The Sunday Ishmael: 23/06/2024

 A couple of Sundays ago, I told you that I am a racist, and that I know this because I was taught by anti-racism trainers that I, like all white people, am/are racist.  And these were professional Black people, who should know. 

In the 40 years that have subsequently elapsed, I have dwelt on this, moving from offended, to denial, to over-compensating, to accepting, to understanding that everyone is and why should I feel guilty about it, when Diane Abbott doesn't?

I am also religiously intolerant. This gets a bit mixed up, because many of the practitioners of religions are also people of colour - but racism and religious intolerance are two separate things. For example, I subject my white, Church of Scotland friend to my intolerant abuse: "don't you find the comedy hats that bishops wear to be proof positive that there is no god?"

Or: "do any of the congregants at your church have any religious conviction at all, or do they just go for the fighting?"

Although all religions seem to have been birthed in blood, sacrifice (animal and human), war, torture, cruelty and avarice (I have a friend who, on a tour of the Vatican, became faint with horror and despair by the time she was ushered into the Sistine Chapel, and begged to be released early), some religions are undoubtedly worse than others. I was once invited to a Baha'i service. They don't seem too bad. 

The great bulk of Bahāʾī teaching is concerned with social ethics. They have no priests and do not seem to have any rituals when worshipping - other than eating. The service I attended was a bring and share lunch. There was no incense, songs, readings from old books, stand up, sit down, shake hands with your neighbour. Nope, just a range of dishes - competitive cooking. The worst thing that could happen was irritable bowel syndrome.

And I've known a few Quakers, who seem fairly inoffensive and quiet. And my Jewish friend always seems to have specialist food for specialist occasions when the ancient and biblical Jews were undergoing some fresh torment set upon them by their god.

At the other end of the religious spectrum are the wildly intolerant, creatively cruel worshippers of a god who demands the death of anyone who doesn't agree with him. 

The primary aim of jihad as warfare is the expansion and defence of the Islamic state. In classical theory, jihad should continue until "all mankind either embraced Islam or submitted to the authority of the Muslim state." There could be truces before this was achieved, but no permanent peace. One who died "on the path of God" was a martyr, whose sins were remitted and who was secured "immediate entry to paradise".

What can you do with people like that? Best thing is to leave them alone to pursue their mad, stone-age religion - which is a bit difficult when they are intent on conversion or empire and, moreover, have large populations embedded in your own, secular country, who elect  a representative who not only doesn't just not understand the culture, but actively rejects it. 

Mothin Ali was elected in May as a councillor for the Gipton and Harehills ward in Leeds after winning more than 3,000 votes. Councillor Ali said, in his victory speech: “We will not be silenced. We will raise the voice of Gaza. We will raise the voice of Palestine."

He then triumphantly shouted "Allahu Akbar!” - which is an Islamic declaration of faith and translates to 'God is the greatest' in Arabic. It is used frequently within prayers and as a battle cry. Not bad enough being a Greenforfucksake, Ali is more concerned with Middle Eastern Islam than with the political needs of Leeds. He's under investigation, which means, of course, that nothing will come of it.

‘One of the things that’s coming up over and over again is Islamophobia,’ says Sir Keir Starmer in a campaign video, talking to Sadiq Khan. ‘We need to say over and over again that Islamophobia is intolerable… and I think there’s more we can do in government. There’s certainly stuff online that needs tackling much more robustly than it is at the moment.’

Well, that would be me, then, Sir Keir. 

Homophobia is a term that doesn't hold water - "Homo" is a Latin noun that means "human being" or "man" in the generic sense of "human being, mankind". The binomial name Homo sapiens was coined by Carl Linnaeus in 1758. In modern English, homo- is a combining form meaning "same, identical".  Like homogenous. "Phobia" means an extreme fear of or aversion to something. So homophobia as a word is nonsense. It makes no sense. 

Islamophobia, however,  is a very different kettle of fish. Having just read an article about the practice of Islam in Afghanistan, I would advise that it makes a great deal of sense, especially for women, to have an extreme fear of Islam. The Supreme Leader, Haibatullah Arkundzada, announced in his Eid message in early April that they will soon start stoning women to death for such crimes as adultery, which they define very loosely. The United Nations is currently investigating reports of rape, gang rape, sex slavery and forced abortions of women held in Afghanistan jails. A report titled ‘From Torture to Sexual Assault and Murder: What’s Happening in the Taliban’s Women’s Prisons?’ says that 90 women in prisons in Samangan, Jawzjan and Faryab provinces were raped by Islamic men who took over security at night, after female guards, cleaners and medical staff ended their day shifts.  Both senior and lower ranking military Islamic personnel are alleged to have entered the prisons at night to sexually assault the women. Women were also taken to the homes of Taliban commanders, where they were sexually assaulted and returned to prison at daybreak. Sixteen of the women became pregnant after ‘repeated sexual assault and have undergone abortions in local clinics,’ the report said. The women were taken to hospital under Taliban armed guard, and kept separate from other patients and most medical staff while abortions were performed, usually in the third or fifth month of pregnancy, it said. It attributed the information to unnamed ‘prisoners who experienced mistreatment.’

‘One released prisoner affirms that at least four female prisoners in Samangan province fell seriously ill as a result of repeated sexual assaults by Taliban members and were ultimately executed by the Taliban,’ the report said. It also quoted a female doctor at a hospital in Maymana, the provincial capital of Faryab, as saying ‘the Taliban transferred 13 female prisoners to the gynaecology department… after sexually assaulting them, and these women underwent abortions.’ Multiple women were taken to the hospital bleeding following sexual abuse, and showing signs of torture, another doctor said. Heather Barr, the associate director of the Women’s Rights Division at Human Rights Watch, said the Taliban regarded women as chattel needing constant supervision to ensure they behave ‘decently’ and do not dishonour male relatives. Errant behaviour – such as leaving their homes alone, protesting violations of their rights, or desiring an education or career – is seen by the Taliban as rightly incurring punishment, so in the Taliban’s worldview ‘they had it coming,’ she said.

It is unlikely that there will be any consequences for the Taliban’s treatment of women. International aid, including cash deliveries of tens of millions of dollars, continues to flow into the country. 

Supreme Leader Haibatullah Arkhundzada has re-introduced execution by stoning, taunting human rights defenders: ‘You say it’s a violation of women’s rights when we stone them to death. But we will soon implement the punishment for adultery.’

All this is creepily like Margaret Attwood's The Handmaid's Tale - and as such, could be dismissed as anti-Islamic propaganda. I don't think so, though. Or you could hold the view that this sociopathic hatred of women in Afghanistan is cultural, not embedded within Islam. But, again, I don't think so - there are too many "cultural" extreme manifestations of misogyny within Islam - look at the rapes perpetrated upon Jewish young women in last October's invasion of Israel by Hamas, ably supported by Palestinian civilians. Within Britain, it is estimated that 12 to 15 women are killed each year to preserve the "honour" of their Islamic families. In the year ending March 2022, there were 2,887 honour-based abuse (HBA) -related offences recorded by the police in England and Wales. This was an increase of 6 per cent compared with the year ending March 2021 (when there were 2,725 offences). 

Banaz Mahmod, a 20-year-old who left an abusive arranged marriage was murdered by order of her Islamic uncle Ari Mahmod and father Mahmod Mahmod because she had a romantic relationship.  In an amazing bitter irony, that you really couldn't make up, Ari Mahmod is suing ITV, claiming a crime drama based on his “honour” killing of his niece has blackened his name.

I am seriously beginning  to think that we need to turn to Nigel Farage to tell the bloody truth. He was rather splendid about not backing down on his statement in his BBC Panorama interview that the West provoked Vladimir Putin into invading Ukraine, through Nato and European Union expansion , stating, “we provoked this war.” Despite criticism from Rishi Sunak and Sir Keir Starmer, Farage maintains he won’t apologize for telling the truth about Russia’s actions. So that's it with me and Starmer. The man's a Remainer, in hock to the Islamic community and determined to provoke Russia into declaring war on Britain.

Dost thou think because thou art virtuous there will be no more cakes and ale?

It'll just have to be Farage and Reform. I do hope that his re-immersion in British politics won't affect his support for Trump's Presidential campaign.

Conservative Lord Philip Hammond, Baron Hammond of Runnymede P.C.), British politician and life peer, former Chancellor of the Exchequer from 2016 to 2019, former Foreign Secretary from 2014 to 2016, former Defence Secretary from 2011 to 2014 and former MP for Runnymede and Weybridge from 1997 to 2019 really doesn't like Nigel Farage at all. He solemnly declared on Laura's politics show this morning that: "We should have no truck with this right wing populism .... there are no quick fixes, no free lunches and the snake oil that Farage is peddling has no place in British politics."

Shame. Bring on the free lunches.

• John Swinney has been let down again by the Scottish National Party's apparatchiks, who have been stealing the stamps. The apparatchiks refer to the Scottish Government's stamps as the Stamp Fairy.  It's a bit like when the SNP disappeared the £630,000. What's his is mine, because we is the government. Swiney says he's been assured that his campaign did not use stamps paid for with public money - a parliamentary investigation into the matter is ongoing. 
• So we'll hear no more about that, then.
• If  you would like to read some original ishmael or stanislav, then the four-volume Call Me Ishmael oeuvre, collected and curated by editor mr verge, is available on Lulu and Amazon.

  Honest Not Invent, Vent Stack, Ishmael’s Blues, and the latest, Flush Test (with a nice picture of the late, much lamented, Mr Harris of Lanarkshire taking a piss on a totem pole) are available from Lulu and Amazon. If you buy from Amazon, it would be nice if you could give a review on their website.

  IIshmaelites wishing to buy a copy from lulu should follow these steps 

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