Chris Morrris article - The absurd world of Martin Amis

[Mob Bunkhaus]

Can you post what he wrote originally and how he was misquoted? Not being funny, just would like to see is all.

The Times. September 9th 2006* "What can we do to raise the price of them doing this? There's a definite urge – don't you have it? – to say, 'The Muslim community will have to suffer until it gets its house in order.' What sort of suff­­er­­­ing? Not letting them travel. Deportation – further down the road. Curtailing of freedoms. Strip-searching people who look like they're from the Middle East or from Pakistan... Discriminatory stuff, until it hurts the whole community and they start getting tough with their children. They hate us for letting our children have sex and take drugs – well, they've got to stop their children killing people. It's a huge dereliction on their part. I suppose they justify it on the grounds that they have suffered from state terrorism in the past, but I don't think that's wholly irrational. It's their own past they're pissed off about; their great decline. It's also masculinity, isn't it?"

Amis doesn't claim to have been misquoted. His claim is that he didn't advocate these views in an essay but merely "adumbrated" them as a "thought-experiment" during an interview. And that the "definite urge - don't you have it?" soon passed.

Now, as a parallel thought-experiment we can try to imagine Abu Hamza outside the Finsbury Park Mosque saying something similar:

"What can we do to raise the price of them doing this? There's a definite urge – don't you have it? – to say, 'The Kufr community will have to suffer until it gets its house in order.' What sort of suff­­er­­­ing? Not letting them travel. Deportation – further down the road. Curtailing of freedoms. Strip-searching people who look like they're from Europe or from America... Discriminatory stuff, until it hurts the whole community and they start getting tough with their children. They hate us for not letting our children have sex and take drugs – well, they've got to stop their children killing people. It's a huge dereliction on their part. I suppose they justify it on the grounds that they have suffered from Muslim terrorism in the past, but I don't think that's wholly irrational. It's their own past they're pissed off about; their great decline. It's also masculinity, isn't it?"

_{* The original interview in full on the journalist's blog.}

[Borboski]

Again, my point isn't that Hitchens is more informed than Morris (although he is), it's that this article is dreadfully embarassing piece of work.  And say what you like about Hitchens, he isn't comparing liberal writers with a genuinely passionate belief in criticising corruption, despotism and abuse with Abu Hamza.

Obviously Mob Bunkhaus agrees given his little quote, which is just as ridiculous.  Do you really think Martin Amis is the new Abu Hamza?  Come on...  Do you know the sorts of things Abu Hamza believes?

This media spat came about because Terry Eagleton, in a recent book on Lukacs I think, chose to put some paragraphs in the foreward criticising Amis.  Quotes that he (Amis) had made, in what, summer 2006.

In those quotes I think Amis sounds hysterical*.  But I think he would agree with that, see his letter to Yasmin Alibi-Brown.

'I was not "advocating" anything. I was conversationally describing an urge ... that soon wore off. And I hereby declare that "harassing the Muslim community in Britain" would be neither moral nor efficacious. Prof Eagleton is making a habit of this kind of thing ... He has submitted to an unworthy combination of venom and sloth. Can I ask him, in a collegial spirit, to shut up about it?'

Eagleton then wrote an article accusing Amis of "Hounding and humiliating (Muslims) as a whole (so) they would return home and teach their children to be obedient to the White Man's law", which he certainly did not say, and he also said that the comments appeared in the Horrorism essay.  Which isn't incredibly important other than to suggest that Eagleton is either lazy or a little dishonest in his quoting.

A-ha, the (rather strange) letter to Yasmin:

"It is a dull business, correcting Eagleton's distortions, but this is the work he is obliging me to do. The anti-Muslim measures he says I 'advocated' I merely adumbrated, not 'in an essay' (he wrote', 'wrote Amis' - each of these is an untruth), but in a long interview with the press. It was a thought experiment, and the remarks were preceded by the following:

"There's a definite urge-don't you have it?- to say [etc,etc]." I felt that urge, for a day ot two. My mood, I must admit, was bleak - how I longed, Yasmin, fror your soothing hand on my brow! It was, in its way, one of the bitterest moments, one of the moments of wormwood, in the strange tale that began five years earlier, in September 2001.

"The press interview took place in the immediate aftermath of the foiled plot (August 2006) to obliterate 10 commercial jets with explosives put together in transit. Which would have resulted in the deaths of another 3,000 random Westerners, the majority of them women and children (these were summer flights across the North Atlantic). Human beings, born of women, caressed such thoughts in their minds".

And not just Eagleton.  I like Sunny Hundal very much - but here's his contribution:

Martin Amis's crime was to declare in an interview: "The Muslim community will have to suffer until it gets its house in order. What sort of suffering? Not let them travel. Deportation - further down the road. Curtailing of freedoms. Strip-searching people who look like they're from the Middle East or from Pakistan ... Discriminatory stuff, until it hurts the whole community and they start getting tough with their children ... "

That's dishonest - he didn't declare it, not in the sense Hundal suggests here.  I agree, "thought experiment" is a shoddy term, but without the "there's a definite urge" that paragraph takes a much worse meaning.

So Mob, it isn't just Amis' "claim" that he didn't advocate these views in an essay - that's what happened.  More weasel words... unless of course you just aren't aware, in which case fair enough.

So you can see how this story came about in quite a truncated fashion.  Isn't there something depressing the need to fill column inches, for all those talking heads to plough in... and as I'm pointing out, for Morris to plough in so late in the day?

*His essay/book Koba The Dread, can only be described as hysterical.

[Mob Bunkhaus]

So Mob, it isn't just Amis' "claim" that he didn't advocate these views in an essay - that's what happened.  More weasel words... unless of course you just aren't aware, in which case fair enough.

"What can we do to raise the price of them doing this? There's a definite urge – don't you have it? – to say, 'The Muslim community will have to suffer until it gets its house in order.' etc, etc

Amis admits to an urge to discriminate against Muslims as a community because of the actions of Muslim extremists - "Deportation - further down the road" - and imagines that his interviewer shares his views, "don't you have it?"

For Amis to defend these views as mere adumbrations is a demonstration of how to use weasel words.

I don't suppose Henry II advocated the killing of Thomas Becket. He merely adumbrated an urge to be rid of his turbulent priest.

Words are weapons. They shouldn't be waved around or pointed in people's faces. They might go off.

_{(I, like you, have no interest in Eagleton or Alibhai-Brown, bogus debates, or the need for newspapers to fill the white space around the ad's.)}

[Borboski]

Humph, you aren't listening.

He admits to the urge in the direct aftermath of a plot of murder hundreds of innocent civilians.  He's since made clear - I think in good faith - that he certainly does not feel that way.

Is it wrong to vocalise those thoughts?  When - always wrong?  I bet a few liberals have that urge, whatver you call it - the atavistic revenge urge - when faced with direct horror and brutality.  I feel a tinge of it when I hear that poor girl who was raped is going to be lashed 200 times.  And then I read that Bungawala last week refused to condemn stoning of women for adultery outright, because it happened during the life of the prophet, and that would mean condemning the prophet.  And he's relatively liberal.  And yet Amis is accused of being equivalent to Abu Hamza..

I suppose I would say that pulling him up the use of language - even if it was justified, which I think in the context it was actually made in it was - leading him to make the clarification is no bad thing.  It was just - from Eagleton's point of view - poor timed and executed.  And from Morris' view, well, he sounds like a six-former.

"Ah, who's the real fascist, is it the shadey chap involved in terrorism who advocates murder of non-believers, or is it the liberal writer, eh, in his suit and tie?"

[P K Duck]

How is Amis different in content or intent from, say, Ann "kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity" Coulter?

All Amis does is condem things that are obviously condemable: he doesn't stop to ask why people are so ready and willing to join up to such an obviously odious movement in the first place.

In listing what they are turning towards, he misses what they are turning from, and ideas such as "modern Britain lacks a sense of religious well being" are anathema to him.

Much of UK Islam is ludicrously strict and restrictive (in my liberal British opinion), yet actually very easy to get along in if you are following the rules: the rules reward those who follow them, a very attractive concept to people who have experienced the economic downsides of the past decade, another seemingly anathema concept for well-to-do Amis.

We are not going to "defeat" Islam by adopting a belligerent, Amis-attitude, we are going to contain it by offering the people running towards it a viable, positive alternative. We will, of course, have to decide that we don't need an enemy in the face of every Muslim on Earth first, a genuinely anathema concept with the current Global war agenda.


This Morris chap is quite a good writer, isn't he?

[klaus]

My only concern with the Morris written article is that he doesn't then take his suicide bomber project too seriously (unless, horror, he's writing a drama).  One of the best parts of Nathan Barley was the subtle criticism of all the characters.  Ashcroft wasn't the one to root for, Barley wasn't totally hateful.  I hope he maintains his amazing balancing act of making jokes of everyone and everything.  With the Peepshow guys working on The Thick of It movie (er, not quite Thick), I'm guessing the bomber-Morris project is what they worked on? 

[Borboski]

I can't work out, klaus, are you taking the piss there or are you serious?

[Borboski]

Ha, I saw this picture and it did raise a snigger.  Look how totally ridiculous this chap is:

[quadraspazzed]

LOL he doesn't fit my idea of proper dress, that's funny!

Do you go round laughing at Haredi Jews too, or is that anti-semitic?

Twat Alert: Look how totally ridiculous this chap is etc

[Borboski]

Heh, I should think Amis' pompousness isn't up for debate!  Like I said, have you read Koba The Dread?  It's great!

[Borboski]

Hang on - you were just somehow riled by the idea of laughing at Osama Bin Laden and instead suggested that Martin Amis is someone more deserving of derision?  More deserving than Osama Bin Laden?

[Ballad of Ballard Berkley]

But... were you seriously suggesting that Bin Laden looked ridiculous purely because of his beard and traditional garb? I initially thought that you were being ironic... maybe I'm missing some sort of trenchant meta-textual joke. I do tend to miss trenchant meta-textual jokes. 

[Borboski]

It's his imploring sad eyes and pointy finger.  Oh, and the stuff that's reported today, about getting out of Afghanistan.  Reminds me of Russell Brand on his podcast shouting "CHINA! OUT OF TIBET!  You heard me... I oughta...".

[Smeraldina Rima]

Hang on - you were just somehow riled by the idea of laughing at Osama Bin Laden and instead suggested that Martin Amis is someone more deserving of derision?  More deserving than Osama Bin Laden?

You didn't say: isn't Osama Bin Laden ridiculous, though. You said: look at him, doesn't he look ridiculous (Well, he looks like a lot of muslims*). That's quite offensive. With the exeption of an ever so slightly amusing finger gesture (PHOTOSHOPPED! by the looks of things)... it seems like you were getting at his religious dress*.

*NOT because I can't tell them apart, but because what exactly is it your drawing attention to, his ordinary facial expression...or his beard and gear?

*When I say dress...

Edit: sorry, i'm slow when i'm angry

[Notlob]

And then I read that Bungawala last week refused to condemn stoning of women for adultery outright, because it happened during the life of the prophet, and that would mean condemning the prophet.  And he's relatively liberal. 

As a matter of fact, he probably wouldn't condemn the stoning of men, either. That's what *actual* Shariah law (as opposed to the puppet regime serving, androcentric crap that is frequently used) advocates, for extreme cases, if certain criteria are met for both men and women.

That's Shariah law for you, guv. Harsh, but fair, innit?

[Mob Bunkhaus]

At last,



an example of the Incefinger.

[All Surrogate]

That's Shariah law for you, guv. Harsh, but fair, innit?

No, it isn't fair.

[quadraspazzed]

What Smelderina said.

And also of course I wasn't conflating Amis and Bin Laden (though both are indeed twats), I was mocking (or attempting to mock) your almost [banned troll]-style argument. There's an argument about Morris v Amis & Hitchens, what Amis said or didn't say, or how he framed what he said etc etc. And then you post a picture of Bin Laden in religious gear and go 'Look! He looks totally ridiculous!' as if it's making some kind of point.

[Emergency Lalla Ward Ten]

Morris seems obsessed by the opinions/actions of totally irrevelant and easily avoidable people, be they Vernon Kaye, Nicky Campbell or Martin Amis.

[Hank_Kingsley]

Yes, he should be obsessed with Robin Ince and Ricky Gervais like any sensible soul.

Who doesn't have too much spare time.

[stephenjwz]

Got to write an essay on Amis for January - how many internet points do I get for citing C&B discussion?

[dr beat]

Morris seems obsessed by the opinions/actions of totally irrevelant and easily avoidable people, be they Vernon Kaye, Nicky Campbell or Martin Amis.

Got to write an essay on Amis for January - how many internet points do I get for citing C&B discussion?

Doesn't the bottom quote indicate that people DO take Amis seriously? And I've always got the impression that Amis is someone who will always get a certain, quite influential bunch of people listening to him, regardless of what they think of his views.  And he was on a public platform (the ICA?)

[Marvin]

Ha, I saw this picture and it did raise a snigger.  Look how totally ridiculous this chap is:

Sorry Borboski but this post makes any argument you may have made null and void, what a fucking ridiculous post.

(For the record, I like some of the past work of both Martin Amis and Chris Morris but don't think either of them are particularly worthy of applause (yet, at least) on this subject)

[samadriel]

Osama bin Laden, anyone?

[/tag limit exceeded]

[chand]

Morris seems obsessed by the opinions/actions of totally irrevelant and easily avoidable people, be they Vernon Kaye, Nicky Campbell or Martin Amis.

Surely though Chris Morris is as, if not more irrelevant than Amis, and yet we've got a two page thread about his views.

[Ballad of Ballard Berkley]

Surely though Chris Morris is as, if not more irrelevant than Amis, and yet we've got a two page thread about his views.

I know, it's ridiculous - a thread about Chris Morris on a Chris Morris-inspired website. When will the madness end?!?!

[Borboski]

Wow, some stroppy responses to a picture of Osama Bin Laden and a comment saying he's ridiculous! 

To be pedantic I didn't say he looks ridiculous (although he does), I said he is ridiculous.

[Ballad of Ballard Berkley]

To be pedantic I didn't say he looks ridiculous (although he does), I said he is ridiculous.

Let's hope that Morris' forthcoming satire is slightly more pointed.

[chand]

To be pedantic I didn't say he looks ridiculous (although he does), I said he is ridiculous.

Well, you said...

Look how totally ridiculous this chap is:

...the word 'look' implies that his ridiculousness ought to be self-evident by looking at the picture. You wouldn't ridicule the writing in a Martin Amis book by posting a picture of its mundane cover and going 'Look how ridiculous Martin Amis is!'.

[P K Duck]

Now the picture on the left is a ridiculous picture of Osama Bin Laden:




The man on the left is the "Osama Bin Laden" who took apparently took credit for the Sept 11th carnage (although the full footage is for some reason classified), and the bloke on the right is that there funny-lookin' Osama Bin Laden who is causin' all this upset in the world today...