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Arbor wrote: I thought it was a great interview, but very much a one sided view of things from Doggen's perspective.
I have no idea why the original thread was removed, but I can see why the article is difficult reading. Not least that some of it is libellous (imho).
Some of the Black Sheep era stuff appeared critical of elements of Islam, and seemed especially critical of how people have twisted Islamic ideology to serve their own violent purposes. I don't think JC has been any more critical of Islam than he has been of any other organised religions tho'.
True, and he also came down pretty hard on the UK/US foreign policy in the Middle-East too as a counter balance to the arguments raging in the post 9/11 era.
To be honest, to the untrained eye, some of his comments may seem quite extreme, however as you say, it's not like he pulled his punches with other monotheistic religions either - his term of admission was 'creedist' at the time. So to my mind, he wasn't particularly verging into the far-right territory of 'we're losing our Judeo-Christian values to Islam'. I think Cope always came from the point of view that all those values were unnecessary in the 'heathen' west regardless. The fact that his outspoken views were never picked up by the alt or far right at any point during that time seems to suggest he was giving them nothing particularly useful to work with (see Morrissey).
I did read an interview somewhere where he stated he was aware of how his criticism of conservative Islam could be interpreted but that he'd spent a fair few years knocking Christianity and Judaism and was just focusing on a new patriarchal ideology at that point.
I think one of his particular bugbears (from what I've read in the Drudions) was more around fear of being able to criticize or unwillingness to do so by so called 'liberals' and that any forward thinker who values their freedoms won over the past century should be wary of any major religion whose more conservative elements may threaten these values.
That's kinda covered in the lyric from Dark Orgasm "...you catholic priests and you biblical bores, Christian, Muslim, Jew. All the freedoms we marched for are coming apart. Such a heinous crew".
And let us not forget, one of his frequently noted major heroines is an Islamic freedom fighter - Leila Khaled.
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