Woolwich jihad: Russell Brand compares and contrasts the Koran and The Catcher in The Rye
LIKE you, the Sun knows that when a man is hacked to death as a sacrifice to his alleged killers’ jihadi god, Russell Brand’s view is important. The murder of Lee Rigby needs the celebrity angle. Writes Brand:
I caught up with the sad malice in Woolwich and felt compelled to tweet in casual defence of the Muslim community who were being haphazardly condemned by a few people on my time line.
The alleged killer specifically identified himself as Muslim. He also cited the koran. Of course, only a fool believes the worst of any group typifies it. But that does not mean the psycho’s actions should not be confronted and explained.
Brand once went amongst the BNP and nailed them. He adds:
I simply feel that it is important that our reaction is measured.
Measured, how?
There is something about the arbitrary brutality, humdrum High Street setting and the cool rhetoric of the blood-stained murderer that evokes a powerful and inherently irrational response.
The market places in Iraq, Lebanon and Afghanistan are pretty hum-drum until a jihadi detonates his bomb. But were the 7/7 bombers all mentally ill? What about the 9/11 mass murderers? The alleged Woolwich killers appear to share much with these people who killed because the voices in their had commanded it. Brand adds:
In my view that man’s severely mentally ill and has found a convenient conduit for his insanity — in this case the Koran.
In the case of another mentally ill and desperate man — Mark Chapman — it was The Catcher In The Rye.
This was the nominated text for his rationalisation of the murder of John Lennon in 1980.
I’ve read that book and I’ve read some of the Koran, and nothing in either of them has compelled me to do violence.
We can’t think of another killer other than Chapman who cited The Catcher In The Rye as his trigger. And the nutcases who cite the Koran as their excuse to kill can be placed in a larger context of religious murder.
Right now in Burma, Buddhists are murdering innocent Muslims. Burma is not facing an Islamist militant threat. The Buddhists’ leader is a monk called Wirathu. He’s nicknamed “the Buddhist Bin Laden”. It’s a nickname name he likes. He comes over as a paranoid bigot, saying:
“We represent Burma’s 135 ethnic groups. We are urging members of those ethnic groups not to follow the Muslim religion and not to sell anything to Muslims, and that includes paddy fields and houses. The reason is that we have to protect our religion. If we trade with the Muslims, they become rich: many Muslims have grown rich and have built big houses for themselves, and mosques, and slaughterhouses, which are a problem for Buddhism. Muslims are now dominating the Burmese economy.”
This nutcase and his acolytes are cynically using Islam to define their own racist agenda. Wirathu is making similar noises to Lee Rigby’s killers, blaming the victims for being attacked.
Wirathu has his group of bigots. The Woolwich killers seem to have had theirs. Islamist outfit Al-Muhajiroun is reported to have played a part in radicalising one of Lee Rigby’s alleged killer’s, Michael Adebolajo. Al-Muhajiroun is the banned group that called the 9/11 killers ‘The Magnificent 19’. The BBC spoke to a member in 2004:
ABU IBRAHIM:
When they speak about September 11th, when the two planes magnificently run through those buildings, OK and people turn around and say, “hang on a second, that is barbaric. Why did you have to do that?” You know why? Because of ignorance.RICHARD WATSON:
You describe the 9/11 attack, planes flying into the Twin Towers and said it was magnificent, how can you justify that whether you’re a Muslim, a Christian or a Jew?ABU IBRAHIM:
For us it’s retaliation. Islam is not the starter of wars. If you start the war we won’t turn the other cheek.RICHARD WATSON:
The killing of innocent civilians can’t be right?ABU IBRAHIM:
It can’t be right according to you. According to you it can’t be right. According to Islam it’s right.
And there was Hassan Butt in the Guardian:
When I was still a member of what is probably best termed the British Jihadi Network, a series of semi-autonomous British Muslim terrorist groups linked by a single ideology, I remember how we used to laugh in celebration whenever people on TV proclaimed that the sole cause for Islamic acts of terror like 9/11, the Madrid bombings and 7/7 was Western foreign policy.
By blaming the government for our actions, those who pushed the ‘Blair’s bombs’ line did our propaganda work for us. More important, they also helped to draw away any critical examination from the real engine of our violence: Islamic theology.
That was in 2007. By 2013, Glenn Greenwald was telling Guardian readers:
Can it really be the case that when western nations continuously kill Muslim civilians, that’s not “terrorism”, but when Muslims kill western soldiers, that is terrorism?…
The Dalai Lama (pictured above) said, with reference to the Chinese who had invaded his homeland, “Your enemy can be your best teacher”.
Fighting the jiadis by invading foreign lands has not been a good policy. Can that failure be linked to the death of Lee Rigby?
Posted: 27th, May 2013 | In: Celebrities Comment (1) | TrackBack | Permalink
