h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

That's the "Religion of Peace" for you.

However, just because we can upset them with such things it doesn't mean we should.

I certainly agree with this.

However, if the natural course of events is for Rushdie to become a Sir, should the British stick to their value and attribute it to him? It raises the question of how much of this event is motivated by provocation (Not A Good Thing) and how much by intrinsic value of the author and wish to reward him for his work (A Good Thing). I wonder now in how many countries controversial authors will be honoured now

"The British monarch lives under this illusion that Britain is still a 19th Century superpower and that bestowing titles is something still deemed important."

from http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/6766569.stm

If it's so unimportant, why the fuss then?

I can't say its a wise descision.
We need some calm.

The BBC was right to show "Jerry Springer: The Opera", the Queen would be right to knight Rushdie. Religious sensitivities shouldn't dictate what those who don't share them can do.

Here we have a country ruled by an Allatoyah, with a real system of hereditary-religious rule, telling the figurehead Queen that she's living in the past for handing out titles to a mock nobility when all she's actually allowed to do is smile and nod and rubber stamp the whole thing.

Its all a bit of a joke, no?

I also had a bit of a laugh on discovering we had a Muslim peer now. And good to see his statement on this issue moving the House of Lords back towards its traditional position of being reactionary and out of touch...the lords have been rather fashionable and populist of late.

This is politics: oh so quickly catching up with soap opera and reality TV.

'twas interesting on channel 4 news last night where the mmessage from inside the foreign office was that pakistan was playing this for internal kudos (much as I assumed in a previous post) because the govt. in Pakistan has been a tad unpopular with the religious leaders due to their friendship with the US and treatment of various issues.

So basically the UK is doing nowt about it because the only reason it is an issue in the world news is because the Pakistan government is using it to reinforce its Islamic credentials. It's an easy win for them and they don't actually expect the UK to do anything about it.

Bit like Iran and the sailors really. Although I'm getting a bit tee'd off with the UK allowing itself to be used in this way.

Agree - that Pakistan and Iran is creating a huge fuss about this has nothing at all to do with a religious offense. Musharraf in Pakistan is busy allying himself with everybody and their mother on the religious scene to keep Benazir Bhutto (and others) away from having a chance at the presidentship. Cases like these are manna from heaven in that context.

In Iran, anything that can be used in demonstrating how anti-muslim the west is will be used - in order to (internally) lessen the impact of sanctions, resolutions, etc caused by the nuclear programme.

These things are orchestrated!

I actually do not think that the knighthood is done for any provocative purpose. I'd say that it's on merit and merit alone. The list of prizes above perfectly explains the knighthood for me.

And I'd say that if the British queen believes that a knighthood is merited, then she should be perfectly free to hand it out. And neither the mobs on the streets nor the powers that be in Iran or Pakistan should have any say - actually, I'm a more than a wee bit annoyed that any of them even can think that they should. (And as said, the PTB there in all likelihood don't - they just use the event to the maximum effect for their own purposes)

A roughly translated quote from Berlingske, a Danish newspaper, on their web edition for today:

"Salman Rushdie hs something these regimes, especially in Tehran, do not have: freedom, a mental surplus (not good translation ) and political moderation. Add he should expect us to defend him. Not just in a police sense. But also mentally, spiritually and politically. If we can't defend him, we can't defend ourselves"

I agree 100% with that!

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/BFF16653-B650-4EBF-A6D0-8281F5404683.htm

"A group of Pakistani clerics led by a pro-Taliban hardliner have said it would bestow a title upon al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in response to Britain's decision to grant knighthood to Salman Rushdie."

Someone, somewhere, has lost the plot. Me? I never had it so it ain't my fault.

"A group of Pakistani clerics led by a pro-Taliban hardliner have said it would bestow a title upon al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in response to Britain's decision to grant knighthood to Salman Rushdie."

Well, that's clearly moral equivalence.

What title are they going to bestow on him anyway? Since when did "pro-Taliban hardliner" clerics get the power to bestow titles? Doesn't this just mean "we've decided we're going to call him this from now on".

>"Allama Tahir Ashrafi, head of the Pakistan Ulema Council, said on Thursday that the group would give bin Laden the title "Saifullah" - which means "Sword of God" - for "serving Muslims by waging jihad against infidels".

>"If Britain can give a knighthood to Rushdie, we too have the right to make awards to our leaders and heroes," Ashrafi said."

So, yes, it seems this bloke has just decided he's going to call Osama "Sword of God". I've decided to call the Fat White Cat that lives near me and jumps off a wall a lot "Princeps of Glasgow". It's a title I've just decided to bestow on it. I'll let it know at an appropriate time.

>"Ashrafi, who has campaigned for the release of jailed Islamic fighters, said his group represented over 3,000 clerics.

>However, Mohammed Ijaz ul-Haq, Pakistan's religious affairs minister, said he was not familiar with it."

Arf.

Here's your big chance Zagreb

Perhaps you could get Mohammed Ijaz ul-Haq to bestow the award on the cat himself.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/6225428.stm

Princeps of Glasgow.

>>He said that extremists could justify suicide attacks because the knighthood insulted the Prophet Muhammad<< (from the link in SWLs post)

He's coming awfully close to condoning suicide attacks against the UK. Why on earth would we let him in? We should tell him that neither he, nor his morally bankrupt opinions, aren't welcome here, rather than giving him a chance to meet important people and have pictures taken where he looks remotely important.

"FOREIGN Secretary Margaret Beckett said today that Britain was "sorry" if people were upset over writer Salman Rushdie's knighthood"

http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,21942406-954,00.html


That will be reported in Iran & Pakistan as a full, public apology no doubt.