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Hugh Fitzgerald: Thilo Sarrazin Confounds His Critics with Common Sense (Part IV)

Sep 13, 2018 11:53 am By Hugh Fitzgerald

Von Schwerin claims that “it’s his [Sarrazin’s]  basic thesis that appears the most questionable, in which he claims that all the Muslims’ social and economic problems can be blamed on their religion — or as the second part of his book’s title states: “How Islam Impedes Progress and Threatens Society.” Nowhere does Sarrazin make the maximalist claim that “all” the Muslims’ social and economic problems are to be “blamed on their religion,” but he thinks that it would be silly to deny,  given that Islam is an all-encompassing faith, a religion and a politics, not to attribute much of Muslim behavior to that very faith. He has spent the last eight years, since his first book, studying the texts and teachings of Islam and relating them to that behavior.

This is, incidentally, a distinctly un-racist point of view: he does not see Muslims as innately violent or backward; they are so only insofar as they follow what their texts — the Qur’an and hadith — inculcate, that is, command or prohibit. This is the very opposite of the “racism” charge so often made against Sarrazin. Among his leading  defenders is the German-Turkish and Muslim sociologist Necla Kerek, who has supported his views. She is just as critical as Sarrazin of the attitudes of Muslims in Germany:

“Being a Muslim is becoming a self-sufficient identity. And this identity consists only of being different — different from the Europeans, different from the Africans, different from the Indians. And this frightens me. [Others] do not state their difference in terms of an utter rejection of the society that hosts them, preparing to take over one day. I often hear those Muslim youngsters bragging that one day this country will be theirs.” She also criticizes those who see themselves as victims, saying “Today, the Turks, or Muslims, are given full access to civil rights, to democracy and liberty — and they reject all that. They have access to good education, healthcare, social welfare, but they voluntarily choose to keep out, to stagnate in parallel worlds. […] How can they still consider themselves as victims, as the Jews once were in reality?”

Von Schwerin ends his tendentious review with a claim that should surprise:

Hardly a Muslim bases his actions primarily or even exclusively on Islam. But even if Islam were the cause of all problems, what would be the solution? That all Muslims give up their culture and their faith? That’s not likely.

Where is the evidence that “hardly a Muslim bases his actions primarily or even exclusively on Islam”? We have had more than 100,000  members of the Islamic State, from all over the world,  who have claimed that they were, or are now, acting solely according to the teachings of Islam. There are many other terrorist groups — Al Qaeda, Boko Haram, Jadhat al-Nusra, Hamas, Hezbollah — whose members claim to be following the Qur’an and the example of Muhammad. How many of the 1.5 billion Muslims does Von Schwerin think do not base their actions primarily on Islam?

And how does he who is so dismissive of Sarrazin’s statistics arrive at his self-assured remark that “hardly a Muslim bases his actions primarily on Islam”? What research has he conducted to arrive at this counter-intuitive result? How many Muslim women wear at least the hijab as cover? How many Muslim men, in Islamic countries, practice polygyny, divorce using the triple-talaq, and punish disobedient wives? How many Muslims believe that they are the “best of peoples” and non-Muslims the “most vile of creatures,” and act accordingly? How many Muslims work to spread Islam, by whatever means are both available and effective, until it everywhere dominates?

Von Schwerin then addresses a question to Sarrazin: even if “Islam were the cause of all problems” — which Sarrazin has never claimed — “then what would be the solution”?

And he ends:

Sarrazin does not present a solution to this dilemma, as he is not even interested in finding solutions. His whole book shows that he is not concerned with helping shape peaceful coexistence, but rather with the strict separation of peoples and stopping the immigration of Muslims.

Note the tell-tale repetition: “what would be the solution” and “does not present a solution” and “finding solutions.” Sarrazin does not offer a “solution” because, unlike Von Schwerin, he doesn’t think about Islam in such terms. There is no “solution” to the ideology of Islam, but the threat its adherents pose can be decreased if certain measures are taken. He thinks that Germans ought to educate themselves about the ideology of Islam, so that they will not be oblivious to the danger it poses, nor be misled either by taqiyya-and-tu-quoque apologists for Islam, or pollyannish politicians who refuse to recognize a worrisome reality.

The Germans need to understand the 109 Qur’anic verses commanding Believers to wage violent jihad against the Unbelievers, and especially the verses telling Muslims to “strike terror” in the hearts of those Unbelievers. Sarrazin thinks Germans have a perfect right, given the ideology of Islam, to decrease drastically the number of Muslim immigrants, who have become such a burden both on Germany’s social welfare state and on its criminal justice system.

The experiment with mass Muslim migration has been tried in Germany, and to a lesser extent all over Western Europe, and nowhere has it been anything but a dismal failure. Integration has failed not because of the indigenous non-Muslims but because Muslims don’t want to integrate into Western societies; they want Western societies to change so as to better accommodate them.

Angela Merkel cannot admit her colossal mistake in having admitted so many Muslims — more than a million  in 2015 alone. Others, however, who were not in her government and therefore not to blame, now are in a position, and indeed have the duty, to call for putting an end to Muslim immigration. That requires of German political figures and populace alike that rarest of qualities, singularly lacking in the likes of Ulrich von Schwerin, that quality so misleadingly called “common sense.”

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Filed Under: Featured, Germany, Hugh Fitzgerald, Qur'an, willful ignorance Tagged With: Thilo Sarrazin, Ulrich von Schwerin


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Comments

  1. Emilie Green says

    Sep 13, 2018 at 12:31 pm

    “. . . what would be the solution? That all Muslims give up their culture and their faith? That’s not likely.”

    While this critic is right, it’s not likely, that nonetheless remains the solution.

    • Peter Buckley says

      Sep 13, 2018 at 3:15 pm

      True. But is IS actually happening as we speak. Apostasy is happening on a huge scale, mainly among those muslims who inhabit the middle classes, who are to an extent at least, “safe” from the nutjobs in the “muslim community”. When people claim that “Islam” is “growing” or “the fastest-growing religion”, what they actually mean is that the poorest people in the world, usually muslims, are bringing more children into the world than people of other faiths, This may or not be true (given the civil wars ongoing in large number of muslim countries, I doubt even that claim), but those children are simply growing up in “separate” communities, where they are told half-truths and even lies, simply to keep them in the religion. This is unsustainable in the long run. It only takes “a few” to escape. Leading muslim spokesman know this, and are publicly admitting it. A few examples:

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-pYPWc26Gk

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BbFc8zhLwyw&t=240s

      • kelly says

        Sep 14, 2018 at 9:28 am

        @Peter, what double talk…this “intellectual” is just trying to keep the sheep in the fold…

      • Necrophage says

        Sep 15, 2018 at 8:20 am

        Anyone who voluntarily calls themselves a Muslim, no matter how backslidden or apostate, is one second away from becoming a devout (aka VIOLENT) Muslim. And the more devout Muslims you get in a western society, the faster and more often this change occurs among “moderate” Muslims. Sure, some few apostates are actually leaving Islam, but with unchecked Muslim migration, far more are being pressured back into the fold.

    • gravenimage says

      Sep 13, 2018 at 8:38 pm

      What we need to do is keep Muslims out of the West. If Muslims were not invading Europe and other parts of Dar-al-Harb, this would not be much of a problem.

  2. eduardo odraude says

    Sep 13, 2018 at 12:31 pm

    Ulrich von Schwerin mouths the idiotic refrain one so often hears from people making his kind of argument. The argument runs something like this:

    “Islam is not evil, but suppose it is? What good does it do you to know that? Are you going to fight the whole Muslim world? How would it help anything to know that Islam is evil?”

    The argument is usually not spelled out that clearly, because its idiocy is apparent when spelled out. But that’s how people like Schwerin seem to think: if the truth is too horrible, better not to know it.

    I’ve often been surprised by how openly people espouse a stick-your-head-in-the-sand philosophy when it comes to Islam.

    If you don’t stop denying the truth, you’ll never find humane solutions. You’ll end up with catastrophe. Catastrophe is what von Schwerin and the other fools have brought and will bring.

    • gravenimage says

      Sep 13, 2018 at 8:46 pm

      Fine post. Eduardo.

  3. Westman says

    Sep 13, 2018 at 12:54 pm

    Dalai Lama:

    “Europe belongs to the Europeans”… “Receive them(refugees), help them, educate them… but ultimately they should develop their own country”

    To be a fly on the wall at Google and hear them castigate the Daliai Lama as a racist, and whatever else the newly-outed left quasi-government spouts internally, would be amusing. Sergey Brin must be very “offended”. Let’s hope he soon finds himself under congressional scrutiny. It’s amazing that Google’s principals could be so analytically brilliant yet so socially ignorant; nerds who have polished their communication manners to negotiate life successfully while still, behind the facade, misreading those with differing views.

    A central danger of the new Tech Giants is too much power in the hands of young people whose outlook is largely programmed by educational institutions and poorly informed by experience.

    Perhaps this is a common denominator of the Left and Islam – they are too intrinsically frightened as individuals to function in highly competitive environments without a supporting group to make demands for them and then, when having power, make unreasonable demands.

    • Simon says

      Sep 14, 2018 at 8:43 am

      Excellent pertinent comment Westmann…..this fascination with the opinion of youth undermines constantly any garnered wisdom that older people possess…..and doesn’t just apply to the threat of Islam….

  4. Michael Copeland says

    Sep 13, 2018 at 1:32 pm

    “Integration has failed not because of the indigenous non-Muslims but because Muslims don’t want to integrate into Western societies”.
    Muslims, generally, may well not want to integrate. That is a fairly safe assertion: it seems to be borne out by their actions.

    Leaving assertions for a moment here are two statements of fact:
    Muslims are INSTRUCTED not to integrate.
    Islam’s rules do not permit integration..

  5. Michael Copeland says

    Sep 13, 2018 at 1:33 pm

    Thank you for showing how inadequate von Schwerin is.

  6. The European says

    Sep 13, 2018 at 2:42 pm

    There can be no peaceful coexistence between Islam and Western democracies. Islam which divides humanity up into Muslims and unblievers ( kafir) feels itself entitled to either rule over the kafir or to annihilate them. Embrace Islam, pay the jizya, or else… Most Muslims do not assimilate to Western societies, and even if not every Muslim lives up to the demands of sharia law, all of them have been brought up with notions of Islamic supremacy and contempt for the kafir. Their assimilation is pretense, they abide to our laws and rules as long as they are a minority ( today’s Muslim immigration is about to change that). Every society which is composed of large numbers of Muslims living in a non-Muslim nation is a dysfunctional society. We have seen that in the past -Spain, India and the emergence of two separate states: Hindu-dominated India and Pakistan, an Islamic country. We are witnessing it now in Europe, Israel, and the US. Separation is the only solution.

    • Beyondculturewars says

      Sep 14, 2018 at 5:17 pm

      Yes. No one assimilates into a culture that is believed to be inferior.

      Never allow a muslim to treat you or any member of your family as inferior.

      It only advances sharia and perpetuates slavery.

      • gravenimage says

        Sep 15, 2018 at 12:20 am

        Good point.

  7. gravenimage says

    Sep 13, 2018 at 8:26 pm

    Hugh Fitzgerald: Thilo Sarrazin Confounds His Critics with Common Sense (Part IV)
    ………………………

    I’m more impressed with Thilo Sarrazin the more I read–and less and less so with the witless Von Schwerin.

  8. UNCLE VLADDI says

    Sep 14, 2018 at 6:00 pm

    Re: “all the Muslims’ social and economic problems can be blamed on their religion” …
    – well, NO DUH!

    Dear liberals pretending all cultures are the same and the Qur’an like the Bibles can be interpreted:

    You seem to believe that all people are the same, because they are born as humans. You believe in only nature – in genetics and race (“hardware”) and not at all in nurture (cultural indoctrination or “software”). Despite the fact that behavioral conditioning exists and has been proven again and again in countless experiments to be 100% effective on any and all forms of life – from viruses, bacteria, amoebas, molds and fungi, plants, insects, crustaceans, fish, reptiles (including lawyers) and all mammals – you prefer pretend it doesn’t exist at all, as an excuse to not have to personally risk challenging bad criminal programming in others’ gangs.

    You believe the Qur’an is like the Bibles, a book written over millennia by hordes of disparate, diverse people with often conflicting opinions about the nature of god and human psychology, simply because it references a “god” – and, since all people are born equally “human” – as blank slates / tabula-rasa, you pretend that as a result, all of their indoctrinating cultures will also turn out exactly the same. Which is of course like saying that the one of a set of two identical twins who chooses to become a criminal, really isn’t one, simply because his twin didn’t choose to become a criminal.

    But the reality is, that same tabula-rasa blank-slate “nature” of humanity means that while the hardware/genetics or “race” doesn’t count for much, the “Nurture” software/ cultural indoctrination programming) DOES.

    So it’s pretty obvious that, contrary to contemporary leftist rote cant, NOT all social educations aka indoctrinating “cultures” are equal in their effects, and a simple reading of islam’s Qur’an (which obviously you’ve never DARED to do) reveals that it inculcates it’s holy mobster “muslim” minions with an attitude of “THOU SHALT KILL.”

    From this, they experience constant fear (aka terrorism) and distrust of each other, which naturally leads directly to economic stagnation and ruin – because those constantly on the defensive, plotting attacks and defenses against their neighbors, don’t have the luxury of time to plan and build things.

    This is quite different from the West, where, being taught “THOU SHALT NOT KILL,” people experience trust and co-operation, and have the time to plan and build things because they aren’t always plotting murders.

    So the socio-economic results of that difference are VERY clear – it’s why all the so-called islamic/muslim countries are economically at the very bottom of the global developmental indices.

    If you disagree, you can consider this: if “multiculturalism” were actually true and not a racist’s fantasy, then the real reason the muslim countries suck would have to be due to the inferiority of their “race” after all!

    You can’t have it both ways, you silly, virtue-signalling, criminal hypocrites!

    😉

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