Bright's Blog

5 comments from readers

inayat
21 June 2007 at 16:35

Hi Martin,

1. The MCB's position to date has been that they would be honoured to attend Holocaust Memorial Day if it was made more inclusive and renamed to a Genocide Memorial Day to clearly signal that the lives of all who die in such atrocities are to be equally valued and commemorated. This is especially important to British Muslim in view of the genocide of Bosnian Muslims in Europe in the 1990s. The decision to attend or not attend the HMD is taken democratically by vote by the MCB's leadership each year. This year the MCB is undertaking a wider consultation of British Muslims before it makes its decision.

2. The practice of homosexuality is believed to be against the teachings of Islam: this is a position agreed by all mainstream Islamic schools of thought. It is not an invention of the MCB. Having said that, the MCB has also said it is wrong to discriminate against gay people in the provision of goods and services and backed recent SOR's.

3. I assume by 'declarations of apostasy of Muslim sects' you are referring to the Ahmadis. The Ahmadis (or Qadiyanis as they are more widely known) are regarded as a non-Muslim sect by all Muslims. Again, this is not a position invented by the MCB. Why don't you ask your good friend Haras Rafiq of the neo-con friendly Sufi Muslim Council whether he and Hisham Kabbani regard the Ahmadis as Muslims?

I am not sure why you think the MCB has to change their position to agree with yours. Are they not entitled to their own views?

SunnyH
21 June 2007 at 22:46

"This is especially important to British Muslim in view of the genocide of Bosnian Muslims in Europe in the 1990s."

Anything to say on the massacres of Bangladeshis by the Pakistani army Inayat? Funny how you always remain a bit quiet about that.

SunnyH
21 June 2007 at 22:47

In 1971 I mean, when Bangladesh became independent.

pessoa
22 June 2007 at 07:42

I share your admiration for Rushdie. However, rushing to blaming the ' left liberal intelligensia' for not liking him enough is bit of a cheap shot if not an actual misfire. I would say that it was more the literary conservatives who have consistently begrudged Rushdie over the years-Worsthorne and Naipul come to mind. Dudley Edwards writing in the Mail is hardly an example of left opinion is it?

The more interesting question is why a strand of left opinion that would vociferously lampoon postmodernism and post-colonialism in an art gallery or a university syllabus will applaud an exemplary postmodern novelist and author of 'Imaginary Homelands'.

Stuart
22 June 2007 at 13:57

The value of Rushdie's writing can be viewed seperately from his persona as a writer/celebrity. (Unless of course the Daily Mail is calling the tune).

I have enjoyed reading most of his books, although the recent ones have seemd somewhat dilute, I have to say. This doesn't preclude me from thinking that he is rather pompous and at times self-aggrandising figure. It is plausible that this pride helped in choosing him as due for an honour. To be frank the award reflects better on the government than on Rushdie himself, but the idea that he would refuse it must have borne scant concern for the committee.

PS I followed your link above to the Mail's "website", what a dismal, clunky, one-way, dated, didactic concoction it is . Rather suits the paper really.