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| Afta too mooch exposure ta Amisism |
Then there was the Amis/Hitchens marriage. I have a lot of time for the scribblings of the late Mr Hitchens his ability to scrutinise and analyse a topic and provoke thought in the reader. The times I've found meself scratching me head and rubbing me bum muttering "who'd ave thought eh!" Unravelling a Hitchens gem like an old fashioned toffee where all the pleasure is on the sucking. I do not always agree, but then sum of me fiercest arguments are when I fall out with meself.
So I was positively amazed when I recently picked up and read me way through Martin Amis's "The War Against Cliche". That there was no significant urge to immolate me moleskin pants in turps and flamethrower them out a gully trap with a Brinsley Schwarz CD only came as a suprise three quarters through it. I thought significant old age must have mellowed me blind. I took me pulse just in case but grudgingly had to accept-summat big had shifted. So a few weeks ago I stood in a queue at Elizabeth's of Newtown, Sydney, purveyor of old books, and counted out me pennies for Huraki Murakami's "Underground:The Tokyo Gas Attack and the Japanese Psyche" and a slim volume by Mr Amis called the "The Second Plane'.
Now it helped that recently, me interest had been piqued by me eyes going square trying to make sense of reading threads to stories in New Matilda (loveable larrikins left of John Lenin). In these some of the threaders (worm brain busters and cumudgins) state as fact that the 11 September 2001 New York/USA attacks (and the later London bombings-as well as numerous events tagged by the lying, toadying Western media) were not the work of Bin Laden/al-Qaeda but a Mossad driven or even a combined Zionist/Big America conspiracy. For sooch believers it is thus: the towers could never have collapsed from the impact of two planes; 19 terrorists could not have hijacked four planes and coordinated an almost perfect action of terrorism; Jewish people working in the Twin Towers area did not front work that day after being texted by Israeli intelligence/consul services or the American Tax Department-take your pick; the evasions evident in the subsequent Wuba driven American investigation such as the "Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States" which although running to 567 pages is not definitive on what happened, how it could happen. Although having read the bloody thing a number of reasons come to mind including: hapless communication between competing agencies, arse covering on a massive scale, government cuts and increasing anger at the American homeland for its insular and frequently bullying interventions in global conflicts and political changes it did not like or support-might go some way to say why 11 September occurred and as for Tony Blair...a poodle of gargantuan right wing ideology, puffed up like a frill necked lizard with enough toothless suck to strip a pineapple bare-enough said.
So coming up for air at end of "The Second Plane" I think Mr Amis (as with his comrade in rationalism-Mr Hitchens) nails it. There is both (as with Mr Hitchens writin of the time) stuff written in the heat of the event and then following some consideration-further down the line with reflection). In brief, he sees us descending from a time of reason (and the rise of secularism) back to the time of the believer. This is happening across most religions where extremism dominates. He describes the effects of such extreme religious beliefs as good excuses for 'ignorance, reaction and sentimentality." Underpinned by "the desire for the approval of supernatural beings." People whose world view is -It is so because I believe it is so and because I believe this and you don't-you have no value or right to exist and it is my duty to eradicate you-He defines islamist to describe another branch/root of fascism and points out the blindingly obvious-the theological driven war of beliefs between factions who loathe each other as much, if not more then the west/christians. He also identifies the pointlessness of rational discussion where reason is not valued and life (particularly of those branded others) worth even less.
As with Mr Hitchens he sees this as a war against extremism, a fight between those who believe in humanity/human rights/equality including the right of women to stand shoulder to shoulder with men and a small but strong band of ideologues who believe in their, as they see it, God driven right to exterminate, control and reduce the greater majority of the world to their subjugation (slavery). As for the rights of women and children...as long as they exist in a small dark box like existence where they have zero autonomy-even thought is questioned, and a life as defined by men channeling on behalf of the mystery man in the sky, then they can draw breath. Tunnel vision with vicious and brutal consequences as evidenced when you look outside of the areas which interest the west-such as mosques, market places, remote and isolated communities.
Martin Amis rightly refers to this thinking and ideology as 'the cult of death'. Sadly in Australia this has been taken up as a catch cry by one T. Abbott, but bugger all else has taken root in his understanding other than the other great cliche 'the war on terror'. Christopher Hitchens (Love, Poverty & War : After September section 2004) calls it islamist facsism-and sees this as having little difference from fundamentalist christian fascism; fellow believers in there is only one way-their way. We should be wary of sooch ideologies taking a more poisonous hold than they already have in this world. Totalitarian, just another model of jack-boot, it gives nothing of value to the world but takes everything and what ever our individual view on religion the cult of death is not representative of islam. For this reason we should call all forms of extremism for what they are 'fascism' and fight it in this light. For example the 'Reclaim Australia' or 'PEGIDA' and even UKIP, we should oppose them using religious extremism as an excuse to attack the greater islamic community. As Mr Amis puts it the difference between islam and islamist. Might take a bit of thinking by the English Defence League but there is a marked difference.
Lastly, although their are gaps in our knowledge and our governments (the West) who hide things we the people should know-and a lot of bad things. The conspiracy is more who was protected (the Saudis for example), the incompetence of the agencies who love to use their big budgets to spy on us but in real terms-deliver little, learn less and add bugger all value to the lives of the people they are sworn to protect. Response to New Orleans showed the same old incompetence, followed by blaming, cover up and delivering any old head on a plate with an apple in its mouth and a stick of parsley up the jacksy. Just old school hiding shit which makes the mawkish government setting of memorial agendas stick in the craw. Its the rank and file, front line troops, first responders, the victims and the blind lady who sits atop of the Old Bailey who pay the price-our governments/leaders just go on and on, singing hymns, marching in their finery and blasting more lives into smithereens. These attacks occurred-who was at fault were not hijacked, murdered or left with life long illness and trauma.
Like many, or so I expect, I have struggled to follow the logic on such events from the perspective of Noam Chomsky. I concur with Mr Chomsky-that our use of language, context to describe events in the west such as 11 September and I guess the recent attack against Charlie Hebdo is not the same dialogue or response we use to consider a bombing in Khartoum or Kabul. We are hypocritical at naming the faults of others before considering our own and the frightening acceptance of the oxygen we breathe without questioning how it taints us. I respect those who examine the ethics of morality and politics but cannot always agree with their findings or the construct of their hypothesis. For me the equation is simpler and one of which I was raised with and will probably die still holding is all such attacks, where-ever they occur, carried out under what guise, the greater good, apple pie democracy or the sky daddy-are evil. No ideology/cause justifies the price. All of those lives lost in such ways across the planet are exactly that, lives cut short, and with them hopes, dreams, human stories-in short people who no longer breathe amongst us and who are often forgotten, overwhelmed in the sound bite or ideological dispute-the bigger picture in which they do not feature and no longer matter. That is sad and something we should, where we can continue to give witness, so they are not entirely forgotten or trampled on and buried under the dust of history passing.
Reading this small book, you get a sense of history shifting and as all good writers will do, it makes the reader think and question as to what that may mean and what our responsibility may be in changing the course of extremism as it impacts on our lives and communities. We are due a paradigm shift if we mean to go on. Summat we owe our children and the children of the future.
Oh an' that Martin Amis- he's alreet. Fer now.
May 2023: I were saddened, surprisingly so ter hear yon Amis junior had popped his writing hand. At 73, that's still with a bit of life on the bone! And ter go like old mate Hitchens. I took some pleasure in his last novel that were not a novel, pretentious twat!"Inside Story" It were good although Phoebe Phelps were a bit over drawn - nonetheless there was nourishment to be had. Vale Mr Amis
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