Articles often reveal more about their author than their subject. A case in point is a fairly bizarre article by Martin Samuel in the Times. He writes about US warships being named to commemorate the 9/11 atrocities and moreover being contructed in part using steel salvaged from the WTC (I have no idea if this is true but I will take his word for it). He then goes on to say:
The ships would commemorate the attacks, if that is the right word, which it is plainly not.
If a warship named after something does not thereby ‘commemorate’ it, then what is the right word?
Exactly what is being commemorated anyway? Not the memory of the victims, as nothing is known of how they want to be remembered, and certainly not whether they would wish a warship to be dedicated in their name.
And so by that logic, the cenotaph in Whitehall and all those Great War memorials in almost every town and village in the UK do not ‘commemorate’ the victims of Britain’s various wars either, unless a Ouija board was used to conduct a post-mortem opinion poll of Britain’s war dead to see how they might like to be remembered. Or perhaps, seeing as how we British are so much more insightful than those funny Americans, the wise old Ministry of Defence as a matter of policy asks all servicemen “In the event you buy the farm for Queen and Country in some godforsaken hole we sent you to, what sort of edifice would you like us to use to commemorate your demise?”
Who knows in which direction their anger would be channelled? It could be that some of the dead might have thought over-reliance on warships was their downfall in the first place.
Well call me presumptuous if you like but from what I know of human nature in general and Americans in particular, my money is on the hypothetical post-mortem anger of 9/11’s victims being directed at the sons of bitches who murdered them, rather than at Presidents Clinton or Bush or the US Navy. Just a guess mind you.
While not excusing wicked acts committed by terrorists, it would be foolish to view the behaviour of terrorists as motiveless. If we regard terrorism as the work of madmen and unrelated to our relationship with their world, we learn nothing from history.
I love it when ‘sophisticated’ and ‘nuanced’ Brits and Europeans lecture Americans about history, given the millions and millions of corpses littered across Europe within living memory. Attacks by people from abroad are caused by interventionist foreign policies, clever Mr. Samuel tells us, with his wise Old World perspectives, which of course explains how places like Poland, Belgium, Denmark, Norway, Greece, Czechoslovakia etc. managed to sit out World War II in peace by minding their own business.
Moreover whilst nothing is guaranteed in this life, as close to certainty as you may ever come is when someone says “While not excusing wicked acts committed by terrorists…” they are about to do exactly that.
His entire article tells us nothing about America, American foreign policy, the people who committed mass murder on 9/11, the people who died on 9/11 or even how to commemorate the untimely dead. All his article tells us is that Martin Samuel neither likes nor understands Americans. It also reveals that unlike many in the Muslim world whose perpectives have changed considerably since that fateful day in 2001, it is Martin Samuel who has a very poor understanding of cause and effect.
Yes, this is true. See this. An excerpt:
And this:
Perry understands Americans better than this sophisticated idiot.
We turn the metal from our ruins into weapons to hunt down and kill our enemies.
I think the British of an earlier time, not that long ago, would have understood that perfectly.
Perry’s right: this was a nasty, snide article, solipsistic and incurious intellectually and emotionally. Above all, it had (Perry’s word is right) a bizarre tone.
I’m not sure it was outright anti-Americanism on display, just a rather constipated but massive smugness.
Still, that’s ok – he’s just identified himself as one more commentator who needn’t be read again.
I think it’s double-extra-special good that they’re not just “Navy ships”, but Amphibious Transports (not, as the ABC article says, Amphibious Assaults).
I’d think nothing more fitting for this purpose than the vehicles that ferry the Marines in close to shore.
(Leave it to the modern media, I suppose, to mention that the New York will be the fifth in this class of vessels without naming the farkin’ class or designation of the ship – which a little research indicates is the San Antonio class LPD “Amphibious Transport Dock”; New York will be LPD-21.)
I agree, it is only the apologist mentality of modern ‘trendy’ European and British society that sneers at such moves to commemorate the dead.
Following the Bibigarh massacre of women and children at Cawnpore in 1857, British troops arriving in India via Calcutta were obliged to parade past the now infamous well where all the bodies were thrown into. Stern lectures were given to troops about the need to show no quarter to the Sepoys and men were encouraged to collect mementoes from the area to remind them of why they were there, a system that continued to prevail for a very long number of years after the cessation of hostilities – indeed George McDonald-Fraser (author of the Flashman series of novels) recounted once being offered a tattoo in an Indian barbershop of ‘Remember Cawnpore Well’ – some 85 years later in 1942. In fact one mutineer caught over 12 years later, in the late 1860’s, was still required to lick long-dried blood off a square foot section of matting before having his caste broken (eating rotted pork for a muslim etc) and then being duly hanged. This was during what I was always give to understand was called ‘The Indian Mutiny’ and what is now apparently taught as ‘The First Indian War of Independence 1857’ ,
The most recent events that come to mind are the apology by the Archbishop of Canterbury for the fact that the CofE may once have owned slave plantations in Barbados and the 60th VJ celebrations last year, where the BBC were required to place emphasis upon the radiation and burns suffered by those in Hiroshima and Nagasaki rather than the millions slaughtered by the Japanese in WW2 in China and elsewhere.
It’s best to ignore the jackasses who write these types of articles. While I’m sure he believes his own postmodern ramblings, I would bet good money that sometimes a fairly unknown writer will produce one of these articles simply because he knows it will piss of the right-leaning and pro-American blogosphere–and will result in vastly more publicity for him than he ever would have gotten otherwise.
Nothing would hurt him more than a complete lack of response to such an article. I can just see him sitting at his computer waiting for the indignant and angry emails and articles to start rolling in, at which point he can eagerly forward them to friends and the Guardian and affirm his street cred and receive accolades for being “brave” and “speaking truth to power”; or at least “speaking truth to stupid jingoistic Americans”. Imagine how crestfallen he would be if none of that happened. I think he might cry.
Martin who?
The Norm says much the same thing.
I think this is what he would call “mbunderstanding”
Mr Samuels appears to have his understanding of terrorism entirely back to front, that’s for sure.
The motives of terrorism are to do with the terrorists’ own relationship with their/our world, and our role in their psychological formation is extremely limited. Nobody knows how to stop spoilt brats and reformed petty criminals becoming terrorists or dictatorial political thugs (and I suppose we are lucky that most don’t). If we can be said to contribute to it at all, we certainly have no control.
Talk about blaming the victim!
I must say, I’ve taken to skipping Martin Samuel’s columns in the Times. They are generally a waste of paper.
To mix my Freudian theses, this sounds like a classic case of “penis envy denial” to me – a very (modern) European malaise.
Mr Samual is clearly blaiming America for the attacks upon it.
AntiAmericanism (as well as “blame the victim”).
No I do not think the terrorists were or (in the case of the living) are “mad” – I think they are evil (not a word I think Mr Samual would be comfortable with).
The way to deal with such terrorists is not to change Amerian policy in such and such a way (in fact President Bush was elected on a platform of less intervention in the Middle East and had moved away from Israel before the attacks on the United States), but to kill them.
I know that the terrorists have a long cultural tradition of seeking to kill or enslave nonmuslims (going back to “the Prophet” himself) but understanding this does not mean that one can avoid the need to hunt them down and kill them. Their interpretion of Islam may or may not be correct, but this is not relevant in regards to the duty to kill them.
The men of North Africa had a long cultural tradition of attacking the ships of non Muslims (one, they claimed, well supported by the doctrines of their faith) but this did not mean that Thomas Jefferson was wrong to send the navy and the marines to kill them.
I oppose many aspects of American policy. I oppose giving aid to Israel (I oppose giving aid to any country), I oppose the efforts at “nation building” in Iraq (or anywhere else). But hunting down and killing those who organise attacks on the United States is not optional – it is the primary duty of the Commander in Chief and all American forces (as it should be with Britain in relation to attacks upon Britain or British subjects).
And if such organizations as the “United Nations” seek to get in the way and protect the terrorists they must be terminated (by force if need be).
The terrorists and their commanders were not poor – “poverty” has nothing to do with anything.
None of them had been harmed by Israel in any way – so the “wicked Zionists” are not at fault.
And none of them had been harmed by the American military in any way.
Various people choose to attack the United States and those who are still alive must be hunted down and killed. And anyone who seeks to protect them must be killed as well.
Their culture and religion may be very complicated and interesting – but it does not change this fact.
AntiAmericanism takes many forms in our decadent culture.
For example, the B.B.C. has hired Terry Jones (the comic performer) to produce a series on the “Barbarians” (in relation to the Romans).
From what I heard from him, when he was interviewed on Radio 4, he does not know very much about the subject (for example he thought that Romen women had no legal rights), but I noted his knee jerk anti Americanism.
The Americans were like the Romans (said Mr Jones) because they were attacking people to build an “Empire” out of fear of attack.
Whilst I might think that the effort to build democracy in places like Iraq is a waste of money and lives (but then I do not think kindly of representative democracy in the first place) it is simply a lie to say that the Americans are trying to build an Empire.
According to Mr Jones “informed Americans” agree with him (the example he gave was the people who inhabit the universities).
It is indeed true that in certian places in the United States (such as the media and academia) European style antiAmericanism is alive and well.
The United States has many problems and it is possible that these problems will destroy it. But the problems of most European nations are worse.
It may well be that the United States will continue to exist long after most of Europe has collapsed into chaos.
The problem with the authors claims that American projection of power was what upset the rest of the world prior to 9/11, is that it is false history. I was there, it was not long ago. I clearly remember Bush declaring that the US was “Not into nation building” and “not the world’s policeman”. It was statements like those that pissed off the rest of the world prior to 9/11, not supposed American interventionism.
Guess what world? You want us to intervene the way YOU think it should be done, but we’re NEVER going to do it that way, we’ll do it OUR WAY. Don’t like it? Stop pissing us off.
The 2,800 souls that perished [on 9/11] as an indirect result of an interventionist foreign policy
One case of Extraordinary Rendition I would like to see is Martin Samuel picked up by the CIA, flown over to Ground Zero and forced to apologise to the relatives of the 2,800 victims of the 9/11 atrocity for making such a crass, insensitive and historically inaccurate remark. America was attacked on 9/11 because it is the most obvious symbol of everything which the Islamists detest. Whatever foreign policy the USA follows is unimportant to these people – they will always hate America and Americans.
I don’t comment much but that Times article is just about the dumbest crap I have read in quite some time. I’m a Democrat voting New Yorker who opposed the war in Iraq and is uneasy with a lot of US foreign policy in the last 20 years and guess what? I would advise Martin Samuel to stay the hell out of my neighborhood because I would be happy to kick his smug ass from Yonkers to Ground Zero.
Stupid article. He fails to notice the parallel with the VC, which is cast from bronze of captured enemy canons.
The curious thing is that the US is building into their warships what is really a symbol of defeat rather than victory. I can see the defiant gesture involved, sure, but it’s a bit odd. Rather like going into battle with the ears of your own side’s dead soldiers in an ammo pouch, rather than the ears of the enemy, as it were.
Generally speaking I’m in favour of placing slightly dodgy spiritual significance in weapons – the Japanese are experts at it. I think it livens things up no end. Now if only they’d called it something better than USS New York…
That’s a very odd article.
Exactly what is being commemorated anyway? Not the memory of the victims, as nothing is known of how they want to be remembered, and certainly not whether they would wish a warship to be dedicated in their name.
This is actually almost an argument not to commemorate anything, ever.
The second part of Mr Samuels article was just cut and paste anti-Americanism. Did he have a tight deadline or something?
The US is damned if it does and damned if it doesn’t when it comes to intervention.
History shows that powerful countries are always resented by the weak ones.
I’m reminded of the “Question Time” program that aired two days after 9/11.
If ever British women are forced to don the veil, thanks will be in no small part to self-hating fools like Martin Samuel.
As I’ve mentioned before as a guest here, if you want enemies, simply be successful. I wouldn’t disparage female anatomy by suggesting that Mr. Samuel mimics it so flawlessly
I guess articles and opinions like this are so boringly commonplace and mundane that my only reaction is, “Why would you imagine any of us in the US would care what you thought one way or the other?”
But, of course, the article was written to impress other members of the Euro chattering classes, and their American hangers on, not any ordinary person. That explains why everything is in shorthand, and the supposed examples don’t have to make any sense.
He’s just reciting the catechism. ESR over at Armed and Dangerous had a very nice posting about this stuff a few months ago. He called it “Gramscian Leftovers” or something like that.
All the endless accusations and criticisms of the last hundred years from every conceivable variant of collectivist, all appalled that a capitalist, individualist, unplanned culture is allowed to exist in this world, disrupting all their plans for the coming utopia, distilled into a venomous syrup and available for pouring out at every possible opportunity.
The one comment made about the reference to a defeat in the naming of these ships is interesting. If you look at our history, we often derive inspiration from times when we have been dealt a viscious blow, or held out against great odds.
“Remember the Maine”, the Spirit of Bunker Hill, Remember the Alamo, Pearl Harbor, various references from the Revolution, Civil War, WW1 and WW2, the Pusan Reservoir, Bataan, “I will return”, and so on and so on. The Marines have a whole fleet of ships recalling various battles, not all of them glorious victories, but remembered as moments of heroism and honor.
Memorializing a time when Americans were wounded is not at all unusual for the military, or the general citizenry. If there were one thing I wish I could somehow communicate clearly to those among the Islamic community who either participate in or support these attacks it would be this tradition.
We never forget. We never forgive. We make up the rules as we go along, and we always rig the game.
Everything you so confidently know about us is wrong.
All your worst fears are only a pale shadow of what your fears should really be.
If you don’t reconsider and stop, nothing will be able to save you.
I don’t have much hope they’ll listen and understand, but it’s only right to give fair warning.
Then, well, there’s an old American phrase which goes, “You asked for it, buddy, and now you got it.”
“the Pusan Reservoir” should be the Chosin reservoir in North Korea where the US Marines conducted a gallant retreat in the face of overwhelming odds and unbelievably harsh conditions. Pusan was the last-stand perimeter defence of the only remaining UN foothold in South Korea.
At least the US Navy has a new flotilla of warships to name……unlike the oh-so-smug Brits who struggled to find enough vessels put on the Trafalgar day review!
veryretired is spot on.
The curious thing is that the US is building into their warships what is really a symbol of defeat rather than victory. I can see the defiant gesture involved, sure, but it’s a bit odd. Rather like going into battle with the ears of your own side’s dead soldiers in an ammo pouch, rather than the ears of the enemy, as it were.
J, I don’t see it like that. The people who were murdered weren’t soldiers, and they didn’t die in war. This is more akin to bringing a lock of your murdered sweetheart’s hair into battle. It helps you remember why you’re there.
By the same reasoning being raped is the victim’s fault for wearing something sexy. However, I strongly doubt Mr. Samuels would write an article that accused women of perpetuating a cycle of sexual violence against them.
Actually, it’s a bit funnier than we thought. The article is as graceless, ahistoric, modish and generally as crap as described but. . . . . . .
Martin Samuel isn’t a “commentator” at all – he’s a football writer. That’s his area of expertise – football. Doubtless he knows a bit about Sven, Wayne, Becks and “the lads”, and he’ll be all of a muck-sweat this summer but someone, for some reason – and we can’t rule out a cruel practical joke – has allowed him to stretch his intellectual legs in public. I think all we can say, is “Oh dear”, politely turn away and not dwell on his crapness.
“Punt it up the park. On the head, John. The boy done good. If you’re good enough you’re old enough.
Ingerlund, Ingerlund, Ingerlund. . .
Frankly, I’m sick as a parrot.
Martin Samuels is a football writer. His career started in football reporting, it has long been about football reporting and only recently has he started casting his pen over other events.
Let’s be clear, we are not talking about a respected commentator on geo-political affairs. When the Times needed a columnist it cast it’s net wide, sifted through the catch and chose a football writer. In truth, he’s one of the better and more perceptive writers on the round ball game, but someone cocked up badly in thinking this qualified him for anything else.
Lemme point out to people going tribal that the article on this blog trashing that asshole was also writen by a Brit.
On Rick Gaber’s point (which I agree with – as I agree with most of the comments above).
I think it goes back to Cicero with his “no idea is so absurd that it has not been defended by some philosopher”.
It is the old vice of the “half educated” person. People (who go in for higher education in the humanities and social sciences) are told that they should question “common sense” ideas (the ideas of ordinary folk).
But to question should not be to assume common sense ideas are not true and the opposite of them must be correct.
In fact (as even Descartes accepted) the assumption should be the other way round. One should accept common sense ideas unless there is a very strong proof that such an idea is not true.
Martin Samuels is a football writer. His career started in football reporting, it has long been about football reporting and only recently has he started casting his pen over other events.
Lets hope he quits doing so before he makes a complete arse of himself and the paper for which he writes.
Martin Samuels wrote that “America came under attack because successive American governments had made it the enemy of large swaths of humanity.”
It wasn’t “large swaths of humanity” who hijacked those planes and killed thousands of Americans with them, it was twenty Muslims. Thousands of Palestinians danced for joy at news of the murders, but that was one small country. If any country has a grievance against the United States it would be Vietnam, but it wasn’t Vietnamese people who hijacked the planes. They were mostly Saudi Arabs, subjects of a country which American governments defended from invasion by Saddam Hussein. They were Muslims, like the people whom an American government helped defend from “ethnic cleansing”, i.e., mass murder, in the Balkans.
Just who are these wide swaths of humanity whom successive American governments turned into enemies? We certainly haven’t been friendly toward Fidel Castro, but the Cubans who have hijacked airplanes ordered them flown to Havana instead of into buildings. We dropped atomic bombs on Japan but Japanese terrorists attacked in Rome and Tokyo, not New York.
If “America came under attack because successive American governments made it the enemy of wide swaths of humanity”, then how does Samuels explain Muslim terror in Beslan, Moscow, London, Madrid, Kenya, Munich, India and Indonesia? Given the number and variety of countries Muslim terrorists have attacked, wouldn’t it be more accurate to say that America and the other countries came under attack because Muslim terrorists have made themselves the enemy of wide swaths of humanity? But, then, a newspaper which would print a column like Martin Samuels’ is not a place to look for accuracy.
Thank you, Stuart. I got those mixed up, and I appreciate the correct information.
The whole deal is even more ridiculous if the writer’s actually a soccer commentator. Aren’t Americans the ones always derided because of our use of sports metaphors?
I suppose his next column will be about the new boutique he’s about to open. And then, one about how he fell out of his chair.
Extra credit if you know what comes after “Well, Bryan…”
J,
No. It is a battle cry. Like “Remember the Alamo!”
The Alamo was a tragedy. But then, there’s this —
A thought occurs to me, What will happen to these ships when they’re scrapped? Will the 9/11 steel end up being melted down again and made into Volkswagens and girders.
“What will happen to these ships when they’re scrapped?”
Set your irony meter on “High”, Nick; old Navy ships are mothballed (“decommissioned”), and then generally used for target practice (thus making it twice that the metal was thus used).
Actually, what really got up my nose was that this journo twat presumed to lecture us on how to name our ships, and how to build them.
Just what we needed, from an apologist for terrorism.
This isn’t another of those American Football vs The Rest of the World Football things, is it? /sarcasm off.
The current USS Enterprise was build partially from the steel used in the WW2 USS Enterprise. Who knows what the steel from the current one, and the USS New York, will be used for? You can rest assured that it won’t be used to build the Osama bin Laden.
If it’s used for girders and VWs, well at least they’ll be useful.
I really don’t understand this low-rent moonbat’s questioning of naming the ship after a defeat. I don’t think that American’s really see much of a difference. Wake Island remembered as much as the Thunder Run to Bahgdad. The Sullivans as valued a ship the Tarawa.
Jacksonian Americans are certainly warriors, but just as certainly not warlike. Wars always sneak up on us…not good, I suppose – but Americans are really very naive about warfare.
At best we’re always hoping it’ll be a good war against an honorable foe…and if it isn’t, Jacksonians can be your worst freakin’ nightmare.
Wasn’t Matthew Engel, the perpetrator of that ridiculous Olive Garden sneer that Lileks fisked so well, also a sports writer with pretentions?
Lileks’ Screed
Just a coincidence?
RGT
The ships may well be used to create artificial reefs once their commissions have ended.
They will then become habitats that protect and encourage life… while merging with the seascape in coastal waters, becoming in effect part of the Americcan landscape.
Jeffrey,
That’s a really nice idea. I hope it happens, though not until they’ve launched some pretty devastating attacks on the islamo-loons…
The only grievance that the people of Vietnam would have against the United States would be that the U.S. failed to prevent the Communist take over. But America did try – which is more than most nations did.
Neither most of the population of the Republic of Vietnam (“South Vietnam”) nor most people in the north wanted Marxism – and that holds true for most of the people of Laos and Cambodia as well.
A well organised and ruthless minority (with great support from the Soviet Union and China – both helped in spite of the difference between these powers) took power (as has often happened in the history of humanity).
American tactics can be attacked (especially the “limited war” gradualist absuridities of Robert McNamarra – who is still going around saying that the enemy was “nationalism not communism” which proves he has learnt nothing at all), but the basic American aim was a good one.
The American policy (under both Johnson and Nixon) of thinking the the war could be solved by “talks” (which meant that the Communists could stop the fighting whenever they happened to be loosing) was one of the key factors in bringing about Communist victory.
In this United States showed it had not learned the lesson of General Marshall’s demand that the Nationalists stop their 1946 offensive in Manchuria against the Communists in China (because the Communists had asked for “talks”), the enemy regrouped and the Nationalists were never in a position to win again. General Marshall cost China more than fifty million innocent lives.
To return to the matter of Vietnam.
Have people forgotten such things as the Vietnamese “boat people” so quickly?
Also during the years of conflict people were not in the habit of fleeing north.
In fact the situation was more clear cut than the one in Iraq.
Most people in Indo China were not communists – but most people in Iraq are Muslims and they are going to stay Muslims.
Sure interpretations of Islam vary – but the dominant ones are not exactly friendly to nonMuslims.
The thing is, the people of Vietnam are actually very welcoming to US tourists, and (I’m sure) US investment. It would appear that there whether or not there is any axe to grind, nobody seems to be grinding it.
Perhaps that is related to the fact that the conflict was part of the essentially rational Cold War. Holy wars, jihads and the like are essentially irrational, laden as they are with apocalyptic rhetoric. Ironic, seeing as the parties to the Cold war actually had control of the machinery of apocalypse…
“Fight and slay the Pagans wherever ye find them: seize them, beleaguer them, and lie in wait for them in every stratagem (of war).” Koran (9:5)
For every muslim The Holy Koran is the absolute word of Allah. A mullah would have to jump through some pretty cute theological hoops to interpret that one anyway but in the most obvious way…
Jeffrey:
The USS Oriskany, a carrier named for a serious American defeat(Link) during the US War of Independence, is, as of 17 May 06, a reef. Dives may now be planned to the ship. Google it for interesting photos.
This ship is seen in the movie, The Bridges at Toko-Ri with William Holden and the future Princess Grace of Monaco (at her absolute hottest). It had a major fire aboard while on Yankee Station (off the coast of Vietnam) in 1966. Now-Senator John McCain was shot down in 1967 while flying from the Big O.
The assumption of reef status is a highly satisfactory end to this ship. Its name will be on charts into the forseeable future, and she’s making a positive contribution to the world in general.
(Link)
That all sounds rather spotterish, doesn’t it?
Actually I think this is yet another sign of the decline in critical thinking, the poor dolt is unable to distinguish between commemorating something, and memorializing something. Surely he understands that the headstones on his parents’ graves are not there to commemorate their deaths, but to memorialize the people and their lives. A distinction I fear people will increasingly be unable to make.
I’d think nothing more fitting for this purpose than the vehicles that ferry the Marines in close to shore.
Bayonets issued to the Marines being ferried to shore.
Interpretations of Islam can change quickly.
For example the Christian Kingdoms of the Sudan were long gone by the time Gordon first went there (although these kingdoms lasted for cenuries and make the Crusader attacks on Egypt make a lot more sense than I thought they made when I first heard about them – they were an effort to to punch through the Muslim layer on the Med to get to link up with the Christian kingdoms beyond).
However, even in the 19th century (centuries after the the fall of the Christian Kingdoms of North Africa – with the exception of Ethopia of course) Gordon (and others) found bare breasted women, religious tolerance amongst Muslims (and so on).
On his next visit (only a few years later) Gordon found that the Mahdi had changed everything.
The scene was set for the sort of Islam that Winston Churchill writes about in “The River War”, or that General Smuts fears the advance of in “World Problems” (written back in the 1920’s).
Today in Indonesia and Malaysia centuries of tolerance are being swept away.
For example in Indonesia the new “anti porn” law will ban religious dances that have been in existance for hundreds (possibly thousands) of years longer than Islam.
Islam seems to expand in waves. Most Muslims are quiet and tolerant – but then comes a move to get back to the basics of the faith (both in its practice and in the religous duty to expand it till the whole world is Muslim).
Even the ancient Christian Kingdom of Ethopia (which resisted Islam write from the 7th century – the first attacks on Ethopian interestes were in the lifetime of “the Prophet” and continued down the centuries – for example the forces of the Mahdi sacked Gondar and other towns) now has (I am told) a Muslim majority.
There is no attack on Christian and other traditions in Ethopia – but one day there may well be.
As a libertarian I must accept the presence of Muslims and I must treat them as my equal, in rights, in every way. However, according to the main interpretations of Islam, they are unable to return this favour.
Already there have been demands that the law be changed (for example demands that speech and writings that inspire “hatred” for Muslims be banned) as Muslims grow in numbers such demands may well grow in strength.
In the end relying on Muslims not really careing about their religion (or having a “modern attitude” to it – as Mr Blair might say) is not really good enough.
Perhaps the recent comments of the exMuslim who is now an Anglican Bishop need to be kept in mind.
It is not that a few mad men interpret Islam in a way that is will cause difficulities, it is the problem that (according to the Bishop) their interpretation is, in large part, correct.
This is a problem for multiculturalism, in all its faults (for example, Prince Charles’ absurd desire to be the “defender of faith” as if all faiths from Jainism to Satanism were somehow compatible).
Still Christians in this country seem horrified at the very idea of coverting Muslims, so perhaps we will have to rely on athiests.
I am not an athiest, but I do not believe that God does not allow people “upstairs” simply because they do not happen to believe in his existance (that would imply a very insecure, indeed neurotic, God).
The Jewish relgion has long accepted this “If gentiles follow the five principles of good conduct then they go to Heaven – even if they do not believe any such place exists” “Then why do we follow 600 odd rules” “You do not think we do that for a REWARD do you?”
Justification by works has long been disliked (to put it mildly) by Protestants, and the words “I am the way the truth and the light, there is no way to the Father other than through me” have been taken to rule it out – however there is no need for this to me that people have to KNOW that they have been taken to God via Jesus.
If people lack religious faith, but have tried to live a good life they may have to spend a rather long time in the “intermediate state” (Anglicans are not allowed to believe in the “Papist doctrine of Purgatory” so we have to rename it), but a lot of relgious people will most likely spend a long time there as well.
So a mass conversion to athiesm might actually be a positive development in Britain – at least if those actively converted were from the “Muslim community”.
Not my option of choice – but an option compatible with liberty (and avoiding eventual civil war).
To return to Islamic expansion:
It is too simple to blame this on oil – the Mahdi did not have any oil money.
And neither did any of the other great Muslim leaders who expanded the world of Islam (having first enforced strict Muslim practice at home), before the last few decades.
“It is the will of the people – democracy”.
True enough, but then what matters is the ideas in peoples heads.
That they have no ideas (no clear views) is not good enough – for if that is the case there will always be the danger of an Islamic revival in any area that has large numbers of nominal Muslims.
Hence what I say about positive conversion above. Even conversion to athiesm if no other form of conversion is considered acceptable any more.