| FrontPageMag.com | By Robert Spencer | By Hugh Fitzgerald | Books | Dhimmi Watch | Islam 101 | Qur'an Blog | Raymond Ibrahim | Robert Spencer |  |
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Tens of millions of Muslims have been permitted to settle within the lands of Western Europe during the past several decades. They have even been extended every conceivable government benefit and kindness to do so – subsidized housing, free education, free medical care. No matter what the nation-state, no matter what its political orientation (liberal or conservative) or where it rates on the level of social tolerance, no matter whether the Muslims in question have arrived from places with some kind of historic, even if at times tenuous connection, to the Infidel land (Pakistanis in England, Somalis in Italy) or with no connection at all (Kurds in Sweden, Moroccans in Holland), the results have been remarkably similar all over Western Europe. Large communities of people are now in place, consisting of adherents of a belief-system that is much more encompassing than anything that the Western world now understands by the word “religion,” and that teaches them to regard as enemy-held territory the various Infidel lands behind whose lines they have been permitted to settle.
And behind those enemy lines, they are not required to abandon their often fanatical and hostile faith, and few do abandon it. Often the later generations cling ever more fervently to it, and implacably make demands for changes in the legal and political institutions, and social arrangements, and cultural assumptions, that characterize the advanced liberal democracies of the Western world. Even when such demands are rebuffed -- as in the grotesque and repeated attempts to limit the Western practice of freedom of speech, whether by a Danish newspaper, or by a Dutch politician or film-maker, or an English civil servant, or a French lycee’s philosophy teacher (the indispensable “prof de philo”), or even by the Pope himself -- they nonetheless are made unembarrassedly and pursued relentlessly. The constant pressure naturally affects the practice of free speech, which should be natural and has now become a self-conscious act of defiance -- defiance of those who come from outside, who would not have produced, nor have tolerated for one minute, the individual liberties enshrined in the American Constitution or the Declaration of the Rights of Man, and who are trying, as cunningly as they can, to destroy those individual rights within the Western countries in order to ensure that there is no freedom of conscience (so as to prevent Muslims in the West from leaving the religion), and to render Islam immune to all potential criticism. Calibans are attempting to order Prosperos about, an undertaking made easier because so many can no longer tell Caliban and Prospero apart.
Within the Infidel lands, the Infidels now must endure daily lives far more unpleasant and unsettled and constrained, far more expensive, and far more physically dangerous, than they were before the large-scale presence of Muslims in their lands. The Camp of Islam, as represented by Muslims in the West and their rich and powerful supporters in the oil states, have also worked to divide the Western alliance. And they have been successful in distancing the countries of Western Europe from their historic ally and political and military rescuer, the United States of America. To this end, Muslims and their collaborators within Europe, who are sometimes paid for their efforts and sometimes merely reflect an overlapping of views, have played upon the pre-existing mental pathologies of anti-Americanism and antisemitism. In France anti-Americanism appears to be a feature of long standing. Antisemitism, meanwhile, has been a permanent fixture among an irreducible percentage of the population in any Western country, impervious even to the now-recognized consequences of what happened between the period 1933 and 1945, beginning in, but hardly limited to, Nazi Germany. The divisions that have been caused as a result of these appeals, and the rivalry for the fat contracts that Saudis and other Arabs can dangle in front of businessmen from different nations should their respective countries promote Saudi or larger Muslim Arab interests, hold a lesson.
The lesson is: Two Can Play That Game. It is extraordinary how little attention -- none, really -- has been paid in the discussion of Jihad and Islam to how to sow divisions within the Camp of Islam, or at least do nothing to hinder the natural divisions from widening. Causing divisions will lead in turn to a general demoralization that will weaken the Camp of Jihad.
But so far one side has only wielded the division weapon. Division has been accomplished in the West in a few decades, and threatens to change the moral and political landscape of Europe if trends are not halted and reversed. The Camp of the Infidels has never been united. India, the country that suffered the most from conquest by Islam, for decades appeared to be seen by the American government purely in Cold-War terms. Nehru, and especially his foreign minister Krishna Menon, were seen as too sympathetic to the Soviet Union. Partly this was a function of misperception, of confusing studies in England in the early part of the last century with the influence of the Fabian Society, and later, a subscription to the Left Book Club of Victor Gollancz. Overlaid upon this was the Bandung Conference, where the “non-allied” nations allied themselves, in their worldview, with the foreign policy and attitudes most favorable to the Soviet Union, least favorable to the United States. And the American government, beginning with the Dulles brothers, saw Pakistan as a natural ally. Unlike those slippery fellows Nehru and Menon, those Pakistani generals could be counted on in the Great Campaign of the Cold War. For what was Islam? Islam was this: A Bulwark Against Communism. The Baghdad Pact became CENTO, a “Mutual Defense Pact,” by which fiction the Americans and the British supplied military training and equipment to Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and Pakistan, and those countries, in turn, took the equipment and had their soldiers receive the training.
CENTO collapsed formally in 1958 (it had collapsed before that) when the body of Iraqi “strongman” Nuri es-Said was dragged, and mutilated at each stop, through the streets of Baghdad, and Iraq pulled out. Turkey continued to be an ally, because for Turkey the Soviet Union was simply the latest embodiment of its historic enemy Russia. Iran stayed an ally, of sorts, until the Shah, like Nuri es-Said, fell. But Pakistan never stopped being a favored recipient of American aid of all kinds, including lots of military aid (even F-16s). It continued to be so for decades, even when the Taliban were first hatched in Pakistan’s madrasas, then sent back to capture Afghanistan, and were given diplomatic and other kinds of support by the government of Pakistan. The cushion provided by American military and economic aid permitted A.Q. Khan, once he had returned to Pakistan from stealing nuclear secrets in the West, to pay for the nuclear program that led, finally, to the production of the “Islamic” bomb which made A. Q. Khan the national hero of Pakistan, and the one untouchable figure in the entire country.
And in the Western alliance itself, over the past thirty years, Arab Muslims, wielding not the “oil weapon” (no such weapon exists, for they are eager to sell the oil) but rather the “money weapon” (that is, the revenues that come from the sale of that oil), have dangled contracts, bribed officials, bought up journalists, and arrived at secret covenants. In short, they have done all the things that have turned much of public opinion in the Western world against Israel -- cunningly painted not as a victim of the endless siege or Lesser Jihad being waged against it but as an aggressor, denying “national” rights to a “Palestinian people,” as the local Arabs in Gaza and the “West Bank” were deliberately renamed after the Six-Day War. The results can be seen all around us. Appeasement of Islam continues at the level of the nations and especially in the upper reaches of the E.U., where such people as Javier Solana, Chris Patten, Miguel Moratinos, and Romano Prodi (now back in Rome), have parroted and further promoted the Eurabian line on foreign policy.
Matters have not been helped, of course, by having as the American President a gauche and inarticulate figure who fits the European stereotype of a limited American, and who -- even when he is right -- cannot make his case convincingly. A different person, with a different and smoother presentation, aware of and able to appeal to the various fashions or mental vanities of Europeans, could do much to repair relations that must be repaired.
But what is most strange is that the ability of the Muslims to exploit or even to cause or widen divisions in the Camp of Infidels, has not caused anyone in Washington to think that two can play this game, and that the most intelligent way of proceeding is, wherever possible, to divide the Camp of Jihad and Islam. The divisions that most obviously present themselves are three: sectarian, ethnic, and economic. By sectarian divisions, one means primarily the long history of hostility between Sunni and Shi’a. The Americans in Iraq have not caused such hostility; it predates the founding of the American Republic by about a thousand years. It can be seen in the attacks on Shi’a in Pakistan over the past few decades, on the attempt by the Sunni Taliban to wipe out the Shi’a Hazara in Afghanistan, in the contumely with which the Wahhabi (Sunni) Arabs treat the Shi’a in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia, in the clashes between Sunni and Shia’ in Yemen and Lebanon, in the growing fury of the Shi’a who make up 70-75% of the population of Bahrain at attempts by the Sunni ruler and local Sunnis to keep the Shi’a permanently down. And in Iraq, whether the Sunni despotism took on the protective coloration of “Ba’athism,” just as in Syria the Alawite dictatorship took on a similar camouflage, the removal of the regime of Saddam Hussein made inevitable what the Administration still keeps thinking it can prevent: a struggle, certainly involving killing, and possibly involving open and continuous warfare between Sunnis who will never acquiesce in their loss of power to the Shi’a Arabs, and Shi’a Arabs who will never return to the Sunnis the power they, the Shi’a, at long last possess – political power, and the control of the nation’s wealth that flows automatically from that.
The constant Sunni-Shi’a strife within Iraq is not to be deplored, but to be welcomed, by Infidels. That civil war could attract outside support by Shi’a in Iran and among the Hizballah of Lebanon, who might send volunteers, arms, and money to their co-religionists, while the Sunnis, though greatly outnumbered within Iraq, can expect great sums of money from the rich Arab oil states (especially Saudi Arabia and Kuwait and the U.A.E.), and Sunni volunteers from Syria, Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, to come flocking in to make sure that the Land of the Two Rivers, the land of the historic Abbasid Caliphate, is not permanently controlled by the “Rafidite dogs” (as Zarqawi called them) the Shi’a. All this ensures that all this violent energy is not being directed at Infidels.
The second great division within Islam, also visible in Iraq, is that between the Arabs and the non-Arab Muslims. Islam has universalist claims but within that pretend-universalism, it is the Arabs, the “Best of Peoples,” to whom, and in whose language, the right revelation of the Qur’an was given, who have always used Islam as it was intended to be used by those who created it: as a vehicle to both justify and promote Arab conquest of more advanced, wealthier, more settled, more numerous non-Arab populations. Everything about Islam promotes the idea of the desirability of being Arab. Non-Muslim Arabs pray five times a day turning toward Mecca in Arabia. They emulate a seventh-century Arab in his mores and manners, or those of his Companions, and do so even when they are the descendants of Hindus and Buddhists in the distant East Indian archipelago, or some misfit in Marin County who has converted or “reverted” to Islam as the Last Stop on an increasingly desperate Spiritual Search. And finally, the taking of an Arab name – so exciting for some Western converts -- and even the manufacturing of a false Arab lineage (sometimes including direct descent from Muhammad) -- helps convince non-Arab Muslims, those wannabe Arabs, that they have managed to become that splendid thing, an Arab.
But the linguistic, cultural, and political imperialism of the Arabs, which is part of Islam, is not universally welcomed. The Berber writer Kateb Yacine, possibly the most important Berber cultural figure, refused to write in Arabic, and in the French he chose was scathing on the subject of Arab domination of the Berbers. Arab militias supported fully by the government of Sudan have now murdered 400,000 non-Arab black Africans of Darfur. Sudan, in its attempts to pursue its policies and avoid Western constraints, is fully supported in turn by Egypt and other members of the Arab League. That point needs to be emphasized -- not the Sudanese government’s genocidal campaign, but the Arab League’s unanimous support for the Sudanese murders of black Africans. In Malaysia, in Indonesia, even among some Pakistanis in the West (though not in Pakistan itself) there are expressions here and there of dismay or even disgust at the forced arabization, or even the self-arabization, of so many Muslims. In Iraq, the attitude of the Kurds toward the American forces, the unfeigned friendliness of many does reflect the understanding that only the Americans have protected the Kurds from the Arabs. But it may also reflect something else. As non-Arabs, the Kurds have another identity to which to appeal -- an identity which may rival, or at least undercut, their identity as Muslims. Arabs have no such other identity; Arabness, Uruba, reinforces the Muslim identity. Indeed, it even helps to persuade Christian Arabs to adopt as their own the Muslim worldview, so entangled is the notion of “Arabness” with the idea of Islam. This helps to explain the well-known phenomenon of the islamochristian Arab, who parrots the Muslim line on Israel, and also defends, or attempts to defend Islam from any criticism in the West.
What would an independent Kurdistan do for the Infidels? It would have immediate consequences in Iran. For the Kurds of Iran would be inspired to rise up against the Persians who rule them, and to attempt not merely greater autonomy, but to free themselves from Iran and to become part of Kurdistan. This would use up Iranian energies and war materiel. The Americans could supply the Kurds with whatever equipment, training, and other help they wished, and could also offer diplomatic support by intervening with Turkey, to assure it that the American government would extract from the Kurds a guarantee that whatever territorial demands were made on Iran or Syria, none would be made on the Turkish-populated areas of eastern Anatolia. This could be presented as an offer the Turks (whose army has been trained and equipped by the Americans) will see the wisdom of accepting now that the Cold War is over, and Turkey is no longer necessary to American policymakers in quite the same way.
Kurds in Iran becoming bolder in their attacks on the forces of the Islamic Republic, and possibly aided by Kurdistan (in turn aided by the Americans), would have effects in Iran itself on other disaffected minorities -- Baluchis, and Arabs in Ahwaz and elsewhere in Khuzistan, where Iran’s oilfields are located. Barely half of the population of the Islamic Republic of Iran is Persian. Should even the Azeris join in, it will be impossible for what remains of the Persian Empire to hold together. And in attempting to hold it together, the regime in Tehran will necessarily have to divert all kinds of resources and attention that might make it easier to halt, or slow down, its nuclear program. In any case, members of disaffected minorities are more likely to want to prevent the Iranian government from acquiring such weaponry, as well as the attendant power and glory that would accrue to the regime from such acquisition. They might aid in sabotaging or at least reporting on the nuclear program.
Finally, an independent Kurdistan would or could be a model to other non-Arab Muslims, beginning but not ending with the Berbers of the Kabyle (and the Berbers of France, who might find less appeal in Islamic unity if their resentments of the Arabs can be encouraged).
And finally, there is one last great division in the Camp of Islam. That is the economic division between the sparsely populated and fabulously rich oil-and-natural-gas states -- Saudi Arabia, the U.A.E., Kuwait, Qatar, Libya -- and the poor ones, which is to say every Muslim state that does not have the bonanza of that accident of geology that has made the Camp of Islam, over the past third of a century, such a threat to Infidels.
The sectarian and ethnic divisions within Islam are best exploited by Infidels doing nothing. Indeed, they can only be exploited fully when the American government pulls its troops out of Iraq and lets the real, unavoidable, permanent hostilities -- or ineffectual attempts to dampen them -- begin in Iraq, and to have the inevitable effects on Muslims outside Iraq, that they will have.
Similarly, the last of the three great exploitable divisions within the camp of Islam, the economic gap between oil-and-gas rich states and all the others, can be best exploited for Infidel purposes not by doing something, but by doing nothing. By ceasing to support Muslim states with great and continuing amounts of aid of all kinds -- economic and even military -- the Infidel world will end what has become a disguised Jizyah, received by Muslims as by right, and given by Infidel donors as if by necessity, to be continued for fear of offending Muslims, for fear of the Muslim reaction. The Americans have given Egypt more than $60 billion. In return, Egypt remains a world center of anti-Americanism and antisemitism. Its population, in every opinion poll, consistently shows itself to be imbued with hostility toward America. The Egyptian government, with its double game, has done everything it can to stymie efforts to effectively protect the black Africans of Darfur. It has also steadily allowed and even possibly encouraged the smuggling of weaponry into Gaza. It has done everything to inveigle the American government to “deal with Iran” by -- of course, what did you expect? -- pushing Israel to yield still more territory, to make still more concessions, in order to weaken the supposed appeal, as the Egyptians put it to credulous American officials, of Shi’a Iran to Sunnis in the Middle East. No matter what the issue, of course, the Arabs will always find a way to reinterpret and present events as dependent on further Israeli concessions.
If the Western world stops giving Egypt, Pakistan, Jordan, and the “Palestinians” aid, that will clear the psychological air. And what is more, it will force the poorer Arabs to go to the rich Arabs for support. The “Palestinians” who by the tens of thousands are in these competing “security services” should be forced to give up their violent idleness and forced to work. They should no longer able to count on permanent Western aid, as so many of them do in their overpopulated, self-primitivized, permanently unviable statelets -- whose very unviability they are prevented from recognizing by the constant infusion of Western, Infidel, aid. They should be made to cease to treat such aid as akin to the protection money that was the Jizyah (the payments by Infidels to Muslim masters). They should be made to ask their “Arab brothers” for aid. Then two things can happen. The support can be forthcoming. The support can be denied. If forthcoming, it will never be enough for the poorer Arabs, who will resent more and more the unfairness of having to ask for such aid from those who, as fellow members of the umma al-islamiyya, ought to willingly give it. And if such support is given, more will always be requested. And the rich Arabs and even Iranians, if they continue to give, will more and more resent those whom they support. Consider, for example, all the reports of fury in Iran over Iranian aid being sent to Hizballah -- when Iranians at home are suffering.
The other possibility is that such aid will be denied, or nearly denied, with grand promises made (as always), and then no follow through. And that, too, will increase the intra-Muslim resentments and fury.
If one wishes to exploit the divisions within the Camp of Jihad and Islam, then, two things must be done:
1) The Americans must leave Iraq, and leave it promptly, using as an excuse the need to “let the Iraqis make the necessary compromises with each other as people must in a democratic society.” It won’t happen. It can’t happen. But something good for the Infidel camp and bad for the Camp of Islam will be the inevitable result. And the spectacle of internecine warfare, just like the spectacle of internecine warfare in Gaza, is useful for Infidels to observe: it helps give those who need to know it a little taste of what Islamic societies, uncushioned by vast wealth or by Infidel aid, tend towards. That will increase the sectarian and ethnic divisions within the Camp of Islam.
2) The Americans and other Infidels must cease the further transfer of Infidel wealth, beyond the ten trillion transferred so far to pay for oil and gas from Muslim countries since 1973, and the trillions still to be transferred through such sales. That is, the Jizyah of foreign aid to all Muslim polities and peoples must end, and those poorer Muslims forced to get such aid, if they get any, from the fabulously rich Arab and Muslim states of OPEC. That will increase the awareness of stark economic divisions within the Camp of Islam.
Is there more that can be done? Of course there is. But start with #1 and #2. The good results will be visible -- very shortly.
Posted by Hugh at October 4, 2006 10:53 AM
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A brilliant article, to say the least. The problem with the West is that it always is filled with "compassion"- it always feels obligated to save these people. What happens when there's an earthquake or tsunami? The US rushes off to help.
People want to better themselves but retain their anti-Western mentality? No problem-we'll open up the borders for you and give you freebies too. A country is a mess, like Somalia. Don't worry, we'll build you a nation. This "compassion" of the West really is killing us all, especially when the Islamaniacs thank us with a 9/11, a Madrid, a London or just making the lives of average people harder (just go to any airport for an example). Let the Muslims take care of themselves-they have plenty of money from high oil prices. Why do we have to think the West is responsible for taking care of this rabble? We really must be as stupid as the Bin Ladens perceive us to be to keep doing these suicidal things.
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at October 4, 2006 11:16 AM
The United States of America gets less than ten percent of its imported oil from the Gulf and Saudi Kingdoms. It is Europe and China that gets most of its oil imports from those places. The probability of Eurabia and China cutting off the payments to dar al Islam is practically zero. Moreover, the French, for example, assiduously court these totalitarians/terrorists in order to get cut rate prices on its oil and gas purchases, but it comes at a price. The French will promise to adhere to the geopolitical agenda of these states. They are more than happy to do this, since these oil merchants function as handy proxies in France's war against the United States and Israel.
Very interesting article, but not without some lacunae in understanding the nature of the beast.
at October 4, 2006 11:24 AM
Condi was sent to Foggy Bottom to clean house and get that place in order. I think the resident Leftists from the Ivy League cleaned her clock.
at October 4, 2006 11:25 AM
This "compassion" of the West really is killing us all
That compassion is a paradoxical legacy of Western Colonialism:
1) it is a perpetuation (and in certain ways an intensification), in Leftist terms, of Western Colonialism's paternalistic condescension for the Noble Savage
2) it is a Leftist atonement for the "sins" of Western Colonialism.
These two have gone beyond mere expressions of sentimentality and expiation, into concrete policies: expensive, elaborate, institutionalized, and ideologically constructed policies vis-a-vis the Third World, and that major beast of the Third World, Islam. These policies have mostly been abysmal failures, when compared with the degree of constructive beneficence which Western Colonialism managed to effect.
Posted by: remote_control at October 4, 2006 11:29 AM
The results can be seen all around us. Appeasement of Islam continues at the level of the nations and especially in the upper reaches of the E.U., where such people as Javier Solana, Chris Patten, Miguel Moratinos, and Romano Prodi (now back in Rome), have parroted and further promoted the Eurabian line on foreign policy.
It always amazes me how the masses are so eager to follow leaders of this pathetic ilk!
Matters have not been helped, of course, by having as the American President a gauche and inarticulate figure who fits the European stereotype of a limited American, and who -- even when he is right -- cannot make his case convincingly.
George never was very smart in business either. Lucky for him, daddy bailed him out every time.
A different person, with a different and smoother presentation, aware of and able to appeal to the various fashions or mental vanities of Europeans, could do much to repair relations that must be repaired
This description fits every Liberal politician we have. To hell with the mental vanities of the Europeans; we need courageous leaders that want to do the right thing even when they think no one is looking. So far, the best we can do is scrounge up pedophiles that busy themselves with phone sex with underage boys while they are voting on important legislation. Perhaps this deals with the “various fashions or mental vanities of Europeans?”
…the most intelligent way of proceeding is, wherever possible, to divide the Camp of Jihad and Islam. The divisions that most obviously present themselves are three: sectarian, ethnic, and economic…
Ah, but therein lies the subtlety for the reasons why such circumspect insights are doomed to failure. Why does one divide? To conquer! By conquer, one implies to defeat. Defeat of an enemy like islam is anathema to what can be termed the “various fashions or mental vanities of Europeans” and to the American politicians able to appeal to them.
Washington is slow to change and support of islamic states as a bulwark against a no longer existing communist Soviet Union is still a driving force on one level as was so aptly described above.
While the thesis Mr. Fitzgerald is on the mark in every way his ideas can never be implemented and won’t be.
Why not?
Because they are all too rational!
Aside from his use of the term “nation-state” (which is really nothing more than a buzz word for all nations under a one world supra government like the UN) hi thesis has the recipe for national survival and the defeat of a dangerous but feeble and basically inept enemy.
Western Leaders won't have it!
at October 4, 2006 11:40 AM
This column is very good. I have long sensed that our economy is the real wealth that we possess.
If we pull out of Iraq the Saudis will build a wall very quickly. They are the ones with the money and they aren't going to give it to the other ISLAMIC countries to feed them. They will not let immigrants from other ISLAMIC countries into their lands to become another welfare state.
The Jihidists in the "Territorial Lands" of Pakistan and Afganistan will soon be eating dirt and sand. They will probably kill each other to make their food supplies go further. So be it.
Many american companies are starting to realize that having all of their company in the US means that they have complete control of their companies. Believe me, crawling into bed with the Chinese is not a good thing. GM has found that out on more than one occasion. Thus tightening up on our immigrant policy has more than social results.
God willing, of course.
Posted by: credit man at October 4, 2006 12:00 PM
"The plans for a future war, was all I saw on Channel 4"
Morrissey
We're at it again. Blaming the Arabs for a state of mind in the West. Well, the West divided itself into factions of Left and Right a very long time ago.
The Left loves a victim, and is largely responsible for demonising Israel because of the perceived victimhood of the palestinian Arabs. Similarly, the Western Left have the guilt of their historical supremecy, and that is why they look to destroy their own cultures by importing and promoting foreign ones.
Jihad might be exploiting that, but it is not causing it.
Anti-semitism and anti-Americanism is always greatest in the places where capitalism (the Jews are forever associated with capitalism) and individual freedom are resented and despised. Name some Western countries and/or organisations that are Socialist and protectionist? I don't know when Europe has been the historical ally of the United States. I know that Britain and its Empire (including India, which I guess include a few people you might call Pakistanis these days) and the United States invaded Italy, France, Belgium, Holland and Germany to rid the world of Europes latest gift to the world - Nazism. Meanwhile, Europes previous gift to the world, Communism, was set to conquer vast territories of the globe and subject it to tyrrany. (Before that Napoleon, etc, etc)
The latest European gift is called the European Union and it leans to the Left and it is protectionist and it does not like individual freedom. Yes, it is possible that it is all set to be exploited by the Arabs, and perhaps that is the way this latest gift from "America's historical ally" will go bad in a big way. But it is already bad, and it is what we in the West have made of it. Not the Arabs.
Posted by: FREE LEE at October 4, 2006 12:01 PM
Hugh:
I'm with you on most of this but I think you're placing too much confidence in the Kurds. If the Kurds are the source of the Islamic gangland violence in many of Sweden's cities these days, that proves that, as Muslims, they can not be relied on to permanently and securely align themselves with the interests and values of Westerners simply because of their alienation from the Arabs.
One thing you've left out of your proposal that I would suggest for inclusion is the condition that any western aid for the Kurdish cause must be conditioned either on Kurdistan's abandonment of Islam in favour of Christianity, of Judaism, of western religious pluralism, or of whatever they wish other than Islam, or at the very least, the implementation of the notion of the so-called "reform of Islam" that many of us speculate about. If it is to be this latter scenario they must be required to enact, as part of it, complete freedom of thought, of religious affiliation (with full rights for Christian and/or any other missionaries and local communities unhindered by the state or the popular mob), of academic inquiry, the complete emancipation of women, the principle of due process and the rule of law, and full equality of all citizens before the law, or they get no help from us and sink into the mire that the rest of the Umma is headed for.
Unless this notion of a "reformed Islam" can be proven to be more than a figment of western liberals' overactive imagination, we have to assume that as Muslims they will always harbour the seeds of hatred against the West that could someday come to full bloom just as they have among so many other Muslims, and accordingly offer them nothing that could allow them to emerge later on down the road as another deadly enemy.
Posted by: templar at October 4, 2006 12:02 PM
Assalamau-Laikum all,
An interesting topic here today. The implicit or explicit implication behind this is that most Muslim immigrants will never really fit into Europe so we must divide them. But how did this all happen?
We immigrants came after WWII when sufficient manpower was not available to cope with the economic boom in the West.
"Let us bring in a temporary workforce from the East (as we have always done) to do the work we don't want to. Hell we can also teach them a few skills at the same time (like Taxi driving, hospital cleaning, airport manning, baggage handling etc)
". We don't need clever peoples for that...just get em in".
"Eh, Minister (Simple Simon) do you have any specifics in mind?"....
“What, nah....Hindoos, West Indian,….Muslims, Bangalis ..it’s only temporary anyway.”
So at your request we came ….we could make a little money and believe me …
”we fully intended to go back too”. I mean the UK (say) was cold, damp, the food has completely bland …., even the loos were outside in the cold…I mean we did better than that back home in Pak in the late 40s.
But you know how it was….money was better than home, I’ll (temporarily of-course) call the wife over, (Bloody Shepard’s pie every freaking day, especially with that fork thing - well it takes its toll on me), need to get some real home cooking .. something I can enjoy.
And before you know it..*Damn*she’s pregnant, Oh well Allah T’alah knows best. Two year later, Muhammad needs someone to play with …and sister Taqqia is born.
And then there’s school & so on.
All was fine but two important things happened.
1) The next generation wants to work like Dad (mum was at home) ….but the industry they worked in (e.g. foundry, car production) is gone. It has been replaced by more hi-tech work…and neither Muhammad, Taqqia, Ali, Ahmed, Rukia or Hamid and the youngest Aiesha…none of them can get their heads round that maths, physics or chemistry …oh well…never mind…best get him to the mosque and ask Allah (or the Imam) for study help.
2) Well they can’t help and the childrens cannot find work, but it turns out that this generation doesn’t WANT to go back. They like it here…the beer, women, prayer facilities….it’s like home to home…ya know.
So onto today, where although immigration is under control….it is other members of the families already here who make the bulk of peoples coming in. Maybe we can get the Imam to talk to them about integration.
The original generation didn’t want to stay…but the newer ones do ….oh well Allah T’alah knows best (best dash...call for prayer loud speaker is blaring… need to get to the masjid).
Posted by: Naseem at October 4, 2006 12:05 PM
Great Article! One more proof of them getting more then they deserve -- In India muslims are legally allowed to practice Polygamy and then they live off welfare from government and support terrorism from inside the country they live in.
Posted by: vonbueren at October 4, 2006 12:07 PM
Hugh,
From your lips to Dubya the Dhimmi-wit's ears.
He's got his Condi-Doll on another fool's errand:
Rice pledges better life in West Bank
AP - 30 minutes ago
RAMALLAH, West Bank - U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Wednesday said the U.S. is "very concerned" about the plight of the Palestinians and pledged to improve living conditions in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Rice, in the region in hopes of reviving long-moribund peace efforts, spoke after meeting Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
at October 4, 2006 12:12 PM
Before it gets pulled . . .
View YouTube video
at October 4, 2006 12:19 PM
Hugh
On your point #1 above, if Bob Woodward's account of the rift between Rumsfeld and Rice is true - Rumsfeld wanting the Iraqi soldiers to fail and learn on their own, and Rice wanting added backup for Iraq - then there may be hope yet. Rumsfeld's views generally prevail, and if US troops are made to play a less significant role, it could potentially be a first step in the process of leaving Iraq.
Sometimes, doing the right things accidentally without knowing why can go a long way.
Posted by: Infidel Pride at October 4, 2006 12:27 PM
Excellent ideas.
But we all know that all this will fall on deaf ears. Common sense seems to have deserted those leading America. Or is it courage that has left them? Why is Rice genuflecting before the muslims? She doesn't have to - it doesn't impress them one bit or soften any muslim - they expect it as her duty, being a dhimmi. If anything they will want more - and get very upset if she doesn't willingly oblige, without asking. Ridiculous.
Naseem, that's a really very perceptive assessment you have given. You must develop it further and suggest how to get the muslims out of the islamic Stockholm syndrome and Ghettoism and become a part of the world community, respecting and helping other human beings, regardless of their faith or lack of it.
Posted by: Dunk at October 4, 2006 12:42 PM
Slightly off topic, with gratitude to Hugh on this outstanding piece and my apologies.
The Dems and islam.
The Dems eye the islamics with covetous eyes - for their vote - as a compliant not thinking automatic majority vote - like a majority of blacks for the Dems. The imams say - place your vote on the Dems, because they are the most likely to appease us and go dhimmi. And the Dems in the War Room shout - come on in - we value their vote.
When the islamics lose the left, they will inexhorable more likely will lose the war, and we will more likely win.
Posted by: dgene at October 4, 2006 12:44 PM
"Matters have not been helped, of course, by having as the American President a gauche and inarticulate figure who fits the European stereotype of a limited American, and who -- even when he is right -- cannot make his case convincingly."
Elegant, flawless assessment of Bush. When he champions what he should, he does it badly and discredits it with his incompetence and mediocrity. Tragic, tragic, tragic. Then there's fumbling bumbling Rumsfeld "I will not resign".
If you won't resign, please, please die.
at October 4, 2006 12:54 PM
It is foolish to diss your only allies like G.W. and Rumsfeld (a hero of mine).
Remember this you lib surrender monkeys - you will have your throats cut first - as in Iran with the mullah return from Paris to Tehran.
Stupidity in the issue of self preservation is unforgiveable. If you dont value your own life, think of your children (if you have any).
Posted by: dgene at October 4, 2006 1:07 PM
This "compassion" of the West really is killing us all
That compassion is a paradoxical legacy of Western Colonialism:
1) it is a perpetuation (and in certain ways an intensification), in Leftist terms, of Western Colonialism's paternalistic condescension for the Noble Savage
2) it is a Leftist atonement for the "sins" of Western Colonialism.
These two have gone beyond mere expressions of sentimentality and expiation, into concrete policies: expensive, elaborate, institutionalized, and ideologically constructed policies vis-a-vis the Third World, and that major beast of the Third World, Islam. These policies have mostly been abysmal failures, when compared with the degree of constructive beneficence which Western Colonialism managed to effect.
Posted by: remote_control at October 4, 2006 11:29 AM
Boy, if that isn't the truth. Over 40 years of leftist nonsense sure prepared the ground well for the Islamaniac menace to take root and
flourish. Freedom for all, responsibility for none, PC, diversity and other baloney has furnished these maniacs with the tools to bury us with.
at October 4, 2006 1:15 PM
As much as Naseem gets blasted here today's post was right on target. The West DID do it to itself.
Yeah, those imams need to start coming up with better things for their people than preach anti-Western poop or else we'll have a hell of a lot crazies in our midst.
at October 4, 2006 1:32 PM
"If you dont value your own life, think of your children (if you have any)."
dgene-
I have told my kids not to go and risk their lives to prop up a government ruled by a gang of creeps called "The Supreme Council of Islamic Revolution." Give me their flag so I can piss on it.
dgene, If you wanna go and play Mr Rogers to these fratricidal semites, go for it. No hurry. You have plenty of time. THEIR war has been going on for 1400 years so what's another 10-20-50 years?
Osama laid a trap and Dubya the Dhimmi-Wit fell for it hook, line and sinker.
Mr. Rumsfield-Worshipper, what do you bet me turmoil in Iraq and Afghanistan will still be going on when Georgie-boy and your hero Rumsfield finally clear their stupid asses out of government?
If you're a real sucker (Rumsfield, hero????), you'd take the bet.
Posted by: Ynkedoodl2 at October 4, 2006 1:34 PM
P.S.: Although Leftist ideology has been a major contributor to our current inability to even notice the Problem of Islam -- let alone begin to construct strategies (such as Hugh's) to deal with it -- the Western problem is larger than the division of Left and Right.
The larger division within the West to worry about is the division of PC and non-PC. The reason why I say this is a larger division than Left/Right is easy to substantiate: While it is obvious that the Left is predominantly PC, we also see that most of the representatives on the Right are blinded by PC as well. The majority of the Right has over the 50-odd years become slowly affected and infected by PC. While a good deal of the ideological substance of PC has been devised and excreted by the Left, it has become more amorphous and powerful, socioculturally speaking, than a mere ideological arm of a political wing could hope to be.
With the dominance of PC in mind, the most important division in the West now, relative to the Problem of Islam would reflect a proportion of something like 90/10 -- with 10% being the ones like us who get it. (In the remaining 90%, there are many who are slowly inching their way to our side, at the speed of slugs.)
at October 4, 2006 1:59 PM
First, I'd like to comment on the above-stated concern about political-correctness, by "remote_control." The pc regimen is the outcome of a long process by which Gramscian Marxism has morphed out of its Stalinist, Leninist, and Trotskyist forebears. Antonio Gramsci was an Italian Communist who, in the aftermath of the failure of the October 1917 revolution to galvanize the Left outside of Russia, decided that Marxist theory of the industrial proletariat had to be re-written to reflect how he saw a culture's values and worldview was disseminated. He believed that one had to refocus, in the West, one's efforts on infecting, transforming, and then controlling the means by which the capitalist culture's values were imparted: media, education, and law. Thus, in the United States and in Western Europe this effort was ramped up by hard-line Marxists and their socialist and Social Democrat allies. In Europe and in North America the Sixties' radicals were encouraged to ensconce themselves in those professions in order to advance the revolution. They have done this rather successfully. One of the bi-products of this power-grab is the regimen of the muzzling of free speech in our societies. Certain topics, ideas, and ways of talking about social, religious, legal, and international problems/challenges have to be framed within the constraints, imposed by legal thuggery, of thought police.
We are deep within the process of having our free speech rights circumscribed - all in the service of imposing a worldview that is aimed at transforming our "false consciousness." This took several decades to accomplish and to reverse it will entail a long period of time and many people who are going to have to do precisely what the Gramscians did in the earliest years of their academic career climb: stay undercover and lie about one's real political views. Conservative and moderate voices - anyone with some distance between themselves and the Far Left - are going to have to endure being, on the surface, what they are not. There is no true academic freedom in our education system. It was through deception that this state of affairs was achieved and it can only be through deception that it is undermined, since the legal profession is largely disposed towards a favorable treatment of the Left in education and media. The Left is deeply ensconsed in the legal profession.
The article posted here by "Hugh" is brilliant and has much to commend it. Just a few weeks ago I was pondering the same reality and realized just how far along this curve the enemy is in the divide-and-conquer strategy. I am against a complete withdrawal from Iraq, for these reasons. Iranian influence is deeply inserted into the Shi'a factions now raising hell in parts of the country, and dominates the British sector down by Basrah and Um Qasar. We will only strengthen Iran by leaving them the field in Iraq. In the present context, that can only have disastrous consequences, in view of Iran's defiance of the West and its ability to rope in allies like Russia and France. We must have bases in Kurdistan. That is non-negotiable, since we learned that Turkey was not a true ally before the inception of OIF. If we have to take on Iran, we would be fools to go hat in hand to Ankara again.
We are stuck with Iraq and Afghanistan as lilly pads in our longer, larger strategy of dealing with terror-sponsoring nations like Iran. Plus, I like the idea of the savages being drawn to the jihad in Iraq, where we can more efficiently kill them there.
at October 4, 2006 3:15 PM
Maybe OT, but a warning to us all about our dhimmi government:
http://web.archive.org/web/20010815210951/http://www.usembassy.state.gov/riyadh/wwwhvzxp.html
Posted by: germaninamerica at October 4, 2006 3:24 PM
FredIsinglass
"We will only strengthen Iran by leaving them the field in Iraq."
How about: We (the US) get the hell out of the way (except a military zone in the Kurd north) so that the Shia and Sunni can hammer the hell out of each other. Sunni crazy extremists will pour across the border to fight the rising spectre of Iranian Shiism and it just won't be our problem any longer.
Like my Bubby used to say: "Better they should kill each other than us!"
Posted by: Ynkedoodl2 at October 4, 2006 3:33 PM
dgene-
Our role in Iraq is RIDICULOUS. Your 'hero' Bush went into this idioticly sentimental war not knowing the difference between sunni and shia.
As for generals - I tend to judge them on SUCCESS. Rumsie is dogged, determined, unflinching and a box of hammers.
Posted by: poetcomic1 at October 4, 2006 4:12 PM
Just saw Ben Bernanke say that in order to offset the demographic imbalance, America needs to be allowing 3 million immigrants in per year instead of the 1 million immigrants currently being let in per year. Are our countries nothing but cheap machines? Put in some cheap oil and some cheap parts, and forget about it. They are saying that as long as it works, who cares how it is done. Our countries might as well be China, Russia, or Indonesia. All that matters is that the economy runs!
Contact the Fed, your congressmen, the white house, and every level of government. Tell them to stop this stupidness! Tell them organic growth works!
Posted by: ofcourse at October 4, 2006 4:14 PM
poetcomic1, you do not know just how a propos your handle is, in view of the drivel you just posted. This article by Hugh begs for a thoughtful response by even those who do not agree with him. Lobbing your talking point, adolescent epithets add exactly ZERO to the discussion. Grow up and expand your mind.
at October 4, 2006 4:40 PM
FredIsinglass-
Americans fight and die for simple reasons. Like our freedom, our survival, our children. I don't give a rat's ass about bringing democracy to the people of Iraq so they can install a Mullahcracy. Americans are fighting for stupid reasons stupidly. Sorry I'm not subtle and complex enough for you.Can't you just SMELL disaster for us in Iraq? If not, you've lost your sense of smell.
Posted by: poetcomic1
at October 4, 2006 4:57 PM
Going into Iraq, albeit 6 mo. late, was a great move by America.
But pc,islam ignorance, and the howls of the left kept us from prosecuting this war, after the first 6 weeks, properly; now we have a better idea of islam, have less illusions of pc, and have exposed the fool America hating liberals for the fools they are.
(Also we still had that master of inaction, George Tenet, running the CIA)
So, depending on our objectives (and its not to effect a Western style democracy, but a democracy of sorts - and it should be to limit the power of fundamental islam) not only can we succeed in Iraq, but we have to a large extent already succeeded, and will continue to do so.
If not for G.W. and Rummy, and us on the right,the fools on the left could have kissed their ass goodbye by now. (Now if only we could relocate the left to Europe where they can drown in their own bile with their fellow socialists).
Posted by: dgene at October 4, 2006 5:45 PM
An interesting article. I am still considering your points and the pros and cons. Letting Iraq divide and potentially regress after all the work that has been done seems wasteful and would give those who say that Muslims should not even try to adopt democratic and secular societies support. While I am not in favor of compassion for compassion's sake, there have been enough manipulations for political reasons during the cold war (which, while arguably necessary, we are still cleaning up after). I think it is by far time to say that we are going to support democracy and modern economics first and play interests off each other as a last resort. I am not completely against machiavelian manipulations but I am as yet unconvinced that it would be the wises choice.
As for the idea that western immigrant Muslims and their offspring are by and large beyond assimilation:
"And behind those enemy lines, they are not required to abandon their often fanatical and hostile faith, and few do abandon it."
I am not saying that this is not based on some real facts but I find it difficult to assess the degree to which this is true. It is difficult to get accurate information about people's views, especially young people who often give different responses to surveys depending on whether family and friends are present. Also people who might be apostates or heretics in their views may be unwilling to put their feelings into writing by admitting them on a survey. It is also nearly impossible to find information on whether the rate of secularization is increasing or decreasing and what rate of change is needed to prevent political power from accumulation in the hands of the religious. Certainly the extremists get the best pulpits but the rate of secularization is difficult to measure. Before 9/11 and since, people have said that the very conservative, old testament Christian groups and sects (those who like the idea of using the state to enforce specific religious beliefs) were growing at disturbing rates but it turns out that it is only because the most conservative members of mainstream churches are leaving while the liberal members are leave the churchs all together. What looks like a revival can sometimes be a collapse. Demographic shifts in religious identity and beliefs can be tricky to measure.
Also, there are lots of immigrant kids growing up today, seeing their family members going nuts over cartoons and seeing their peers riot for petty reasons. They are discussing these issues on the Internet and comparing the secular life with the alternative future.
Christianity, Hinduism and lots of other faiths, sects and even strict cults are vulnerable to demographic corrosion. Modern culture, globalization, scientific knowledge and exposure to other cultures and beliefs are weakening all belief systems which are based on certainty. Why is Islam believed to be immuned? Reading the blogs of people from the Middle East reveals a lot of very secular, modern Muslims who describe societies where everyone drinks on the QT and Google searches for porn are massive. Why can't a policy of division be applied to immigrant communities? Could a rate of secularization, and conversion to other religions that exceeded immigration rates and higher birth rates of immigrants be achievable? Why can't psyops be applied to our own nations? Perhaps by non-governmental entities.
Posted by: Chuck the Lucky at October 4, 2006 6:23 PM
Chuck the Lucky,
I tend to agree with you that a certain amount of secularization is a good thing - and that coming from me, a practicing Roman Catholic. I am a strong proponent of the separation of Church and State, but I do not want a society that is hostile towards humane and humanistic values. After all, socialist countries, past and present, are very secularized but have enormous social problems and degradation of ethics and morality. I speak as one who is a former Leftist. I learned, many years ago, what "scientific socialism" hath wrought, and it was not a new "moral human being." Good religion must have a place in the panoply of people's lives. It gives people a sense of meaning that mere materialism can never impart.
The anectdotal evidence of cultural Muslims in Muslim countries partaking of booze and porn on the sly is not evidence of progress. Those societies remain violently misogynistic, with no real public values that are humane or humanistic. There is no evidence of those societies being authentically liberal, and the anectdotal evidence of people participating in libertine hedonism is not evidence whatsoever of progress that leads to better education, more invention, freedom of speech, and economic advancement. Rather, Islam is still the gestalt of these people, even if they live Islam rather hypocritically, because it provides for them a fallback position when they feel the West has cheated them out of honor or glory.
For me, the materialistic hedonism of Europe is not the model for progress, because there will always be disillusionment with that way of life. There are plenty of kids in the banlieus in France who tried the wild side and then came back to the mosque, Qur'an, and Sunnah. Whether we like it or not (and I intensely dislike Islam), Islam offers to many people structure and meaning in a world where some people burn out of the next pleasure or the next distraction.
I have always, always been distrusting of extremes. And for me Islam is an extreme. It represents barbarism and Bedhouin savagery. The other extreme is the metaphysical materialism (reliant, I might add, on the Newtonian, mechanistic universe)of a completely secularized society that is hostile towards humane religious values. A plague on both their houses!
at October 4, 2006 7:58 PM
FredIsinglass,
I don't discount the influence of ideologues like Gramsci as well as more blurry fellow-travelers such as "hard-line Marxists and their socialist and Social Democrat allies..." and "the Sixties' radicals", in helping to construct some of the more hardcore and concrete lineaments of PC. However, I doubt they could have had the ability to make PC as culturally dominant as it has in fact become over the past quarter century, had not there been a larger, more amorphous cultural development afoot. I maintain this epochal sea change is a more complex phenomenon and cannot be delineated along a fault-line of good guys vs. bad guys. It is more a phenomenon of an internal dynamic of a cultural pathology of excess health (i.e., good liberal values growing grotesquely out of proportion), rather than one of an allopathic disease per se.
Posted by: remote_control at October 4, 2006 8:53 PM
FredIsinglass,
"The other extreme is the metaphysical materialism (reliant, I might add, on the Newtonian, mechanistic universe)of a completely secularized society that is hostile towards humane religious values."
I would agree with you, and simultaneously disagree with you: on the level of an ideology directly informing the sociopolitical nuts and bolts of nation-states, I would agree that secularism can be more harmful than beneficial.
However, on the level of providing a paradigmatic umbrella within which various competing interests (including religious) jockey for influence regarding those nuts & bolts, I would say that modern Western secularism is, compared with all of human history and all cultures of the world thus far, unparalleled in excellence, despite its flaws (since as all we non-utopianists know, nothing is perfect).
Of course, it's more complicated than my thumbnail nutshell sketch implies, since one of the inescapable (though still minimizable) flaws of this modern Western secularist paradigm is that it often tends to creep over its proper boundary and meddle with the nuts & bolts. But, hey, that's life. And life is better (not perfect!) with the modern West.
P.S.: The belief-system of Islam consecrates the unpardonable sin of inculcating a fundamental hostility to the secularist paradigm. And for that sin, it should not be admitted under the shelter of the secularist paradigm's otherwise maximally tolerant umbrella.
at October 4, 2006 9:03 PM
Good points, all, "remote_control." A society in which one is not free to be a nihilist is not any society I would want to be in. Absolutely correct in that view. We of the Catholic tradition have a spotty history of supporting science and progress, but I understand why this has happened. There are pluses and minuses on both sides, but overall I guess I do not trust the Church to oversee that process. After all, as one who considers the insights from quantum physics as supportive of a role for the Creator in All Of This, right now I am not sure that the Church (or churches)are ready for the changes in cosmology, and the implications for systematic theology, that are compelled by quantum theory. The agency of the Creator looks slightly different under this scenario than it does under cosmologies that were de rigeur in the past. My point is that science and theology are complementary, and not hostile, but for the hostility to cease there has to be genuine respect for each other. There are holdouts on this project on both sides.
And this is why, among other reasons, I want a separation of Church and State, but not a society that is bent on purging religion completely out of the public sphere. People see the world through the prism of their religious values, and not all of that is bad. It gets bad when one actor in this drama wants all the others off the stage.
at October 4, 2006 10:12 PM
Turkey, despite its pretensions to europeanness, has lost nothing of the imperialistic zeal of the Ottoman Empire. Turkey gives the Kurds a very hard time. And it would have given the Armenians with its borders a very hard time too if they would not have been exterminated.
I don't know whay Turkey should be shown special consideration.
at October 4, 2006 10:41 PM
Hugh names sectarian, ethnic, and economic divisions. The 100,000 new Islamic-American annual arrivals can probably be split down a fourth division of assimilation. The problem with the fourth division is that two or three determined individuals (0.0003% of the 100,000) can do tremendous damage if properly backed. Considering that 25% of British Muslims showed compassion for the London bombers, current immigration rates will lead to big local problems for our kids.
In the interim, it seems like the voting public is leading our leaders. The shaky 2006 foundations will turn to clay in 2008. And those in charge recognize it. Numbers 1 and 2 will be tested soon. A friend served in Kurdish Iraq. By his account, Kurdistan deserves our chips.
at October 4, 2006 10:53 PM
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