On the theory that the association of Islam with terrorism violates a social taboo, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown is imposing a Victorian primness on his new government. Henceforth, the word “Muslim” is not to be uttered in connection with incendiary explosions in public places. The Daily Mail reports Prime Minister Brown’s edict: “Don’t say terrorists are Muslims.” Why not go the whole hog, so to speak, and require reference to the explosions as incidents of spontaneous combustion?
The IngSoc envisioned by George Orwell comes ever closer. And in “Notes on nationalism” Orwell seems to have anticipated Brown with his famous observation: “One has to belong to the intelligentsia to believe things like that: no ordinary man could be such a fool.”
Related: “The last religion in Europe.”
JOHN adds: The Associated Press appears to share Brown’s desire for discretion in this article titled “Diverse Group Allegedly in British Plot.” It begins:
They had diverse backgrounds, coming from countries around the globe, but all shared youth and worked in medicine. They also had a common goal, authorities suspect: to bring havoc and death to the heart of Britain.
The eight people held Tuesday in the failed car bombing plot include one doctor from Iraq and two from India. There is a physician from Lebanon and a Jordanian doctor and his medical assistant wife. Another doctor and a medical student are thought to be from the Middle East.
How diverse can you get? To be fair, the “M-word” does appear eventually, in the eighth paragraph. But the emphasis on “diversity” is a bit much. Via Power Line News.
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