Christmas Quiz
It’s that time of the year when you get bumper issues of magazines, the reviews of the past twelve months and, of course, the Christmas quiz.
So here, for Christmas, is our special quiz.
ARE YOU A CLERICAL FASCIST?
Answer the following 10 questions to check your clerical fascism credentials!
1. Before being published a book should be:-
a) Vetted by a board of clerics for blasphemy
b) Vetted by academics for offensiveness
c) Eh?
2. Putting a bomb in a rucksack and blowing up your fellow citizens:-
a) Sends you to Paradise
b) Sends a message to Tony Blair and George Bush
c) Sends a lot of people to hospital and the morgue, you morons!
3. Women should:-
a) Not go out in public unless escorted by a male relative
b) Not have their rights made into a shibboleth
c) Kick ass! Or crotch!! Or someone’s head in!!! For fuck’s sake
4. Apostates should be:-
a) Executed
b) Regarded as Uncle Toms or neocon pin ups
c) Hey! What fucking century is this?
5. Atheists should be:-
a) Killed
b) Refraining from militancy or abrasivenes or insensitivity
c) Biting the carpet in a rage. For Chrissake!
6. Israel is:-
a) An abomination that will be wiped off the map
b) The new South Africa, Nazi Germany, or any other unquestionably evil state
c) There are other fucking countries, you know
7. A body of men who if they came to power would place women under house arrest; enforce rules on dress; ban music, games and harmless pleasures generally and compel total religious observance are:-
a) Holy warriors for God
b) A heroic resistance movement
c) What bollocks is this?
8. Jews are:-
a) Responsible for all revolutions; destroyers of science; controllers of imperialist states; behind every war that was ever fought; secret rulers of the USA; controllers of the media.
b) As above, but could you change Jews to Zionists?
c) Jesus wept!
9. The holocaust:-
a) Didn’t happen, which is a shame
b) Happened, but denying it is an understandable response, and should be contextualised
c) Aaargh! Aaargh! Aaargh!
10. The Golden Age was:-
a) 8th century, Baghdad
b) 1917 USSR – there was something to hope for
c) 10 September 2001 – though there was plenty of crap around, it wasn’t this particular kind of crap
Shiraz Socialist 
Voltaire's Priest said,
December 25, 2008 at 6:01 pm
Categories, Denham. Categories.
Rob said,
December 25, 2008 at 6:15 pm
Supporting the Bolsheviks means being a ‘fellow traveller’ of clerical fascists?
Also (and I probably shouldn’t even bite the bait) lots of this is fucking stupid, particularly the idea that unless you hold jihadism to be the defining ‘thing’ of our era you are an ‘enabler’ of ‘clerical fascism’.
Jim Denham said,
December 26, 2008 at 1:45 pm
‘Twasn’t me. oh Priest…must have been Max or Rosie. But it is good, isn’t it?
entdinglichung said,
December 26, 2008 at 7:54 pm
8th century, Baghdad was far too “liberal” for today’s jihadists and their fellow travellers (Arabian Nights, Mu’tazili, a far higher level of religious and philosophival tolerance than in most parts of 8th century Europe, etc.)
modernityblog said,
December 29, 2008 at 5:21 pm
I don’t read Crooked Timber as much as I use to but this is rather good:
“Take the latest one from the Taliban: they have warned that in North-West Pakistan they will kill all girls who still go to school on January 15th, and that they will blow up schools who will enrol female students after that date. Now one would hope they wouldn’t have the capacity to execute such a threat, yet surely they will be able to kill some girls, just as they’ve killed so many other targets. It is just very sad that these things continue to happen when we are entering 2009. It reached the newspapers and the 8 o’clock news here in the Netherlands – but then, what else is going to happen now? As far as I can tell nothing much – except what must be a terrible decision to be made by these girls and their parents.”