immortal souls?).

Perhaps there are some things we should never find out. The idea of knowing for sure that Time Warner have access to time travel is a profoundly worrying one.