Enemy Mine: The Devil Is In the Details

When I set up my blog at The Gathering Storm, I wanted to look at the current struggle between two socio-political ideologies, the free secular democracies and the theocratic Islamic societies, and show not just what they believe about themselves and us – but why.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not defending the Islamist plan for the world domination through Islam. That is a reality, it’s a threat to our civilization and it’s in progress. But it’s useful to take a look at the struggle through their eyes and perhaps in the process, find a way to show the Islamists the error in their logic.

Case in point.

In an article at the Islamic Thinkers Society (ITS) entitled ‘Freedom or Free-dumb: The Shocking Truth’, the author, who remains anonymous, makes the case that freedom as practiced by the secular democracies is a farce, and that in reality, freedom is nothing but uncontrolled license. And he does have a point but his understanding of the challenges of a free society do not necessarily point to his solution. As Charles Krauthammer noted in Townhall.com, one of the reasons Islam is fighting “the great jihad” against America has to do with sexual depravity. The jihadists claim that wherever freedom travels — “especially in America and Europe — it brings sexual license and corruption, decadence and depravity.”

The writer of the ITS article states examples like this.

“In UCLA, two in every three males said they would rape a woman if they knew they would not get caught. Wait, it gets better. When Uncle Sam's not around, some love practicing “freedom” on young children by molesting them. The North American Men's and Boy's Lovers Association (NAMBLA) even encourages molestation, and maybe if they got enough money they could lobby as democracy allows, and legalize it. What also should be noted are the ever-evolving laws under Democracy. Several years ago Homosexuality was prohibited, now it's legal. Once pre-marital sex was an abomination, now it's natural. Perhaps rape and child molestation, now considered horrifying will be legalized one day.”

His reason for these ‘atrocities’ against humanity is this.

“Man, with his limited mind, is incapable of legislating justly. With reactionary laws, democracy is impotent when faced with new and ever occurring problems of society.” He’s supported in his ideas by, a foremost thinker of contemporary political Islam, Sayyid Qutb in the 1950s who maintained that “a deep civilizational crisis of the West' would be resolved by creating an Islamic dominance.”

You know where this going, don’t you? But bear with me.

In a way, his perception of a weak minded response to the moral and ethical challenges to persona and society may hold some water. The far Left, PC correct, relativistic political beliefs has little or no defense against an enemy with absolute values and beliefs driven by a clear distinction between their version of what’s right and what’s wrong.

The far secular Left sees the world in relativistic terms. All people are equal. All societies are equal. All ideas are equal. I’m OK, you’re OK. Everything is shades of grey. There is no black and white. No good or evil - just misunderstood people. To hold the view of relativism means one sees no differences. But if you are unable to comprehend differences, how can you perceive when something will harm you? In the case of Islam, an alien culture that is as different from us as one from Mars. One that is incompatible with a 21st century civilization.

That’s the reason why the political Left can not bring itself to see the threat of Islam. It can’t. If it admitted that Islam is counter to and the direct opposite of a free democracy, the secular Left will have to change it’s basic ideology. That they can’t do unless they undergo a reformation of ideas as Islam has to have a reformation of its beliefs.

But back to the author of the ITS piece. He goes on with the expected rant of how democracy is responsible today for slaughtering millions of muslims, exploiting the world’s resources, etc. etc, etc. But then he comes to the real point.

“So what is freedom you may ask? Freedom is when one stops being a slave to one's desires and to society and becomes a slave and worshipper of Allah. This alternative is a system devoid of error. A system based on a definite belief, which can be established rationally and rules humanity justly. THE ISLAMIC SYSTEM lasted for over thirteen centuries securing peace and justice for the oppressed and humanity in general.”

Or in other words, the same form of governing that the western world threw off their backs hundreds of years ago – a theocratic form of government where the church and state are the same. When the western world was free of the dogmatic, suffocating system of being governed by the ‘representatives’ of God, we advanced and created a civilianization that the world had never seen before where even the poor in the free democracies live better, healthier, and longer than the Pharaohs of Egypt.

Is a secular democracy the perfect form of government with it ongoing cultural warfare waged in the halls of government and media? I’ll let Winston Churchill speak to that when he said, “It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried”.

The devil is in the details – not in the concept.

Finally, the article writer’s defense for an Islamic dominated form of government is at the end of his article.

“Even biased, Western scholars acknowledge that Islam was the most advanced technologically and in providing justice. It eliminated racism, elevated the status of women, removed exploitation, and maintained harmony.”

And it’s the usual disinformation and lies.

I think Bernard Lewis said it best.

“By all standards of the modern world—economic development, literacy, scientific achievement — Muslim civilization, once a mighty enterprise, has fallen low. Many in the Middle East blame a variety of outside forces. But underlying much of the Muslim world's travail may be a simple lack of freedom.”