To Comment Moderator, The Economist:
You said the four verses I quoted from the Qur’an broke your comment policy, and you removed them, with all the comments they brought. May I know why? To my knowledge, the Qur’an is not considered to “contain any form of hate speech“. (As you implicitly asserted.)
I am completely baffled…
It is not exactly the first time I detect censorship at The Economist regarding delicate subjects. Mistreating your long time subscribers may not be to your advantage.
Sincerely yours,
Patrice Ayme
***
On Oct 22, 2014, at 11:48 PM, CommentsModerator@economist.com wrote:
Dear patrice ayme,
The attached comment, posted under the pen name Tyranosopher, has been deleted from The Economist online. The comment was removed because it breaks our comments policy: http://www.economist.com/legal/terms-of-use#usercontent. We remind you that repeated violation of our comments policy may result in your being blocked from posting comments on The Economist online.
Yours sincerely,
Comments Moderator The Economist online
Your comment:
Tough questions? Maybe someone does not understand tough love?Quran (2:216) – “Fighting is prescribed for you, and ye dislike it. But it is possible that ye dislike a thing which is good for you, and that ye love a thing which is bad for you. But Allah knoweth, and ye know not.”Quran (3:56) – “As to those who reject faith, I will punish them with terrible agony in this world and in the Hereafter, nor will they have anyone to help.”Quran (3:151) – “Soon shall We cast terror into the hearts of the Unbelievers, for that they joined companions with Allah, for which He had sent no authority”Quran (8:12) – “I will cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieve.
Therefore strike off their heads and strike off every fingertip of them”
The attached comment, posted under the pen name Tyranosopher, has been deleted from The Economist online. The comment was removed because it breaks our comments policy: http://www.economist.com/legal/terms-of-use#usercontent. We remind you that repeated violation of our comments policy may result in your being blocked from posting comments on The Economist online.
Yours sincerely,
Comments Moderator The Economist online
Your comment:
Tough questions? Maybe someone does not understand tough love?Quran (2:216) – “Fighting is prescribed for you, and ye dislike it. But it is possible that ye dislike a thing which is good for you, and that ye love a thing which is bad for you. But Allah knoweth, and ye know not.”Quran (3:56) – “As to those who reject faith, I will punish them with terrible agony in this world and in the Hereafter, nor will they have anyone to help.”Quran (3:151) – “Soon shall We cast terror into the hearts of the Unbelievers, for that they joined companions with Allah, for which He had sent no authority”Quran (8:12) – “I will cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieve.
Therefore strike off their heads and strike off every fingertip of them”
***
The Economist has also blocked inconvenient observations of mine about connections between bankers and the Nazis, and, more generally non-conventional remarks on World War Two (they sent me a whole package of past comments of mine censored in this area, I guess as an implicit threat; I was unaware I had been censored).
This shows the extent, and delicacy of propaganda. All the material The Economist censored were strictly historical facts (as the Qur’an above is: it’s 13 centuries old!)
Maybe I should do like my friend Paul Handover, condemn the propaganda, and cancel my subscription to TE?
***
More philosophically, I would say this. The Qur’an, obviously needs to be officially re-interpreted (as the Bible was). Just censoring it in The Economist will not help, quite the opposite. The two young “white” Canadian-born deranged young men who attacked and killed Canadian soldiers last week, obviously heard verses as those above, and took them literally. The verses above encourage converts to Islam to have recourse to ultimate violence.
I long held the opinion that many political and intellectual leaders in the West refuse to attract attention to the problem that the Qur’an causes, precisely because they want to keep exploiting those they encourage to live according to unreconstructed Koranic principles. This is pretty much in evidence in the relationship with feudal regimes in the Middle East (but one can argue that this exploitation through “Orientalist” stupidification is 150 years old).
By refusing to broach the subject of what the Qur’an seems to say, in a public forum, The Economist encourages the furthering of a literal interpretation of Koranic verses. Thus The Economist encourages lethal and hateful activities. But maybe it is what many of the plutocrats who love The Economist truly want? Nothing like a jolly war, here, there, and everywhere?
Patrice Ayme’
Tags: Censorship, plutocracy, Qur'an, The Economist
Patrice Ayme's Thoughts 
October 27, 2014 at 2:22 am |
I came across something recently online (which I can’t find now – I bet you have the same problem) which was a graph of the consolidation of the American media (newspapers, TV, radio, publishers, etc.) from 50+ corporations a few decades ago to around five today. I’m sure this has nothing to do with the banally conservative dogs-eating-vomit slant of the Sunday morning talk shows, the non-reporting of the global warming demonstrations worldwide recently, or your own experiences. I do however wonder why they still have an Antitrust Division in the Department of Justice.
Anyway, I’m pretty weak on history, but around 1787, 1788 did the French aristocracy still think things were going pretty well? You know like our own CEO’s and Masters of the Universe? One difference today obviously is there’s something like 300 million guns in private hands in this country. Which, of course, leads us back to Lenin’s remark about the capitalists selling the rope with which to hang themselves.
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October 27, 2014 at 3:12 am |
Hmmm… I wrote a gigantic comment in support, fail to save it, there was a sound, and it disappeared… I hate when that happens. The comment was an essay by itself. I retraced how the warnings on the French revolution got incredibly strong, even 150 years earlier, at the time of the English revolution. The word “REPUBLIC” was used then by the French Parliament.
Anyway no time to rewrite the essay/comment.
The plutocrats then lasted 150 years, when it was thought around 1648 that they had DAYS…. And in England, the Lords had better control than in France with its 16 Parliaments, and they are still in command.
PA
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October 27, 2014 at 2:54 am |
Denying or concealing the truth is a fundamentral evil. I fully support your stance, Patrice; it is a sad day for “The Economist”.
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October 27, 2014 at 3:07 am |
Thanks Nirwanda! ;-)!
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October 27, 2014 at 11:03 am |
What did you expect?
There are propaganda rags, and there is TE, a notch above. A mere notch (and sliding down).
It is intelligent enough to let out some embarrassing truths, confident that its leadership will nod them on. Which makes reading it useful, at times.
The Pravda was that way, and so, I guess, the Volkische Beobeachter.
In that case, though, TE was merely coddling its growing Islamic Finance readership, and indulging in the knee-jerk love of any religion inherent in the so-called Protestant work ethic – anything that keeps the masses dumb and working is good. Just remember how the good, patriarchal, Biblically bearded, Islamic fighters were pictured in the West as they routinely tortured to death felled Soviet airmen and set fire to girls’ schools.
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October 27, 2014 at 2:53 pm |
Yes, Dominique, yes, indeed. I still was astounded by their arrogance. Sending a list of comments of mine previously censored… All of them made of… facts, historical facts, not opinion?
In any case, I have noticed recently a much greater violence on the part of private entities enjoying government mandates. For example, banks. Let alone insurance companies, etc.
And indeed, the very alignment of Reagan and his goons with the Islamists against the Soviets in Afghanistan was a vertebra in the spine of evil. That’s when the worst Islamism became honorable.
But not of the first instance that way. Before there was the support of the USA against the French in Algeria, earlier the Suez Canal/Hungary invasion affair, military support of the USA of Ho Chi Minh against the French in Vietnam (long forgotten, ;-)), and even earlier plutocratic support of Hitler and Stalin by Anglo-American higher-ups.
This sort of entanglement of plutocracy with the enemy, leading to total philosophical anarchy was vividly illustrated by the Fall of the Greco-Roman state (when the Franks needed a big army to eject the Islamists, they found it; the Roman state earlier had found no army, because the plutocrats did not want it).
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October 30, 2014 at 7:39 pm |
Dear Patrice, In the face of hypocrisy, I want to thank you for being a stand for facts. It seems that people follow the lead of the media, if it is congruent with my sensibilities and my script…that is truth. The news is created by the plutocratic elite. It is comical to hear people dismiss outlets like Fox News as being farcical when ALL outlets are manufacturing the news. Every photo released, every word, every caption, every nuance, every edit and withhold…everything is part of the propaganda machine. We like to fancy that The Economist, The NY Times, PBS, BBC, etc. are somehow above the fray. As crazy as they can be, Fox News is one of the few outlets that will actually approach the truth about the Obama administration. There is a gag order on any dissent and his ardent supporters consider him to be infallible. All others are lunatics, racists, and dopes. The same holds true for Islam. We can ridicule and minimize all religions but never criticize or point out the facts about Islam. For The Economist to censor you with quotes from the Qur’an is just frightening. It is just the tip of the iceberg.
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October 30, 2014 at 11:40 pm |
Dear John:
I support all what you said 100%. Even about FOX (although I did not watch it for years).
Obama is a (multi-decadal) personal friend, and I really like him as person. Yet, when “Obamacare” rose its ugly snout, I protested, and was labelled, even people who were (by then) on a first name basis with Obama (although they were very right wing/apolitical) to be “Tea Party” (although my strident complaints about the Obama administration started even before he became president, as I saw him suddenly surrounded by a thick layer of trash, and thus predated the Tea Party by several years…
Actually those who approved of whatever “Obama” did early on, were approving a small plutocratically controlled oligarchy around Obama. Poor Obama did not know what to think, but, wherever he turned a sea of propaganda, all the same, confined him to act according to what the establishment wanted.
Thus, true progressives, by not existing as Obama came to power, destroyed the chance Obama had to make (good) history…
To tell the full truth, I expected that The Economist would feel like censoring my quotes of the Qur’an. But I did not believe they would dare. The article the comment was about was deliberately clueless about the Qur’an, while pretending to ponder why some converts to Islam were violent. It reiterated the myth that Islam (“Peace”) was, indeed, a religion of “peace”.
Any, nice to see you here John, please come back! (“Total Plutocracy”, and the Google blast a few days earlier are also connected subjects!)
PA
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January 8, 2015 at 5:55 pm |
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