"You should shoot as many blacks as possible."

[financeguy]

Now that I got your attention:-

Martin Amis's tiny blonde daughter answers the door to their vast Primrose Hill house, beaming and waving – and then, a moment later, the 58-year-old novelist appears behind her, with his sad, semi-scowling face sucking on a roll-up. He leads me through into his front room, a huge, swollen nest of books: paperbacks, hardbacks, fiction, histories. This is where the novels that thrilled me as a teenager – the bitter genius of Money and London Fields, the novels that distilled the 1980s – were born. This is where we are going to have to discuss The Race Row.

So how did the man who courted Muslim girls, who says he loves the ethnic swirl of London, end up saying to an interviewer in the summer of 2006: "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 let them travel. Deportation, further down the road. Curtailing of freedoms. Strip-searching people who look like they're from the Middle East or Pakistan... Discriminatory stuff, until it hurts the whole community and they start getting tough with their children."

Do you advocate racial profiling then, Martin? "I'm not... I've never advocated it," he says. But you sound like you might, I say. "I would certainly... Well, some people say it's ineffective, which is very counterintuitive, I would have thought. If you make a list of all the people who have committed terroristic acts and see what their provenance is, and if they turn out to be white Anglo-Saxon Protestants, search them. It's not a moral question. It's expediency, and something you hate to do, but if this increases, if this goes up a magnitude, these are questions we will face."

Martin Amis's critics claim he is devolving into his father, the scowling, spitting misanthrope who somehow distilled the spirit of the 1950s into his novel Lucky Jim. Kingsley was, towards the end of his life, a militant defender of the Vietnam War and a harrumphing foe of feminism, and said of apartheid South Africa: "You should shoot as many blacks as possible."

The two faces of Amis - Features, Books - The Independent

I'm beginning to wonder...are White Anglo Saxon Protestants fundamentally hypocritical and borderline, or actual racists, or is it a case of like father, like son?

Is there really any difference between calling for Muslims to be profiled and discriminated against "until it hurts the whole community and they start getting tough with their children", and calling for rebellious Africans to be shot?

 

[Kieran McConville]

Sounds like another curmudgeon turning nasty as old age beckons. Its amazing the number of smart people who just go batshit insane.

 

[financeguy]

Sounds like another curmudgeon turning nasty as old age beckons. Its amazing the number of smart people who just go batshit insane.

That happened to your mate Chris 'the Hitch' Hitchens as well didn't it?

 

[A_Wanderer]

From the article

He replies haltingly: "It seems on actuarial, evidential grounds they [Muslims] are more likely to be interested in that [terrorism]. I'm assuming that 95 per cent at least of Muslims are longing to get their house in order, and hate this extremism. I said this to [the former Islamist] Ed Husain and he said yeah, about 95 per cent. So really the feeling was to say then, you can imagine a state would end up coming to the point where..." He pauses. "Say it [jihadi violence] was happening every couple of weeks; are you telling me the state wouldn't do something about it? It's worth thinking about..."

Amis adds quickly: "If it was white Anglo-Saxon Protestants who were doing this, do you think I would be inert about that? I would welcome restrictions on my own existence if it was going to suppress the level of violence."

This seems to be a defence of collective punishment, in certain circumstances. He has said that he was furious when his little daughter and her fluffy duck were searched at the airport, and wanted to snap: "Stick to young men who look like they're from the Middle East."

 

[financeguy]

Do you agree that there are 50 million Muslim terrorists?

This seems to be a defence of collective punishment, in certain circumstances. He has said that he was furious when his little daughter and her fluffy duck were searched at the airport, and wanted to snap: "Stick to young men who look like they're from the Middle East."

It occurs to me that a Muslim who responded to the above treatment by snapping back "Stick to old white men who look like George Bush or Dick Cheney" would probably have been interrogated for several hours at the least and put on the 'no-fly' list.

 

[unforgettableFOXfire]

Most serial killers are male white 20-something Americans. Perhaps we should expand the definition of 'terrorism' to include domestic terror, and in so doing justify profiling those same w.a.s.p.s that this guy says he'd hypothetically accept profiling. Sometimes you need to punish everyone to really punish those you want to put the screws to. I mean, even if it is the fringe minority, maybe white people should 'get their house in order'. Right?

What a crazy motherfucker. It amazes me that editors don't reject this schlock sometimes, not as a denial of rights, but so that your brand isn't associated with bigotry and hypocrisy.

 

[A_Wanderer]

Do you agree that there are 50 million Muslim terrorists?

That wouldn't be an unreasonable figure for strong supporters of hardline Islamist groups.

It occurs to me that a Muslim who responded to the above treatment by snapping back "Stick to old white men who look like George Bush or Dick Cheney" would probably have been interrogated for several hours at the least and put on the 'no-fly' lest.

Probably, given the thuggish nature of who they are dealing with.

 

[financeguy]

That wouldn't be an unreasonable figure for strong supporters of hardline Islamist groups.

Can you some justification for this remarkable estimate?

Probably, given the thuggish nature of who they are dealing with.

I am not quite sure if I understand you correctly.

Are you seriously suggesting that a Muslim who wisecracks while being searched at an airport should be interrogated and placed on a no-fly list?

 

[A_Wanderer]

I am suggesting that airport security will abuse their power.

A figure of 50 million globally seems reasonable. I mean just look at the stats for a moderate population

Forty per cent of the British Muslims surveyed said they backed introducing sharia in parts of Britain, while 41 per cent opposed it. Twenty per cent felt sympathy with the July 7 bombers' motives, and 75 per cent did not. One per cent felt the attacks were "right".

Poll reveals 40pc of Muslims want sharia law in UK - Telegraph

Add the Muslim Brotherhood and other hardline political movements and the numbers would be quite large.

 

[financeguy]

I am suggesting that airport security will abuse their power.

I understand your point now.

A figure of 50 million globally seems reasonable. I mean just look at the stats for a moderate populationPoll reveals 40pc of Muslims want sharia law in UK - Telegraph

Add the Muslim Brotherhood and other hardline political movements and the numbers would be quite large.

But many UK Muslims wouldn't really be regarded as moderate by the standards of Muslim populations in other western countries, to be honest many would be regarded as quite radicalised and immoderate by US Muslim standards, for example (that's the results of Nu-Lab muli-culturalism for ya!). I don't think that the extremism of SOME UK Muslims is necessarily representative.

And, actually, the statistics presented in that article show that only 1% believed the attacks were morally correct. So, not particularly high.

If you surveyed the population of loyalist Belfast in 1973, I'd reckon you'd find a much higher percentage than 1% agreeing with the actions of Loyalist terrorists, and similarly if you surveyed the Republican population of Belfast at that time, I suspect that you would have found find a higher percentage than 1% agreeing with the the actions of Provo terrorists.

So once again, there's a massive hole in the argument that Muslims are particularly prone to violence or political extremism.

 

[A stor]

Do you agree that there are 50 million Muslim terrorists?



It occurs to me that a Muslim who responded to the above treatment by snapping back "Stick to old white men who look like George Bush or Dick Cheney" would probably have been interrogated for several hours at the least and put on the 'no-fly' list.