Pat Condell
Encyclopedia
Patrick Condell is an Irish-English
writer
, political commentator, comedian
, UKIP patron and atheist internet personality. He performed alternative comedy
shows during the 1980s and 1990s in the United Kingdom
, and won a Time Out Comedy Award
in 1991. He was also a regular panellist on BBC Radio 1
's "Loose Talk".
From early 2007, he began posting short monologue
s denouncing religion to a number of video sharing websites
, consequently receiving numerous death threats. His videos have been featured on many websites, including YouTube
and LiveLeak
. They have also been published to DVD
, and also as a book of video transcripts. , Pat Condell's YouTube
channel has over 171,000 subscribers and 37 million views.
In a video titled "Vote small, think big", uploaded a fortnight before the 2010 UK general elections, and on his website, Pat Condell expressed support for the UK Independence Party. He is an atheist activist, a strong proponent of free speech and critic of religion.
schools across South London
; he said of this time "I found myself segregated in assembly and shunted into another room while everyone said their morning prayers. The whole pantomime seemed hollow to me even then. Once you become aware of the gulf between what people profess to believe and how they actually behave, it’s hard to take any of it seriously." His father was a compulsive gambler working in a betting shop until he was sent to prison for stealing money. He then died of leukemia
in prison. The family was impoverished, moving repeatedly from one rented flat to another. Condell left school at 16, and his first job was washing dishes in the revolving restaurant on top of the Post Office tower, now known as the BT Tower
in London
, for five shillings an hour.
Condell became a vegetarian
in 1976 after watching a deer being butchered. Condell did a number of jobs including six years' logging
in Canada.
shows during the 1980s and 1990s in the United Kingdom. His first performance on stage was at the age of 32 in a comedy sketch
called Mountbatten’s Plimsoll. He also wrote poetry and appeared in the Poetry Olympics at the Young Vic Theatre in 1982, which led to a job writing weekly poems for the Time Out magazine. Pat was described at the time as "a manic gimlet-eyed, crop-haired poet" in Drama: The Quarterly Theatre Review book.
He then performed on the London Alternative Comedy
circuit for several years (originally under the name Eddie Zibin). He also performed at the Tunnel Club, next to the Blackwall Tunnel
, where he describes the audience as a "nightmare"; bottles and glasses were thrown at him, and one person attempted to cut the microphone
lead with a pair of garden shears. Condell was a performer at The Comedy Store
in the Cutting Edge team, with whom he performed at the Edinburgh Fringe
in 1991.
That year Condell was the winner of a Time Out Comedy Award
.
From 1991 to 1994 he was a regular panellist on BBC Radio 1's "Loose Talk". During the mid 1990s, Condell was performing over 200 times a year. Due to the late nights and regular travelling he decided to start writing for other comedians, while still doing the occasional performance. In 1991 he performed comedy sketches at Duke of York's Theatre
, which were released onto DVD as Barf Bites Back! (1991).
Condell's 1996 play, "Barry Sorts It Out", was given a negative review in the Financial Times
, which described it as "a sordid East End comedy" which "repeats ad nauseam the same gag." The reviewer concluded that it is "a play with all the bite of a set of joke-shop fangs."
His 2006 stand-up show ‘Faith Hope and Sanity’, subtitled ‘A Few Jokes About Religion Before It Kills Us All’, was a platform for his comedy and atheist beliefs. "This is the first time I’ve set out to write a show in order to say something, rather than just as a vehicle for stand-up" he said of the show. He performed the show at London’s Etcetera Theatre
. Chortle
gave Condell's 2006 show a negative review, noting that Condell is covering familiar territory but "is not quite up to the job," and observing that Condell's material was delivered "with very little variation in pace or tone, ... with the feel of a lecture" and "no structure, no building up to a passionate, climactic conclusion, no ebb and flow of storytelling." Chortle concluded that "Condell is still going through the motions."
in the United Kingdom and the most subscribed to comedian of all time in the UK. Eight of his videos are in the top hundred most commented on videos in the UK. His videos have caused Condell to receive hundreds of death threats and also a significant amount of support.
His videos have been featured on websites and blogs, including Little Green Footballs
, YouTube, LiveLeak
, Jihad Watch
, MilkandCookies, Kathy Shaidle
's blog, Geert Wilders
, the leader of the political party Party for Freedom
website, PZ Myers
' blog Pharyngula
, and Richard Dawkins
' website. In 2007 one of Condell's YouTube videos was used in a presentation by Sir Harold Kroto
, recipient of the 1996 Nobel Prize for Chemistry, at the Beyond Belief symposium.
Condell's first video, uploaded to YouTube on February 8, 2007 was his participation in The Blasphemy Challenge, an Internet-based project which aims to get atheists to come out and declare themselves as atheists. The challenge asks atheists to submit videos to the website YouTube, in which they record themselves blaspheming
or denying the existence of the Holy Spirit
.
Condell has spoken favourably of Geert Wilders
and has described the Quran as hate speech.
A Facebook
group was set up attempting to persuade Pat Condell to speak at an EDL
demo, but Condell did not respond.
(UKIP) claimed that Condell "urges voters to shun the three old parties and vote UKIP". In a video titled "Vote small, think big", uploaded a fortnight before the 2010 UK general elections, and on his website, Pat Condell expressed support for the policies of the UK Independence Party. He is a strong proponent of free speech and critic of religion.
, said of Condell that "Pat Condell is unique. Nobody can match his extraordinary blend of suavity and savagery. With his articulate intelligence he runs rings around the religious wingnuts that are the targets of his merciless humour. Thank goodness he is on our side". In 2008, Dawkins's website released a collection of Condell's monologues on DVD, titled Pat Condell: Anthology. The DVD was also sold on Amazon.com
.
In an interview with the Bosnian magazine Start, Condell says his intent "is to get other people's unprovable beliefs out of my life, and out of government, the law and education. I don't care what people believe as long as I don't have to keep hearing about it."
He has been criticised by Christian
author Dinesh D'Souza
on AOL
News, who said "If the televangelists are guilty of producing some simple-minded, self-righteous Christians, then the atheist authors are guilty of producing self-congratulatory buffoons like Condell." Atheist biology professor and blogger PZ Myers
, on the other hand, endorsed Condell with a terse "Speak it, brother!". The book Raising Freethinkers: A Practical Guide for Parenting Beyond Belief, describes Condell as "breathtakingly intelligent, articulate, uncompromising, and funny".
He is a member of the National Secular Society
and has a large following of users on the Internet, including a Facebook
group dedicated to him.
, in lower Manhattan. On June 4, 2010, he released a video titled "No Mosque at Ground Zero", in which he claimed that it was representative of Islamic triumphalism and that the United States would soon be on the verge of Islamization and have its freedoms trimmed, as Europe has. The video has attracted 5 million views since it was uploaded. Speaking on why he believes the Mosque is offensive, Pat Condell claimed:
Additionally, Condell cast some doubt over the funding of the Mosque, and claimed that Islam would have been banned in the civilized world if it wasn't for the fact it was a religion. He compared the system of Sharia and the Muslims who endorse it to Nazi Germany
.
city of Berkeley
's Peace and Justice Commission. Condell said in the video that Islam
is "a religion of war", that "Muslim women in Britain who cover their faces are mentally ill", though in some parts of the world women have no choice but to cover their face, as they are "governed... by primitive pigs whose only achievement in life is to be born with a penis in one hand and a Qur'an
in the other." Commissioner Elliot Cohen described Condell's comments as "insulting, degenerating and racist".
Condell then accused Cohen of being "motivated by his own narrow personal and political agenda which has nothing to do with me or the video clip." The video was initially sent to them by fellow Peace and Justice Commissioner Jonathan Wornick, who said it "tries to expose intolerance in the Muslim world," such as "the intolerance of radical Islamists
who say if you insult Allah, you should have your head cut off." Condell said that its popularity proves "there is an enthusiastic audience for comedy ideas and opinions which are routinely censored out of existence in the UK’s mainstream media, thanks to misguided political correctness
".
court, and refers to the entire country of Saudi Arabia
as mentally ill for its abuse of women
.
A YouTube spokesman said "YouTube has clear policies that prohibit inappropriate content on the site, such as pornography, gratuitous violence or hate speech.... If users repeatedly break these rules we disable their accounts." The National Secular Society
were amongst the complainants to YouTube, saying "as usual, he (Condell) does not mince his words, but he is not saying anything that is untrue. His main thrust is one of outrage on behalf of those Muslim women who will suffer because they are forced to have their marital problems solved in a male-dominated Sharia court."
Shortly after, YouTube reversed their earlier decision saying "Upon further review of the context of Pat Condell's comments, we've reinstated it." Richard Dawkins
applauded the reversal, saying "I congratulate YouTube on an excellent decision. Pat Condell is hard-hitting, but always quietly reasonable in tone." Condell believed that it was removed due to a flagging campaign by Islam
ic activists
.
In his next video "Stop Sharia Law in Britain", Condell thanked his supporters, YouTube, and the people who flagged the video for removal and giving it publicity. He clarifies the meaning of his statement in his previous video which caused the video to be removed, where he referred to the entire country of Saudi Arabia as mentally ill.
YouTube also briefly removed Condell's video "Godless and free" but he received an email from YouTube explaining that it had been done in error.
state, asserting that Palestinian national aspirations are "a big hoax", that Palestinians do not suffer from human rights violations and their sufferings are "their own fault", and that the root cause of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
is solely "hatred of Jews taught in the mosques". Therefore, he asserts that Israel need not make any concessions and that peace negotiations would be useless. Condell's short film "The Great Palestinian
Lie" has been enthusiastically taken up by right-wing groups in Israel.
In a follow-up video, 'Useful idiots for Palestine', Condell states that "irrational Islamic jew-hatred is the root cause of the problem in the middle east".
English people
The English are a nation and ethnic group native to England, who speak English. The English identity is of early mediaeval origin, when they were known in Old English as the Anglecynn. England is now a country of the United Kingdom, and the majority of English people in England are British Citizens...
writer
Writer
A writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....
, political commentator, comedian
Comedian
A comedian or comic is a person who seeks to entertain an audience, primarily by making them laugh. This might be through jokes or amusing situations, or acting a fool, as in slapstick, or employing prop comedy...
, UKIP patron and atheist internet personality. He performed alternative comedy
Alternative comedy
Alternative comedy is a term that originated in the 1980s for a style of comedy that makes a conscious break with the mainstream comedic style of an era, and typically avoids relying on a standardised structure of a sequence of jokes with punch lines. Patton Oswalt defines it as "comedy where the...
shows during the 1980s and 1990s in the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
, and won a Time Out Comedy Award
Time Out Comedy Awards
The Time Out Comedy Awards were bestowed upon the comedy community by the London listings magazine Time Out. They ran from 1991 to 2006, and include many well-known comedians as past winners: Eddie Izzard, Noel Fielding and Jimmy Carr...
in 1991. He was also a regular panellist on BBC Radio 1
BBC Radio 1
BBC Radio 1 is a British national radio station operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation which also broadcasts internationally, specialising in current popular music and chart hits throughout the day. Radio 1 provides alternative genres after 7:00pm including electronic dance, hip hop, rock...
's "Loose Talk".
From early 2007, he began posting short monologue
Monologue
In theatre, a monologue is a speech presented by a single character, most often to express their thoughts aloud, though sometimes also to directly address another character or the audience. Monologues are common across the range of dramatic media...
s denouncing religion to a number of video sharing websites
Video hosting service
A video hosting service allows individuals to upload video clips to an Internet website. The video host will then store the video on its server, and show the individual different types of code to allow others to view this video...
, consequently receiving numerous death threats. His videos have been featured on many websites, including YouTube
YouTube
YouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....
and LiveLeak
Liveleak
LiveLeak is a video sharing website that lets users post and share videos. Liveleak places emphasis on current events, politics and reality-based footage such as war scenes from various parts of the world.The site went live on October 31, 2006...
. They have also been published to DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
, and also as a book of video transcripts. , Pat Condell's YouTube
YouTube
YouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....
channel has over 171,000 subscribers and 37 million views.
In a video titled "Vote small, think big", uploaded a fortnight before the 2010 UK general elections, and on his website, Pat Condell expressed support for the UK Independence Party. He is an atheist activist, a strong proponent of free speech and critic of religion.
Early life
Condell was born in Ireland and raised in England as a Roman Catholic. He was educated in several different Church of EnglandChurch of England
The Church of England is the officially established Christian church in England and the Mother Church of the worldwide Anglican Communion. The church considers itself within the tradition of Western Christianity and dates its formal establishment principally to the mission to England by St...
schools across South London
South London
South London is the southern part of London, England, United Kingdom.According to the 2011 official Boundary Commission for England definition, South London includes the London boroughs of Bexley, Bromley, Croydon, Greenwich, Kingston, Lambeth, Lewisham, Merton, Southwark, Sutton and...
; he said of this time "I found myself segregated in assembly and shunted into another room while everyone said their morning prayers. The whole pantomime seemed hollow to me even then. Once you become aware of the gulf between what people profess to believe and how they actually behave, it’s hard to take any of it seriously." His father was a compulsive gambler working in a betting shop until he was sent to prison for stealing money. He then died of leukemia
Leukemia
Leukemia or leukaemia is a type of cancer of the blood or bone marrow characterized by an abnormal increase of immature white blood cells called "blasts". Leukemia is a broad term covering a spectrum of diseases...
in prison. The family was impoverished, moving repeatedly from one rented flat to another. Condell left school at 16, and his first job was washing dishes in the revolving restaurant on top of the Post Office tower, now known as the BT Tower
BT Tower
The BT Tower is a tall cylindrical building in London, United Kingdom, located at 60 Cleveland Street, Fitzrovia W1T 4JZ, London Borough of Camden. It has been previously known as the Post Office Tower, the London Telecom Tower and the British Telecom Tower. The main structure is tall, with a...
in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, for five shillings an hour.
Condell became a vegetarian
Vegetarianism
Vegetarianism encompasses the practice of following plant-based diets , with or without the inclusion of dairy products or eggs, and with the exclusion of meat...
in 1976 after watching a deer being butchered. Condell did a number of jobs including six years' logging
Logging
Logging is the cutting, skidding, on-site processing, and loading of trees or logs onto trucks.In forestry, the term logging is sometimes used in a narrow sense concerning the logistics of moving wood from the stump to somewhere outside the forest, usually a sawmill or a lumber yard...
in Canada.
Comedy
Condell performed alternative comedyAlternative comedy
Alternative comedy is a term that originated in the 1980s for a style of comedy that makes a conscious break with the mainstream comedic style of an era, and typically avoids relying on a standardised structure of a sequence of jokes with punch lines. Patton Oswalt defines it as "comedy where the...
shows during the 1980s and 1990s in the United Kingdom. His first performance on stage was at the age of 32 in a comedy sketch
Sketch comedy
A sketch comedy consists of a series of short comedy scenes or vignettes, called "sketches," commonly between one and ten minutes long. Such sketches are performed by a group of comic actors or comedians, either on stage or through an audio and/or visual medium such as broadcasting...
called Mountbatten’s Plimsoll. He also wrote poetry and appeared in the Poetry Olympics at the Young Vic Theatre in 1982, which led to a job writing weekly poems for the Time Out magazine. Pat was described at the time as "a manic gimlet-eyed, crop-haired poet" in Drama: The Quarterly Theatre Review book.
He then performed on the London Alternative Comedy
Alternative comedy
Alternative comedy is a term that originated in the 1980s for a style of comedy that makes a conscious break with the mainstream comedic style of an era, and typically avoids relying on a standardised structure of a sequence of jokes with punch lines. Patton Oswalt defines it as "comedy where the...
circuit for several years (originally under the name Eddie Zibin). He also performed at the Tunnel Club, next to the Blackwall Tunnel
Blackwall Tunnel
The Blackwall Tunnel is a pair of road tunnels underneath the River Thames in east London, linking the London Borough of Tower Hamlets with the London Borough of Greenwich, and part of the A102 road. The northern portal lies just south of the East India Dock Road in Blackwall; the southern...
, where he describes the audience as a "nightmare"; bottles and glasses were thrown at him, and one person attempted to cut the microphone
Microphone
A microphone is an acoustic-to-electric transducer or sensor that converts sound into an electrical signal. In 1877, Emile Berliner invented the first microphone used as a telephone voice transmitter...
lead with a pair of garden shears. Condell was a performer at The Comedy Store
The Comedy Store, London
The Comedy Store is a comedy club located in Soho, London, England, opened in 1979 by Don Ward and Peter Rosengard.It was named after The Comedy Store club in the United States, which Rosengard had visited the previous year...
in the Cutting Edge team, with whom he performed at the Edinburgh Fringe
Edinburgh Fringe
The Edinburgh Festival Fringe is the world’s largest arts festival. Established in 1947 as an alternative to the Edinburgh International Festival, it takes place annually in Scotland's capital, in the month of August...
in 1991.
That year Condell was the winner of a Time Out Comedy Award
Time Out Comedy Awards
The Time Out Comedy Awards were bestowed upon the comedy community by the London listings magazine Time Out. They ran from 1991 to 2006, and include many well-known comedians as past winners: Eddie Izzard, Noel Fielding and Jimmy Carr...
.
From 1991 to 1994 he was a regular panellist on BBC Radio 1's "Loose Talk". During the mid 1990s, Condell was performing over 200 times a year. Due to the late nights and regular travelling he decided to start writing for other comedians, while still doing the occasional performance. In 1991 he performed comedy sketches at Duke of York's Theatre
Duke of York's Theatre
The Duke of York's Theatre is a West End Theatre in St Martin's Lane, in the City of Westminster. It was built for Frank Wyatt and his wife, Violet Melnotte, who retained ownership of the theatre, until her death in 1935. It opened on 10 September 1892 as the Trafalgar Square Theatre, with Wedding...
, which were released onto DVD as Barf Bites Back! (1991).
Condell's 1996 play, "Barry Sorts It Out", was given a negative review in the Financial Times
Financial Times
The Financial Times is an international business newspaper. It is a morning daily newspaper published in London and printed in 24 cities around the world. Its primary rival is the Wall Street Journal, published in New York City....
, which described it as "a sordid East End comedy" which "repeats ad nauseam the same gag." The reviewer concluded that it is "a play with all the bite of a set of joke-shop fangs."
His 2006 stand-up show ‘Faith Hope and Sanity’, subtitled ‘A Few Jokes About Religion Before It Kills Us All’, was a platform for his comedy and atheist beliefs. "This is the first time I’ve set out to write a show in order to say something, rather than just as a vehicle for stand-up" he said of the show. He performed the show at London’s Etcetera Theatre
Etcetera Theatre
The Etcetera Theatre is a fringe venue for theatre and comedy. It was founded in 1986 and is situated above The Oxford Arms pub in Camden Town, in the London Borough of Camden....
. Chortle
Chortle Awards
The Chortle awards were set up in 2002 by the comedy website Chortle to honour the best of established stand-up comics currently working in the UK....
gave Condell's 2006 show a negative review, noting that Condell is covering familiar territory but "is not quite up to the job," and observing that Condell's material was delivered "with very little variation in pace or tone, ... with the feel of a lecture" and "no structure, no building up to a passionate, climactic conclusion, no ebb and flow of storytelling." Chortle concluded that "Condell is still going through the motions."
Online videos & politics
Condell had posted 100 video monologues on various video sites as of August 2011, which together had notched up over 35 million hits, and his videos have been translated and subtitled into 14 languages on the dotSUB collaborative platform. In September 2009, he was one of the top ten most subscribed users on YouTubeYouTube
YouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....
in the United Kingdom and the most subscribed to comedian of all time in the UK. Eight of his videos are in the top hundred most commented on videos in the UK. His videos have caused Condell to receive hundreds of death threats and also a significant amount of support.
His videos have been featured on websites and blogs, including Little Green Footballs
Little Green Footballs
Little Green Footballs is an American political blog run by web designer Charles Johnson.Media observers in the United States long described the site as "right wing", but since 2007, the site's emphasis has changed, such that "LGF has become better known for the various fights it picks with many...
, YouTube, LiveLeak
Liveleak
LiveLeak is a video sharing website that lets users post and share videos. Liveleak places emphasis on current events, politics and reality-based footage such as war scenes from various parts of the world.The site went live on October 31, 2006...
, Jihad Watch
Jihad Watch
Jihad Watch is a blog affiliated with the David Horowitz Freedom Center, which is run independently by American author Robert Spencer. It is considered an important platform for the counterjihad movement....
, MilkandCookies, Kathy Shaidle
Kathy Shaidle
Kathy Shaidle is a Canadian author, columnist, poet and blogger. A self-described "anarcho-peacenik" in the early years of her writing career, she moved to a conservative, Roman Catholic position following the attacks of September 11, 2001, and entered the public eye as the author of the popular...
's blog, Geert Wilders
Geert Wilders
Geert Wilders is a Dutch right-wing politician and leader of the Party for Freedom , the third-largest political party in the Netherlands. He is the Parliamentary group leader of his party in the Dutch House of Representatives...
, the leader of the political party Party for Freedom
Party for Freedom
The Party for Freedom is a Dutch right-wing political party. Founded in 2005 as the successor to Geert Wilders' one-man party in the House of Representatives, it won nine seats in the 2006 general election, making it the fifth largest party in parliament, and third largest opposition party. It...
website, PZ Myers
PZ Myers
Paul Zachary "PZ" Myers is an American biology professor at the University of Minnesota Morris and the author of the Pharyngula science blog. He is currently an associate professor of biology at UMM, works with zebrafish in the field of evolutionary developmental biology , and also cultivates an...
' blog Pharyngula
Pharyngula (blog)
Pharyngula is a blog on FreeThoughtBlogs and ScienceBlogs run by PZ Myers. In 2006, the science journal Nature listed it as the top-ranked blog written by a scientist. Pharyngula also won the 2005 Koufax Award for Best Expert Blog. The blog topics are eclectic, delving into the non-scientific as...
, and Richard Dawkins
Richard Dawkins
Clinton Richard Dawkins, FRS, FRSL , known as Richard Dawkins, is a British ethologist, evolutionary biologist and author...
' website. In 2007 one of Condell's YouTube videos was used in a presentation by Sir Harold Kroto
Harold Kroto
Sir Harold Walter Kroto, FRS , born Harold Walter Krotoschiner, is a British chemist and one of the three recipients to share the 1996 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Robert Curl and Richard Smalley....
, recipient of the 1996 Nobel Prize for Chemistry, at the Beyond Belief symposium.
Condell's first video, uploaded to YouTube on February 8, 2007 was his participation in The Blasphemy Challenge, an Internet-based project which aims to get atheists to come out and declare themselves as atheists. The challenge asks atheists to submit videos to the website YouTube, in which they record themselves blaspheming
Blasphemy
Blasphemy is irreverence towards religious or holy persons or things. Some countries have laws to punish blasphemy, while others have laws to give recourse to those who are offended by blasphemy...
or denying the existence of the Holy Spirit
Holy Spirit
Holy Spirit is a term introduced in English translations of the Hebrew Bible, but understood differently in the main Abrahamic religions.While the general concept of a "Spirit" that permeates the cosmos has been used in various religions Holy Spirit is a term introduced in English translations of...
.
Condell has spoken favourably of Geert Wilders
Geert Wilders
Geert Wilders is a Dutch right-wing politician and leader of the Party for Freedom , the third-largest political party in the Netherlands. He is the Parliamentary group leader of his party in the Dutch House of Representatives...
and has described the Quran as hate speech.
A Facebook
Facebook
Facebook is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. , Facebook has more than 800 million active users. Users must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as...
group was set up attempting to persuade Pat Condell to speak at an EDL
English Defence League
The English Defence League is a far-right street protest movement which opposes what it considers to be a spread of Islamism, Sharia law and Islamic extremism in the UK. The EDL uses street marches to protest against Islamic extremism...
demo, but Condell did not respond.
UKIP
In April 2010, Condell urged his viewers to vote "for freedom" and claimed that a "vote for any of the three main parties" would be a wasted vote in the 2010 general election. The same day the United Kingdom Independence PartyUnited Kingdom Independence Party
The United Kingdom Independence Party is a eurosceptic and right-wing populist political party in the United Kingdom. Whilst its primary goal is the UK's withdrawal from the European Union, the party has expanded beyond its single-issue image to develop a more comprehensive party platform.UKIP...
(UKIP) claimed that Condell "urges voters to shun the three old parties and vote UKIP". In a video titled "Vote small, think big", uploaded a fortnight before the 2010 UK general elections, and on his website, Pat Condell expressed support for the policies of the UK Independence Party. He is a strong proponent of free speech and critic of religion.
Atheism
Richard Dawkins, author of The God DelusionThe God Delusion
The God Delusion is a 2006 bestselling non-fiction book by British biologist Richard Dawkins, professorial fellow of New College, Oxford, and inaugural holder of the Charles Simonyi Chair for the Public Understanding of Science at the University of Oxford.In The God Delusion, Dawkins contends that...
, said of Condell that "Pat Condell is unique. Nobody can match his extraordinary blend of suavity and savagery. With his articulate intelligence he runs rings around the religious wingnuts that are the targets of his merciless humour. Thank goodness he is on our side". In 2008, Dawkins's website released a collection of Condell's monologues on DVD, titled Pat Condell: Anthology. The DVD was also sold on Amazon.com
Amazon.com
Amazon.com, Inc. is a multinational electronic commerce company headquartered in Seattle, Washington, United States. It is the world's largest online retailer. Amazon has separate websites for the following countries: United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Japan, and...
.
In an interview with the Bosnian magazine Start, Condell says his intent "is to get other people's unprovable beliefs out of my life, and out of government, the law and education. I don't care what people believe as long as I don't have to keep hearing about it."
He has been criticised by Christian
Christian
A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...
author Dinesh D'Souza
Dinesh D'Souza
Dinesh D'Souza is an author and public speaker and a former Robert and Karen Rishwain Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. He is currently the President of The King's College in New York City. D'Souza is a noted Christian apologist and conservative writer and speaker....
on AOL
AOL
AOL Inc. is an American global Internet services and media company. AOL is headquartered at 770 Broadway in New York. Founded in 1983 as Control Video Corporation, it has franchised its services to companies in several nations around the world or set up international versions of its services...
News, who said "If the televangelists are guilty of producing some simple-minded, self-righteous Christians, then the atheist authors are guilty of producing self-congratulatory buffoons like Condell." Atheist biology professor and blogger PZ Myers
PZ Myers
Paul Zachary "PZ" Myers is an American biology professor at the University of Minnesota Morris and the author of the Pharyngula science blog. He is currently an associate professor of biology at UMM, works with zebrafish in the field of evolutionary developmental biology , and also cultivates an...
, on the other hand, endorsed Condell with a terse "Speak it, brother!". The book Raising Freethinkers: A Practical Guide for Parenting Beyond Belief, describes Condell as "breathtakingly intelligent, articulate, uncompromising, and funny".
He is a member of the National Secular Society
National Secular Society
The National Secular Society is a British campaigning organisation that promotes secularism and the separation of church and state. It holds that no-one should gain advantage or disadvantage because of their religion or lack of religion. It was founded by Charles Bradlaugh in 1866...
and has a large following of users on the Internet, including a Facebook
Facebook
Facebook is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. , Facebook has more than 800 million active users. Users must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as...
group dedicated to him.
"Mosque At Ground Zero"
Condell has been resolute and outspoken in his opposition to the development of Park51, near the site of the September 11, 2001 World Trade Center attackWorld Trade Center attack
World Trade Center attack can refer to multiple attacks on the World Trade Center in the U.S. city of New York:*World Trade Center 1993 bombings, in which the complex was damaged*September 11, 2001 attacks, in which the complex was destroyed...
, in lower Manhattan. On June 4, 2010, he released a video titled "No Mosque at Ground Zero", in which he claimed that it was representative of Islamic triumphalism and that the United States would soon be on the verge of Islamization and have its freedoms trimmed, as Europe has. The video has attracted 5 million views since it was uploaded. Speaking on why he believes the Mosque is offensive, Pat Condell claimed:
- "To describe it as they have as a tribute to the victims is beyond bad taste, and shows a profound contempt for those who died. It would be hard to find a more provocative gesture short of standing on their graves and burning the American flag. Yet how typical of Islam, with its own hair trigger sensitivity to the slightest imagined insult, to do something so arrogant and insensitive."
Additionally, Condell cast some doubt over the funding of the Mosque, and claimed that Islam would have been banned in the civilized world if it wasn't for the fact it was a religion. He compared the system of Sharia and the Muslims who endorse it to Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
.
The Trouble with Islam reaction
Condell also received criticism after links to his monologue, titled The Trouble with Islam, were circulated to commissioners in the CaliforniaCalifornia
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
city of Berkeley
Berkeley, California
Berkeley is a city on the east shore of the San Francisco Bay in Northern California, United States. Its neighbors to the south are the cities of Oakland and Emeryville. To the north is the city of Albany and the unincorporated community of Kensington...
's Peace and Justice Commission. Condell said in the video that Islam
Islam
Islam . The most common are and . : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...
is "a religion of war", that "Muslim women in Britain who cover their faces are mentally ill", though in some parts of the world women have no choice but to cover their face, as they are "governed... by primitive pigs whose only achievement in life is to be born with a penis in one hand and a Qur'an
Qur'an
The Quran , also transliterated Qur'an, Koran, Alcoran, Qur’ān, Coran, Kuran, and al-Qur’ān, is the central religious text of Islam, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God . It is regarded widely as the finest piece of literature in the Arabic language...
in the other." Commissioner Elliot Cohen described Condell's comments as "insulting, degenerating and racist".
Condell then accused Cohen of being "motivated by his own narrow personal and political agenda which has nothing to do with me or the video clip." The video was initially sent to them by fellow Peace and Justice Commissioner Jonathan Wornick, who said it "tries to expose intolerance in the Muslim world," such as "the intolerance of radical Islamists
Islamism
Islamism also , lit., "Political Islam" is set of ideologies holding that Islam is not only a religion but also a political system. Islamism is a controversial term, and definitions of it sometimes vary...
who say if you insult Allah, you should have your head cut off." Condell said that its popularity proves "there is an enthusiastic audience for comedy ideas and opinions which are routinely censored out of existence in the UK’s mainstream media, thanks to misguided political correctness
Political correctness
Political correctness is a term which denotes language, ideas, policies, and behavior seen as seeking to minimize social and institutional offense in occupational, gender, racial, cultural, sexual orientation, certain other religions, beliefs or ideologies, disability, and age-related contexts,...
".
YouTube censorship
Condell's video "Welcome to Saudi Britain" was removed by YouTube early in October 2008, but reinstated shortly after, due to other YouTube users complaining and posting the video on their own accounts. In it Condell criticises Britain's sanctioning of a ShariaSharia
Sharia law, is the moral code and religious law of Islam. Sharia is derived from two primary sources of Islamic law: the precepts set forth in the Quran, and the example set by the Islamic prophet Muhammad in the Sunnah. Fiqh jurisprudence interprets and extends the application of sharia to...
court, and refers to the entire country of Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia , commonly known in British English as Saudi Arabia and in Arabic as as-Sa‘ūdiyyah , is the largest state in Western Asia by land area, constituting the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and the second-largest in the Arab World...
as mentally ill for its abuse of women
Women's rights in Saudi Arabia
Women's rights in Saudi Arabia are defined by Islam and tribal customs. The Arabian peninsula is the ancestral home of patriarchal, nomadic tribes, in which purdah and namus are considered central....
.
A YouTube spokesman said "YouTube has clear policies that prohibit inappropriate content on the site, such as pornography, gratuitous violence or hate speech.... If users repeatedly break these rules we disable their accounts." The National Secular Society
National Secular Society
The National Secular Society is a British campaigning organisation that promotes secularism and the separation of church and state. It holds that no-one should gain advantage or disadvantage because of their religion or lack of religion. It was founded by Charles Bradlaugh in 1866...
were amongst the complainants to YouTube, saying "as usual, he (Condell) does not mince his words, but he is not saying anything that is untrue. His main thrust is one of outrage on behalf of those Muslim women who will suffer because they are forced to have their marital problems solved in a male-dominated Sharia court."
Shortly after, YouTube reversed their earlier decision saying "Upon further review of the context of Pat Condell's comments, we've reinstated it." Richard Dawkins
Richard Dawkins
Clinton Richard Dawkins, FRS, FRSL , known as Richard Dawkins, is a British ethologist, evolutionary biologist and author...
applauded the reversal, saying "I congratulate YouTube on an excellent decision. Pat Condell is hard-hitting, but always quietly reasonable in tone." Condell believed that it was removed due to a flagging campaign by Islam
Islam
Islam . The most common are and . : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...
ic activists
Activism
Activism consists of intentional efforts to bring about social, political, economic, or environmental change. Activism can take a wide range of forms from writing letters to newspapers or politicians, political campaigning, economic activism such as boycotts or preferentially patronizing...
.
In his next video "Stop Sharia Law in Britain", Condell thanked his supporters, YouTube, and the people who flagged the video for removal and giving it publicity. He clarifies the meaning of his statement in his previous video which caused the video to be removed, where he referred to the entire country of Saudi Arabia as mentally ill.
YouTube also briefly removed Condell's video "Godless and free" but he received an email from YouTube explaining that it had been done in error.
Anti-Palestinian position
Condell has come out in strong opposition to the creation of a PalestinianPalestinian
Palestinian may refer to:* Something of, from, or related to Palestine, the Palestinian territories or the State of Palestine*A member of the Palestinian people, also rendered as Palestinian Arabs**Demographics of Palestine...
state, asserting that Palestinian national aspirations are "a big hoax", that Palestinians do not suffer from human rights violations and their sufferings are "their own fault", and that the root cause of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
Israeli-Palestinian conflict
The Israeli–Palestinian conflict is the ongoing conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. The conflict is wide-ranging, and the term is also used in reference to the earlier phases of the same conflict, between Jewish and Zionist yishuv and the Arab population living in Palestine under Ottoman or...
is solely "hatred of Jews taught in the mosques". Therefore, he asserts that Israel need not make any concessions and that peace negotiations would be useless. Condell's short film "The Great Palestinian
Lie" has been enthusiastically taken up by right-wing groups in Israel.
In a follow-up video, 'Useful idiots for Palestine', Condell states that "irrational Islamic jew-hatred is the root cause of the problem in the middle east".
Works
| Year | Name | Medium | Role | Notes | References |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1991 | Barf Bites Back! | Stand-up Comedy | Actor | ||
| 1997 | Barry Sorts It Out | Comedy | Writer | ||
| 1998 | Stand and Deliver | Stand-up Comedy | Writer | ||
| 2008 | Pat Condell Anthology | Stand-up Comedy | Writer/actor | An anthology of 35 of Condell's videos. | |
| 2010 | Godless and Free | Paperback | Writer |
See also
- Criticism of IslamismCriticism of IslamismCriticism of Islamism concerns critique of those beliefs or notions ascribed to Islamism or Islamist movements. Such criticisms focus on the role of Islam in legislation, the relationship between Islamism and freedom of expression and the rights of women.Among those authors and scholars who have...
- Criticism of religionCriticism of religionCriticism of religion is criticism of the concepts, validity, and/or practices of religion, including associated political and social implications....
- List of comedians
- New AtheismNew AtheismNew Atheism is the name given to a movement among some early-21st-century atheist writers who have advocated the view that "religion should not simply be tolerated but should be countered, criticized, and exposed by rational argument wherever its influence arises." New atheists argue that recent...
- Social impact of YouTubeSocial impact of YouTubeYouTube, by providing a video hosting service, has been involved with popularizing Internet trends in popular culture. Its users represent of society and it is part of a set of social networking sites that people and organizations often maintain a presence on. YouTube has created some internet...
- Religion of PeaceReligion of PeaceThe Religion of peace is a political neologism used as a description of Islam. After the September 11, 2001 attacks, some politicians described Islam as a "religion of peace" in an effort to differentiate between Islamic terrorists and non-violent Muslims...
External links
- Official website
- Pat Condell's user profile at LiveLeakLiveleakLiveLeak is a video sharing website that lets users post and share videos. Liveleak places emphasis on current events, politics and reality-based footage such as war scenes from various parts of the world.The site went live on October 31, 2006...
- Pat Condell at blip.tvBlip.tvThe website Blip.tv is a platform for web series. The company offers a for the "best in original web series" and also offers a dashboard for producers of original web series to distribute and monetize their productions....
- Pat Condell videos subtitled in multiple languages at dotSUB
- Pat Condell audio podcast at LibSynLiberated SyndicationLiberated Syndication, often shortened to LibSyn, is a podcast media hosting company which opened in November 2004. It offers hosting of files to podcast producers under a monthly subscription model...
- Pat Condell at TwitterTwitterTwitter is an online social networking and microblogging service that enables its users to send and read text-based posts of up to 140 characters, informally known as "tweets".Twitter was created in March 2006 by Jack Dorsey and launched that July...