Interview with Me by Steve Anderson

Reproduction of an interview originally published here.

Interview: Daniel Hoffmann-Gill

The Nottingham-born actor talks about slumming it as a teen and the tragedy that made him turn his life around.

Across the foyer of London’s Royal Festival Hall Daniel Hoffmann-Gill cuts an imposing figure. At 6ft 6in and thick cut, the actor, playwright and director is almost a giant. However, as he says goodbye to Rich, the designer for his upcoming play Our Style is Legendary, and scans the open-plan hall for his next appointment, I can’t help but think he looks like a lost little boy.

I approach Hoffmann-Gill, who is dressed in a scruffy wax jacket and ripped baggy jeans, and am greeted with a gentle handshake and a warm smile from behind a heavy moustache. It seems the lost boy analogy isn’t too far off as he tells me about his struggle growing up in Nottingham in the 1980s.

The only child of middle-class, entrepreneurial parents, Hoffmann-Gill was significantly better off than those living around him in the notorious St Ann’s area of the city, where racial tension and violence were prevalent. “It was interesting for me because it meant that I could experience a different way of life by making friends and hanging out in that community,” he says. “It was an important education for me.”
Hoffmann-Gill, now 34, describes his teenage years as a sad time, full of anger and violence, spawning from his relationship with an authoritarian father shaped by military discipline. “My dad had a lot of anger towards me and I had a lot of anger towards him. I think it’s a classic Oedipul thing, you want to kill your dad and have sex with your mum,” he tells me, not quite making clear whether he is joking or not.

His rough East Midlands accent comes alive when he spits expletives, passionately breaking his relaxed and soft-spoken demeanor: “I think it’s important when a son’s growing up and he knows he could smack the fuck out of his dad.”

His adolescent violence soon turned inwards as he started using drugs as a coping mechanism to deal with severe self-loathing, and was perfectly comfortable destroying a person he did not care about.
His life was to change very suddenly when he was 16, however, when his best friend Michael died of a heroin overdose.

Hoffmann-Gill reels off the date like it is eternally etched into his brain – “1992, 8th of December” – and for the first time, his easy, sprawling conversation becomes slower and more contemplative. It is less emotional than it is reflective; he has obviously come to terms with his friend’s death. Indeed, their relationship forms the backdrop to the autobiographical Our Style Is Legendary.

When Michael died, Hoffmann-Gill knew it was time to make a fresh start. “That part of my life literally died. That’s the way I believe things should be, if something goes wrong you have to chop the whole arm off otherwise it will kill you.”

A keen performer since an early age and nursed by “inspirational” school drama teachers, he decided to pursue a career in acting, as well as working with problem children in St Ann’s that were wandering down the same dark path he had.

Now working regularly as an actor, making a living from commercials and theatre, the self-loathing of Hoffmann-Gill’s teens has completely disappeared, as he boldly claims he now loves himself a great deal. “It’s not arrogance, but if you make your life reliant on other people giving you love to make yourself feel good, that means they can take it away and reduce you to fucking nothing.”

He says he still believes in a shared existence, however, and proudly tells me he is due to marry his fiancée Eva-Jane in December. The couple met four years ago when Hoffmann-Gill took over directorial duties on a play she was starring in. On a prompt sheet to remember the actors’ names he wrote ‘I love you’ next to hers. “It didn’t mean I loved her, she just looked great. I was like ‘fuck, she’s amazing’.”
Don’t count on the wedding being a big church ceremony though; as an avid science and philosophy reader, Hoffmann-Gill claims him and religion don’t mix. Counting Sartre and Nietzsche among his favourite writers, he calls the Bible and Koran “wonderful bits of writing, but nowhere how you want to live your life”.

“It doesn’t make any sense. Faith is just an excuse for bad ideas.”

Our Style is Legendary runs at the Tristan Bates Theatre, Covent Garden from March 14th until April 2nd. Tickets can be bought here.

The Politics of Hair

Some of you may be aware that very recently Iran banned certain types of haircuts as being too Western and too decadent. Pathetic because a genuinely powerful, secure, confident, democratic nation should never have to worry about the haircuts of it's citizens. As if haircuts can bring an entire nation crashing down? That kind of 'not one domino shall fall' bullshit will be the death of them...here's hoping.

The kind of haircuts Iran have taken umbrage with are mullets...

Ponytails....

And elaborate spikes (whatever that means)...

Naturally, the hairstyles these backward fucks approve of are just as fucking diabolical, shit like bouffants, quiffs and 90's throwback curtains...

Gel, however, can be used if sparingly. I kid you not.

I swear, some people are clinging so desperately to a bare modicum of power that they actually think this undignified flaying around at moral decay makes them look strong. Iran is not alone in this of course, the UK is blighted with Broken Britain (Copyright. All Rights Reserved) bullshit and America is contorting itself into ever more vulgar, vile and grotesque positions over the non-Mosque that is at least two blocks away from the place formally known as the World Trade Centre.

Whilst Iran may be an extreme example of the politics of hair, with thuggish militia forcing vigorous trims on Iranians with degenerate haircuts, it is not alone in connecting hair with some kind of insurgency.

North Korea controls the hair-do's of it's citizens, demanding exacting standards and seemingly, a desire for all males to look identical because long hair, naturally, drains you of your mental powers...

In Iraq barbars have been murdered by retarded religious bigots for distributing Western haircuts, while Indonesia hopes to bring in laws regarding suitable hairstyles and many other countries around the world are hatching similarly idiotic plans.

I don't know what it is about Islam and it's intolerance of good hair cuts, it makes me laugh that their God is so petty and envious that the way a human wears their hair can anger the daft twat, that and eating pig...like any omnipotent motherfucker would give a shit about tedious shit like that. We make our silly, pointless Gods in our own image, wracked with insecurities and weakness.

Facial hair is a whole other can of worms, ironically, considering how much Islam hates a good do, it loves a big beard, long the preserve in the Western world of real-ale drinkers, folk aficionados and pedophiles.

Iran has only just accepted the goatee, which is a horrible little beard, whilst Somalian Islamic militants (following a line led by the Taliban in Afghanistan) has instructed all men to grow beards but sans moustache; which is clearly flawed as a good moustache establishes a man as a true gentleman and a God amongst his hairless peers.

Haters of beards include Turkmenistan, Albania in the 1970s and Japan right bloody now, where beards are are deemed quite unpleasant but shit like this is perfectly acceptable...

Currently, I am rocking a beard because of filming commitments but normally I am resplendent in a fine moustache and proudly so, mainly because it's an excellent social device by which to measure the intelligence of anyone you're engaging with. If they are compelled to mention Hitler, The Village People or P0rn then they are an idiot and you can, pretty much guilt free, erase them from your life with no major loss.

And woe betide any loon that tries to police my facial hair and hair-do...

Forced Into the Closet by Violence

I have blogged before on the awful state of Lesbian/Gay/Bi-Sexual/Transgender civil rights in many developing nations around the world. Whether it be brutal anti-lesbian violence in South Africa, which actually is the only African country to have the rights of LGBT people written into it's constitution (not that that stops disgusting acts of "corrective" rape, beatings and murder...what a vile idea), or the catalogue of murders and legal repression in the Muslim worlds and the Caribbean, of their LGBT communities.

Being a "developing country" it seems is a perfect excuse for being backwards, excusing cruel and unusual behaviour by claiming it is crucial a part of the indigenous culture and preserving the way things have always been, in the face of ever-advancing Western cultural mores.

It is Africa that has recently thrust itself into the hideous spotlight of homophobia and criminalising natural behaviours. Whether is be Malawi deeming homosexuality unnatural and indecent; Burundi criminalising gay sex; Zambia connecting homosexuality with Satanism, or Uganda offering up the death penalty for anyone homosexual. 

The list goes on, with most of them leaning on ancient, colonial anti-sodomy legislation (something that India has just repealed in a huge step forward) and being encouraged by an infestation of American conservative evangelical Christians, peddling their homophobic nonsense.

It is not just Africa of course that fines, lashes, whips and imprisons it's homosexuals. Iran and Afghanistan both put them to death but it is in Iran's legislation that an interesting facet starts to appear, one that is shared by many of these homophobic nations.

In Iran, lesbians are only put to death upon the fourth conviction for the "crime" of homosexuality, they are, in a sense, let off the hook for the first three indiscretions (aside from the 300 lashes they would have received) and in many of these backward nations, lesbianism is not even mentioned in the law books; as if love between women is of a lower threshold and value perhaps or, just whisper it, offering a titillation factor to this chauvinistic, moral weaklings.

It is a truism to suggest that how a country treats it's vulnerable is a good measure of how well it treats the rest of it's citizens and by the current state of LGBT rights in many developing nations, this does not bode at all well.

Bible Study: A Very Confusing Book Indeed

Bible studies finished last week with humanity prostrating itself before the Bible in awe at how ruddy bloody amazing it all was. This subservience to the text meant that any queries about an odd passage of writing, or laws that were already out of date, could be dismissed with the idea that puny human language had splintered under the divine impact of God’s power. Reading the Bible literally was like looking at just the face but not the heart, seeing a flat land but ignoring the majestic mountains that surround it.

And if that didn’t work, a quick clip round the ear with the command to stop bloody thinking so much and get prostrating yourself before it.

All this interpretation and prostration led to, naturally, some odd interpretations to please God, such as Europe’s first act of communal cooperation as it crawled out of the primordial Dark Age sludge: the First Crusade. Quoting Jesus as literally as you possible could: “anyone who does not carry his cross and come after me cannot be my disciple” the crusaders, in a bizarre act of love for their God, hacked a few thousand Jews and Muslims to pieces.

Jews in the meantime, when not being attacked by eager to please Christians, were struggling with the two concepts of a God: one who walked, talked, sat on a throne, got jealous, angry and changed his mind…often and without much warning; with a god that was timeless, impassable, didn’t care about mundane events (such as prayers and other tedious business), didn’t create the cosmos because the cosmos and God were eternal.

A struggle that anyone who has contemplated the Abrahamic God will be more than familiar with.

Then came Martin Luther and the noble if not controversial idea that has shaped much of our religious landscape: sola scriptura, the idea that scripture alone is the guide to God’s will and in turn that the Bible can be digested alone, without guidance by anyone else. This gave everyone the right to interpret the ancient and complex documents how they saw fit, which in turn led to the vast raft of Christian sects we now have (there are some 20+ main branches of the faith but each of these has many offshoots), this religious liberty is indeed problematic

Sola scriptura is about the reader making annotations in the margins, erasing the traditional divine gloss and making it a living, breathing, personal document. At first, this method spearheaded by Martin Luther was Jesus-centric to an absurd length, famously leading to his ninety-five theses nailed to church doors and the rift with Rome, the word of the Bible versus sacramental tradition: “a simple layman armed with scripture is to be believed above a pope or a council without it”. Humanity no longer is looks up to the Bible but stands side by side with it, a comrade in life’s battles and a fundamental switch in how the Bible is perceived and used; it is now the tool of the many.

The came John Calvin, who sought a middle ground less fundamental than Martin Luther, one based on the concept that the large swathes of the Bible that didn’t mention Jesus were just as important, a re-connection with the Old Testament. Less edifying stories were seen as steps on a long path and did not have to be explained away with allegory and exegesis. Calvin also pushed the idea that the ever-burgeoning field of study called science was not contrary to religion but an extension of it. And if you seek scientific knowledge, you do not turn to the Bible but to scientific thought.

The world’s galloping modernisation was progressive and empowering but with it came an inbuilt intolerance towards religious extremism, so in 1620 a party of English settlers travelled across the Atlantic. The English puritans, radical Calvinists, were following the exodus mythology in the Bible, finding a mandate in the bible to repress the Native Americans, all the while seeing their exodus as a precursor to the last days…which so far haven’t come of course but more on that in the final edition of Bible Study.

What was established, in what became the United States of America, sums up many of the contradictions of the Bible. A single text that can be interpreted to serve diametrically opposed interests, from African slaves embracing the same exodus narrative of liberation against their Christian owners, who in turn claimed the Bible’s lax attitude towards slaves as justification for their actions. And from this Biblically justified rising up of the slaves against their owners came one of the most distorted Christian cults, the Klu Klux Klan who used the Bible to justify lynching.

Club Romania Drinks are Free...Fun and Sunshine, There's Enough for Everyone

In between acting work, I am doing rather a lot of teaching at the moment, teaching acting that is or the uses of drama or various acting techniques and this week I had the pleasure of visiting a school that made me laugh...in a good way.

As is the usual policy here, I will not name the school, needless to say it in the Leyton area of London and I was there to offer a morning of drama workshops exploring the idea of peer pressure (not the in the good sense, ie: the epic scale of peer pressure that holds us all together as humans but the school sense of peer pressure: the many forcing the few to do things they don't want to).

Slightly rambunctious at first but soon set to order when I waded in with some tough discipline, the sessions were going very well, with students producing good work using Augusto Boal's classic exercise on repression: 3 people marching and 1 person dancing; with the aim of the 3 to stop the 1 by any means necessary.

All fine and dandy, until that is the final class of the day came in, nothing untoward at first until I asked them to get into groups and then, the usual fuss aside, I noticed one of the groups was chattering in a langauge I did not recognise.

The teacher, who was a real legend after outing himself as gay and fat while we discussed the homophobic tactic of boys making other boys feel less than them by accusing them of being 'a poof', noticed my confusion and simply said...

"This is Club Romania."

It turns out that a lot of Romanians are coming to live in Leyton and that this school has become a favourite to send young Romanians to, as they bond together, strength in numbers I suppose but the teachers labelling of them as "Club Romania" should have felt wrong but in the context of his style and how they behaved, it was entirely appropriate.

Got me thinking about where you draw the line when working with young people. I'm teaching a lot in mainly Muslim schools at the moment and some cultural elements that I witness really annoy me and seem to hold the children back from engaging and learning, especially the female students who are consumed by a performance of piety and shyness and I struggle to balance my own politics with the demands of my work.

Oh well, at least at Club Romania...

"All that's missing is the sea but don't worry, you can suntan!"

"People Are Jumping Out The Windows...They're Jumping Out The Windows, I Guess Because, They're Trying to Save Themselves...I Don't Know"

It was eight years ago today...

For some reason this anniversary of the terrible 9/11 attacks is playing a lot on my mind. Last year I was immersed in the world of Zero, a play no doubt inspired by the acts of torture triggered by 9/11, the year before that I was consumed by the archaic process of trying to purchase a home, while in 2006 I was more concerned about Iraq which has besmirched the idea of 9/11 and demeaned it to a mere precursor of war and excessive loss of human life. 2005, I didn't even mention it all, so preoccupied was I with yet another house move and the impending tour of Bouncers.

Before that, I'm ashamed to say, I had always been rather glib about 9/11, even pedantically referring to it as 11/9 and making noises about correct formatting of the date, like a monstrous tit. The reason, as I have inferred above, is that we were not allowed to hold onto 9/11 as a terrible crime against the United States and a device by which we all pulled together as humans against acts of cruel terror.

Because just as the dust was settling, it was a seemingly perfect excuse for Bush and his cohorts to unleash a period of eight hellish years, that have included human rights infringements, the awful mire that is the war in Iraq and the endless process of bringing peace and stability (and of course an acceptable regime to the West) in Afghanistan; at massive loss of civilian and military life...never mind the terrorist attacks around the world inspired by America's approach to the problem.

And now I come to think about it, the number of odious off-shoots is endless: we have the increase in fundamental and violent Islam activists, which in turn has led to a polarisation of the world's religions and the bracketing of Islam as evil, which further exacerbates it's militarisation and has become something of a culture war.

This polarisation has leaked into our politics with retarded 'with us or against us' thinking; black and white solutions to grey problems and a lack of a middle ground where most solutions are offered. All this adds up to a tarnishing of 9/11 as the instigator of this God awful mess, when in reality it is the Bush regime's response to 9/11 that has changed our world for the worse; ably supported of course by a whole raft of idiots on both sides.

I stumbled upon the famous video today of Bush at the Emma E. Booker Elementary School, the moment when he is told: "A second plane has hit the tower, America is under attack" is at one minute in...



I suppose my feelings of sadness at this anniversary have partly been due to a maturing in my attitudes to the events of that day and the volume of powerful 9/11 documentaries that have featured on British television in the last week or so, including the excellent '102 Minutes That Changed America' and '9/11: The Falling Man'...

This post's title is a direct quote of an eyewitness, whose testimony I saw live on television and was so moved by it, I hunted down the audio file as a reminder of the terror and horror of that awful day.

In honour and loving memory of those that lost their lives on that fateful day.

OMG! The White House is Gay!

I understand that the previous eight years of Bush set the bar for even a slightly left-of-centre White House very, very low indeed.

Basically the bar is flat on the ground, perhaps even slightly submerged in the soil...it's a gimmie.

In my links you'll see the official White House blog, I visit every day and check in on what the Obama administration is up to, reading policy and watching videos.

The brief time that Obama has been in charge has already shown sweeping changes, this is a very different administration to the last one but I think that the sheer weight of change is being underestimated. Three things have happened of late that have rejuvenated and re-reminded me of what a changed White House this is; with attitudes that have the power to pervade deep into American society; perhaps even repairing the damage of the last eight years.

27th June: Obama and his wife had an AIDS test in order to encourage all to do so, bearing in mind that one in five Americans with AIDS don't know they have it and to see their leader doing so (not for the first time, he did something similar in 2006 in Kenya) may help to remove some of the stigma and sends a global message. Can you see any previous President doing this?

29th June: the anniversary of Stonewall is celebrated on the White House website, what sea change is this? From an administration that was openly hostile towards the LGBT community to one that marks the anniversary of a seminal event in their civil rights movement.

30th June: President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama host the White House's first LGBT event, with remarks that acknowledge how far America has come but outlines the vast array of work that still needs to be done. Clearly under Obama's watch, Lesbian, Gay, Bi-Sexual and Transgender people will not be burning in hell...

What a welcome change this is to the hate and horror of Bush.

Then, this morning, my very good friend Wendy turned me on to this great piece of journalism by Johann Hari.

Johann Hari provides context to Stonewall, and how it stands as a pivotal moment in the LGBT movement. He also reminds us that homosexuality is a naturally occurring phenomenon and part of the great tapestry of nature:

...about 2 to 5 per cent of human beings prefer to have sex with their own gender. It occurs at the heart of nature: only last week, Professors Nathan Bailey and Marlene Zuk, of the University of California, concluded in a study: "The variety and ubiquity of same-sex sexual behaviour in animals is impressive – many thousands of instances of same-sex courtship, pair bonding and copulation have been observed in a wide range of species, including mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, insects, molluscs and nematodes."

His piece reminds us of how far we have come in the West, although acknowledges that gay teenagers are still six times more likely to commit suicide than their straight counterparts. In other parts of the world he flags that India are on the brink of de-criminalising homosexuality and that China had it's first Gay Pride march.

Johann Hari then outs those parts of the globe that are still in the dark ages when it comes to the human rights of LGBT people: the Muslim world and the Caribbean.

The fact that the Muslim world is a bastion of vile homophobia is of little surprise, the book that guides that faith is twisted and turned (sometimes with plenty of assistance from the book itself) so that homosexuality is punished by jailing, torture and death sentences. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad even denies there are any gay people in Iran, but is happy to have them executed in public squares when some crop up.

The fact that the Caribbean is also a hunting ground for LGBT slaughter is perhaps not so surprising, it is a culture infested with the macho and phallocentric and thus is actually quite flimsy and weak, paper thin ideas of strength and masculinity that run rampant in many parts of Africa also (see my piece here on the raping and killing of lesbians in South Africa); so that 'men' (and I use the word very loosely) feel threatened and challenged by lesbians who are not enthralled by the penis and by gay men who are equated as women and thus lesser than man.

Irony is perhaps not the best word for the sexual violence that these gay men have to endure at the hands of the 'straight' men. Is is clear that these 'straight' men, emasculated and impotent due to unemployment, life style choices and a lack of purpose; can only confirm their own stupid existence through sexual terrorism.

It is clear, as Johann Hari points out, that these communities need our support in defining their human rights as LGBT people; just show me where to sign to beat back these vulgar bigots...

The Horror of Iran

I have kept silent on the terrible situation in Iran because, quite frankly, I don't have an answer, or a 'take' or really an idea of what should be done and the best way for us, as in the West, to respond.

Should we merely make vocal claims of support, shouting across the Elburz Mountains to be dismissed as interfering Westerners, sowing seeds of selfish regime change and perhaps scuppering the chance for some level of reform? Or should we engage in diplomatic tit-for-tats, discuss sanctions and shake our heads disapprovingly at the way the protesters are being suppressed so violently, when we ourselves struggle with handling public displays of disaffection?

I have no idea but I do know that any Western involvement will only cause harm and even without it, those in power in Iran use the West as a whipping boy to terrify and galvanise it's followers.

Regime change is not our place, even though watching the protesters being killed, beaten and treated so terribly makes me feel desperate to do something to help them, makes the fire of indignation rise up...but surely Iran must go on it's own journey and be all the better for it. Intervention will not bring lasting change (see Iraq for reference).

I don't even know to what degree the election was fixed, I have a feeling that some of it was hashed but I also know the West has underestimated the lack of appetite for reform in the vast majority of the country, which for all intents and purposes is quite conservative.

I wasn't even going to blog on it, until the crisis in Iran got it's media martyr in Neda Agha-Soltan, it's very own YouTube horror story, a young female protester who was shot dead and whose last moments; as the blood runs from her mouth and nose, were captured on film, a document of the very real cost of protesting in Iran, a crushing and heartbreaking reminder of how high the stakes are to many Iranians and what thousands are willing to risk in order to voice their pain at this stolen election.

Oh the horror, oh the utter horror...

All (Insert Word Here) Will Burn in Hell

I was working in a school yesterday, I will not mention it by name but it is a faith school, or more precisely, a Muslim school.

I've only ever taught in a Muslim school once before, some time ago, girls only if I recall but the work I was doing was related to creative writing, so the issues that arose yesterday were no where to be seen.

It was an odd remit from the start, to work with the children on prejudice but we were forbidden from dealing with homophobia, there was also sensitivity around mentioning equality between men and women. This did not bode well and felt hypocritical and blinkered.

The sessions passed relatively normally, aside from the closing exercise, devised originally by Coretta Scott King, where various offensive sentences are read out loud but the object of each sentence is changed and the children respond with how it makes them feel. If it upsets them or makes them angry, they raise their hands and if they agree, they are to touch their ears.

When the key word used in the prejudiced sentences was Black, or Disabled Person, or White; the hands shot into the air but when the key word was switched to Jew, something quite disturbing happened: a few hands moved to ears.

Anti-Semitism in nine year old children is never nice to see, even if it is unthinking, learned behaviour from parents and family but our job is to challenge, gently of course, such perceptions. The exercise is clever in that we can compare and contrast the reactions to the other key words, the rest of the sentence is the same and unpick why it is different for Jews.

The answers showed a moral absolutism, a resistance to the idea that this particular group should be exempt from prejudice and so, as a last straw, the word Muslim was used in the prejudiced statements to draw the connection between anti-Semitism and Islamophobia. The response to the use of the word Muslim in the statements was visceral, understandably because when the prejudiced lie is about you directly, it hurts all the more.

I was amazed to see that a hardcore still refused to accept the connection, that abuse of Jews was somehow justified based, no doubt in their young minds, on Jewish past actions. Indeed, it was the classic dehumanisation of the 'enemy' to fully enable hatred but in humans so young, it was a profoundly disturbing and distressing experience.

God is not Great: Religion Poisons Everything

I was going to call this post: "MiniDiscs are not Great: Bad Technology Poisons Everything" but decided against it at the last moment, mainly because I've just finished reading Christopher Hitchens wonderful book and even though the sound fucked up a bit last night during Zero, it couldn't stop if from being an excellent opening night.

But before that, a brief word on Hitchen's grand book. I won't harangue you with large swaths of the text or bang-on endlessly about how much I believe all religion to be deeply wrong, anti-humanist and the nearest we have to organised child abuse but I will share with you my favourite bit that made me laugh out loud on the bus to the theatre.

One recalls the question asked by the Chinese when the first Christian
missionaries made their appearance. If god had revealed himself, how is it that
he has allowed so many centuries to elapse before informing the Chinese?

Like the best texts that outline the case against religion, Hitchens presents the argument that for me is the desperate undoing of all the organised forms of human control: is your god/gods willing to prevent evil but unable? Thus she/he is impotent. Or is your god able to stop evil but unwilling? Thus making she/he malevolent. Or perhaps your god/gods is both willing and unable? Thus they are evil.

Back to Zero, as I mentioned, yesterday was our opening night and it went very well indeed, aside from some sound issues and tonight promises to be another grand adventure.

As well as reading Hitchens, I've been digesting some of Leon Trotsky's essays of late and was struck that his idea of the working class looking to transcend the world of material goods and material wealth in which they could never hope to be a success in, is in part reflected in the story of the terrorist in the play itself.

The idea that when the world of money and wealth seems so far away as to be unreal, a fantasy, then action can be taken to transcend this world by acts of violence in order to become something in another way, in order to find a degree of success in humanity by playing by a different set of rules.

Muslims Under Seige

A few things have happened of late that have concerned me quite seriously. Firstly, a fellow blogger has been threatened with legal action by the British Muslim Initiative for merely quoting a report published originally in Arabic by Al-Jazeera but which the site later altered, no doubt due to pressure from the BMI. The original article can be found here but do be warned that linking to it and/or publishing it's contents could make you open to legal action.

I'll quote the key part of the article and encourage any fellow readers who feel powerfully about this to do the same, as quasi-legal bullying is never a good idea...

Here’s Mohammad Sawalha, President of the British Muslim Initiative, speaking to
Al Jazeera in Arabic about his demonstration against last Sunday’s celebration
of the foundation of the State of Israel:

The President of the British
Muslim Initiative - Mohammad Sawalha - said in a speech to Al Jazeera:

“We, the Arab and Islamic community, gather here today to express our
resentment at the celebrations by the Jewish community and the [evil Jew/Jewish
evil] in Britain”

[Ù?الÙ?بيل اليهÙ?دي Ù?ÙŠ بريطانيا]

Following on from this I am currently engaged in a very protracted and tedious tit-for-tat comment exchange, that if you have a spare day or two, I urge you to read. The gist of my argument is we should more vigorously investigate the belief values of all religions in order to see the repressive and negative impacts they have upon our societies. This led to me being called a racist, an Islamophobe and being swore at. I have also had to quote vast tracts of the Koran, the Bible and also defend evolution as well a few other things.

Brilliant.

You see, I've noticed in the left-wing UK blog universe that much hand wringing is going on about the dreaded evil of Islamophobia and I, in the past, have been very guilty of also jumping on this band wagon and getting very upset indeed about representations of Islam and how we engage with the Muslim community in the UK and around the globe. Now, I'd like to make it painfully clear (and regular readers should already be aware of this), that in no way to I support or believe in the repression, denigration or violation of any human based on their belief system and as I said a very, very long time, we have got ourselves a new nigger.

However, I have started to chip in on these debates by stating that the great shame is that bigotry is obscuring an important debate: the negative impact of all religions upon humanity.

This has not gone down at all well.

Perhaps, it is not the best time to ask people to look deeper at the beliefs and values of the major religions and to see what they are actually defending; certainly defending someones right to believe in what they want is very admirable but when you actually see what some of the values are of these religions, I wonder what exactly we're fighting for sometimes and the vigour with which we do it.

An Atheism Meme

Got this meme from the excellent Ministry of Truth and as it tied in with my thinking at the mo and also wasn't a forced meme, I thought I'd do it. If anyone wants to do the same, please do and leave me a comment so I know to check it out. Here goes...

Q1. How would you define ‘atheism’?

Not believing in any of the numerous gods out there and challenging religious thinking. Also a stance against anything supernatural or without a basis in evidence based practice and reason.

Q2. Was your upbringing religious? If so, what tradition?

No, lucky enough to have a Dad that believes in nothing and a Mum who is only a Christian (in the loosest sense) in emergencies and for comfort, however, as it was fashionable in the 80's to get your kids Christened, I was, at the age of 12. I felt very daft having a priest put his wet fingers on my head. This lead to a brief phase reading the bible and looking to Jesus for answers, needless to say he gave none.

Q3. How would you describe ‘Intelligent Design’, using only one word?

Disgusting.

Q4. What scientific endeavour really excites you?

The continued advances in evolution and the insights gained into the development of humankind and our fellow animals is pretty fascinating but I suppose all the advances in physics and the knowledge around the beginning of time and the rules that govern the greater universe. Big questions are very exciting, things that challenge the mind on the bizarreness of time and space.

Q5. If you could change one thing about the ‘atheist community’, what would it be and why?

Well the fact there isn't an atheist community is a bit of a problem, so I'd change that and develop a legion of people who base their lives on reason and evidence and the joy of the wonderful world we've been blessed with, with a remit to continue investigating the world and our environs

It'd be nice if the atheist community was more vocal in its challenges to what is taken as a given with regards to the infection of religion in our cultures and the damage it causes.

Q6. If your child came up to you and said ‘I’m joining the clergy’, what would be your first response?

Any child of mine is free to make whatever choices they want, so I would accept it and love them all the same but always remind them that I take an opposite stance to them. I'm hoping that I will raise my child in an environment where religion or not, is a free choice and I will furnish them with all the facts and information so they can make up their own mind but I will certainly not bring religion into the home or use it as a cheap out for all the tough questions they may ask.

Q7. What’s your favourite theistic argument, and how do you usually refute it?

I find arguments with theistic people tedious and annoying because eventually they pull the faith card (ie: we need no evidence, we have a feeling) and tell me to prove there is no god. When I say there is no need to prove it because there is no evidence to prove it in the first place, they think I'm ducking the questions.

It's all very frustrating because they eventually don't take on the basic principles of reasoned, evidence based debate, they just go off on one. One of my favourites however, is to ask them how old the earth is and if they believe that women should be locked away whilst on their period, this usually shuts them up or gets them bogged down in their unique 'interpretation' of the bible/religious book they believe in.

Q8. What’s your most ‘controversial’ (as far as general attitudes amongst other atheists goes) viewpoint?

I don't know if it is controversial really but I no longer have a liberal tolerance to backward thinking religious values and am a lot more hard line in my feelings regarding religion being something that holds humanity back.

Q9. Of the ‘Four Horsemen’ (Dawkins, Dennett, Hitchens and Harris) who is your favourite, and why?

Can't pick, they all connect to me in different ways, although Harris's stuff about meditation and whatnot confused me. So Dawkins I suppose as Hitchens can be a bit of a prick.

Q10. If you could convince just one theistic person to abandon their beliefs, who would it be?

The Pope, then the rest would hopefully follow.

United Airlines Flight 93 Was God’s Fault

I’ve just finished reading Richard Dawkins “A Devil’s Chaplin”, which I can’t recommend to you enough and one of the chapters really managed to encapsulate the terrible indoctrinated delusion that is religion.

There are quite a few people out there who believe that many of the passengers on the United Airlines Flight 93 were put on that plane by god to prevent it destroying it’s intended target. You may have to read that statement again to fully take on board the terrible, ludicrously tragic logic of it all.

If you accept the basic premise of that, you could argue why didn’t god just kill the hijackers with terrible diseases or stop them being born in the first place and why didn’t god care about the people at the World Trade Centre, why is the White House so special?

You could also argue it was god that killed all those people in the first place, as after all, the hijackers were doing it for him and a place in his holy kingdom.

Of course, accepting that kind of logic is the first step to madness but unfortunately we live in a world dominated by this kind of retarded religious thinking and religious dogma and you do have to wonder if there is no disaster terrible enough to shake the faith of these people? Nothing seems to dent God’s goodness and power, no matter how relentlessly terrible the events are that his followers carry out and are allowed to happen either in his name or not. What does it take for people to consider that he might not be there at all and that we’ll have to grow up and cope with being in the world on our own?

After all, you either believe in an omnipotent, omnipresent God who controls everything or you believe that humankind has free will; in which case God can’t be omnipotent and omnipresent.

All of this wouldn’t matter if we didn’t have an incredibly religious superpower in the United States that believes that Christ will return to earth in the act of Revelation, squaring up against the Bronze Age backwardness of Islam and the most religious people on Earth.

Both sides believe that God will grant them sole victory and both sides are utterly deluded, the destruction and loss of life they’ll cause (and have already caused) is one of the great tragedies of human existence, when will we stop deluding ourselves and make the next evolutionary leap to reasoned thought?

I'm ready, are you?

Let's roll...

These Are Some Serious Times...

After London there was Glasgow...

And the response has been sadly predictable, on both sides of the fence.

From the government and figures within the security industry there is more dangerous and unsettling talk of the need to cut back on civil liberties in order to combat terrorism, Blair calling those trying to voice concern at the UK governments infringements under the pretense of protecting us "loopy-loo" which is as silly as it is rudely dismissive.

I thought the whole point was that we didn't alter our way of life and laws to deal with the attacks, I thought that meant that they'd won? Instead of these attacks acting as prompts to question foreign policy and review the bigger picture of world politics, it seems to merely entrench our politicians further and the catch-all response is emitted: "if you've nothing to hide, you've nothing to fear."

I mentioned the typical response on both sides and a brief search through various left-leaning forums that are usually very politically astute finds the normal tin foil hat wearing nonsense being churned out, regarding it being a MOSSAD job, or an American false flag opp to increase support for the Iraq war in the UK.

The best (worst) ones though are those that argue that because it wasn't very successful or the bombs weren't good that we shouldn't get our knickers in a twist, which is similar to telling a diabetes sufferer to cheer up because they don't have cancer.

I'm glad the attempts on civilian life were pretty useless so far and that the bombs they made weren't very good but that doesn't stop me caring about why they are attacking us and getting politicians across the board to mark a sea change in our foreign policy but I think people are forgetting that we'd still get attacked anyway.

Appeasement is not the answer, a fair hand is but it must be a fair hand willing to form a fist and smash to pieces anyone who attacks us.

Like I said, serious times...

The Horror of Gaza

Madness has seemingly descended upon the thin sliver of land bequeathed to the Palestinian people; that is little more than a ghetto for the 1.4 million or so residents.

The conditions in the Gaza Strip are bad enough; it is little more than a glorified refugee camp with poor infrastructure and high levels of child mortality and other far-reaching health implications. The last thing it needs is a senseless and brutal conflict between Palestine’s two political forces, which will frankly have massive consequences across the region.

After a terse and tense 3-month joint government between Fatah and Hamas, the status quo has collapsed into a bloodbath, with some 100 people dead already. The result is that once again Palestinian politics takes a step backwards, backwards to guns, violence and the creeping infringement of a fundamentalist Islamic government, close to the borders of Israel.

I have mixed feelings on the matter, on one hand I have respect for Hamas as a genuine political organisation that has the backing of large swathes of the Palestinian population; backing that stems in a frustration with the more gentle and therefore negated approach of Fatah (once again we are seeing a militarisation of the Islamic faith, caused by desperation with political isolation). On the other, I see behaviours and actions that will feed a Zionist and US response that will further damage the claims of the Palestinian people to a land of their own. They are playing directly into the hands of those that wish them the greatest harm.

I can only hope that in the aftermath, Palestinian diplomats come to the fore rather than the war mongers, who still believe the gun and the bomb will break their repression rather than engaging with the world politick to highlight and solve their woes.

Peace be with you all this weekend.

Talking Turkey

Hidden amongst the ongoing troubles in Iraq and Afghanistan, more posturing by that fool Mugabe and French Presidential elections, are the events in Turkey; which deserve more International attention.

The reason? Turkey is a prime and possibly solitary example of an Islamic nation practicing a secular style of government and, some human rights issues aside, making a real, democratic success of it. Last week some half a million Turkish people marched in the defence of secularism and a second demonstration is underway, this in itself struck me as a wonderful event that deserved more celebration across the globe. Here we have an Islamic nation that has long put behind it the dogma of certain sections of Islam in an effort to build a democracy that can be recognised as such across the world.

American readers may be unaware of a certain priggish, snobbishness amongst certain European nations at the inclusion of Turkey in the EU, citing various human rights infringements whilst at the same time ignoring a long history of forward thinking democratic action. The desire to exclude Turkey from the EU is as dangerous as it is foolish, best to welcome the nation with open arms, to celebrate a secular, Islamic country with one of the fastest growing and strongest economies in the world.

Turkey is also of vast strategic importance and always has been, it is an ally to keep on side because of its geographic position and the fact it has the second largest standing army in NATO (behind the US); something that has not been missed by America which does its best not to antagonise Turkey but Bush’s clumsy foreign policy has made a solid ally into a wary neutral.

More importantly, Turkey stands as firm and undeniable proof in these xenophobic times that a Muslim nation is more than capable of separating religion from the state and pushing forward with a progressive agenda.