“Two thirds of Muslims in the world today live in democratic societies, and they certainly aren’t wiping out the infidels around them…” — from Dinesh D’Souza
D”Souza then goes on to list these “democratic societies” in which Muslims “certainly aren’t wiping out the infidels around them.” They are: India, Turkey, Indonesia. As to India, there is one good reason why Muslims have not gone beyond terrorist attacks in Mumbai and even on the Parliament Building in Delhi, and that is in India the army and security services are in the hands of non-Muslims, who make up nearly 90% of the population. Isn’t that the real explanation for the failure of Muslims to ruthlessly attack “the infidels around them”? And isn’t it true that in 1947, at the time of Partition, in West Pakistan (now Pakistan) Hindus made up 15% or more of the population, and now make up less than 1.5%? And isn’t it true, as well, that in what was then East Pakistan (now Bangladesh), Hindus and other non-Muslims (there are still some Buddhists in the Chittagong Hills area, and some Christians) made up 35% of the population, but now make up about 8%? And what explains that? And what explains the expulsion of 400,000 Kashmiri Pandits by the Muslims into India?
What could possibly explain all this? It doesn’t have to be the result of large-scale massacres. It can be, and indeed is, the result of implacable discrimination, official persecution and the other, unofficial kind, and killings — a Hindu village here, a temple there, an accusation of blasphemy against Islam over there. And over time, if it is horrific enough — and it has been horrific enough — this leads not a few thousand, not even tens of thousands, or hundreds of thousands, but millions upon millions of people, in the main Hindus, to simply pack up and leave both Pakistan and Bangladesh.
What about those other Islamic “democracies” that Dinesh D’Souza refers to? Let’s take Turkey. In Turkey, in 1914, 50% of the population of Constantinople was non-Muslim. It is now 1%. In 1914, 20% of the population of Turkey was non-Muslim — Armenians, Greeks, Jews. It is now much less than 1/2 of 1%. How did this happen? Has Dinesh D’Souza heard about the Armenian genocide, or rather the several genocides, including that of 1894-96, in which the Kurds as well as Turks participated actively? Has he read the accounts — say that on the first massacre in which American missionaries and consular officials offer their eyewitness accounts. In those accounts, Muslim Turks and Kurds attacked the “giaour” (that is, the non-Muslim, the Infidel) and took special pleasure in killing Armenian priests and destroying all signs of Armenian churches. Does he, Dinesh D’Souza, know about the massacres of the Greeks, and why the Pontic Greeks (does he know what the Pontic Greeks were?) left Turkey? Does he know about the pogroms against the Jews in Turkey (the “Thracian pogrom”), or about what Western diplomats reported on the treatment of Jews in Turkey, which contradicts this dreamy idea, fondly believed by some Turks and Jews alike, that for Jews the situation in Turkey was simply splendid? It was nothing of the kind. Does Dinesh D’Souza know about the cult of “the Turk” — who could not be anything other than a Muslim Turk — the cult that the Kemalists used to dampen or dilute single-minded enthusiasm for Islam? Does he know of the special wartime (World War II) taxes, the Varlik Vergesi, placed by the Turkish government only on non-Muslims? Has he heard of the attacks on the Greek community of Istanbul in September 1955, under the Menderes government, and does that book by Speros Vryonis, The Mechanism of Catastrophe, have a place in Dinesh D’Souza’s little library of books on Islam?
And as for Turkey being a “democracy,” what does Dinesh D’Souza make of the need for the Turkish army to intervene, in 1970, and 1980, and 1991? Does he think that compatible with true democracy? Does he have an opinion about the play which Erdogan not only wrote, but directed and acted in, and the title of which says it all — “Makomya,” a hate-filled little thing full of attacks on the “Masons”(Ma) and the “Communists” (Kom) and the “Jews” (Ya-hud)? Does D’Souz think that in the “democracy” of Turkey non-Muslims are fully equal citizens, or have ever been? The cult of “the Turk” is merely a replacement for the cult of Islam, and the cult of Ataturk supplants, or tries to, the cult of Muhammad — but Islam is still there, molding minds and attitudes. He should talk not to Turkish Muslims, but to non-Muslims, well outside of Turkey, if he is too thickwitted to look at the greatly-reduced populations of Greeks, Armenians, and Jews, not exactly “full citizens” of Turkey today, for there are laws, and then there are deep-seated attitudes.
And what about that “democracy” in Indonesia? Has Dinesh D’Souza ever heard about the mass killings of ethnic Chinese, by some reports a half-million or more, and also of nominal Muslims, who were massacred for their apparently tepid interest in Islam? Has he heard about the killing by Muslim Indonesians of one-third of the Christian population of East Timor, after it was seized from the Portuguese? Isn’t it just a little surprising that an Indian Catholic named D’Souza seems not to know about, or perhaps is deliberately choosing to ignore, the mass killing of people who were converted, as presumably were his ancestors, by the Portuguese missionaries?
Is Indonesia really a place today where the Infidels are safe? What is happening in the Moluccas? In Sulawesi? Has Dinesh D’Souza been keeping up with the reports of attacks on thousands of churches, and on Christian worshippers? He did hear about the three schoolgirls who were decapitated, no doubt, but has he kept up with the reports of the Barnabas Fund, very detailed reports, on the many other attacks, including murder, that are intended to terrorize Christians? Does he recall Bali, and how on that island populated by Hindus and visited by Western, non-Muslim tourists, Muslims put a bomb? Has he been following the disposition of justice since, and what has happened to those who were accused of being behind the bombing? Has he followed the public remarks of those involved in the plot and other plots, and how they have been treated not as criminals but as heroes by many Indonesian Muslims?
He just can’t be bothered, can he, to find out any facts, any details, about those esemplastic shapes – “India,” “Indonesia,” “Turkey” — that he enjoys airily summing up for an audience he must have great contempt for, because he never pays it the tribute of real fact based on detailed knowledge. Instead, he treats those audiences, for his lectures, his articles, his books, as so many lazy ignoramuses who will be well-satisfied with his pap.
He disgusts. And the more frantic he becomes, and the more he flails out, and the more he reveals himself to be what perhaps he always was all along, the more he should be shunned by anyone who thinks that some minimum standards must be maintained. He has been weighed and found wanting. No, rather, he’s had himself weighed for the purpose of being rewarded, like the Aga Khan (whose Ismaili followers would give him his weight in diamonds, or some other precious stones). But instead of a reward, he deserves only ridicule, not unmixed with rancor.