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 fear and peddle the
myths of perpetual war, absolute evil and fifth columnists, all of
which have been resilient and violent millenial obessions of
ruling structures in especially Western Europe, which have
contributed towards a definition of Europe and which resulted
ultimately in the Holocaust. The pre-eminent target has shifted for
now, from Jews to Muslims, but really, one could be forgiven for
mistaking Anderson's vicious fire and brimstone for the strident work
of that obscure, failed novelist, Dr Paul Joseph Goebbels. It is,
perhaps, no coincidence that the piece was penned following a visit to
what seems to have been a rather intense and paranoid conference in
Vienna. Really, much of the current geopolitical woe - including the
rise of Islamism - is a direct or indirect result of the greed,
fanatacism and machinations of hegemonic political and corporate elites
in the West over the past couple of centuries and specifically during
the post-War decades. Given the precarious economic, military and
political situation, rather than yet more rabid polemic aimed at
feeding an already overheated war machine, we urgently require lucid
thinking. What Bruce Anderson and those of his ilk need is a well-polished,
Viennese looking-glass.
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