{"id":215,"date":"2007-01-16T14:29:00","date_gmt":"2007-01-16T20:29:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/?p=215"},"modified":"2007-01-16T14:29:00","modified_gmt":"2007-01-16T20:29:00","slug":"preaching-hate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/2007\/01\/preaching-hate\/","title":{"rendered":"Preaching hate…"},"content":{"rendered":"

W<\/span>henever enthusiasts talk politics<\/span>, there\u2019s always someone who wants to do it John Major<\/span> style. No, not with Edwina Currie<\/a><\/span>. I mean with a soapbox.<\/p>\n

Wistful politics junkies cast an eye back to the day when the power of the human voice alone inspired roomfuls of people to act! Political engagement!<\/span> Bring it on!<\/p>\n

The painful reality was brought home last night by Channel 4<\/span><\/a>\u2019s Dispatches<\/span><\/a>. We were asked to suspend our disbelief and imagine that turgid, rambling monologues delivered with all the vocal power of a Tesco<\/span>‘s till announcement were radicalising young Muslims in Birmingham<\/span>.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s be honest. The people filmed secretly may be preaching hate, but are their self-indulgent sermons really convincing? If an angry monotone is how you market terror, it really needs a new agency pitch. You’d need a devotion verging on suicidal just to sit through them.<\/p>\n

As a teenager, bereft of violent hobbies that were socially acceptable, like rugby, I listened incessantly to Tommy Gun<\/span> by The Clash<\/span>. However, I didn’t decide to arm myself and engage in self-destructive acts of pointless rage. (There are countries where you can borrow dad’s gun and, without even needing to compose a religious or ideological justification, gun down unfortunate classmates…) The message and the anger were nothing without organisation.<\/p>\n

In Dispatches<\/span> the problem lies not with the sermons, it’s with the ability to organise the angry young men willing to sit through them. Political apathy never looked so appealing…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Whenever enthusiasts talk politics, there\u2019s always someone who wants to do it John Major style. No, not with Edwina Currie. I mean with a soapbox. Wistful politics junkies cast an eye back to the day when the power of the human voice alone inspired roomfuls of people to act! Political engagement! Bring it on! The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[231,78],"class_list":["post-215","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-journalism","tag-channel-4","tag-uk-media"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=215"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=215"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=215"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=215"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}