Tuesday, January 30, 2007

Spencer Shreds Dhimmi Dinesh

I hope this posts all right, I'm still trying to get past my Blogger mental block. But I can't resist pointing out that I was the first here to squawk about Dhimmi D'Souza's dreadful "The Enemy at Home".

Spencer: The D'Souza Follies

The featured article at FrontPage this morning is my full review of Dinesh D'Souza's The Enemy at Home: The Cultural Left and Its Responsibility for 9/11:



Dinesh D’Souza’s new book, The Enemy At Home: The Cultural Left and Its Responsibility for 9/11, is not all bad. He is absolutely right that Osama bin Laden’s perception that Bill Clinton was weak in the 1990s led to the stepping-up of global jihad efforts. But the central point of the book is that “the cultural left in this country is responsible for causing 9/11,” not only by fostering a view that America was weak, but by spreading around the world “a decadent American culture that angers and repulses traditional societies, especially those in the Islamic world that are being overwhelmed with this culture. In addition, the left is waging an aggressive global campaign to undermine the traditional patriarchal family and to promote secular values in non-Western cultures. This campaign has provoked a violent reaction from Muslims who believe that their most cherished beliefs and institutions are under assault.” Therefore, “without the cultural left, 9/11 would not have happened.”

In response, D’Souza calls for the American right to build a traditional values coalition with what he calls “traditional Muslims,” who abhor both bin Laden and Britney Spears. “Admittedly,” he acknowledges, “some on the right may feel uncomfortable about teaming up with Muslims. Yes, I would rather go to a baseball game or have a drink with Michael Moore than with the grand mufti of Egypt. But when it comes to core beliefs, I’d have to confess that I’m closer to the dignified fellow in the long robe and prayer beads than to the slovenly fellow with the baseball cap.” Which core beliefs? D’Souza doesn’t say, but the grand mufti of Egypt has declared sculpture un-Islamic, so perhaps he and D’Souza could get together for a fun evening of statue-smashing. Of course, that is one of the core beliefs of the mufti that no doubt D’Souza does not share. But this is just one example of D’Souza’s propensity to make statements without apparently having examined their implications.

For although his book is focused on the Left, D’Souza has criticism for the Right also. He asserts that in order to cement the necessary alliance with these “traditional” Muslims, “the right must take three critical steps. First, stop attacking Islam. Conservatives have to cease blaming Islam for the behavior of the radical Muslims. Recently the right has produced a spate of Islamophobic tracts with titles like Islam Unveiled, Sword of the Prophet, and The Myth of Islamic Tolerance. There is probably no better way to repel traditional Muslims, and push them into the radical camp, than to attack their religion and their prophet.” He offers no prescription for how his “traditional Muslims” can repel the appeal to violence that jihadists everywhere base on the teachings of “their religion and their prophet,” for presumably in D’Souza’s ideal world even Muslim reformers, since they insult Muslim sensibilities, would be forbidden to discuss the Islamic teachings that jihadists use today to make their case among Muslims. How anyone would in that case counter or repel this jihadist appeal D’Souza does not explain.

Conservatives also must also “stop holding silly seminars on whether Islam is compatible with democracy. In reality, a majority of the world’s Muslims today live under democratic governments – in Indonesia, Malaysia, India, Bangladesh, Nigeria, and Turkey, not to mention Muslims living in Western countries. There is nothing in the Koran or the Islamic tradition that forbids democracy.” And “if they want Sharia, let them have it.” Of course, even if most Muslims today do live under democracies, to assume that this means Islam is compatible with democracy is like saying that most Russians loved Stalin’s reign of terror, since they lived under it regime for so long.

But that is just a small example from one of the most poorly reasoned books I have ever read. There is so much wrong with it that a review that noted it all would be as long as the book itself, and many have already pointed out some of the holes in D’Souza’s thesis: although Kathryn Lopez fawned over D’Souza in National Review, the New York Times, Glenn Beck, and others have given him a hard time. D’Souza’s central contention, that the left has allied with Islamic jihadists and therefore the right should ally with “traditional Muslims” on the basis of shared moral values, is wrong in numerous ways. First, who are these “traditional Muslims”? In his entire book, D’Souza offers not a single name, although his criticism of conservative opposition to the Dubai ports deal last year suggests that he may consider the United Arab Emirates (which he calls “the small country of Dubai”) a “traditional Muslim” state. D’Souza doesn’t mention the fact that the 9/11 hijackers used the Emirates as a base of operations, or that Al-Qaeda has claimed to have infiltrated the Emirati government.

Read it all.

8 comments:

revereridesagain said...

Well, I got the commas wrong but it's not as bad as I expected. Can anyone tell me how to use that "href" feature properly?

I think they call this Learn While You Link Time...

Pastorius said...

You were there first. You were telling me about this problem a couple of weeks before Spencer got on the job.

Good job, RRA.

Demosthenes said...

Many good arguments!

I kept wondering what would really be the long run implications of D'Sousa's strategy if it were implemented. We know that throughout history, Christianity has been read in many ways by people trying to be faithful. D'Sousa's strategy would require a reading of Christianity to make it accord with Islam. As such, the tendency would be for Christianity to become as evil as Islam. Christians could follow D'Sousa's idea of supporting patriarchy and lowering the status of women. Homosexuals could be executed by religious courts. We could have an Inquisition to their Sharia. It would undermine every decent impulse in Christianity.

revereridesagain said...

Exactly. If Christianity goes hat-in-hand to Islam in the service of "peace", what is to stop Islam from imposing its more aggressive, dogmatic and violent ideology by challenging the Christians to be "consistent" in pursuing their moral objections to adultery, homosexuality, etc.?

I admit I haven't been able to bring myself to do more than scan a few pages of that book, it's that bad. At one point D'Souza tells of some "moderate" Muslims who don't really approve, mind you, of executing couples for adultery, but they had to admit it put an immediate stop to the "problem".

If this isn't appealing to the worst in people, I don't know what is.

(Um, btw, does anybody know how I managed to get the quote marks sideways and off-center?)

Epaminondas said...

Having read "What's so great about America" D'Souza's last book, a total destruction of all the arguments of the morons who tear america down because we ARE, his explanation for his reasoning in this book is a total quandary.

Never the less, he is no dhimmi.

I reccomend that book to all.

Without qualification

Anonymous said...

revereridesagain - I'm illiterate in computer speak, but over at LGF, I learned that if you have a block of HTML text style you wish to imitate you can:

highlight the phrase/word

left click your mouse

pick "view selection source"


The HTML version is highlighted in the next window and you can imitate it (within the HTML limitations of the site you are posting on).

Anonymous said...

D'Souza reminds me a lot of Vidkun Quisling. (Being Norwegian, I know all too well about him). Quisling, too, wanted to ally with the enemy. He travelled to Germany begging Hitler to invade Norway long before the invasion took place - not because he was as evil as the Nazi lunatic, but because he thought it the best solution for Norway. Quisling's goal was, to put it a bit simplified, for indigen Norwegians to govern the land while under Nazi "protection".

D'Souza seems to fall perfectly into the Quisling category - expect for the fact that THIS invasion long since has started. I don't think D'Souza either is as evil as he is stupid (by the way, Quisling was extremely intelligent, getting all-time high grades at his college), but the conclusion is still: When you want an alliance with enemies of your country, you ARE a traitor. (Not to mention that Muzzies in the US want to totally destroy the country - the Nazis looked upon Norwegians as fellow "Arians" and therefore didn't hate us as all. Then even allowed all women (except Jewish] to walk freely on the street.)

By the way, his idiotic theory about the Left's guilt is totally Twilight Zone. The reason the Muzzies HATE us with capital letters is that we are Kuffars - it doesn't matter what we do or don't, we are still "najis" to Allah's Master Race. 9-11 is a very good example. Here the US and their Presidents have kissed Muslim ass from here to eternity for several decades:

- They have done EVERYTHING the Saudis have asked them to and more (no wonder "King" Fahd once said the American was his favourite slave)

- They have engaged in massmurdering jihad against the Serbs in Kosovo and Bosnia

- They have literally thrown innumerable billions around in Muslim countries to try and HELP the inhabitants

_ They have bullied Russian for cleaning up in Chechnya, China for "suppressing" its Muslims in the North-West, Egypt for holding an eye on the Muslim Brotherhood (which happens to be the MOST DANGEROUS ORGANISATION IN THE WORLD)

- They have worked for the irreversible destruction of Europe by lobbying for Turkish membership in the EU

- and so on and so on and so on...

...so in perfect harmony with the usual Muzzie "logic", the US itself becomes the biggest target for the Death Cultists.

No, the guilt for any terror in the West is on those politicians who have let Muslims into their country, and those who cuddles the Ummah on every opportunity. Well, in reality all politicians allowing and even supporting the uncontrolled Muzzie spawning, spatting and whelping all over the world

TRUE INFIDEL

Anonymous said...

In reality, a majority of the world’s Muslims today live under democratic governments – in Indonesia, Malaysia, India, Bangladesh, Nigeria, and Turkey

Boy, that Dinesh sure is ignorant of the political reality in these countries. Indonesia has RECENTLY allowed Acheh province to implement some form of Sharia Law and it is the breeding ground of Islamic radicals in Southeast Asia. Malaysia has always had some form of Sharia Law governing the Muslim populace since its independence and the country is undergoing creeping Islamization. Islamic extremism in Bangladesh is on the rise. Nigeria has Sharia Law in part of the country. In Turkey, "democracy" is enforced at gunpoint by the military. The trend is that these countries, with the possible exception of India, are becoming more Islamic.