2 x Spectator

Ikväll blir det inte så mycket skrivet på den här bloggen av olika skäl, trots att det finns en del att kommentera ur dagens nyhetsskörd.

Istället rekommenderar jag Melanie Phillips krönika i Spectator om den verklighetsfrånvända glädjeyra som dominerar i stora delar av västerländsk media över maktskiftet i Egypten. Hon konstaterar att en diktatur har ersatts med en annan där militären lovar val i framtiden och den enda organiserade opposition som finns är muslimska brödraskapet. Knappast något som bådar gott inför framtiden.

Rod Liddle är som vanligt både vass och rolig när han tar itu med anklagelser om islamofobi som riktats mot bland annat honom själv:

"When you have guests over for dinner — Tuscan lamb with truffled polenta, perhaps, followed by pear tarte tatin — at what time do you raise your hand, or bang a knife upon a glass and say. ‘Friends: it’s time to have a go at the Muslims’? I ask because at my dinner parties we usually spend a half an hour moaning about Muslims in between the dessert and the cheese board, whereas rather more well-off friends of mine in London insist that this arrangement is de trop, and Islamophobia is best expressed while the white wines are still being served and before one moves on to moaning about the blacks. I ought to mention that if I have Muslim guests over for supper we miss this conversational course entirely, and moan about poofs instead. One does not wish one’s house guests to feel uncomfortable. If you are prepared to make an effort with the halal meat it seems a shame to spoil it by later making obscene and offensive statements about Mohammed and the Koran.

The chairwoman of the Conservative party (at time of writing, at least) Baroness Warsi made a speech in which she said that ‘Islamophobia’ had become ‘respectable’ talk at middle-class dinner parties, something which saddened and disturbed her. To which one must wonder — how do you know, love? Surely nobody would be crass enough to talk about how ghastly the Muslims were when she, a Muslim, was present at table, picking at her guinea fowl and looking embarrassed? If so, she deserves our apologies. Even if her speech, which was made to some people in Leicester, was perhaps the most intellectually muddled and facile speech I think I have ever read from a senior politician. [...]"