Saturday, March 27, 2010

On Paul Berman's 'The Flight of the Intellectuals.'

To be acquired at the first opportunity.

Ron Rosenbaum: It was not healthy for Theo van Gogh to get too close to Hirsi Ali. The Danish cartoonists are still under constant death threats, Berman reports. And Ibn Warraq, the pseudonym of another apostate, reads death threats against himself online*, while Bassam Tibi, who, Berman tells us, "pioneered the concept of Islamism as a modern totalitarianism and pioneered the concept of a liberal 'Euro-Islam' [as well] ... spent two years under twenty four hour police protection in Germany. ... [T]he Egyptian and Italian journalist Magdi Allam ...was travelling with a full complement of five bodyguards. ... The Italian journalist Fiamma Nienstein … was accompanied by her own bodyguard. … Caroline Fourest in France, the author of the first and most important extended criticism of Ramadan, had to go under police protection. ... [T]he French history professor Robert Redkeker had to go into hiding. In 2008 the police in Belgium broke up a terrorist group that had planned on assassinating, among other people Bernard Henri Levy."

He spends an evening in New York "... with Flemming Rose the culture editor of the Danish newspaper who was visiting New York only because at that particular moment it was too dangerous for him to remain in Denmark."

The list continues. Kurt Westergaard, Boulem Sansal. This is cumulatively (and individually) scandalous. The fact that we so rarely hear a peep about the cumulative terror experienced by these writers and artists from the likes of these intellectuals while they find time to sneer at Hirsi Ali is the real scandal to me. The fact that theological censorship backed by death threats has been installed on the continent of Europe with just about everyone deciding it would be wiser to keep silent about it is once again burying the lede. But to my mind, printing it at all is a service. . .

4 Comments:

Blogger SnoopyTheGoon said...

A bit of topic: I don't remember seeing red of so vivid a color lately until seeing this:

http://tinyurl.com/yzs9khu

Gosh... no more words.

3:08 AM  
Blogger SnoopyTheGoon said...

I meant "off topic" of course. Write it off due to me being too pissed off, please.

3:09 AM  
Blogger dmurrell said...

Why do persecuted intellectioals get so little publicity? Because they are being persecuted by radical Islamists. The European media are reluctant to criticize Islamic fundamentalists.

In Bruce Bawer's book, "While Europe Slept", he describes the rather hard-left liberal bias in government-supported newspapers. These media are like our federal government supported CBC. One does not see the CBC attacking anti-American Islamists, such as the Canadian Islamic Congress. Indeed, when the current niquab ban (in Quebec government places) was announced, the CBC gave most of its coverage to pro-niquab advocates, such as the CIC and other left-leaning NGOs.

Hirsi Ali is the exception, who has received some publicity. She is good looking, articulate -- and the media gravitate to these rare individuals.
-- David Murrell

4:24 AM  
Blogger Terry Glavin said...

David: Even more disgraceful is the almost total media blackout of Muslim intellectuals (or rather, intellectuals who happen to be Muslim) who oppose all forms of Islamist reaction.

Snoopy old pal: Thanks for reminding me about events at the University of Regina. You've just given me a great idea. . .

8:31 AM  

Post a Comment

<< Home