I recently spent some time watching Shark Week on television. Being fascinated with large predatory fish, I’ve watched many shark programs throughout the years. And I’ve reached one conclusion: the “liberal” response one is accustomed to when the topics of Islam, Islamists, and their law, Sharia, come up—that they are misunderstood, that we need to respect their ways and be tolerant, that it’s our fault we get attacked—has become so embedded in the Western psyche that it now colors our understanding of the animal world as well.
Almost every shark program follows the same pattern: the large predators are portrayed in all their grandeur, roaming the seas; then we hear of several anecdotes of shark attacks on humans, often with the survivors recounting their experience.
The prevalent theme is this: it’s not the shark’s fault that it attacked and maimed this or that surfer, swimmier, or kayaker. Rather, humans are responsible for entering the shark’s domain, the ocean. If anything, then, it’s the human’s fault for getting attacked. Even great whites, so we are assured, only attack humans by mistake, never intentionally. Finally we get the speech about how sharks are in fact the one’s being mistreated by humans, etc.
To those familiar with the way liberal talking heads constantly whitewash the violence and intolerance of Islam, does this not all sound familiar? From the notion that “it’s our fault” we got attacked, and we “had it coming,” to the idea that we need to be more “understanding and respectful,” the “progressive” memes are all there.
Similarly, two types of survivors often recount their experiences. Most explain how they do not at all blame the shark that attacked them; more magnanimously, others say that, since they lost this or that appendage, they have dedicated their lives to protecting sharks.
The second, more atypical kind of survivors openly demonize sharks and come off less “enlightened.” Such was this one Australian survivor I watched, who seemed the quintessential “hillbilly”—missing teeth and all. He appeared on one of the programs emphatically declaring that all sharks are “evil.” In other words, he was something of an ignorant, bigoted “sharkaphobe.”
One important caveat: I am not “hating on” sharks, suggesting they are “evil,” or siding with this or that perspective. But as a rational person, I know that sharks—especially great whites, bulls, and tigers—are dangerous creatures. As animals of instinct, I do not believe they have the capacity to act “good” or “evil,” but I do not doubt that, given the chance and especially if hungry, they will attack and eat humans. (See this atypical article, for example, which suggests that “thousands of missing drowning victims actually die of shark attacks.”)
Rather, the point here is that this business of always apologizing for Islamic violence, insisting that it is some sort of misunderstanding, which “enlightened” Western persons should be patient of if not completely overlook, has so penetrated society that it has metastasized to almost anything and everything that is potentially dangerous, including ravenous sharks.
Nor does the analogy end here. When Western liberals hold Muslims to a lower standard than the rest of humanity—ignoring the beheadings, massacres, rapes, enslavements, and church burnings habitually committed by the likes of the Islamic State, Boko Haram, Al Shabaab, et al.—are they not, in essence, placing such Muslims on a “subhuman” level? Are they not, in essence, saying that they are like brute and instinctive animals—sharks for instance—not to be held responsible for their actions?
In the end, however, the shark analogy fails. After all, sharks attack and kill for survival—like the rest of us carnivores—whereas the Islamists intentionally attack, torture, rape, massacre, mutilate, and incinerate humans simply for not being Muslim.
That is the definition of evil.
Beagle says
No better example of what you’re talking about exists than Foley’s parents speaking less than a half hour ago. Just… ah… unbelievable. I don’t want to attack the family of a beheading victim, but I swear I’m taking it worse than they are.
John C. Barile says
Their son’s scripted remarks–his regret that he was an American at all–just before his decapitation set the stage for this numbness.
gravenimage says
Very true, Beagle and John.
I feel deeply for poor James Foley and his bereft family—but his family has been—grotesquely—blaming America and the West instead of the Jihadists of ISIS:
“He gave his life trying to expose the world to the suffering of the Syrian people,” said the statement, which was attributed to Foley’s mother, Diane Foley. She implored the militants to spare the lives of other hostages. “Like Jim, they are innocents. They have no control over American government policy in Iraq, Syria or anywhere in the world.”
http://www.northjersey.com/news/another-american-hostage-at-risk-by-islamic-state-following-beheading-of-journalist-1.1070023
AnneM says
Good grief! ISIS Mr. Obama is the REAL DEAL ISLAM!
Chabuco says
With Pitbulls, alligators -like yesterday in Australia with that albino one-…. the sociopaths out there always end up blaming the victim or downplaying the issue… or blame the owner.
“are they not, in essence, placing such Muslims on a “subhuman” level?”—
Islam isn’t a race. But that behavior is called ‘racism of lower expectations’ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRhTnJPaWPQ
John C. Barile says
Right you are. It’s the bigotry of lower expectations.
Just A Concerned Citizen says
If I remember correctly, this was also the central theme of Rudyard Kipling’s “White Man’s Burden” written a century and change ago–the poor savages simply can’t help themselves, donchaknow. The civilized and enlightened westerners must make allowances for those who can’t be expected to know better.
Wellington says
Interesting comparison here by Raymond Ibrahim. Very much on point I would argue.
The root of this nonsense is modern Western liberalism, which at some level of consciousness is possessed of self-loathing for its own species unless (and perhaps not even then) our species returned to a state of nature. Yep, it’s civilization bad, nature good. This is ridiculous of course (and most every time hypocritical as well since such people show no intention of leaving the civilized world) but then so much of modern Western liberalism is ridiculous. As a very good Eastern European friend of mine, whose entire family suffered under Communism (yet something else the Left has made excuses for, even to the exent of making anti-anti-Communism fashionable) said to me a while back, “Western liberals are idiots.”
Beagle says
To bolster your point I would cite great philosophers of the 1980s, Love and Rockets in No New Tale to Tell:
“You cannot go against nature Because when you do Go against nature It’s part of nature too”
Wellington says
That’s a good quote, Beagle. Hadn’t come across it before. Thanks.
ConanKong says
Shark attacks are rare, death by shark attack is even more rare. Peter Benchly once said that if he realived how Great Whites really behaved, he never would have written Jaws. By contrast, jihad attacks and deaths from those attacks are common, and are required by the Quran. That being said, even if sharks were vicious, man-eating monsters, they do not rule the sea. There is documented evidence of Orcas killing and eating Great Whites, and Orca’s are the only ones who can mess with Sperm Whales (Giant Squids are nothing more tha fresh Calimari to them). Even the mighty and EXTINCT (hear that Discovery Channel) Megalodon, the largest predatory fish ever, and possibly the top predator of all time, was not an undisputed ruler; a pod of Byrgamaphyster Biting Sperm Whales, or a Leviathian Melveli could put a serious hurt on a Meg. The point is even if the jihadists could be compared to sharks, that means we the anti-jihadists need to be the Orcas and Sperm Whales.
Brazooka says
I don’t pretend to completely understand the Liberal mindset, but one thing I’ve observed is that they won’t acknowledge the existence of evil, or of any negative characteristics whatsoever, in the other, only in their own group. That’s why deny, despite all evidence, that either large carnivorous sharks or Muslims are dangerous. Liberals are both childish and traitorous.
Daniel Akbari says
The term “sharkophobe” was coined by me and posted in my website months ago.
somehistory says
During Shark Week, Discovery Channel showed “Blood In The Water.”
Interesting personal accounts of the shark that “terrorized” Matawan in 1916.
One of the “experts”…singled out seemingly as the man who knew sharks…insisted that (after hearing of some of the attacks and deaths) sharks would not do that. Sharks didn’t attack people, he said.
Some years ago, these same incidents were related in a Reader’s Digest, and (recalling some of what it said) no one thought a shark would swim up a river and many refused to believe that one had done so.
Just like the “experts” that say muslims don’t learn terrorism from their religion.
Close Shave says
just watched a fishing doc, where an uptown twonker was fishing off a boat offshore and hooked a 12′ shark. It pulled the guy overboard, and he was lucky not to have been attacked before he was haulled out by the bosun. Even after surviving that, he didn’t impart the obvious message which should’ve been : harness yourself in, if you are fishing for big game.
Moongara says
The analogy fails in one respect…sharks are a vital part of the ocean ecosystems, systems upon which a great deal of the planet depends for food. Sharia is utterly useless and contributed nothing to human civilization. If I were a shark I would find being compared to a Jihadi highly insulting and degrading.
dumbledoresarmy says
Yep.
Sharks *are* a necessary part of the ocean ecosystems. I remember reading recently of a study by marine biologists that found that coral reefs off Australia’s northwest coast that had lost their resident sharks (each reef normally has just a few sharks) due to poaching (largely, btw, carried out by Mohammedan poachers from Indonesia) were much less healthy than similar reefs that still had their sharks.
Whereas everything Islam touches, withers into dust; it confers no benefits whatsoever.
gravenimage says
Raymond Ibrahim: Sharks and Sharia … Equally Misunderstood?
……………………………
Excellent analogy, Raymond—very apt.