Ghost of a flea: Moon-o-theism Le Huitième: Moonscape

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September 25, 2010

Moon-o-theism Le Huitième: Moonscape - Citizenship

The story so far: i - Robert A. Heinlein Award winner, Elizabeth Moon uses her LiveJournal to make a number of banal, obvious assertions about terror and citizenship; ii - The World of SF Blog is outrageously outraged; iii - edgy fearless iconoclast Warren Ellis, who does not know what the word "racist" means and who has never watched Fox News, denounces Moon as "a racist idiot who appears to get all her information about the world from Fox News", and; iv - ApexMagazine editor announces a special issue of Arab and Muslim science fiction.

Which means poetry somehow.

It will be a small thing, in the grand scheme. It will not save the world. But it will exist, and perhaps in its own way can stand beside the recent ugliness in the SFF world as something bright and good.
...
I want to do what I can. This is a thing I can do. I believe it will be extraordinary.

Let the healing begin!

Look, I could have taken the snark in at least two directions with this one. On the one hand, I could have pointed out how 99.9% of the genre would be banned (and authors beheaded) by the men the outragers want to defend against a feminist sf writer. On the other hand, I could have suggested a number of great topics for Arab and Muslim science fiction novels (the shocking world of tomorrow... a world where Islam means peace!).

But on the gripping hand I am going to register my disgust and leave it at that.

Posted by Ghost of a flea at September 25, 2010 09:27 AM

Comments

Ghost, the SF world has lots of leftist fools.

Posted by: pst314 at September 25, 2010 11:17 AM

No doubt, though Elizabeth Moon suggests some evidence to the contrary. I will poke around and see what Orson Scott Card is up to by way of editorial balance.

Posted by: Ghost of a flea at September 25, 2010 11:20 AM

Islamic SF?
Where the religion makes it into the tenth century?

Posted by: harrison at September 25, 2010 08:59 PM

I do think Moon erred greatly in phrasing her commentary; "many Muslims" are not violence-prone when it's more accurate to say "the bulk of" or "virtually all".

But that aside there's nothing really inflammatory about it. Every civilisation ought to have a frank dialogue about what sort of ground-level social/cultural toleration is extended to its religious factions. Otherwise it lacks an effective framework for adjusting perceptions (one way or another) when religious tenets bump into societal norms.

The current tactic of just shouting "racism" at anything other than open encouragement ensures the competing views will never talk in a substantive way. There's no incentive to do so.

Posted by: Chris Taylor at September 26, 2010 02:15 AM