You do not have to agree with everything that the British author writes to acknowledge that nearly everything he writes is brilliant:
(A) young woman spoke up, in a voice near-tearful with passionate self-righteousness, saying that it was the Americans who had armed the Islamists in Afghanistan, and that therefore the US, in its response to September 11,
Lex, I tried, I really did – to disagree with him yet find the brilliance. It’s there – I can see it, glimpses of it. And I did agree wholeheartedly with the mid-portion, particularly this, when talking about the burgeoning “Islamism” of the West:
“What they have in common is this: they are all abnormally interested in violent death. ”
BUT that whole opening third was completely unnecessary. His final conclusions about September 11th are interesting, but it’s as if he can’t help himself in his “America bashing” and all the B.S. about the illogical nature of how we write our dates, or the American propensity for acronyms. He slaps us while he defends us, is what I’m saying.
Why is that necessary? Sweet jebus we are talking about September 11th here, not some randomly selected date that Americans chose to make a national holiday…have some respect Mr. Amis.
Yeah, I thought the lead-in about abbreviations was literary affectation which detracted from the real content. The piece is being discused at Dean’s World, and several people there just sort of gave up on it before they got through the whole thing.
Good article, Thanks. Reading Mr. Amis reminded me of the apparent contrast (and surprisingly candid Dutchman’s comment below) in a snippet an Israeli friend passed on from this:
MORE THAN four years after Iran’s nuclear ambitions became clear, and after being repeatedly led around by the nose, European nations are still unable to agree on more than symbolic sanctions. Even the threat of nuclear-armed mullahs sitting athwart the Straits of Hormuz (through which one-fifth of the world’s oil passes) cannot spur them to action.
Young Europeans have chosen flight over fighting. Emigration from prosperous Germany and Holland exceeds immigration. A young Dutch writer, responding to the advice of German author Henryk Broder to flee to Australia, spoke for many when he wrote: “I am not a warrior, but who is? I have never learned to fight for my freedom. I was only good at enjoying it.” His only reaction to the loss of his country: “a feeling of sadness.”
That passivity in the face of threat is directly linked to Europe’s loss of religious belief. Those who view themselves as nothing more than sophisticated, pleasure-seeking animals, whose life has no purpose outside itself and ends with death, consider nothing worth dying for and war to be an invariably irrational option.
Martin Amis has a permanent free pass from me for having conceived and written Time’s Arrow.
Maybe the 20th century has served to teach the Europeans a kind of “learned helplessness” in which they would sooner be led to slaughter than to defend themselves.
[...] Lex was right about this–the first few paras are odd, but Martin Amis has a worthwhile column on 9/11. [...]