A gentleman never offends anyone by accident
Rather like Jamie, I find myself not having an opinion about Sir Salman's gong, simply because the general rule of thumb of "take the position held by the fewest outright wankers" doesn't give a clear steer. It is in times of uncertainty like this that I retreat to the comfort of my childhood religion - conspiracy theories.
As far as I can tell, this is very much sloppy seconds compared to the Danish cartoon gig. More or less the only people in the world who give half a lazy shit about this knighthood are a small number of rabble-rousing imams in Pakistan. Furthermore, it is not as if our reputation in the Islamic world has got any worse; they hated us anyway. Which means that the practical effect of this knighthood has been to a) give the Islamists of Islamabad something to harmlessly shout about and b) give our good mate Pervez Musharraf a chance to look like a tough guy and maybe carry out some domestic repression.
Which is rather timely for him, since as of a couple of weeks ago, the Pakistani opposition almost looked like getting its act together. Now, a nice little wedge has been driven between Sharif and Bhutto, and the PPP have been given an opportunity to do some cheap and easy anti-Western showboating. Hmmmmm ...
Of course, this is all baseless speculation, but so is the theory that somehow, in all of this process, nobody even noticed that giving SR his K would PO the M's. Nope, it's all a massive cockup which has happened to be highly politically convenient for our favourite strongman in the mustaches & Allah club. We used to do this sort of thing all the time in the Cold War, you know. After a while, when the Foreign Office has "accidentally" dropped the soap for the twentieth time in the same set of showers, the "cock up theory of history" takes on something of a new meaning.
Of course, even if the whole thing was simply cooked up as a calculated and gratuitous insult to the Muslims of the world, that would still not make it OK to advocate suicide bombing, you know.
I like the theory that giving him a kingghthood in the same list as Ian Botham is a calculated insult to Salman Rushdie, although what he's done to be lumped in with an oaf like that is beyond me.
ReplyDeleteKnighthood, obviously. Don't know what happened there.
ReplyDeleteYes but has Salman ever hit 149 not out in a hopeless position at Headingley?
ReplyDeleteOr written a book of the brilliance of "Don't tell Kath![1]" for that matter?
ReplyDelete[1] I think in its current reprint it has a less inflammatory title.
Or, possibly, that giving a K to Botham was also intended to stir up the Pakistanis, given Botham's history of antipathy towards Pakistani national hero Imran Khan, and his humiliation of the national team in 1978?
ReplyDeleteI was at Lord's for the Saturday: I therefore missed his hundred (which was on the Friday, I recall that Thursday was rained off) and his eight wickets in the second innings (Monday, Sunday being a rest day then).
ReplyDeleteIf it's about atagonising Pakistan, how long before fat Gatt gets one? His record of two wins in 23 Tests is also surely worthy of higher recognition.
ReplyDeleteDavid Constant ought to be on for one too.
ReplyDeleteAlso, Sachin Tendulkar. Can Commonwealth citizens be knighted?
ReplyDeleteyes they can; viz Sir Gary Sobers, Sir Les Patterson etc. They can even be given peerages unless they are Canadians who have pissed off the Canadian government.
ReplyDeleteNo, Canadians can't be given or accept more accurately, peerages. Black was also an English citizen, which should be ok, but as he had pissed off the Canadian government they still decided to try and block it.
ReplyDeleteCan you be an English citizen?
ReplyDeleteI think not: the relevant legislation is the British Nationality Act 1981, which provides for "British citizenship" but not for "English".
ReplyDelete