Brawling Buddhists

These guys are pure hard-core:

"Rival groups of Buddhist monks brawled in the streets of the Cambodian capital yesterday during a protest march.

The clashes came as about 50 monks demonstrated in Phnom Penh against religious restrictions on colleagues across the border in southern Vietnam.

The marchers, who said that they were from southern Vietnam, were confronted by another band of six monks outside a Buddhist temple. The groups clashed in a fist fight and some of the protesters tossed water bottles at their opponents. One monk was injured in the brawl."

Cambodia should be proud of them, in my view. They put the tepid, lentil-munching variety we produce in this country to shame.



Monks from the Don't Fuck With Me Order. If Phnom Penh doesn't appreciate them, I think they should be made honorary Glaswegians and given the freedom of the city.

Complusion in religion

Brett quotes approvingly Sheikh Mohammed Kazem al-Khaqani who said (pdf), "Religious belief is a choice... People should be free to choose the political system that they desire to live under." I agree with the latter statement, obviously, but I'm not sure about the former.

Ian McEwan in his novel Saturday referred to the 'accidental nature' of the views we hold. How much more so when it comes to religion, or the lack of it, when people's identities are inextricably bound up with a belief system? The position I take, for example, surely owes no small part to the fact that I was raised by two strongly secular socialists.

This is not to suggest that there is no element of choice but the will is much more likely to be active when a man or a woman breaks from the faith of their parents and their community.

However, where there is, I think, clear choice is with regards to this whole issue of compulsion, which is to say theocracy. I really don't know what to make of this oft-repeated saying attributed to Mohammed that "there is no compulsion in religion" because historically compulsion has formed a large part of salvation religions, in Islam at least as much as the rest.

But Sheikh Mohammed Kazem al-Khaqani draws our attention to another tradition where religion is expressed either in monastic separation from the world or by ascetic engagement with it - two modes of piety that don't really have significant political implications.

That present-day jihadis, along with politicized Christian fundamentalist, have broken with this tradition, is the matter we should engage with, rather than with religious affiliation per se. For in this world the scope for a person to choose their identity is not non-existent but is nevertheless circumscribed by accidents of birth. But given the breadth and depth of religious traditions, their heterogeneity and their intrinsic capacity to be non-political, attempts to impose these identities on others - which is to say attempts to use political power in order to make others replicas of oneself - are unquestionably social and political choices, modern ones at that, and should therefore be resisted to the uttermost.

David Cameron in talking sense shock

From the Scotsman:

""Labour's approach is backward-looking, rather negative - saying, 'If you leave, it will be a disaster.'

"It's the wrong approach. You can't get someone to stay in a marriage by scaring them; you have to persuade them to stay," he said. "I don't want to save the Union for the past, I want to save it for the future."

This is surely right? I don't know how many people will take Labour's apocalyptic warnings about the effects of the dissolution of the Union but they don't deserve to be taken seriously. The idea of Scottish independence isn't 'crazy', as Blair would have it; would it kill them to simply say that they think, as I do, that it is undesirable? Because as it is, one is left wondering if there's anyone in this Labour cabinet that has anything positive to say about the Union.

Meanwhile, Alex Salmond in an interview with the Times demonstrates his poor grasp of electoral politics:

"There seems to be a rumour abroad that somehow you are going to have, if the SNP emerged as the largest party in this campaign, a sort of rainbow alliance of Unionism constructed to frustrate and deflect and stop the SNP as the leading party. I cannot think of anything more likely to incite the wrath of the people of Scotland: the idea that you can have an election and then attempt to snooker the result."

But if the election result is as predicted - with the SNP as the largest party but with no majority in Holyrood - it is not possible to talk of the 'people of Scotland' having one view on this matter, by definition. Furthermore, if it turns out to be arithmetically possible for the pro-Union parties to thwart the nationalist parties' desire for a referendum, it would be reasonable to conclude, using the conventional myth of the 'mandate' which politicians continually invoke, that the 'people of Scotland' - or at least a majority of them - are not really fussed about having a plebiscite on independence.

That bloggers' code of conduct

The details of which can be found here.

I'm drafting a letter, which I trust won't be considered too impolite:

Dear Mr O'Reilly,

Having read your proposals it is my considered opinion that the best course of action for you would be to take your bloggers' code of conduct and insert it into your rectum.

Respectfully yours,

Shuggy McGlumpher,

Glasgow

Friday the 13th

Back from hols to discover half of my pay hadn't been paid into my account. If I were of a superstitious disposition I'd attribute this to the date but easily the more rational explanation is that I work for Glasgow City Council.

Anyway - holiday reading: Slow Man. Best way I can think of to explain how good Coetzee writes is with a guitar-playing analogy. A lot of guitar-players never seem to get over the fact that they can play a million notes in fast succession on the higher frets of the guitar and those who don't know any better mistake this technical skill for musical talent.

Some writers are like this: Coetzee is Peter Green and he makes many of the rest look like Eddie Van Halen.

For those unfamiliar, here's Peter Green...



And here's Eddie Van Halen...



And if you've ever picked up a guitar but still prefer Eddie Van Halen to Peter Green, I suggest you kill yourself as a matter of urgency.