Mark Steyn: my Robin

The great Mark Steyn finally catches up with me on that whole Barbie-in-a-Burqa thing.

Bless.

Gloat, gloat.

Volley of the dolls

When I was a little kid my parents bought me an Action Man (TM) soldier.

Well, it was for Christmas and I probably only mentioned my wish to own the doll en passant five or six thousand times during that December. In the middle 1960’s teachers were intelligent enough to listen to what children said and to respond appropriately.

Unfortunately, teachers back then were also rather badly paid and so rather than buy one early and expensively from the well-stocked suburban local toy shop they waited until the holidays and rushed to the local big town’s department store – by which time only the German infantryman was left, which they duly bought for me as one of their under-the-tree parental presents rather than one of the Father Christmas in the stocking by the fire gifts.

A German soldier, huh? Figures, you might say knowing my politics....

Actually, I had rather wanted the American GI or the British Tommy or better yet the French, um, 1940-issue POW, or collaborator, or fast-swimming future Gaullist, as Dad was a French teacher and at that time I regarded everything French as excitingly exotic and the epitome of heroism, as indeed was Dad in my eyes. At six I thought that France was cooler than Thunderbirds.

Anyway, small mercies. The Schmeisser machine pistol that came with the boots and the helmet and the pack was smarter looking than the British Sten gun and way cooler than the American Thompson that my friends’ soldiers were equipped with, in my tiny opinion, and so I got on with playing with the model and pretended that it was a Resistant or a British spy, and killed many, many invisible real Germans. So that was okay.

The running joke amongst us war-mongering boys (slugs and snails and puppy dogs tails and all that) was that Action Man had no married quarters at all. Not even married eighths or married sixteenths. Toys don’t, of course: just a coy curve in the plastic that could have been the outline of the with-it Y-fronts. Still, it was funny.

I’ve shared the joke since then with men and women who were girls and boys of my generations. Action Man (along with his all-American big brother GI Joe) was The Private with No Parts: The Captain Without Pips: the humble British soldier who never carried a Field Marshall’s baton in his kit bag.

He’s a pop culture icon that folk of my generation recognise, and Action Man with his rifle-gripping hands, prominent cheek scar (and boot-brush hair in the expensive models) represented the essence of European and colonial martial pride and strength. Former enemies, of course, depending on which version your parents bought for you, but definitely proud inhabitants of something that I didn’t know back then was western civilisation.

Now it’s 2009 and the world’s most famous female doll is out there rooting for Islam, the suppression of women, and a children’s charity...

Boycott Burqa Barbie

What will they think of next? A be-headed doll?

That’s right. I am talking about the new Burqa Barbie doll which is now on display in Florence, Italy, to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the Barbie doll. As my colleague over at weaselzippers wonders: Will clean-cut Ken now come (pun intended, ‘tis mine) with four burqa’ed Barbie doll wives?

…. After all, the Burqa Barbie is being auctioned off for the Save the Children charity.

Save the Children? Surely, you must be jesting. I would like to save the children from this as well as from every other Barbie doll…

Barbies are always anatomically impossible: their feet are pre-shaped for high heels, their breasts are high, firm, and perky—like Playboy dolls or surgically enhanced Hollywood stars. Bikini Barbie.

These dolls were so retro—or so I always thought. Well, shut my mouth, those were the good old days of sex, drugs, and rock ‘n roll. Now, Barbie is swathed, shrouded, in a burqa; now, she is even more hopelessly retro.

A woman, a girl, in a chador, chadari, burqa, cannot see that well. You cannot hear what she is saying. She cannot hear you. A woman in a burqa can’t run, or even walk that well. She stumbles. Inside, she has to balance a baby, a shopping bag, maybe a pair of glasses perched on her nose, slipping. If it’s hot, she is sweltering. If it’s sunny, she is still deprived of sunlight and Vitamin D. The burqa violates a woman’s human rights. It poses a danger to a woman’s health, both mental and medical.

The bikini and the burqa: What ever happened to women’s freedom?

I’ll tell you. While the bikini (especially as a symbol of pornography, prostitution, and promiscuity) was nevah (I say this with my best Barbra Streisand Brooklyn accent) a symbol of freedom, the western secular state never forced any woman to wear one; nor did her family. And, if a woman refused to wear a bikini, no one flogged, stoned, or honor murdered her. These things are happening to girls and women today all over the Islamic/Islamist world. They are happening in the West as well when young Muslim girls refuse to wear a modest headscarf.

More…

Lenin boasted that the capitalists would sell the communists the rope to with which they would hang them. This is just a generation before that, but still and all one of those cases when the free market allows cultural poison into our lives.

Okay, this is for a charity, so it must be alright, and it doesn’t seem to be a production model, so no sweat. Mattel aren’t going to be encouraging little girls to think it’s okay to have dolls that spend their lives in burkas. Is it? I mean, there’re probably lots of companies making dolls for little girls who want to be neither seen nor heard, right?

Surely this is just harmless fun, just like Action Man always was, yeah?

Hey, we’ve even got a British Barbie (TM) fan that thinks’ it’s all just lovely, and thus wins The Golden Scourge, the prestigious TJ.AT? trophy that goes to the lucky winner of our Dhimmi of the Month Competition, for this glorious little bit of cultural cringe.

The company director of Laird Assessors from The Wirral, Cheshire, said: 'Bring it on Burkha Barbie, I think this is a great idea.

'I think this is really important for girls, wherever they are from they should have the opportunity to play with a Barbie that they feel represents them.

'I know Barbie was something seen as bad before as an image for girls, but in actual fact the message with Barbie for women is you can be whatever you want to be.

'I have a Barbie in a wheelchair that was only out for six weeks.'

That couldn’t possibly be Graduate Recruitment Consultant Who Had A Boyfriend Barbie.,or Swedish Girl Who Didn’t Have A Boyfriend Barbie.

In fact, I suspect it’s Teenager Who Had A Boyfriend Barbie.

Not to be confused with Majestically Stupid, Doll-Brained Bint Barbie.

Hey, kids, let’s have a competition, shall we? Just compose four shortish English sentences; including the phrases “I think,” “I think”, ”I know” and “ I have” respectively, and see just how much brass-bound, copper-bottomed, or gold-plated self-delusion and fact-free wishful thinking you can mange in 86 words or fewer.

Still, back to Action Man: the Anglo-American free man archetype with no tackle and little political leadership to tackle girl-killing psychos and their pals worldwide.

Is he such an unrealistic example of the Free world’s anti-terrorist thinking when you compare him with reality?

When a top US General whose troops have been murdered by a well-known and yet tolerated and indulged Islamist inside the military says this: "What happened at Fort Hood was a tragedy," said Gen. Casey, the Army's chief of staff, "but I believe it would be an even greater tragedy if our diversity becomes a casualty here.", and our own, our very own, (and why don’t we send it to Afghanistan naked) Ministry of Sitting on Defence spends scarce cash on burkas for British women soldiers – who don’t wear them at work - and also when some of our police spend a day dressed in the bloody things to snuggle up to the communidee (TM), I’m not 100% sure that poor old Action Man’s so unrealistic a figure these days.

I mean, what’s he got to lose?

Come on now, gentles. What’s the most politically incorrect doll model and brand name we can think of?

I’ll start with Gitmo Ken action figure: complete with facecloth, water jug, and Innocent Wedding Guest Malik (illustrated here prone). Batteries not included.

Coming all over Eddie Izzard

This comedy evening seems to have been a laugh-riot.

Not.

Review: The Road to Englistan @ King George’s Hall, Blackburn

Caroline Dutton

CAN laughter bridge a cultural divide?

It can, my dear, but what are the chances?

The Anglo-Asian comedy evening, part of Celebrate Blackburn, aimed to do just that – and in some ways it achieved its aim.

In some ways’?

The only problem was that the acts were very hit and miss.

Nothing odd about that, like the old joke about alternative comedy: now you laugh; now you don’t.

Compere John Cooper did a good job of keeping the audience in check

‘In check’? Stopping them throwing things? Heckling? Asking for their money back? Begging for the previous two hours of their lives back?

I’d sure like to know what she’s not writing about at this juncture.

…and ensuring the night ran smoothly, and the first two comics Darshan Sangrajka and Mani Liaqat went down fairly well.

Weren’t booed off the stage / assaulted / listened to in stony silence?

But…

But?

…the night went downhill rapidly with Aatif Nawaz, who attempted to get the mostly Muslim audience to talk about alcohol and sex – not a good move.

Okay – these are human occupations that do occur in Blackburn from time to time, though one is entirely and the other is mostly forbidden or regarded as taking men’s minds off valuable and important things, such as worshipping Allah. Perhaps he should’ve gone for the Prophet’s personal habits or something topical about the Jews?

He finished by singing a desperately awful “They stole my iPhone” to the tune of Michael Jackson’s “You Are Not Alone”.

Okay, I’ve done some stinkers myself; remember my War of the Worlds thing? Or the Gary Glitter/Kenneth Clarke spoof? Don't remind me, puh-lease.

The night continued to slide with Loughborough’s Ishi Khan-Jackson,

Now there’s a name that tells a story.

…who didn’t seem to connect, meaning laughs were few and far between.

But even ordinary club nights at WMCs get a few laughs but also a few duds so no surprises there, surely?

Thank goodness for the final act, Steve Shanyaski who stormed it.

Another one of those Andalucían Northern names.

Steve spoke about his native Stockport and the “pram army” he encounters in its uniform of velour tracksuits: “Come on Shaznay, we’ve got to get to Poundland before it shuts, we’ve got to get your grandad his 30th birthday present”.

That would be laughing at white chavs, of course.

All in all not a bad night.

Nobody died. Nobody declared fatwa on anyone. The skinheads didn’t storm in…

Talk about damning with faint praise….

What we’ve got here is a failure to communicate.

Here’s an authoritative quote about jokes and Islam from the great man himself.

Allah did not create man so that he could have fun. The aim of creation was for mankind to be put to the test through hardship and prayer. An Islamic regime must be serious in every field. There are no jokes in Islam. There is no humor in Islam. There is no fun in Islam. There can be no fun and joy in whatever is serious. Islam does not allow swimming in the sea and is opposed to radio and television serials. Islam, however, allows marksmanship, horseback riding and competition ...

So limericks are out but maybe the modern pentathlon’s in.

Now look, to be fair, this was obviously a very worthy effort at bringing a dash of humour to Blackburn’s race relations (yes, ‘race’; the kind of people who set this sort of thing up will be aware of and probably quite obsessed about race relations). They clearly wanted to emphasize the supposedly multiracial audience’s common humanity by bringing out the comedy in the meetings and otherwise between native Englishmen and their new Muslim neighbours. Obviously, someone was trying really hard to show both groups; look, we can laugh at ourselves and each other, so it doesn’t all have to be fighting and suspicion and segregation. Can’t we admit over a beer or a sherbet or something that we’re all good for a laugh underneath?

It doesn’t seem to have worked on this occasion, but then Blackburn was always a tough audience and they say Morecambe and Wise died there.

These guys give it a go too. Watch. Listen.

Hmm. Not too much victimhood there and they’re clearly trying to do something right, even if it’s not quite clear what it is.

The BBC some publicity to gives the same tour over here.

The response from the audience is overwhelmingly positive.

"Humour brings us all together," says one young woman. "It doesn't matter whether you're black, white, Muslim, Chinese, Indian. Humour is humour."

A Muslim man at the show says: "I think anything for the Muslims in the public eye is good right now especially if it is funny and it's showing people that we also have a sense of humour.

"In the jokes the comedians highlight things like stereotypes. This performs an educational function, so it's very positive," he added.

Well stereotypes are a bad thing I’m sure. I’m eagerly looking forward to the BBC’s next award-winning sitcom about some cheerful London board of directors with hearts of gold and the way they muddle along between Henley, the polo season and exporting powdered milk to the Third World. Maybe there can be a zany Israeli on it whose pride and joy is this souped-up Caterpillar earth mover with Starsky and Hutch go-faster stripes that he bought for a song when Gaza was evacuated, only he’s married to this tobacco exporter from Virginia, and she…

Tough gig.

So when some people go out of their way to confront the real and actual clash between some Muslims and some infidels, criticism isn’t always going be fair. If we believe in a multi-front war against Islamism (politically and theologically orthodox Islam obedient to what the core religious texts told the faithful to do - as distinct from what most of our neighbours do which is to ignore the nasty bits and get on with it), then comedy has got to be one front to fight them on, right?

Okay, way ahead of me there, you’ve been here before.

This is asymmetrical warfare in pretty much every field of combat.

Back to that quotation from AK himself; ‘There are no jokes in Islam. There is no humor in Islam. There is no fun in Islam.’

Totalitarianism is all about perfection – here on earth or in the next world. It doesn’t allow its leaders, its followers and the institutions that they value to be anything less than perfect: stern, whole, monolithic, united and incorruptible.

Remember the Reich Ministry for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda’s Triumph of the Willi; the weekly radio farce about a pompous but determined Gauleiter’s comic attempts to bring the Fuhrer’s wisdom to a run-down and politically-primitive backwoods Rhineland province? Or the Soviet sailors eagerly anticipating their annual leave in Archangelsk dancing and singing to that immortal show-stopper There is nothing like a tractor suspension fabricator?

I can’t imagine a Saudi or Pakistani equivalent of Taxi or Mork and Mindy in which the everyday mainstream Muslims gently and humourously accept all the not-them weirdness amongst them to live in peace despite their differences; nor any Iranian version of M*A*S*H in which compassionate and self-effacing Shiite doctors risk life and limb to treat wounded mujahedeen and the troops of the Great Satan alike.

In such Manichean ideologies there are only Good and Evil (as defined by the all-powerful authorities) and no room or need for compromising between them, nor recognition that just folks has some overall existence outside of their two-tone world.

Humour in politics can achieve a number of results.

It can alleviate the suffering of the oppressed by laughing at themselves, their suffering, and through that to criticise the oppressors.

‘Why the bicycle riders?’

‘Why the Jews?’

‘Dear Comrade Stalin:

You were right? I was wrong? This is a paradise?’

And then there’s to attack the other people up front; to humiliate and deride and to make them question the rightness of their cause in opposing you. Read any fisking anywhere or pretty much anyone I link to or who links to or follows my blog (thank you, thank you, thank you) and you’ll know it’s a fine technique.

So humour, like religious faith, music, national culture and a really good supply of weapons can be useful as self-defence against a determined enemy.

Humour also keeps our own feet on the ground. It reminds us that we, too, are fallible and imperfect and that we must recognise the humanity of our fellow men as we laugh at our own failings. No nation believing itself to be a master race could portray its direst battle for self-preservation as being won partly by the buffoons and fantasists and the crooks and adolescent dreamers of Dad’s Army. In its time before our State broadcaster was wholly owned by the cultural saboteurs, the BBC made All Gas and Gaiters and Oh Brother which laughed at and with the then-majority Anglican church and its Catholic parent. No crusading message there, no assault on otherness, but rather self-deprecation and love for the familiar and the homely.

Can’t say I’m expecting Al Jazeera’s Sunni and Shia Show anytime soon: theme song ‘I got Jew Babe.’

I think that West is best but I for one would hate a ‘comedy’ that made all or most Muslims out to be as entirely violent, intolerant and sexually screwed-up fanatics as their worst examples are.

Most importantly, humour can act as a salve for hurt.

It hurts to know that some of my neighbours on this island want to put bags over my wife and daughter’s heads – that a minority (but not a tiny one) thinks it’s okay to kill civilians elsewhere or even here and that there should be little or no fun or freedom. I don’t think they all do so because that the streets aren’t alight with Muslim against infidel violence – just too many of them are simply doing what the rest of us are doing: getting on; getting by; making a living and a life in these islands.

George Orwell said Britain was unlikely to go fascist because we’d all just laugh at Brits in jackboots.

But we can’t joke about this. Not quite. Notice that that ‘we’ includes Ben Elton and Harry Enfield so that’s a pretty bloody wide interpretation of ‘we’ if it includes me, dear reader.

We can’t joke about it – except in a single, special kind of way...

Here’s Eddie Izzard.

Yes, and the Crusades were, "We kill you in the name of Jesus!"

"Wait, we have Jesus too! He's a prophet in our religion! We kill you in the name of Jesus!"

"Do you? Well, we kill you for your dark skin, for Jesus was a white man from Oxford!"

"No, he wasn't! He was from Judea! Dark-skinned man, such as we!"

"Look, it's just we've come all this way. Would you mind awfully if we hacked you to bits? Just for the press back home."

Diverse!

After 30 years of being on the receiving end of the ignorant rudeness and drunken brutishness from native Britons in their own restaurants, Goodness Gracious Me came up with the classic Mountbatten’s Restaurant sketch as a comedic revenge for generations of Indian and Muslim waiters and chefs. I wonder how much resentment that sloughed off in laughter instead of tetchiness, lifelong grudges, and one day violence.

Humour's a safety-valve. Who'd want to block a safety valve? Insert irenic quip here.

So a Christian, a Jew and a Muslim go into a bar...