Sunday, March 26, 2006

Mark Steyn Hits Another Nail on the Head

From his March 25th column, which can be found, well, all over the place. National Review Online, Steyn Online, etc. You know The Ghost and links.

As always, we come back to the words of Osama bin Laden: "When people see a strong horse and a weak horse, by nature they will like the strong horse." That's really the only issue: The Islamists know our side have tanks and planes, but they have will and faith, and they reckon in a long struggle that's the better bet. Most prominent Western leaders sound way too eager to climb into the weak-horse suit and audition to play the rear end. Consider, for example, the words of the Prince of Wales, speaking a few days ago at al-Azhar University in Cairo, which makes the average Ivy League nuthouse look like a beacon of sanity. Anyway, this is what His Royal Highness had to say to 800 Islamic "scholars":

"The recent ghastly strife and anger over the Danish cartoons shows the danger that comes of our failure to listen and to respect what is precious and sacred to others. In my view, the true mark of a civilized society is the respect it pays to minorities and to strangers."

That's correct. But the reality is that our society pays enormous respect to minorities - President Bush holds a monthlong Ramadan-a-ding-dong at the White House every year. The immediate reaction to the slaughter of 9/11 by Western leaders everywhere was to visit a mosque to demonstrate their great respect for Islam. One party to this dispute is respectful to a fault: after all, to describe the violence perpetrated by Muslims over the Danish cartoons as the "recent ghastly strife" barely passes muster as effete Brit toff understatement.

Unfortunately, what's "precious and sacred" to Islam is its institutional contempt for others. In his book "Islam And The West," Bernard Lewis writes, "The primary duty of the Muslim as set forth not once but many times in the Quran is 'to command good and forbid evil.' It is not enough to do good and refrain from evil as a personal choice. It is incumbent upon Muslims also to command and forbid." Or as the Canadian columnist David Warren put it: "We take it for granted that it is wrong to kill someone for his religious beliefs. Whereas Islam holds it is wrong not to kill him." In that sense, those imams are right, and Karzai's attempts to finesse the issue are, sharia-wise, wrong.

I can understand why the president and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice would rather deal with this through back channels, private assurances from their Afghan counterparts, etc. But the public rhetoric is critical, too. At some point we have to face down a culture in which not only the mob in the street but the highest judges and academics talk like crazies. Abdul Rahman embodies the question at the heart of this struggle: If Islam is a religion one can only convert to, not from, then in the long run it is a threat to every free person on the planet.

What can we do? Should governments with troops in Afghanistan pass joint emergency legislation conferring their citizenship on this poor man and declaring him, as much as Karzai, under their protection?

In a more culturally confident age, the British in India were faced with the practice of "suttee" - the tradition of burning widows on the funeral pyres of their husbands. Gen. Sir Charles Napier was impeccably multicultural:

"You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: When men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks, and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours."

India today is better off without suttee. If we shrink from the logic of that, then in Afghanistan and many places far closer to home the implications are, as the Prince of Wales would say, "ghastly."

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Regarding apostasy and cultural supremacy,I posted recently at Saber Point in a different context, so apologies for some repetition...

Europe can now at this late stage only defend civilisation by ensuring that Muslims are free and encouraged to apostasize from their barbarism.

There are three possible future scenarios for Europe:

(1) Progressive Islamisation ending in Shariah and Dhimmitude for the natives.

(2) Progressive Islamisation ending in a reaction of violent de-Islamisation (and probably a World War as Muslim countries attempt to protect their European co-religionists from the Fourth Reich's 'Final Solution')

(3) Gradual De-Islamisation of Muslims already living in Europe.

Options (1) and (2) are both nightmare scenarios, so that leaves us with (3) as the only way out, no matter how difficult that may be.

Option (3) is indeed difficult, but not impossible. Islam rests on two foundations - (i) The character of Mohammed and (ii) the Koran being the ACTUAL WORD OF GOD (not a human interpretation as liberal Christians view the Bible). If you destroy the foundations, the house of Islam will certainly become wobbly.

What you then have to do is give the inhabitants somewhere else to live. Most people aren't (willing) atheists. They need some form of religion.

The trick here will be to design a religion (memetic engineering) which appeals to recovering Muslims. I'm not being sectarian about this, but I would imagine that some form of 'broad-church' Christianity would have more appeal to the ex-Muslim than, say, Wicca or Zen. It's also important to replace the community function of religion which is so important for Muslims.

So here are the 4 R's of eradicationg Islam in Europe - Rationalism, Ridicule, Revulsion and Replacement.

RATIONALISM - expose the contradictions, illogicalities, and scientific absurdities within the Koran showing that it can't possibly be the word of God. Also publicise scholarly investigation of the origin of the Koran and strange Pagan features such as meteorite worship.

RIDICULE - Islam, as we have seen, is hypersensitive to satire, especially any jokes against Mo. Islamic beliefs should be made objects of derision and contempt rather than fear. Mohammed himself should be revealed as the murderous pervert that he was. Islam must not be given the respect it so desperately craves.

REVULSION - how many Muslims know the full depths of barbarity and depravity within their religion. eg practices such as mufa’khathat ?

REPLACEMENT - Encourage conversion of Muslims to any other religion. Churches and other organisations who are successful in this dificult task should share their know-how with others. Ex-Muslims should be debriefed to discover what caused them to leave Islam.

The alternative to eradicating the disease would be the Serbian solution of culling the carriers. If we ever get to that stage then European civilisation will hardly be worth saving.

Always On Watch said...

Compromising our Western ideals would be a grievous sin.

It is so wonderful that Abdul Rahman is to be released. But what of others like him? Are there cases we don't hear of?

Kiddo said...

There is a Dutch book on the possibilities for Europeans (non-Muslim) that is coming out in English here under the title Megatrends Europe. Keep an eye out. I believe that in large part it deals with mass immigration of native Europeans. And actually, this is already happening.

Pastorius said...

Mustafa Kamel,
I think the only thing that can save Europe, not just Muslim-Europe, but all of Europe, is a Christian revival.

However, I don't think that is going to come from European Christianity. It could come from African Christianity, or perhaps American Christianity.

European Christianity has become a set of formalities with no life to it. That's why Europeans have abaondoned it.

Your strategy is well thought out. Obviously, we attempt the first three steps here on a regular basis.

By the way, during the initial stages of the Cartoon riots about twenty to thirty percent of our readers were coming from the ME via search engines. We were receiving thousands per day.

That will probably happen again in the next few weeks as the Imams from Denmark are back in the ME preparing round two.

Maybe we ought to get cracking on our own round two.

Anyone have any ideas?

Pastorius said...

Pim's Ghost,
I don't understand. Is the idea of that book that Euros should abandon Europe?

Kiddo said...

Jaco, I think it's rather that they will flee for safety rather than abandon, which really amounts to the same thing. Don't know yet. The author is A. Bakas. I just know about the book from a Dutch friend.

Regarding a Christian revival, I just hope that Benedict can rally enough of the young. I have been told so many times by Europeans that Christianity "is for old people" that I have little faith in such a revival. Sad, but true.