Comments on: ‘YOU HAVE BEEN, IN MANY RESPECTS, A COMPLETE ENIGMA TO ME’

By: World Samina Malik Day December 6th « Clattery MacHinery on Poetry

World Samina Malik Day December 6th « Clattery MacHinery on Poetry — Sat, 08 Dec 2007 04:06:40 +0000

[…] Dublin Opinion: ‘You have been in many respects a complete enigma to me.’ posted by Conor McCabe […]

By: Conor McCabe

Conor McCabe — Fri, 07 Dec 2007 21:21:49 +0000

Nope. she was found not guilty on the separate charges of the training manuals.

The issue is the poems. That’s it. On everything else she was found not guilty. The poems alone. That’s what makes her a terrorist. Poetry.

update (8 December, 12.47pm): she was cleared of the charge of possessing material for terrorist purposes, but the training manuals she downloaded were back of the guilty verdict. So, you’re right there, WBS. I got the charges mixed up. Better get rid of that anarchist cookbook then.

By: WorldbyStorm

WorldbyStorm — Fri, 07 Dec 2007 20:01:56 +0000

As far as I gathered it wasn’t the poems which were the issue but the training manuals etc that she downloaded from the net. Still very very thin… but not quite the same as literary censorship of a particularly pernicious kind.

Actually she reminds me of nothing so much as a misanthropic Goth…

By: Hugh Green

Hugh Green — Fri, 07 Dec 2007 12:12:29 +0000

Here:
http://atangledweb.typepad.com/weblog/2006/09/the_fiveyear_gu.html#comment-22282155l

By: Conor McCabe

Conor McCabe — Fri, 07 Dec 2007 09:14:36 +0000

bara, regarding crimes against literature? you really do want bloggers sent to jail, don’t you?

Hugh, thanks for the lyrics. You’re now launched a fatwa against this site. byw, where did you get the lyrics?

By: bara

bara — Fri, 07 Dec 2007 07:55:14 +0000

rofl. when I saw this on the news, I was getting all up in arms about freedom of speech and thought….

…

Having read the stuff. Nah, fuck her. Send her to prison!

Crimes against literature!

By: Hugh Green

Hugh Green — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 22:14:49 +0000

Britain is gradually turning into a police state, and the Muslims are becoming the first official enemy. It will only be expression of ‘terrorist’ sentiment on behalf of the official enemy that will be a crime.

if bad poetry can make it onto the list, well, so can blogs

I’m willing to bet you could write this:

Nukes over Mecca, now that would be nice
I’d savour such headlines, pour Martini & ice
Nukes over Mecca, I’d press the button myself
Just to send the Muslim f***ers into permanent ill health
I hope there exists enough plutonium
To blast all of Islam into kingdom-come

For every one victim of Islamic terror
We should fire-bomb ten mosques, or twenty, whatever
Let them know that for everyone killed by their sh*te
We’ll kill fifty of them, that’ll be doing it right
And when the last Muslim’s expelled from this land
We will all raise our glasses and clap with our hands
“Hooray! We’ve got rid of the filth in our midst!”
And get back to British living without Islamic sh*t.

on a British blog and not get into any difficulties whatsoever. The asterisks are in the original, btw.

By: Conor McCabe

Conor McCabe — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 18:23:00 +0000

I agree, but this goes far beyond freedom of speech issues. Her poetry has been deemed to be a terrorist act. We need to step back here and just have a look at what is going on when a piece of poetry can be seen as an act of terrorism. she was not charged under incitement to hatred, but under terrorist legislation. That is a fundamental shift.

If nothing else, it shows that “terrorism” and “terrorist act” in Britain today are completely meaningless. The definition of terrorism now includes bad teenage poetry. It’s saying that bad poetry is up there with the Madrid bombings, or 9/11, or the Harrods bombings, or the Birmingham pub bombings. and if bad poetry can make it onto the list, well, so can blogs. I mean, not just offensive, but actually terrorist? We need to step back form this. It’s going to end up with burning books, or, in today’s world, burning servers.

By: Niall

Niall — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 17:34:10 +0000

In general I’ve no problem with people being sentenced for producing this type of garbage, although it seems in this case it was more a teenager letting off steam than widely disseminated hate material.

I don’t think you can have a de facto position that just because it is a piece of writing (or a speech for that matter) it is harmless. Was Ian Paisley’s speech decrying the presence of Catholics on the Shankill in 1966 harmless? As for the Wolfe Tones, is it entirely normal that they should be free to glorify the Provos while other European countries ban groups with lyrics glorifying fascism or racism?

Then again, if action was taken against all types of writing similar to the poetry above nearly every death metal band in the UK would be in jail.

I guess the context of the material is what really matters and if it is designed or likely to influence others to act.

By: Conor McCabe

Conor McCabe — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 14:52:56 +0000

It’s true. The legislation arising from Northern Ireland was seen to be redundant, what with the peace process and all that, but the police had got very used to the lax levels and so, hey, it’s updated in 2000 to include poetry. The 2000 terrorism act is available here:

http://www.opsi.gov.uk/Acts/acts2000/20000011.htm