A Famous Grouse: January 1

Unedited Weekend Argus column

THIS being that time of year, we were thinking of resolutions at the Mahogany Ridge.

After a few large ones, and in addition to the usual stuff about losing weight, giving up cigarettes and being nice to the less fortunate, there was a consensus of sorts that we needed to deepen our commitment to militant secular humanism by driving from the village, with stones and other projectiles, all manner of religious fundamentalists and extremists.

Said consensus, I should add, was reached mere moments after news reached us here at the Ridge of the letter by the wives of a group of prominent right-wing Israeli rabbis calling on Jewish girls not to have anything to do with Arabs; not to date or work with them, even in an in an official capacity, such as national service.

You may recall the outrageous gist of it, but if not, here it is again, as it appeared in mainstream Israeli newspapers in this week of goodwill to all mankind:

“There are quite a few Arab workers who give themselves Hebrew names. Yussef turns into Yossi, Samir turns into Sami, and Abed turns into Ami.

“They ask to be close to you, try to find favour with you, and give you all the attention in world. They know how to act with courtesy, as if they really care for you, but their behaviour is only temporary. The moment you are in their hands, in their village, under their control, everything changes.

“Your life will never go back to the way it was, and the attention you so desired will turn into curses, beatings, and humiliations.”

The letter is the latest in a series of anti-Arab initiatives by Israel’s growing lunatic mainstream. And it is the mainstream. Earlier this month, a large group of municipal rabbis signed a petition urging Jews not to rent or sell homes to Arabs. The petition was roundly condemned, but a poll found that 44% of Israeli Jews supported the rabbis’ call. Forty-four per cent? That’s hardly a fringe element.

I’ve been to Israel. I’ve also been to Northern Ireland. It’s all too easy to suggest that the “situations” there defy logic. But they don’t. They’re sectarian-based. Remove religion from the equation, and . . . well, put it this way, you’d think the sooner more Israeli Jewish youngsters dated and had ape sex with their Arabic counterparts, the sooner there’d be lasting peace in the Middle East.

And why not? Despite their intentions, the rabbis’ wives make dating an Arab sound an attractive proposition. By their own admission, they’re kind and courteous. You can almost see their soft eyelashes and moist, full lips, and smell the falafels in those balmy Jaffa nights. And, on top of that, there’s the veiled promise of “curses, beatings and humiliations”, the dark and dangerous delights of doing the Bonobo with one another. Who could resist such temptations?

Growing up in the mid-1970s, we too were warned about such things at school -- although, in our case, it wasn’t Arabs, but the girls at the nearby convent.

At the time I didn’t think about it too much, and put it down to the sort of rubbish that ignorant and superstitious teachers will say. I was at the Catholic boys school across the road, after all.

Do you know the sort of damnation that was in store for me, a 15-year-old boy, just for thinking that sort of thing about the various Bridgets, Dorothys and Kerry-Anns who fell under my curious gaze -- particularly at inter-school swimming events as they emerged, dripping wet, from the pool in their clinging, black Speedos?

I didn’t, and still don’t. This is despite the best efforts of Brothers Malachy, Cyprian, Thomas and John, among others. Their chair-legs, canes, cudgels and leather straps notwithstanding. But I do have an idea of how long one spent in hell.

“Lads,” we were told, in yet another tedious sermon on mortal sin, “imagine the tallest mountain in the whole world. Now imagine the world’s smallest hummingbird. And every thousand years, this hummingbird flies past this mountain, gently brushing it with it with the tip of its wing. Now, by the time that hummingbird has, with the gentle brushing of its wing, ground that mountain into dust, eternity would not even have begun!”

It seemed a very long time to be sent down for, and for nothing other than being held in the sway of a raging hormonal soup. Why fight it? Well, that’s what I thought then, and I still do.

Happy New Year, then. Drive extremism from your lives, and be nice to everyone.

Is Religion Good or Bad? Blair vs Hitchens

TONY Blair, I can’t help feeling, has a self-confidence that borders on the pathological and the delusional. Quite why he allowed himself to take part in a public debate with Christopher Hitchens on whether religion is a force of good or evil says a lot, I suppose, about his, er, faith in himself and his ability to convince his audience of his argument.
Quite apart from his infuriating arrogance, of course.
He’s a recent convert to Catholicism, and probably has the zealotry typical of converts. I wonder, though, if the desire for exculpation over the war in Iraq was a motivating factor in his decision to come out and bat for the Vatican.
The Observer’s Paul Harris filed an excellent piece on the debate last Sunday, and I’ve taken the liberty of reproducing here the following telling extract:

If it had been a boxing match Hitchens would have been described as landing blow after blow, many of them decidedly low – especially those about circumcision or women's rights. He described the aid work done by religious missions as "conscience money" to make up for the harm they have done. After all, why bother treating HIV-infected people in Africa while working against the use of condoms?
Several times Blair waived his right to respond to what Hitchens had said, instead just meekly accepting the next question. When one member of the audience asked each debater what was most powerful about his opponent's argument, Hitchens simply gestured for Blair to go first, in a move that brought loud laughter from the crowd.
Blair repeatedly returned to his defence that religious men and women did good deeds in their millions all around the world every day. But it was also a position that could get him in trouble. Blair outlined the work that religious groups in Northern Ireland put in on bridging the "religious divide" in order to work for peace. Hitchens did not allow that one to slip by. "I never miss an opportunity to congratulate someone on being humorous, even if unintentionally," he said. Then he delivered the punchline. "Where does the 'religious divide' come from?" he asked to another round of laughter from the crowd.
Blair was on stronger ground when he argued that fanaticism was hardly a preserve of the religious-minded. "The 20th century was scarred by visions that had precisely that imagining at its heart. That gave us Hitler, Stalin and Pol Pot," he said.

And, I would argue, it gave us Tony Blair  -- who didn’t appear be bothering God all that much when it came to joining forces with George W Bush in his jaunt against Saddam.
Bush, on the other hand, is another matter altogether. But another time, perhaps.

For the full report, see http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/nov/28/blair-versus-hitchens-debate-religion