But there is no suggestion that his actions were inspired by Melanie Phillips, nor am I making that claim.In an article titled:
I almost wonder whether he might be being disingenuous.Oslo terrorist cited Melanie Phillips in his manifesto
Less cynical and more honest approaches to the link between mainstream opponents of multiculturalism and immigration and Ander Breivik are here by Edmund Standing on the left and Ed West on the right.
19 comments:
You've posted the Ed West link there twice, Ross. Looks like a Beeb radio snippet currently - here's two people, one with this point of view, and another for balance with that point of view as well...
DSD
No they're more or less on the same page on this subject.
Is Edmund Standing on the left?
I know he posts at Harry's Place but I always assumed he described himself as soft right.
I could be wrong but I had him as very slightly left of centre.
I find Edmund Standing hard to pin down. Which is not in principle a bad thing, if it means that he is being intellectually honest rather than crouching safely behind his assigned sectarian barricade.
Trouble is, so much of his output has consisted of little more than searching out shock-horror photos (real or otherwise) of men he disagrees with who seem to be giving "Sieg Heil" salutes and then projecting some tedious Godwinizing fantasy onto them, that it's hard to take the geezer seriously.
On balance, I'd say soft right with Jewish hypersensitivities is probably about right.
Purple Labour? Mauve Tory?
Ed West makes a good point when stating that if you simply use the web as a medium to validate your existing viewpoint, you can get driven, reductio ad absurdum, to the political outer limits. Breivik is (or appears to be) a classic example of this danger.
Breivik was a few years ago a member of a mainstream immigration restrictionist party in Norway. Does that mean a belief in stronger immigration restrictions makes one susceptible to murderous violence ? Only to cynical, shallow leftists like Hundal.
Breivik's MO in the island attack last friday was very similar to that used by Baruch Goldstein in the Hebron masacre in 1994. Does Hundal think that Goldstein's actions in 1994 invalidated Zionism ? Does he think that the Kingsmills massacre, or the La Mon restaurant bombing, invalidated Irish nationalism ? I doubt it.
Ugh. Sunny Hundal
Edwin- Are you referring to his stuff on the EDL? As that organisation has developed it is clear that there are elements in it who are linked to fascist elements.
Ross,
Largely, yes. Understandably his focus has shifted from the likes of the BNP and the BFF (or whatever) to the EDL. Take as an example his ready and uncritical republishing of Matthew Collins' bizarre set of photos purporting to show a link between the EDL and the UVF. His approach seems to be: "look, straight-armed salutes => Nazis => ergo all EDL are Nazis => destroy them before they can erect their first gas chamber."
Simplistic smearing redolent of the kind of CiF post that ends with "...so X is a racist. End of. (It's that self-satisfied "end of" which grates.)
I'm not sure what you mean by "fascist". These days it's little more than an insult meaning, "I deem this person to be a rightwinger whom I disagree with". I'm sure the EDL harbours many people whom neither you nor I would particularly approve of; it's a pretty broad church. But it hardly justifies blanket condemnation.
As to the occasional outbreaks of Sieg-Heiling which Edmund seems to set such store by, I suspect much of it is ironic. If people kept calling me a Nazi, I'd be tempted, perhaps unwisely, to respond in that way. When I were a lad, the Nazi salute was generally accepted as a way of taking the piss out of authoritarians.
Maybe he took a leaf from the "far left extremists" Bush, Blair, Brown, Obama, Cameron, Clegg book titled - How to kill children and duck the responsibilty.
I refer of course to the thousands and thousands of children filled in Iraq (twice),Afghanistan (10 fucking years of it) and now Libya.
Pleasae don't tell me "that's different"
Melanie Phillips is pretty nasty though. Apparently this nutter quoted Jeremy Clarkson as well, and don't thik he'd be tainted by acquaintance or in any way blamed, but with Phillips, you can't help thinking...
Edwin- The EDL's modus operendi seems to be to hold large rallies in order to meet up with knuckleheads from Trotskyist and Islamist groups and see who has the most presence on the street. I saw a lot of them on the way up to Leicester las year and it was clear that they were looking for a ruckus. That kind of politics of the street (whoever can intimidate their opponents wins) is very dubious. It says might = right.
If we condemn UK Uncut or the Socialist Workers Party for that kind of show of force, why should the EDL be treated any differently.
"Pleasae don't tell me "that's different"
It is different.
In each case the choice has been between two options where lots of innocent people die either way:
a) Invade Afghanistan or risk further terrorist attacks by Al Qaeda and extreme repression in Afghanistan by Taliban.
b) Invade Iraq or leave Saddam in power.
C) Attack Libya or let Gadaffi take revenge on Benghazi.
The calls the politicians made weren't necessarily correct but they were not choices between innocent people dying or not dying.
So it is not equivalent to the Oslo killer's behaviour.
Mark- I'm not a fan of Melanie Phillips and read very little of what she writes, she's far too shrill and alarmist for my taste. Wy do you think she's nasty though?
Ross,
We're drifting away from the point of my original comment, which is that while some of Standing's output, particularly the recent stuff, can be interesting and balanced analysis, it remains the case that on certain topics, such as the EDL and minor "far-right" political parties, he seems to lose control of his critical faculties and goes for any old smear he can dream up, and then declares this to be the coup de grâce which utterly destroys his target. End of, as they say.
This is unbalanced, binary argument. "If my side has faults, well they're just human, innit, and they can be forgiven because they are Right. But if I can find just one fault, however minor, in my opponent, then he is toast because he is both evil and Wrong."
I recall an exchange with Standing a couple of years ago. He had produced a list of misdemeanours and turpitudes by some group or other — senior BNP activists, I think — and sat back with the written equivalent of a smug, "there that's them sorted" look on his face. I countered with a list of unacceptable behaviours by mainstream politicians, to which Edmund could only reply, well the BNP do more of the nasty stuff than the others.
It is Standing's methods which I was criticizing above, not his views of the EDL per se. I happen to disagree with him, in that he hates the EDL unconditionally, while I view them as an imperfect but probably inevitable response to both mass immigration and a Muslim population which is increasing rapidly both in numbers and in assertiveness. But that wasn't the point.
I see you are using "fascist" to refer to street violence. That's fair enough. A bit chicken and egg though as far as the interaction with the UAF/SWP/Antifa/Islamists/random Muzzie yoof is concerned.
These things are a matter of balance. Violence and vandalism needs to be suppressed and punished. On the other hand a public demonstration such as a march has to be to some degree disruptive to have any impact. What's the alternative: tell people with a view that they believe is being ignored by the normal political process that they can only hold a static demonstration on a disused airfield watched by two policemen and a junior reporter from the local rag?
Mad Mel is an interesting writer on many topics, as are many who have made the journey rightwards from a combatively Guardianista youth. But she has certain blind-rage spots, in particular Islam and perceived anti-Semitism, on which her rants can become very nasty indeed. Like Standing and many of the Harryites, her opposition to the spread of militant or merely aggressive Islam seems at its core to be a Jews v Muslims thing, while at any perceived hint of anti-Semitism or perceived criticism of Israel, she (and they) go completely apeshit. On those topics I find there is no point in reading her at all and the writings of the Harryites I read through a pair of binoculars from the other side of the room.
Just as I avoid the writings of Robin Horbury (Biased BBC) and James Delingpole (Telegraph) on climate change. Whatever truth may or may not lurk in their rants, it cannot be heard above all the shouting and the vituperation. It ain't worth the effort.
Ross.
The Norwegian nutter didn't like the way things were going in Norway.
The UN didn't like the way things were going in Iraq.
The UN didn't like the way things were going in Afghanistan.
The UN didn't like the way things were going in Lybia.
It's not different.
The dead are CHILDREN just the same.
He cited EU referendum too.
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