Which explains a lot about how biased those media outlets are.
Mehdi Hasan is a
devout Shia Muslim,
a conservative religious reactionary.
But for some reason this is acceptable, even admirable, to the
left-wing atheists of the New Statesman,
because he is not Christian.
He is a
rape denier
about the mass rape of Israeli women on 7 October 2023.
What a sick man.
This video is under extreme censorship threat.
Online copies are removed on spurious "copyright" grounds.
In reality, because Islamic reactionaries do not want Mehdi Hasan to be exposed.
Mehdi Hasan is quoting
Quran 7:179,
which
describes atheists as "like livestock".
From here.
Mehdi Hasan Exposed. Part I, 24 July 2009.
Hasan, who believes in a being called "Allah", throws out the following absurd insults
about atheists:
""The kaffar, the disbelievers, the atheists who remain deaf and stubborn to the teachings of Islam, the rational message of the Quran; they are described in the Quran as, quote, "a people of no intelligence", Allah describes them as; not of no morality, not as people of no belief - people of "no intelligence" - because they're incapable of the intellectual effort it requires to shake off those blind prejudices, to shake off those easy assumptions about this world, about the existence of God. In this respect, the Quran describes the atheists as "cattle", as cattle of those who grow the crops and do not stop and wonder about this world.""
This would be fine, if he then said the Quran was wrong.
But he does not.
He is a believer in the Quran, speaking to an audience of believers.
No disapproval of the Quran is ever implied.
So, is this so bad?
I myself claim that
belief is about lack of curiosity,
and I would stand by that.
Believers like Hasan, in my experience,
are not stupid, they are just incurious about
the multiverse theory,
the origin of life,
the rise of multi-cellular life,
the great mass extinctions,
the extinction of the dinosaurs,
human evolution,
how the brain works, the possibility of artificial intelligence,
the possibility of alien life,
and any other issues
that might cast light on whether gods or souls exist.
If Hasan spoke like me, and said non-Muslims were "incurious" about the obvious truth of Islam,
that would be a reasonable thing for a devout religious writer to say.
But it would still be shocking to find such a devout religious writer in a "left-wing" magazine.
But Hasan does not speak like me.
He goes way further, by describing people who don't believe in his made-up supernatural nonsense as of
"no intelligence" and like "cattle"
- which is pretty sinister given that for 1,400 years
atheists and apostates and freethinkers
have been demonised, persecuted and killed
by his religion.
In contrast to Christianity,
Islam is still killing atheists for their beliefs today.
Hasan doesn't support this, but surely he knows about it?
Surely he reads the news.
No one seems
able to construct any defence of Hasan other than
"what aboutery",
that is, that other religious people say stupid stuff too.
Yes, Hasan is not an Islamist (as can be seen by the rest of his speech),
just a narrow-minded religious Holy Joe.
Yes, it's no more extreme than many idiot Christians saying atheists are stupid.
There are
similar idiotic statements on the right,
even from people I otherwise like.
But it's still important to point out that Mehdi Hasan is an idiot,
as is anyone who agrees with him,
such as leftie Christian
James Macintyre,
who actually says:
"As a Christian believer myself, I agree with Mehdi Hasan in his comments you seek to sensationalize".
(In fact, Macintyre cannot agree with Hasan,
since Hasan's moronic insults apply to all non-Muslims,
including Christians.)
There are some great comments at Harry's Place, but perhaps the best is:
"How 'Googling' a person's name has changed the world - for the better."
Mehdi Hasan says non-Muslims
"live their lives as animals".
This video is under extreme censorship threat.
Online copies are removed on spurious "copyright" grounds.
In reality, because Islamic reactionaries do not want Mehdi Hasan to be exposed.
Mehdi Hasan says non-Muslims
have diseased minds.
Jump to 0:49.
This video is under extreme censorship threat.
Online copies are removed on spurious "copyright" grounds.
In reality, because Islamic reactionaries do not want Mehdi Hasan to be exposed.
Mehdi Hasan replies
Mehdi Hasan's useless reply to the controversy in 2009.
He simply defends the Koran.
He says it's all a style of speech, or something,
and no one should be offended by it.
He never explicitly deals with the question of whether the Koran is right
to say that atheists "do not stop and wonder about this world".
Mehdi Hasan's better reply in March 2019.
He actually apologises.
"Speaking without notes, & trying to be bombastic, I made stupid sweeping remarks about non-Muslims, especially atheists. I cringe now when I rehear/reread those remarks. I made stupid offensive analogies to animals.
...
I don't want to defend/explain today. I just want to say, I'm sorry.
...
I don't want to turn it into something huge ...
BUT nor do I want to pretend I didn't say this stuff or act like it doesn't matter. It does. And I'm sorry."
Good for him.
He is still a religious crackpot, a shill for Iran, with horrible politics all round.
I will never like him.
But he deserves some credit for his apology.
The Gilding of Mehdi Hasan, March 2020:
"Maybe Hasan's apology really was a sincere one, but his contempt for atheists - particularly "New Atheists" - remains a staple of his output, and his arguments against them are as disingenuous and inept as those of any two-bob religious apologist you might care to name."
"British" hate preacher
Dawah Man
says that non-Muslims have less value than cattle.
He uses the same retarded text as Mehdi Hasan.
Click through to play video.
Dawah Man says you can get value (milk, beef) from cattle,
but not from non-Muslims.
He says this while standing in front of an automobile
(invented by non-Muslims)
talking on video
(invented by non-Muslims)
on the Internet
(invented by non-Muslims).
CiF Watch reply, 19 Nov 2011:
"Medhi Hasan's latest commentary demonstrates that those predisposed to shilling for enemies of the democratic West didn't disappear following the fall of the Soviet Union."
Mehdi Hasan does not see any difference between democracies and dictatorships:
When Israel bombed Syria in May 2013, Mehdi Hasan issued this inane
tweet:
"Imagine if, say, Iran had unilaterally launched a strike on Salafi Syrian rebels overnight? Would we all be okay with that?"
I replied with the obvious:
"The Iranian regime has no right to exist, let alone take any actions anywhere."
Mehdi Hasan
is shocked at "western double standards".
I replied:
"Yes, western countries treat dictatorships different to democracies. Shocking!"
Guido Fawkes replied to him:
"Iran is a self defined enemy of the West,
Israel is an ally of the West against Iran. Do you grasp the difference?"
I think he does grasp the difference.
That's why he defends Iran and opposes Israel!
Predictably, leftist
Glenn Greenwald, 6 May 2013, is impressed by Mehdi Hasan's "reasoning".
He too can see no reason to prefer Israel to Iran / Syria.
It is merely "self-flattering tribalism" that has us preferring democracies to dictatorships!
Devout Islamic religious maniac
Mehdi Hasan, 8 July 2012, complains about being called names.
"Have you ever been called an Islamist? How about a jihadist or a terrorist? Extremist, maybe?
Welcome to my world."
Oh, you poor baby!
Welcome to the West, where people don't buy your spin for Islamic tyrannies
and bigotry against non-Muslims.
He raises our hopes by saying:
"Perhaps, a voice at the back of my head suggests, I should throw in the towel and go find a less threatening, more civilised line of work."
But sadly he then says he will carry on.
"So, dare I ask: who's with me?"
I'm not.
While no one can approve of the "goat fucker" language you talk about,
you are still a deeply sinister character.
The left's defence of
right-wing Islamic religious nuts like Mehdi Hasan
and right-wing Islamic religious states like Iran
is the main reason I am not a leftist.
Mehdi Hasan, a devout Shia Muslim, who for some reason gets published in the "left" and "secular" press,
attacks (16 January 2012) the campaign against the scientists working to build nuclear weapons for the Shia Muslim Iranian tyranny
which has threatened a final Holocaust of the Jews.
He points out that the scientists have families too.
Yes, and that is sad, but this can be said about anyone,
including battlefield jihadis.
Why does he say "our" enemies? They are clearly not his enemies.
He is addressing the infidel, the cattle who do not stop to reason.
He should say "Killing your enemies abroad is just ..."
