A useful resource on the furore over Terry Eagleton’s comments on Martin Amis’s political views in 2007.
In an essay entitled The Age of Horrorism published in September 2006, the novelist Martin Amis advocated a deliberate programme of harassing the Muslim community in Britain. “The Muslim community,” he wrote, “will have to suffer until it gets its house in order. What sort of suffering? Not letting them travel. Deportation – further down the road. Curtailing of freedoms. Strip-searching people who look like they’re from the Middle East or from Pakistan … Discriminatory stuff, until it hurts the whole community and they start getting tough with their children…” Amis was not recommending these tactics for criminals or suspects only. He was proposing them as punitive measures against all Muslims, guilty or innocent. The idea was that by hounding and humiliating them as a whole, they would return home and teach their children to be obedient to the White Man’s law. There seems something mildly defective about this logic.
In fact, I wrote so in a new introduction to my book Ideology: An Introduction, little suspecting that a volume that investigates Lukacs and Adorno would be seized upon by the Daily Express.
To read the entire article.
See the various press commentary on the issue:
Prospect Magazine blog, news piece, October 07
http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/article_details.php?id=9814
Independent, news piece, Oct 07
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/this_britain/article3024729.ece
Guardian, John Sutherland’s blog, Oct 07
http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/books/2007/10/eagleton_v_amis_an_academic_st.html
Telegraph, news piece, Oct 07
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/10/05/namis105.xml
Sunday Times, profile of Terry Eagleton, Oct 07
http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/article2603984.ece
Guardian, Terry Eagleton’s response, Oct 07
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,2187361,00.html
Telegraph, column, Oct 07
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2007/10/06/do0606.xml
Telegraph, column, Oct 07
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2007/10/06/do0603.xml&page=2
Observer, column, Oct 07
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,2185458,00.html
Independent, column, Oct 07
http://comment.independent.co.uk/columnists_a_l/yasmin_alibhai_brown/article3038472.ece
The Daily Mail:
Satirist Chris Morris heckling Amis at the ICA:
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/7days/story/0,,2190720,00.html
A letter:
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/letters/story/0,,2190768,00.html
More letters:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/letters/story/0,,2190282,00.html
Leader comment:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,2190379,00.html
http://education.guardian.co.uk/higher/news/story/0,,2190208,00.html
Amis’s letter:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/immigration/story/0,,2189428,00.html
http://books.guardian.co.uk/news/articles/0,,2189868,00.html
Channel 4 news, Amis interviewed, Oct 07
http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/society/religion/interview+with+martin+amis+/930057
Ronan Bennett on Martin Amis:
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