We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
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A Muslim police officer has been allowed to refuse to guard the Israeli embassy in London.
A spokesman for Scotland Yard said Sir Ian had ordered a rethink of the service’s policy to consider special dispensations on moral grounds
A ‘rethink’? When ordered to carry out his job and protect a location within the United Kingdom from unlawful attack, PC Alexander Omar Basha took the view that it would be immoral to protect that place (in other words, he refused to enforce British law regarding possible acts of violence because of who the potential target was). The only ‘rethink’ needed is why was he not fired on the spot? I wonder… has a Jewish policeman in the UK attached to the Diplomatic Protection Group ever refused to guard the embassy of a Muslim country in Britain?
So tell me, if a policeman who was a member of the BNP refused to protect an African embassy, do you think the Metropolitan Police would need even ten seconds for a ‘rethink’?
Robert Redeker is a writer and philosophy teacher in France who made some self-evident points critical of the behaviour of certain Muslims but he also laid the blame on Islam-as-a-religion itself…
But Redeker expanded his critique from these examples to a broadside against Islam as a religion. He acknowledged that violence was commonly committed in the name of Christianity, but claimed that “it is always possible to turn back to evangelical values, to the mild personage of Jesus, from the excesses of the Church.” Muhammad, he claimed, offered no such recourse: “Jesus is a master of love, Muhammad is a master of hate.”
As a result, even though he lives in France and was just expressing his views, he is a hunted man in fear for his life. Time reported that Dalil Boubakeur, rector of the Mosque of Paris and president of the French Council of the Muslim Religion spoke of “grave errors” in treating questions of religion in a “purely subjective manner.” Yet surely that is exactly what Redeker did not do. He is looking at our old chum ‘root causes’ and finding that Islam itself may be the problem. That is not a subjective proposition.
People need to start thinking of Islam in the same manner as they thought of Communism. Islam may be a religion but it is also has an imposed ‘whole life’ view that makes it indistinguishable from a political ideology. If Muslims want their religion to be treated with tolerance, they need to de-secularise it in the same way Christianity has (largely) done. But for as long as Islam advocates an imposed political order based on religious principles, it must not be treated either legally or socially as being above critique on any level whatsoever.
Islam is the problem and, just like Communism and Fascism, it is simply incompatible with western post-Enlightenment civilisation. And also just like Communism and Fascism, it must be contained or defeated militarily when it threatens us but it must also be defeated as an ideology as well. The PLO and Ba’athism were regional threats but they were also largely secular and had political objectives that could at least be discussed (for example even Israel managed to eventually do deals with the PLO).
Islam’s morality, theology or weird prohibitions should only be of interest to Muslims, just as Kibbutznik Communism is only of interest to people on Kibbutzes playing at Communism on a strictly voluntary basis… but whereas Communism has been defeated and discredited as a global ideology, Islam is very much alive and kicking and because of Islam’s political imperatives to impose its values by force on everyone (i.e. either become a Muslim or submit as a dhimmi), that makes it of concern to everyone. Until Islam is defeated ideologically, Western Muslims have to be regarded much the way communist sympathisers were regarded during the Cold War. Islam needs to be treated as a political ideology that needs to be confronted and defeated. The pretence that “oh, it is not about Islam, it is just about terrorism” is simply untrue. It is all about Islam.
Sgt. Leigh Ann Hester has been further honoured for her bravery and coolness under fire.
The United Service Organizations celebrated its 65th anniversary last night and honored troops from each branch of the military for heroism.
“We are thankful that we are defended by men and women of character and courage, and we are grateful to all the USO volunteers to work to entertain them,” President Bush said in a video message to the 65th annual USO gala here. “They lift their spirits and express the gratitude and support of the American people.” The five troops who received USO Servicemember of the Year awards at the gala represent the highest ideals of courage and patriotism, and have demonstrated extraordinary loyalty, bravery and heroism, Bush said.
I wrote about this back when it happened, but here are the details again:
Army Sgt. Leigh Ann Hester, of the Kentucky National Guard. Hester served as a team leader with the 617th Military Police Company at Camp Liberty, Iraq. On March 20, 2005, Hester was in one of three escort vehicles providing security for a convoy when the convoy was ambushed by insurgents. Despite being outnumbered five to one and coming under heavy fire, Hester led her soldiers on a counterattack, maneuvering her team into a flanking position and clearing trenches occupied by the insurgents. Hester is the first woman since World War II to receive the Silver Star for combat action.
The events of that day would make a great war movie for the 21st Century if someone with real military cred decided to do it right. No ambiguous messages needed, just the good guys and gals blowing hell out of the enemy.
We live in a world of terrorism where evil acts are being regularly perpetrated in the name of your faith and because it is your faith that is being invoked as justification for these evil acts, it is your problem. You can’t wish it away, or ignore it, just because it has been caused by others. Instead, speak up and condemn terrorism, defend your role in the way of life that we all share here in Australia.
– Andrew Robb, a spokesman for the Howard government in Australia, speaking to an audience of 100 imams.
Can you imagine Bush or Blair having one their spokesmen saying anything even remotely like that?
So now before British police will carry out raids on Muslim terror suspects, they will consult with a group of Muslim ‘community leaders’ before acting (i.e. they will in effect ask permission from the same people who have so conspicuously failed to prevent the need for such raids in the first place). And of course one can only wonder at the potential for the targets of such raids being tipped off.
So tell me, did the Metropolitan Police ask for permission from, oh I dunno, the Catholic Church maybe, before raiding possible IRA terrorist suspects in London for fear of upsetting the delicate sensibilities of the UK’s Irish community?
This is beyond parody.
I was all set to concoct a posting called something like “Why I am not a Christian – reason number seventeen” ho ho, about how you can’t expect much in the way of a robust defence of Civilisation against Islamic barbarism from people whose basic belief about their enemies is that they should love them, turn the other cheek, etc.
And then (via Instapundit) comes this:
THE former Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Carey of Clifton has issued his own challenge to “violent” Islam in a lecture in which he defends the Pope’s “extraordinarily effective and lucid” speech.
Lord Carey said that Muslims must address “with great urgency” their religion’s association with violence. He made it clear that he believed the “clash of civilisations” endangering the world was not between Islamist extremists and the West, but with Islam as a whole.
Carey even launched a new word, or at any rate one I’ve not heard before: “Westophobia”.
Don’t get me wrong, Carey perpetuates as many clichés as he challenges. For instance:
He said he agreed with his Muslim friends who claimed that true Islam is not a violent religion, …
Perish the thought. But at least …
… he wanted to know why Islam today had become associated with violence. “The Muslim world must address this matter with great urgency,” he said.
Simple, I’d say. The founder of Islam believed strongly in violence, was himself very good at it, and recommended it enthusiastically to his followers. They have obliged, century after century after century.
But still, you can feel the Western brain cells being rubbed together. See also – another example among many – this rather blunter pronouncement along similar lines. And, for a response to all this moderate Muslim guff, see also this recent blog posting from Peter Saint André.
The idea that the West’s response to the Islamic challenge will only ever consist of the first hasty and opposed responses to 9/11, which were entirely what people already thought – “We all ought to get along better”, “We are provoking them”, “They must become more democratic”, and so on – is very foolish. The West – a vague label I know but it will serve – is the most formidable civilisation that the world has yet seen. It has faced down several recent and major challenges to its hegemony, and it will face down this one, I think, with whatever combination of sweet reason and cataclysmic brutality turns out to be necessary to get the job done. This challenge now seems bigger than the earlier ones. But they always do at the time, don’t they?
I cannot find on the internet the full text of Carey’s speech. If it can all be linked to, my apologies for suggesting otherwise, and could someone else please supply a link?. If it cannot be linked to, then, given the incendiary nature of this debate, this is an error that should be speedily corrected. The technology is now in place to spare us from having to rely on journalists to tell us what is in potentially important pronouncements of this sort, and it should be used.
UPDATE: Link to the full Carey speech. Thanks Julian.
Dealing with Islamicism is rather like playing chess with an opponent who randomly moves pieces about the board in the sure trust that a deity will confound his opponent.
– Julian Taylor’s friend, a comment on No tolerance for intolerance
The Pope Benedict XVI knew very well what he was doing quoting Byzantine Emperor Manuel II Paleologu. Once more, with feeling…
Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.
The BBC’s correspondent in Rome, David Willey, suggests that Pope Benedict may have not understood the potential implications of his remarks. I beg to differ. The Vatican spends a fair amount of time and effort on other religions, both as part of its institutions and as a continuation of ecumenism so dear to John Paul II. I therefore doubt that Pope Benedict would be oblivious to the Muslim ‘sensitivities’. I suspect he understands rather well how modern victimhood assists Muslims in the West. In short, he has done a great service to the public debate about Islam, such as it is, by holding a mirror to those whose only response is to strike at it violently.
I am disappointed that the public figures defending him cannot do better than saying his speech was misunderstood (re German Chancellor Angela Merkel). Catholic Church for all its vilification throughout the ages, some of it deserved and a lot of it not, is the last remaining Western institution that holds values to be above public opinion(s). One of the values that the Church has paid dearly for acquiring and upholding is the understanding that spreading the faith through violence is incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul…
Interestingly Pope Benedict’s lecture was about faith and reason. It was based around one of the central beliefs of Catholicism – that God is knowable through reason. His intention was to broaden our concept of reason and its application… not contrary to the scientific nature of Western philosophy but as a matter of rational and practical approach to the cultural and social problems that the West faces.
A reason which is deaf to the divine and which relegates religion into the realm of subcultures is incapable of entering into the dialogue of cultures.
I do not mean to exonerate the Pope from being ‘subversive’ of Islam as there is a bit in his lecture that I find more central to the debate than the infamous quote from 14th century:
But for Muslim teaching, God is absolutely transcendent. His will is not bound up with any of our categories, even that of rationality.
This is a far more damning statement than the one that caused all the commotion. There is not much tolerance these days in the Vatican for intolerance and, gasp, lack of reason.
Looks like the Holy War odds have just lengthened:
Pope Benedict XVI has said he is sorry that a speech in which he referred to Islam has offended Muslims.
Only fair, I reckon, given the superhuman levels of tolerance and generous spirit of the latter.
Weird echoes of the 12th Century in the 21st Century:
THE Pope’s visit to Turkey, which many hoped would herald a new era of improved relations between Islam and the West, was in doubt yesterday amid condemnation of remarks by the pontiff that appeared to link Islam and violence.
As Muslims all over the world protested, with effigies of Benedict XVI burnt during demonstrations in Pakistan, members of the Turkish Government urged the Pope to reconsider his visit in November. Senior officials in Turkey said that they could not guarantee his safety if he went ahead with the trip.
So, where is this going?
A. It will all blow over in a few days; or
B. One or other side will back down; or
C. We are headed for Holy War
Whilst travelling down towards the station in Brussels with some friends, one could not help noticing one street full of coffee bars, frequented solely by the male of the species, replicating a corner of Algiers or Tunis. Whilst new to me, this is not an infrequent encounter for the traveller in the Low Countries or France.
As vast portions of the urban geography continue to be recast in the Maghreb mould, and the demographics of immigration and indigenous wind down play out, I asked myself: which European Union Member State is most likely to join the Arab League (perhaps the Maghreb subset) or Organisation of Islamic Conferences in the next few years? Albania, Uganda and Guyana are members of the latter. This would be the predictable ‘next step’ for democratic structures with a large minority Arab electorate.
Dutch-born writer Ian Buruma writes about the issues stemming from the murder of Dutch film-maker Theo Van Gogh. On the basis of his previous writings, I would have expected his account to be a compelling one. This reviewer of his book, however, gives a fairly harsh assessment. (Via Arts & Letters Daily).
Readers of Murder in Amsterdam are likely to close the book with a heavy heart. One reason is that the problem it addresses, the emergence of militant Islam as a divisive political/religious force in the West, is not going to go away soon. Another is that, though full of learning and skilled if tepid reporting, Buruma’s book often feels muddled, ungenerous and confusing. There is plenty of scholarship on display, but no compelling point of view.
There is, however, an off-putting strain of snobbery. Buruma, an Asia specialist and the author of Inventing Japan, Anglomania and, most recently, Occidentalism: The West in the Eyes of Its Enemies, grew up in Holland but left it as a young man in the 1970s. Now a New Yorker, he clearly feels he’s gone on to bigger and better things. He rarely misses a chance to take a swipe at some aspect of Dutch life, whether it’s the “dank and gray” area of the Hague he was raised in or the “arrogance” of the great national soccer teams of the 1970s and ’80s.
Van Gogh’s murder followed the assassination two years earlier of Pim Fortuyn, Holland’s flamboyantly gay, and very popular, anti-immigration politician who had also railed against the Islamicization of the Netherlands. Fortuyn was killed not by a Muslim, but by a white, left-wing vegan “activist”, who didn’t like the fact that the flashy politician wore fur collars and criticized immigrants. “The sobering truth,” wrote Rod Dreher in National Review shortly after Fortuyn’s death, “is that Europe – democratic, gun-controlling Europe – is a place where questioning the immigration status quo will not only get you branded a fascist by the news media, it will get you shot dead.”
Read the whole article.
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