Monday, November 16, 2015

Secretarial sophistry


If I were a politician who wanted to prove beyond any reasonable doubt that I was utterly and completely out of touch with reality and popular opinion then, at this exact moment in time, I would probably make a statement like... "The Paris attacks have nothing to do with Islam"...

Oh, hold on, it looks like our Home Secretary (no less) has beaten me to it.. Theresa May, sounding like someone who hasn't received the current version of the script. It sounds as stupid as claiming that the inquisition had nothing to do with Catholicism. Of course these attacks have something to do with Islam, granted not the flavour of Islam practiced by most Muslims, but the "Islamic state" is an exclusively Islamic, Islamist organisation, never mind that they incessantly tell us exactly what they use to justify their barbarity (the Islamic holy texts!) but the frigging clue is right there in the name!

Normally this kind of asinine sophistry could be ignored or simply mocked mercilessly but the critical issue with it at this point in history is that coming from an authority figure, it completely dis-empowers the fragile embers of truly reformist Muslim voices out there, voices that so desperately need amplification.

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