If you had any lingering support for the New Atheists...

...now is probably a good time to abandon it. I though Hitchens was the worst one of the bunch but Richard Seymour at Lenin's Tomb highlights a post Dawkins made in which he calls Islam unmitigated evil.

I've heard from time to time critics say atheism as an ideology is very much a first world thing and not something that can be applied globally. I still believe that is not universally the case but the New Atheism that has become very popular in the last few years does seem to have a strong first world and perhaps even a colonialist component.

And speaking of colonialism and religion in Africa I'll highlight this article by the war nerd (one of several he did on the subject in the space of a few days) which examines the situation of religious and ethnic tensions in Africa, especially West Africa. Makes it a bit clearer why Dawkins, a right winger, wants to protect Christianised Africans.

Weekend Watch

Well my second ever weekend watch is two days late. Doing well.

Anyway here is part two of the Power of Nightmares:

Weekend Watch

This is a new feature that is neither innovative nor requiring effort on my part so maybe, just maybe, I'll keep up with it. As you may well be able to infer this feature is about encouraging you to watch worthwhile stuff, generally documentaries and lectures. At least for now I'll try to alternate between the two. For the next three weeks we'll be watching babby's first geopolitics aka The Power of Nightmares by Adam Curtis. A three part documentary about the similarities between the rise to prominence of the Neo-conservative and Islamist movements.

This is part one.



http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1320822957676559056#

I highly recommend you watch it if you haven't before.