Islamists oppose us not because of what we do, but because of what we are: secular, pluralist and tolerant.
–Oliver Kamm
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Samizdata quote of the daySeptember 7th, 2004 |
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Putin:
“In Russia, democracy is who shouts the loudest,” he said. “In the U.S., it’s who has the most money.”
CNN
I think Islamists oppose us for a much simpler reason – we aren’t Moslem.
EG
Mm… but they gain support because of perceptions that we’ve fucked with their countries. (sometimes perfectly correct perceptions, but usually exaggerated well beyond the reality of the situation). Once you’ve established a demon in people’s minds, it’s easier to convince them that your anti-demon formula (in this case, fundamentalism & violent jihad) is necessary & appropriate.
If they just hated freedom, you’d think Switzerland would’ve taken a few blows by now.
Well yes.
But there are also the nasty things the West does. Chechens just didnt wake up one morning and decide to start killing Russian kids. The Iraqis dont like us and they tend to the more secular than say the average Saudi.
To try to make it an us vs. them fight with us being the good guys who are merely hated for those qualities which make us good is a dangerous oversimplification and no matter how glib and satisfying the quote may be, I would have hoped that the folks at Samizdata were smarter than that.
Muslim aggression against Christian civilisation began in the 7th century, long before we were secular.
Muslim hatred against the West began with the Crusades, which although they went badly wrong, were a response to Islamic aggression against Christians.
Muslim hatred against the West became well established after 1492 with the completion of the reconquest of Spain.
“Muslim hatred against the West began with the Crusades, which although they went badly wrong, were a response to Islamic aggression against Christians.
”
Certainly they were the agressors, but they didn’t hate us any more than the Normans hated the Saxons, or the Saxons hated the Celts.
It was normal then for ethnic or quasi-national groups to simply expand their control by war if they had the capability to do so, and since Saladdin et al were noticeably more technically advanced than Europe, they conquered a fair bit of it. It was foriegn policy not competition.
Remember that people who win wars, rarely hate their opponents – it’s losing them that pisses you off. Europe lost the Crusades. They were meant to rescue the holy lands from the Muslim invaders, and they failed to do so to any significant extent. That may have made us hate the Muslims – sucks to get beaten on your own turf. But I don’t think it made them hate us.
Muslim anti-west hatred is much more recent, and probably stems from the British / European colonial holdings in the middle east, and fiascos like Suez, the last Shah of Iran, the troubles in Palestine et al.
Islamists oppose us because we will kill Islam.
The death of Islam is already under way. The youth of Islam can see our way of life. It’s fun, open, we travel, the girls look great, the music is good (if you ignore French). The beers cold, dnd Allah hasn’t actually struck us down.
Now if you were a mad Mullah, how would you deal with the loss of your power? By becoming more extremist. It has happened before, just remember the Reformation.
Islam has been stuffed for 1500 years, but nobody knew. Now they do, and the events at Beslan will remove any remaining doubts.
So what we are witnessing is the death throes of yet another religion.
Can’t happen too soon.
(Shawn’s text between inverted commas:)
“Muslim aggression against Christian civilisation began in the 7th century, long before we were secular.”
True. The same can be seen, in example, about Muslim aggression against Hindu civilization. Islam prosecutes non-Muslims.
“Muslim hatred against the West began with the Crusades, which although they went badly wrong, were a response to Islamic aggression against Christians.”
I would say that Crusades were a (clumsy) war of Christian self-defense; in defense of the Eastern Christians, and against the first wave of Islamism. (And wrongly against the Jews, the scapegoats of History.)
“Muslim hatred against the West became well established after 1492 with the completion of the reconquest of Spain.”
More exactly, Muslim hatred against the West is not based in military facts, but in ideology. It was sown along the centuries of Islamic theological formulation.
Don’t delude yourselves: today, Western –Judeo-Christian– values and Islamic values are fundamentaly irrenconciliable. Islam is a substitutional theology.
More info:
A) A must-read article, from the eminent historian Bat Ye’or:
“How Europe Became Eurabia”,
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=14364
B) Some bibliography on Islam:
1.- Onward Muslim Soldiers,
by Robert Spencer, director of jihadwatch.com,
http://www.afsi.org/OUTPOST/2004JAN/jan3.htm (review)
2.- Islam and Dhimmitude, When Civilizations Collide, by Bat Ye’Or,
3.- Why I Am Not A Muslim,
by Ibn Warraq.
Info on those books on:
http://jihadwatch.org/books/
The aim of Islam is simply to convert the entire world to Islam. Islamists are merely following the Koran literally and those who want to do it by more peaceful means, less so.
For an indepth insight in fundamentalist Islam you can do far worse than read Battle for God by Karen Armstrong. It is heavy going at times, but well worth the read. Even if you have read extensively about Islam (as I have) I would recomend this book.
Go to melaniephillips.com and click on Diary. There read her surgical deconstruction of Max Hastings and all the other apologists for terrorism. This is a superb piece of writing – she cuts through to the truth cleanly with a surgical laser.
For Americans and others, Melanie Phillips is one of Britain’s best known columnists, noted for the quality of her thought and her clean, spare prose.
A_t,
“…but they gain support because of perceptions that we’ve fucked with their countries”
Ok. Which countries haven’t we fucked with ?
We’we fucked one time or onother, (maybe) with China, with Japan, with all of Assia, Africa and America. Not to mention the big fuck-up of two WWs in Europe. That’s history. So what ? People, Nations, pick themselves up, move on and live their lives the best they can – except extremist Islamists.
Nothing explains extremist, militant Islamism except if you venture into the domain of insanity and rabid irrationality.
And I see nothing we can reasonably do to avoid clashing with them, from now on. We can’t undo the Crusades, neither can we lift their life standards out of poverty overnight, and we won’t give up Israel or Andalucia to placate them (and it won’t placate them).
Jacob,
“Nothing explains extremist, militant Islamism except if you venture into the domain of insanity and rabid irrationality.
And I see nothing we can reasonably do to avoid clashing with them, from now on.”
Mm.. I’d go further & say that nothing explains any extremist, militant religious movement except those two factors; religion’s pretty irrational in itself.
I also agree with you, re. the extremists; clashes are near-inevitable.
I think where we part company somewhat is in our analysis of who those extremists are & what proportion of the global Muslim population we’re talking about, as well as the nature of the threat posed (I think we stand a strong chance of seeing some horrible attacks by these people, but am very sceptical about any claims they will take over Western countries; they wouldn’t know where to start… remember, these are people who thought America would crumble in the wake of a few terrorist attacks. They see our ‘degeneracy’ & mistake us for weak people, hence the optimistic caliphate pronouncements).
I feel you believe the majority of the world’s muslims are behind Al Quaida, and are gunning for an all out war. I believe most are not, & if we can avoid making unnecessary enemies, we can concentrate on keeping the extremists in check until their societies are secularised & they lose hope or are dead.
BTW, the American historian Victor D. Hanson on the 9th of october of 2001 already said the following:
“The enemies of free speech and intolerance —German Nazism, Italian fascism, Japanese militarism, Stalinist Communism, or Islamic fundamentalists— will always attack us for what we are, rather than what we have done.”
“Tragedy or Therapy? Defining ourselves”,
http://www.nationalreview.com/hanson/hanson100901.shtml
Joel, that’s ridiculous. The Japanese for one had no particular problem with American freedoms; sure, the freedoms were inimical to their own society, but posed no immediate threat to it; as far as I’m aware the US was not evangelising the cause of freedom within Japan. However, there *was* a conflict of interests over power & resources in the Pacific. This had nothing to do with American freedoms & everything to do with economics & national power politics.
As I said earlier, if it’s freedom per se that annoys people that much, how come no-one’s attacked Switzerland for ages?
Personally, I think the main fuel for the extremists’ fire is that they see their societies being ‘corrupted’ by our values, for which they see the US as the main cheerleader, & you’re right, they do hate many of the freedoms & concepts of freedom which are currently spreading through their countries. This is not quite the same as hating us because we’re free, but is still pretty bad. Having established this though, how does it help us?
Political theory benefts from simplicity, but history rarely does. It makes no more sense to lump all moslems together than it does to lump all “Westerners” together. Yes extreme medieval wahabi-ist idealogies are spreading, but it is no more likely that all moslems think like Bin Laden than that all Westerners think like Tony Blair.
What is important is to avoid those policies which make such ideologies more likely to spread. It ought to be obvious by now that financial support for corrupt Arab regimes and military intervention in the Middle East and elsewhere tend to encourage rather than reduce the spread of militant globalist islamic ideologies.
That is not to say that Western intervention is invariably and in all cases a bad thing (it is difficult to argue with the deposing of the Taliban) ; but in most cases the record suggests that it has been highly counter-productive.
Many Westerners refuse to believe what is contained in the Koran. If you quote any of the jihad verses to them, they’ll say, “But you can’t speak Arabic, and the original meaning is lost in translation.” The shock of hearing this declaration of perpetual war against non-muslims is too much for them, and they immediately go into denial.
A_T said:
“[…] if it’s freedom per se that annoys people that much, how come no-one’s attacked Switzerland for ages?”
Referred to the previous world wars, Switzerland has had a strong, skilled military, and that possibly has represented a dissuasory fact for any foreign army. Moreover (and maybe due to their multilingual composition), their position in the last big wars has been of neutrality, so even less “motivations” to attack them.
Related to the current Islamicist war, we probably will agree in that the reality of our freedom –freedom from Islam– (our moral “corruption” and lack of “vitue” in Islamicist terms) is an ideological rationalization to justify Islamicist attack on us, and prosecute its ultimate goal of converting the whole world to Islam (and that includes your example country.)
Additionally, your rethorical question includes a pretty inexact premise. Let me develop it in two points:
1) Today, Switzerland is under attack, too. Up to today, not an armed agression, but a demographic and ideological pressure. As in the rest of Europe and the West, and the % of Muslim population is vigorously on the rise there.
An example. Some are raising concerns within that country. Last weekend several Swiss media included an advert commenting that the number of Muslims in Switzerland was doubling every ten years. The EINnews.com called the advert “anti-Muslim” [1].
2) Related to the past:
A) In the first spread of Islam into Europe, Charles Martel stopped Islamic expansionist ordes in today’s Southern France, in 733, so they could not reach Switzerland.
B) In the second expansionist period of jihad, the last stop of Muslim Turks was Vienna, in 1683. Closer to Switzerland, you will appreciate.
[1] “Controversial anti-Muslim advert causes outcry”, http://www.einnews.com/switzerland/frames/frames.php3?webnewsid=26260008
Joel, Living somewhere & having kids does not constitute an “attack” in most people’s vocabulary. ‘Natives’ of particular lands have long complained of immigrants arriving & having lots of kids; this was true of Indians in the UK a while ago, but we seem to have mostly got over that little bugbear. When I say attack, i mean attack; an unambiguous attack, not some mega-subtle plan which hinges on the assumption that every muslim is an extremist who holds everyone else in contempt. A few Swiss anti-immigration campaigners do not a concerted muslim conspiracy make.
As to all you people who tell me Islam’s goal is world domination, or that there’s loads of crazy stuff in their holy book… there’s loads of crazy stuff in the Christian/Jewish holy books last time i looked too… lots of it highly prescriptive. Doesn’t mean most christians or jews take these prescriptions particularly seriously. It’s in human nature to be a bit lax about following whatever crazy rules our tribal forebears set down during ‘visions’, & I see no reason to believe most muslims are any different.
If you ask a muslim “would you like to see the whole world converted to islam”, he’d probably say yes, but then so would your average Christian. Provided they’re not into compelling other people to follow their religion by force, I have no problem with either group proselytising their beliefs, although I believe they’re both ultimately doomed to become small minority interests as scientific ‘miracles’ continue to erode human beings’ willingness to believe in magic.
I think you hit the nail on the head though with your “is an ideological rationalization” turn of phrase; the global jihad bollocks is a useful unifying concept which the real loonies can use to make people with various regional beefs (russians in chechnya, israelis in palestine, US troops in saudi) believe they’re all fighting some common megawar against the west. Our greatest challenge is to defuse this idea, keep it from spreading, because if it becomes sufficiently widespread, then we *will* be in trouble.
Kamm does have it right, Islamists (not Muslims in general) hate us because we are secular and tolerant and therefore set a (to them) bad example to Mulslims.
Conflating the entire Muslim population of the world with Islamists, as so many commentators habitually do, is to adopt the Islamist position. Whatever the doctrinal problems presented by and historical crimes of Islam, many, and probably most Muslim people in the West or out of it, do not hate the West and are not a threat to it.
There are three things that are often (sometimes willfully) confounded with the problem of Islam that do present a clear threat to Western civilization: The “multicultural” cringe that gives in to Islamic complaint, rather than standing up for free expression; the groupthink desire to visit revenge for Islamist outrages on ordinary Western muslims that locks them out of our society rather than encouraging them to secularise and assimilate and reinforces hatred for its own sake in own society; and the madness of a formless and illimitable “war on terror” that gives Western states a pretext to sweep away free institutions for good.
That quote seems accurate from one angle.
Monarchs want total control, Capitalists want total control, Fascists want total control, and every crackpot with a feasibly working ideology wants total control. It only took a while before the Islamic fundamentalists got so far before there was nothing left to rule – apart from that of others.
Non-secular, non-tolerant, militant fanaticism cannot integrate with pro-secular, pro-tolerance capitalism, any more than could communism, fascism, napoleonic cults. Therefore they compete, clash and kill each other until one has it all.
Do Capitalists want total control? Unlike the others they don’t need it.
A_t,
“Our greatest challenge is to defuse this idea, keep it from spreading, because if it becomes sufficiently widespread, then we *will* be in trouble.”
The idea that the Islamists’ war is the same everywhere is THEIR idea, there IS a megawar against the West by radical Islamist groups (not all muslims, but a very significant minority), and we ARE already in trouble.
You are in denial, sticking your head in sand and hoping the it’s just a few nuts out there that will go away if we keep quiet and play nice (and somehow “defuse” the idea, i.e. convince the nuts to behave…). That’s pacifism par exelance: behave nice, preach peace and lo – all nuts will turn into pacifists too. I don’t know how many more attacks it will take, for you (and many others) to see the seriousness of the problem.
I’m afraid there is nothing that we can do to “defuse the idea” short of killing terrorists and toppling terror supporting regimes.
Islamists don’t inherently have an adversion to secular, pluralist and tolerant views of life. The West’s first experience of Islam during the Islamic explosion of the 7th century speaks a very different story. This Arab Islam was admittedly an inherently aggressive and expansionist force, conquering much of the Byzantine and Sassanian Empire’s in less than fifty years, though as rulers they were in fact incredibly tolerant. Ironically bedoiun arrogance lead to an initial refusal to intergrate with the local populations. In return for a tribute the Islamist rulers essentially left their subjects to their own devices. The vastness of this first Islamist empire also led to the creation of the worlds largest free trade zone. Far from destroying civilisation in the near east, Islamist conquest led to a 7th century renaissance in Syria, Egypt and Persia.
The more authoritarian Islam that we are familar with today in the middle east began with the founding of Baghbad in 762 and the establishment of the Abbasid dynasty. This new dynasty was supported by the Islamized Persians who brought their more elaborate Persian form of government to the Caliphate.
I should have thought it was obvious. We western Judaeo-Christian-atheists are better in every way than the Muslims and they’re insanely jealous of us; but because they don’t know how to be like us, they want to kill us or change us into replicas of themselves. OK?
Now I’ve got to get back to the Home, they only let me out during daylight.
Modernist writes:
“I should have thought it was obvious. We western Judaeo-Christian-atheists are better in every way than the Muslims and they’re insanely jealous of us…”
Well, that’s an interesting thought, Modernist. Perhaps you would like to develop it for us and show how… well, just off the top of my head… how female circumcision, the compulsory relegation of women to the status of cattle, public stonings, floggings and beheadings, forcible conversion, theocratic fascism, intellectual slavery to a belief system frozen in time hundreds of years ago and the rest of the baggage that is touted by Islam is in any way superior to Western secular culture?
This should be a good one. I’ve half a mind to sell tickets…
Jacob, I think you misunderstand me; I understand the threat exists & is significant. I believe there is a danger that we’ll be on the recieving end of potentially very deadly attacks by extremists. I live in London & work on the fringes of the City, so don’t think I’ve not thought about the possibility of a nuclear bomb going off in my vicinity. Ideas like that have even weaseled their way into my dreams.
I agree that for those extremists already buying into the culture war, there is probably nothing we can do other than prevent them from doing evil & killing/imprisoning them when we can. However, as you say, these people are currently a minority. It is vitally important that we do not swell their numbers. This is not pacifism; it’s rational self-defense, & if by pussyfooting around a little we can avoid creating more enemies, without compromising our struggle against those who already exist, that seems the most sensible route to take. This is what troubles me about calls to overthrow regimes etc, when pressure & targeted assassinations; perhaps not even attributable to us, might be just as effective & far less visible to the general public, making it harder to paint us as great (or lesser) satans.
I worry that many already don’t care what the Arab & Muslim majority think & have written them all off as enemies; certainly some who post here have, & their views are not unrepresentative of a segment of the populace at large. I just hope our leaders have the foresight not to buy into the same ideas.
It would really help if there were a better, less confusing, term than “Islamist”.
Simon above seems to be taking the same line as I and A_t have, that, Islam and Muslims aren’t necessarily a big problem, but writes:
“Islamists [sic] don’t inherently have an adversion to secular, pluralist and tolerant views of life.”
the context indicating that to him “Islamist” denotes “Muslim”.
If that understanding of the word is widespread then life is still more difficult for those of us who are trying to maintain that “Muslim” ought not to connote adherence to the aggressive puritan movement within Islam that we understand by “Islamism”.
A_t,
“…. if by pussyfooting around a little we can avoid creating more enemies, without compromising our struggle against those who already exist, that seems the most sensible route to take.”
Here comes in you other misconception: “We fucked up… We create enemies… We must behave … ”
We (the West) did NOT create the nutty Islamists. We cannot un-create them. Your “pussyfooting” I assume means: appeasing. I don’t think it can help.
Jacob writes:
“We (the West) did NOT create the nutty Islamists. We cannot un-create them. Your “pussyfooting” I assume means: appeasing. I don’t think it can help.”
I think A_t needs to read the work of the Blessed St. Peter Simple. In particular, his creation, Prof. Heinz Kiosk, who’s perpetual cry (“We are all guilty!”) seems to be the emotional source of so much liberal thought.
If you approach every problem with an instinctual sense that we are somehow guilty of everything, you can easily see how the liberal worldview emerges.
It explains a great deal about the views held by some strands in society, from contemporary attitudes to world events to the new religion of environmentalism.
Conflating the entire Muslim population of the world with Islamists, as so many commentators habitually do, is to adopt the Islamist position.
I’m sure this is true, but it would be nice of the rest of the Muslim population would do something to set themselves apart from the Islamists, but I hear precious little see even less along these lines.
Jacob, where did I say “we are guilty” “we must repent” etc… I’m just being rational. If we have two ways of killing fanatics, one of which will look good to the folks back home ‘cos it’s spectacular, but will also spawn 50 new fanatics for every one we kill, and another which ain’t so cool, won’t appease the people back home baying for blood because they won’t even know it’s happened, but quietly gets rid of the problem, solution two is the way to go every time.
Did you hear me say “let’s appease the fanatics” at any point? Do not put words in my mouth. & Did you hear me suggest that we created the Islamists? Go on, by all means, let me know where i’ve said this.
However, I think it’s undeniable that some courses of action may cause young muslim men to believe we are evil & flock to the cause of the extremists (Iraq currently being a case in point). This is not to say that our actions would necessarily be evil, but if we can avoid them being *perceived* as such, yes, that may be ‘soft’ in your mind, but it keeps us safer. Provided we can still attain our objectives (get rid of the crazies), where’s your big beef? You gonna miss the big explosions & self-righteous war talk?
Note that this does not mean that I am always opposed to offending people, but I certaily think if there are two alternative solutions, the one which will cause less offense in the Muslim world seems sensible. The fanatics aren’t just born evil or fanatical; they become that way. If we can limit the number of people who do become that way, for whatever irrational mickeymouse hating reasons, that’s good. Call it appeasement if you like, but it’s not; I am not proposing any compromise with those who actually mean us harm.
& GCooper, you love your little labels, don’t you? What would you do without them? It must be so satisfying for you to put me in that little box called “liberal” & issue some lofty generalisations about “my kind”. In doing so, you’re no cleverer than some guardianista talking bollocks about evil capitalists. If you think my arguments are a load of rubbish, engage with them on their own terms & tell me what you think is wrong with them; stop playing to the gallery & trying to paint me into the “enemy” “leftist” etc. corner. Far too many people ’round here do.
Winning hearts and minds is well-known and proven military doctrine when dealing with insurgencies, which the current “war on terror” resembles in many ways. To label it “pussyfooting” or “liberal appeasement” is misleading at best.
.
If you can kill your enemies without creating further converts to the cause, then clearly that is superior to killing them whilst creating new enemies. I would have thought that was simple common sense. That is hardly what one understands by the term “appeasement”, is it?
A_t,
Provided we can still attain our objectives (get rid of the crazies), where’s your big beef?
You’re trying to eat you cake and have it too.
You fantasize about a world where some superman invisible agent goes in and kills the bad guys, in a clean and sanitary fashion.
The real world is messier.
Then you criticize real people because they don’t implement your fantasies.
“Provided we can still attain our objectives ” – I can agree with that at least.
“[…]do something to set themselves apart from the Islamists[…]”? Living their own lives and having ordinary neighbourly relations with non-Muslims is good enough for me.
That’s what most of the Muslims I meet seem to be doing. I imagine they think it is obvious to their friends and acquaintances that they aren’t friends of Osama, and don’t see why they should have to go out of their way to prove it to people they don’t have any contact with. Indeed there’s a noticeable touch of counterreaction detectable in a slightly more public profession of faith: “Sure, I’m a Muslim. I don’t have to justify it to you.”
If you demand some sort of demonstrative action of people before you accept that they have a place in society, what would suffice? and when would you like it performed? Repeat as often as necessary. So easily one slips into the equivalent mindset of racism awareness and monitoring, and codes and policies on everyday speech and action. Recall, too, the Test Acts that kept dissenters and Catholics out of British public life (and led directly to the US Constitutional prohibition of an establishment of religion).
Jacob, yet again you (wilfully?) misinterpret me. I don’t wish for some magic superman. If you think covert assasinations are fantasy, you’re the one whose view is unrealistic; they’ve been possible for centuries & our technology allows us many new ways to go about them, see remote drones etc.
I also accept that at times we may have to take a more open, visible approach & possibly cause offense. I’m not objecting to that, should it be necessary. I am only saying that if we are presented with a choice, we should probably use the more low key, less likely to cause offense among regular folk in the region method. Do you disagree?
A_t, demography is something to take into account when dealing with the geostrategy issue.
We need the courage to do what is right (e.g., tight immigration restrictions if necessary to protect ourselves). And, when bringing to practice non-PC policies, it’s nearly preposterous to pretend we can avoid the fool of perceiving us as evil.
A_t, you said “[…] Living somewhere & having kids does not constitute an “attack” in most people’s vocabulary.”
I say that, actually “living somewhere & having kids” is something Islamicists take as a potential weapon. According to Anthony Browne,
“A popular topic for discussion on Arabic TV channels is the best strategy for conquering the West. It seems to be agreed that since the West has overwhelming economic, military and scientific power, it could take some time, and a full frontal assault could prove counterproductive. Muslim immigration and conversion are seen as the best path.”
[In: “The triumph of the East”, The Spectator, by A. Browne, http://www.spectator.co.uk/article.php?table=old§ion=current&issue=2004-07-24&id=4835 ]
In the same article, the author reports that media-star Al-Qaradawi pushes for that “mega-subtle plan” you ironically refer, and said
‘Islam will return to Europe. The conquest need not necessarily be by the sword. Perhaps we will conquer these lands without armies.”
A_t:
“this was true of Indians in the UK a while ago, but we seem to have mostly got over that little bugbear.”
Indians are not Muslims, and Bhudism in not Islam. As to all you people who tell me Islam’s goal is world domination, or that there’s loads of crazy stuff in their holy book… there’s loads of crazy stuff in the Christian/Jewish holy books last time i looked too… lots of it highly prescriptive.
Here, supposing you are right (and I think you are not), one evil does not nullify another evil.
A_t:
“It’s in human nature to be a bit lax about following whatever crazy rules our tribal forebears set down during ‘visions’, & I see no reason to believe most muslims are any different.”
I am not focusing on “most Muslims”, or even “Muslims”; I am referring to the consequences of the tenets of Islam and its orthodox followers (according to experts as Robert Spencer, Bin Laden is a follower of orthodox Islam.)
A_t:
“Provided they’re not into compelling other people to follow their religion by force, I have no problem with either group proselytising their beliefs, […]”
My friend, orthodox Islam compells other people to follow their religion by force, or otherwise be killed or enslaved. I strongly suggest you to read some of Robert Spencer’s books:
http://www.jihadwatch.org/books/
[Sorry for the disturbance. Here I correct the paragraphs I messed up:]
A_t:
“this was true of Indians in the UK a while ago, but we seem to have mostly got over that little bugbear.”
Indians are not Muslims, and Bhudism in not Islam.
A_t:
“As to all you people who tell me Islam’s goal is world domination, or that there’s loads of crazy stuff in their holy book… there’s loads of crazy stuff in the Christian/Jewish holy books last time i looked too… lots of it highly prescriptive.”
Here, supposing you are right (and I think you are not), one evil does not nullify another evil.
Correction two (!):
Put “Hinduism” where I (clumsily) wrote “Bhudism”.
A_t writes:
” If you think my arguments are a load of rubbish, engage with them on their own terms & tell me what you think is wrong with them; stop playing to the gallery & trying to paint me into the “enemy” “leftist” etc. corner”
And what a total waste of time that would be! Your arguments have been dissected many times on this blog, by myself and others. Your standard tactic when they are shown to be flawed seems to be to disown the points you have been trying to make and to morph the subject so as not to have to either justify what you have said, or admit you were wrong. It’s like arguing with jelly.
I repeat, your views as expressed in this and other threads, very often seem to originate from that reflexive sense of guilt (post-colonial or otherwise) which seems to afflict liberals.
Why you feel the need to pretend this is not the case (and I have yet to see you advance one argument that is not congruent with the Left-liberal BBC Islington worldview) I can’t imagine, but clearly it seems to make you uncomfortable.
As the saying goes: if it walks like a duck…
The problem is that the situation we are now in – forget how we got there for the moment – engenders fanaticism on all sides. Has anyone forgotten Anne Coulters shrill outburst that we should invade their [Muslim] countries and forcibly convert them to Christianity?
Fanaticism, rigid mind sets and authoritarian behaviour are not the sole prerogative of fundamentalist Islam (think about Jerry Fulwell). If we (ie the ‘West’) base our political and military strategy on the assumption that it is, we will lose.
GCooper, fair enough; personally I think you’re just using it as a device to discredit my arguments without actually addressing them. Most of the people who post here could be put into some “social conservative”, “jewish zionist”, “republican progressive”, “rand-ite”, “fox viewer”, “grumpy old man” etc. etc. box, & a bunch of corresponding beliefs ascribed to them, but the majority of posters choose not to adopt this one-size-fits-all approach & view individuals as such.
I am aware though, that I usually only post here when I disagree strongly with something that’s been said & no-one else seems to be responding, so there will be many topics that I agree with which you are unaware of, and probably don’t fit into your “islington blah blah” mindset; the recent debate over hate crime laws, the proposed smoking ban and so on. I have not commented on these because I had nothing to add to what had already been said & I don’t see the point in going “yeah, right on” without adding anything of substance. Perhaps I should comment in the positive too, but it’s always seems less appealing than having a good scrap. Ah well! But yes, this may help to contribute to your impression, as obviously my arguing on some matters will coincide with these champagne islingtonite beeb stereotypes you have in mind.
The reason the label annoys me is that I know the type of mindset you’re referring to, & whilst I do share some ideas with these individuals, I also disagree with them on many points, have argued with quite a few over the past few years, and dislike being lumped in with them by someone with whom i feel i have had some interesting, if often unresolved, discussions. Above all though, I resent the implication that I buy into some ideological package like some guardian-clone. People who do this, be they die-hard tories or right-on guardian readers, I find intensely annoying.
‘Islam will return to Europe. The conquest need not necessarily be by the sword. Perhaps we will conquer these lands without armies.” – Posted by Joel Català
By 2020, 50% of the children in Holland under the age of 18 will be of Muslim descent. If by the mid-century the bulk of Holland is Muslim-and don’t forget, coupled with this there is this collapse of numbers … Western Europeans are growing old and not having any babies. What will happen to those Dutch principles of freedom and democracy. What will happen when Holland loses its identity, its traditions, its culture, its Christian/Eropean and Western heritage? What will happen to Holland’s famous liberal attitudes and permissive society when half the population gets its instructions from the Koran and believes in Sharia? What will happen to the indiginous Dutch people when Islam starts to assert itself and the Dutch get to become ‘Dhimmis’ in their own country?
The late Pim Fortuyn said;
“Christianity and Judaism have gone through the laundromat of humanism and enlightenment, but that is not the case with Islam. We have separation of state and church. The laws of the country are not subject to the Koran. We have equality of men and women, whereas in Islamic culture women are inferior to men.” He also pointed out that in Holland, “homosexuality is treated the same way as heterosexuality. In what Islamic country does that happen?”
The sheer weight of Islamic immigrant numbers, plus the refusal to assimilate to Western values, makes this an unprecedented crisis for Western liberalism. They do not accept the distinction between the spiritual and the temporal, (the seperation of church and state), the division which in modern Western Christian societies confines religion to the margins of everyday life. Instead, for Muslims, the whole of human life must represent a submission to Allah. This means that they feel a duty to Islamicise the values of the surrounding culture. These were the very democratic and liberal values that Fortuyn wished to protect and preserve. He wished to defend liberal democracy from militant Islam.
What this means is the replacement of Western civilization with a different civilization with different cultural values that are totally alein to our own and in effects are rooted in the seventh century.
True Democracy comes form our Greco-Judeo-Christian-Western experience. If we lose these things, then this is a catastrophe for the world and Europe is heading blindly to its own grave. Daniel Pipes was right when he said that Europe is suffering from ‘senility’.
And there is a demographic catastrophe happening in Europe that nobody wants to talk about, that we daren’t bring up because we are so cagey about not offending people racially. And rightly we should be. But there is a cultural thing as well.
Western civilization is prescious, and the potential consequences of rising Muslim extremism and the increasingly Islamic face of Europe seriously threaten its very existance.
France has 7 to 10 million Muslim immigrants and one in three babies born in France today is of Muslim descent. In about 20/25 years, those babies will become testosterone-filled young Muslim men, wishing to assert their Islamic culture and Koranic beliefs on the social stratas and institutions of France. What will happen to that famous French Libertaire, Egalitaire and Solidaire then? Wherever a population of Muslims gains in numbers, they begin to demand autonomy or a change in the governmental structure to reflect Islamic Sharia law. This is going to lead to social turmoil or even a long religious war, an Islamic Jihad. Not all Muslims will support it, but few can be expected to speak out against it.
This Hijab headscalf thing is only the beginning of French problems to come. French society is so troubled and it‘s about 24, 25 years away from major civil war.
A word for the wise. Europe needs to get it’s head out of its arse before it’s too late.
I’ve got a quote too:
Islamists oppose us not because of what we are: secular, pluralist and tolerant, but because of what we do.
A word for the wise. Europe needs to get it’s head out of its arse before it’s too late.
Simple, blunt and oh so true.
And after all, if you are paying attention is not exactly like Muslim leaders hide the fact they want to turn Western Europe into Muslim lands. After all that is the whole raison d’etre of the religion.
By 2020, 50% of the children in Holland under the age of 18 will be of Muslim descent. If by the mid-century the bulk of Holland is Muslim-and don’t forget, coupled with this there is this collapse of numbers … Western Europeans are growing old and not having any babies. What will happen to those Dutch principles of freedom and democracy. What will happen when Holland loses its identity, its traditions, its culture, its Christian/Eropean and Western heritage? What will happen to Holland’s famous liberal attitudes and permissive society when half the population gets its instructions from the Koran and believes in Sharia? What will happen to the indiginous Dutch people when Islam starts to assert itself and the Dutch get to become ‘Dhimmis’ in their own country?
Well if that happens it will be because of individual decisions by the Dutch. What is the alternative? State intervention to force the ‘natives’ to have more kids? State sterilisation of those of Muslim birth? Of course not.
Societies change – what we recognise as our European heritage is different to that which existed 200 years ago. If we want to preserve it we have to make it worth preserving. We have to make sure that the choice is available and that what ‘we’ have to offer is preferable to any other choice.
It also seems that (not for the first time) some of the comments here are using libertarianism as a cloak for rather more malevolent world views. Perhaps I’m misreading things – it is easy to type in a rapid response and be misunderstood – I hope that’s so.
Sorry – the italic code didn’t seem to work in that last comment – for the avoidance of doubt the first paragraph is a quote from an earliewr comment.
Who said that all the commentators on this board are libertarians? We are probably all anti-Left, and anti-Statist in the economic sense, but I , for one, support the banning of the hijab in France – which is hardly libertarian.
You said
“Societies change – what we recognise as our European heritage is different to that which existed 200 years ago. If we want to preserve it we have to make it worth preserving. We have to make sure that the choice is available and that what ‘we’ have to offer is preferable to any other choice.”
I hold my head in my hands. We will make sure that that “we” (your ironic quotes) make sure a “choice is available” which is “preferable to any other choice”.
Yes, I suppose if put like that, in 2050 a resurgant Islam in Holland will convert, enmasse, to naive hand wringing secularism; even if the average Islamic child is in the majority, schooled at a Muslim faith school ( increasingly the demand from the Mullahs and their multi-culti fellow travellers) , and brought up in an environment hostile to the West; and to Christians, Secularist and Jews( of course), reinforced by a diet of Arabic cable TV and mad Mullahs at the weekend.
My – decidedly non-libertatian – solution would be to allow countries to determine their borders now. it is the naive libertarians and multi-culturalists who believe that everyone will assimilate into our culture, but refuse to explain how, or why.
I think you’ve probably made my point for me.
Editors note: comment deleted. Didn’t we already ban you?
I see libertarianism as the philosophy defending that what is moral is, at same time, practical.
Ian, for your information, Hans-Hermann Hoppe is a libertarian scholar for the case of free trade an restricted immigration.
“The Libertarian Case for Free Trade
And Restricted Immigration”, H.-H. Hoppe,
http://www.cis.org/articles/2001/back601.html
His main argument:
“[…] while someone can migrate from one place to another without anyone else wanting him to do so, goods and services cannot be shipped from place to place unless both sender and receiver agree. Trivial as this distinction may appear, it has momentous consequences. For free in conjunction with trade then means trade by invitation of private households and firms only; and restricted trade does not mean protection of households and firms from uninvited goods or services, but invasion and abrogation of the right of private households and firms to extend or deny invitations to their own property. In contrast, free in conjunction with immigration does not mean immigration by invitation of individual households and firms, but unwanted invasion or forced integration; and restricted immigration actually means, or at least can mean, the protection of private households and firms from unwanted invasion and forced integration. Hence, in advocating free trade and restricted immigration, one follows the same principle: requiring an invitation for people as for goods and services.”
In the same way that libertarianism does not mean naïveté or irrationality, open-mindedness does not mean wide open frontiers for all.
The main portion of H.-H. Hoppe’s paragraph:
“[…] free in conjunction with immigration does not mean immigration by invitation of individual households and firms, but unwanted invasion or forced integration; and restricted immigration actually means, or at least can mean, the protection of private households and firms from unwanted invasion and forced integration.”
Eoin:
“but I , for one, support the banning of the hijab in France – which is hardly libertarian.”
There is no French ban on the hijab. If there was, it would be unlibertarian, but as there isn’t, it isn’t. All there is, is a rule about what children have to wear when they attend [Government] schools. There is no libertarian principle involved there; any more than rules about what children are allowed to eat or smoke in [Government] schools raise “libertarian” issues.
In response to Joel’s reference to Hoppe, perhaps he should read Perry’s criticism posted on the Libertarian Alliance site at http://www.libertarian.co.uk/lapubs/polin/polin179.pdf
I don’t agree entirely with Perry’s reasons but I entirely agree with his conclusion.
Do not fear the immigrant, because freed from the baleful distortions of statism, they wish to be us. Let them try and thereby enrich us all.