Letter to the New Statesman, 20/4/08
Dear Editor,
I read Rachel Aspden's excellent article ('Written
in the Sand', NS, 17/4/08), on the deformations, vicissitudes and
inequalities of the Arab literary world and its glitzy, elitist
accolades, with great interest. As the proverbial, 'acclaimed,
award-winning, ground-breaking' novelist whose work has appeared in
national newspapers, been taught at universities and been translated
into foreign tongues, l feel it incumbent upon me to disabuse readers
of the cosy notion that the English book world likewise is not in bed
with - and indeed, a product of - class, corporate, metropolitan and
ethnic power. I'm surprised actually that I am even capable of writing
these lines, since I am Muslim, male, middle-aged, of Pakistani origin,
live 400 miles from London and didn't go to private school or Oxbridge
- and as I've just come off a 17-hour shift at my "second job". ...
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Letter to The Independent, 3/6/08
Sir,
Reading Bruce Anderson's regular Monday column can
sometimes be refreshing because of his relatively independent
conservative viewpoint. However, he ought to be thoroughly ashamed of
himself for writing what was an unreasoned and bigoted diatribe ('We
are destroying the very values which could save us in our battle
against Islam', Independent, Monday 2/6/08). From his use of phrases
like, "the average Muslim", his generic conflation of 'Islam' with
extremism and his references to Mark Steyn's irrational and
propagandistic work on the subject, it seems that like Martin Amis
(whose book, 'The Second Plane', I reviewed for this newspaper on
1/2/08), Anderson has become infatuated with an
ahistorical blood-and-soil philosophy. References to barbarians and the
Roman Empire, the Frankish leader, Charles Martel and the Ottoman
sieges of Vienna represent an attempt to generate ...
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Letter to The Herald 14/6/08
Sir,
I was
disappointed, though hardly surprised, to read Struan Stevenson's
article ('The West Stands in the Way of a Democratic Iran', The Herald,
Friday 13th June), which consisted of ninety-nine-per-cent
disinfomation and one per cent ink and is clearly part of the
information war in the ongoing attempt in our wonderful polyarchy to
manufacture consent for UK participation in a US attack on the
sovereign state of Iran.
Truth is, the biggest terrorists -
bringers of mass violent death in pursuance of ideology - in the world
today are the corporate-military regimes in power in the USA and UK.
Stevenson's 'evidence' demonstrates double standards on multiple fronts
and flies in the face of that repeatedly presented by official bodies
such as the IAEA and even the combined intelligence services of the USA
(our knowledge of this latter is partly a consequence of the internal
power struggle taking place between different factions ...
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