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Exposing the role that Islamic jihad theology and ideology play in the modern global conflicts

Fitzgerald: What we have lost, and stand to lose

Oct 27, 2005 6:58 am By Hugh Fitzgerald

Jihad Watch Board Vice President Hugh Fitzgerald lists some of the things we have lost already because of this business of Islamic terror, and what we stand to lose in the future in the West if our supine dhimmitude in the face of an increasingly obvious and large-scale cultural challenge continues:

What have we lost because of Islam? A short list:

Security: At every airport, subway station, bus station, at every sports event, at every public lecture, in every office building, at every museum, at every large gathering and many small gatherings all over this country (particularly those that are specifically Christian or Jewish or Hindu, and certainly all those that are devoted to discussing the menace of Islam), there are now security guards, security checks, long waits that use up, at airports alone, billions of man-hours that were never used up in such fashion before. Why? All is because of the threat not of “terrorism” but rather of Muslim terrorism. Measures may also soon be taken to monitor emails, telephone calls and so on, all of which may affect all of us, and none of which would have been necessary in the absence of Muslim terrorist threats which come out of Islam.

Freedom to travel over much of the world: How many of us now realize that it will be difficult or dangerous from now on out to visit all of the sites of classical antiquity that can be found in North Africa, or the Middle East, or in Turkey, because these lands are in the grip of increasingly restive and aggressive Muslims, not all of whom are content merely to take the dollars of Western tourists? Think of how many attacks there have been, prompted in the minds of the perpetrators by the tenets of Islam, the doctrines of Islam, the attitudes of Islam, against Swiss tourists at Luxor (68 stabbed to death, and many decapitated), or tourists elsewhere in Egypt, or at Djerba in Tunisia, or at Marrakech in Morocco. One may well be indifferent to the little created under Islam, but what is now off-limits is the much created before Islam, or despite Islam.

This is not just a matter of tourism, but of cultural patrimony that is not of Islam, but is located in lands ruled by Muslims and hence by Islam. Only the desire for tourist dollars (and in Egypt some vestigial pride, least strong in the most Muslim, in those pyramids and mastabahs)have kept all the relics of the pre-Islamic past in Muslim countries from falling into disrepair and worse, no matter how cherished they are in the mind of the West. And this indifference, or even hostility, toward their own pre-Islamic past that all those falling under Islam are taught to feel, whether they were forced to convert either by outright threat, or gradually brought to Islam by the slow anguish of the dhimmi status, at times endurable and at other times unendurable (and in those times, many did convert to Islam, only in order to end the unendurableness of being a non-Muslim in a Muslim-ruled world, has brought about an attendant impoverishment of their own societies and themselves.

Freedom to think: How many of those born into Islam over the last 1200 years might have, but for Islam, made some kind of mark on the world, something in art, science, moral philosophy? Something, anything. Instead, what we have is pitiful, compared not only to the Western world, but to the civilizations of the East, and of pre-Columbian America. All of North Africa, all of the Middle East and many other places, subdued to Islam, their peoples deprived of many means of artistic expression, and their ability to engage in free and skeptical inquiry permanently dampened.

Freedom of conscience: the right, which took some time to develop in the West, but is permanently forbidden in Islam, to believe or not believe whatever you wish. Apostasy may not always and everywhere be punished by death, but it is certainly punished by death in some places, and the penalty is threatened everywhere. It is often carried out by vigilantes, as in the case of Farag Foda, the Egyptian writer. Think of what happened to Ali Dashti in the Islamic Republic of Iran, or to Taha Hussein in the Sudan, or to that nice Mr. Qambar (Robert Hussein) in Kuwait about six or seven years back (he was not killed, but it was a close thing). And even in the United States, those who wish to leave Islam are often very quiet about it, afraid of social ostracism (from others who have remained Muslim) and worse.

The extraordinary Total Regulation of Life, from what you eat and what you wear to exactly how you wash, makes people into zombies, following rules that often make no sense, that are ludicrous, but must be followed. Shall I give some of the embarrassing details, about the odd number of stones, and so on, or would you prefer that I spared all of us that sort of thing? Just go to any Muslim website where questions are asked as to whether I can do this or can’t do that. Why follow these rules? Oh, because Allah Knows Best. Q.E.D. That is all ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.

Then there is the equally extraordinary belief that the Qur’an contains everything, all of science, all of knowledge, absolutely everything, if only we have the wit or understanding to detect it. If there is a surer way to stunt the mental growth of hundreds of millions, I can’t imagine what it might be.

Those of us who are not Muslims should thank god we were not — for we might well have been — born into Islam. It is no great achievement to have avoided Islam by not being born a Muslim. It is a great achievement, a moral and intellectual achievement, apparently, given how fearsome the consequences, to be born into Islam and then to reject it.

It is a negative achievement, an astounding feat of mental self-immolation, to be born a non-Muslim and then to actually wish to become a Muslim. There are those on their Spiritual Search who simply ran out of places to look, or decided to stop at the next inn or caravanserai, the one with Arabic script and the hubble-bubble pipe, and the calligraphy on the green-colored walls.

But is a hubble-bubble pipe and calligraphy worth those mind-forged manacles in exchange?

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Filed Under: Hugh Fitzgerald


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