This blog has repeatedly asserted that the critical front in the Great Islamic Jihad is the struggle within the soul of the West. It is a bitter but non-violent civil war between those who would surrender to the deconstruction of Western culture and those who would resist it.
The fortunes of this war vary from country to country in the West. The reports by Fjordman and Rune suggest the inevitable conclusion that Scandinavia has all but lost the war. The combination of state-enforced political correctness and mass Muslim immigration is a lethal one, leaving Swedish civil society on the verge of collapse.
Britain threatens to tolerate itself out of existence, as chronicled repeatedly by Norman Geras. An Islamic radical like Sheikh Omar Bakri continues to preach violent jihad against the infidels, while he and his disciples enjoy the generous benefits of Britain’s welfare state.
In Australia, pastors are jailed for defaming Islam when they quote the Koran. The primary religious text of Islam is “defamatory” by its very nature, but it is apparently unwise for Australian citizens to point this fact out.
Oriana Fallaci has to stay out of her native Italy or risk jail time for printing her opinion of Islam. The Netherlands… Germany… France… Canada… Each is a front in the Great Jihad, and each is succumbing in its own way to the enemy tide.
Here in the USA we are not as badly off — in some cases the First Amendment still manages to protect the right to voice an opinion — but the forces of Multiculturalism and Political Correctness still tighten the screws on most sensible discourse. The situation is so severe that major national media do not dare to call this war what it is: the Third Wave of the Great Islamic Jihad.
How did we get to this sorry pass? What happened?
You can chalk it up to the victory of Soviet communism. Communism was defeated empirically, in the real world, by democratic capitalism. But in the marketplace of ideas — in the media and academia, among the mandarins of pop culture, and in the permanent federal bureaucracy — the Soviets won. Capitalism has to be tolerated, since the engine of modernity will not run without it, but it will never be respectable, and its associated virtues — hard work, thrift, religious values, and civic culture — have been permanently discredited.
Thank the KGB for its tireless work infiltrating and financing student radicals, black activists, labor unions, and any organization that sought to undermine traditional Western values. Thank the innumerable fellow travelers, the Marxist theoreticians and deconstructionists, who gladly drilled and dynamited and demolished until our common culture was a field of rubble. Thank the forces of leftist subversion who ate their way through the body politic like termites through an old stump.
The socialist left may be a spent force on the political scene, but its legacy is still with us. Each of us labors under a great burden of unexamined premises that inhibits honest discussion. To make a profit, to judge an idea on its merits, to observe real differences among people and groups — each of these actions carries the risk of elite disapproval. Each of us has witnessed the telltale glance over the shoulder and lowered voice whenever an un-PC thought is uttered.
This suppression of meaningful discussion has allowed the Great Jihad to enjoy success within our midst. Because dissent on such issues is not allowed, taxpayers in Britain have to fund Islamic education in the schools, and Swedish police are not allowed to release rape statistics based on the ethnicity of the perpetrators. Islam is a Religion of Peace, and scrutinizing its tenets and practices is — horror of horrors! — racism. Our toxic tolerance looks the other way while Muslim women are suppressed, straitjacketed, abused, and even killed, all in the name of the most noble of ideals.
So what can be done to hinder this suicidal juggernaut?
Since subversion brought on the current crisis, the time has come for counter-subversion. The duty of a warblogger, as I have said before, is to storm and occupy the national conversation. We have to subvert the dominant paradigm.
We will have to it with no help from the mainstream media, committed as they are to the PC worldview. And we will have to do it despite the Bush administration and our elected politicians, who seem constitutionally incapable of taking action without the approval of the New York Times and the network news. It will truly be a task for “the distributed intelligence of the Internet”.
We can begin by asking questions, dangerous, politically incorrect questions. We must ask them forcefully and repeatedly until they become part of the collective dialogue. Here are some examples, and you can add your own:
- Is Islam inherently dangerous, or just its most radical forms?
- Are journalists aiding and abetting our enemies in the way they cover stories and utilize terrorist sources?
- Is the UN part of the problem rather than part of the solution?
- Does the destruction of common values by a degraded popular culture play right into the hands of the Great Jihad?
- Why are we so reluctant to tackle the Saudi and Iranian problems?
To jump-start this conversation we have to be willing to ignore the nagging inner voice that tells us, You can’t say that! We have to inure ourselves to the label “racist”. We have to expect that we will be called “tools of the neocons”. We have to learn to brush away the insults.
If we want to succeed in this fight, we have to be subversive. And subversion is a thankless task.
It’s time to take back the culture.
Excellent post, Baron. (And thanks for the link.)
I just wrote a very pessimistic post this evening about the last entry Steven Vincent made in his blog before he was kidnapped and murdered. It is proof of what I live every day: that PC multiculturalism is producing an Oprah-fied military that goes through the motions of fighting well enough without the conviction that our values are worth fighting for.
My question is this: It took the Soviets 72 years to accomplish what they did. Do we have 72 years to reverse the damage?
Someguy — thank you for the valuable task you’re performing in getting the words out of Italian and into English for poor monoglots like me. Undoubtedly you will eventually feel the full Fallaci anger for your translations, but the rest of us bless you. I’ve blogrolled you.
Yes, I had already seen your Vincent post. Did you see some of the nasty troll comments on his blog’s last post (not the one by him)? Some people just can’t help themselves.
Let’s hope we continue to be a lot more efficient than the USSR…
Thank you! I’ve added yours to mine as well.
To answer my own question: I hope we can turn it around in less than 72 years because, quite frankly, I don’t think we have that much time.
Marvelously concise and perceptive analysis of the situation.
For years I have watched uneasily as every traditional virtue has been demeaned. In their place, we now have only two acceptable qualities in public life: “compassion,” which has been drained of its true meaning and been re-branded as handing out money and favors to interest groups that identify themselves as victims; and non-judgmentalism, which in many quarters represents the highest state of being that a person can aspire to.
It is the second contemporary “virtue” that has made it impossible to deal with the world as it is. Every response to a threat must first pass the test of offending no one, certainly no minority group or even crackpot self-appointed spokesman for a minority group.
I thought nothing along these lines could surprise me any more. Then I read the article about how one police force in England had issued orders that no raids to arrest terrorist suspects were to be conducted on Muslim premises without the police first removing their shoes, waiting until the praying-toward-Mecca routine was over, and a host of other “sensitive” rules had been observed.
[“Ahmed? I say there, old boy, so sorry to disturb you, but you’ll notice we’re all in our stockings to show our respect to Allah, peace be upon his blessed name, and … where was I? Oh yes, I’m afraid we’re under orders from our racist Islamophobic gov’nors to take in for questioning a couple of the residents, I’m sure it’s just a bit of a muddle and that. Is this a convenient time? You’re at prayer? Frightfully sorry — what time would work for you? Oh, I see — well, here’s my card, just ring me any time day or night when the boys are ready to come round to the nick, we’ll have tea on and no mistake! Now good bye, sir, and may Allah (peace be upon him) bless you and all the faithful … “]
How can we fight an enemy who has sworn our destruction and the replacement of our society by his own while we must ignore such antique qualities as vigilance and common sense, and throw incense on the altars of multiculturalism? When we must pretend that it’s only a few extremists who are the problem, and not a widespread world view that is overtly contrary to our own ideas of fairness and decency and acceptance of differences?
Political correctness must die.
Rick — those are good additional questions!
I guess what I’m calling “toxic tolerance” combines compassion & non-judgmentalism. Or maybe it’s just the praxis of the same characteristics…
This doesn’t really belong here, but I wanted to reach you quickly.
The following comment was left on my blog by Cubed of 6th Column:
They’re baaaaack!
CAIR has just turned loose its attack dogs on Geoff Metcalf, Michael Graham’s replacement at WMAL.
CAIR’s “Action Alert #464” calls on its followers on Wednesday, August 3, to “Ask WMAL to address incitement of anti-Islam hate by talk show hosts.”
Here’s what the fuss is all about.
On Friday, July 29, Geoff Metcalf said “And by the way, let me just add a sidebar here that’s significan, and everybody forgets this, but according to the Quran, believers in Islam are not required to tell infidels, and that’s us, the truth. So they apparently have permission to lie when it is appropriate.”
CAIR went on to say that most callers to the program expressed similar hostility to Muslims and to the faith of Islam.
You can listen to the quote at: http://www.cairfl.org/audio/050729wmal-Metcalfe.mp3 .
For a really good discussion of the terms used in Metcalf’s talk that made CAIR so angry, go to http://sixthcolumnagainstjihad.blogspot.com and look for Eleanor’s blogs. They were first posted quite some time ago, but in honor of the occasion, George Mason has re-posted them today.
It’s time to roll up our sleeves again!
Fantastic post.
ik,
Great Post. We have similar problems in India. The leftists and Islamists have taken over all the media / film outlets. It is almost impossible to get the word out.
The critical point in Academia and the movie industry. Some of us with skills have to start making movies trying to remove this leftism.
Academia has been bought out by money. Cut out Saudi money from Academia.
On a personal level – I try my best not to buy anything produced in any Islamic country
Ik — maybe making & distributing independent movies will become easier because of the internet. It has changed the market for books — conservative books that would have been buried (e.g. the Swift Boat Vets in the election last year) are now publicized & sold via the blogosphere.
As for not buying products from Islamic countries — that’s fairly easy, since Islamic countries (with exceptions for Pakistan & Egypt) don’t produce much that people want to buy. Not counting oil, that is. And there’s the problem: it’s hard to stop buying oil, or products made using oil.
In fact, if it weren’t for oil, Islam wouldn’t even be a issue now.
Does the Left really think their ideology and lifestyles would be tolerated by muslims in control of the political process? That is what amazes me the most. Can you imagine jihadis allowing PETA, NAMBA and gay rights parades for instance? All it takes is a simple majority and the sale of alcohol would be prohibited on Fridays, and that is but a trivial example. Secondly, the Left appears to not realize that with numbers comes intimidation in the election process. Is the Left really just a bunch of closet muslims? Abortion would not be tolerated by fundamentalists. Well, there goes the local tavern and no more watching football and sipping a beer on Monday night, that’s for sure. I’m serious – all it takes is numbers in a democracy. Look at Galloway in England for crying out loud! Like I said in another post in another blog, ya’ gotta’ love a Constitution that protects the forces seeking its very destruction. I for one am writing my Congressman about CAIR given the public statements many of them have made and their background and affiliations. We need to all be contacting the advertisers with WMAL are remind them that boycotting is a two-way street.
…hard work, thrift, religious values, and civic culture — have been permanently discredited…
I think your view is unnecessarily bleak, Baron.
Like all good subversives, we have two faces. Certainly our public face is that of blogger, yammering and trying to change minds in the here-and-now, approaching but never crossing the line. But we do our most important work in hiding.
Because in the quiet of the evening, millions of us carefully wire the Improvised Educational Devices of the shadow war: we homeschool our abundant children in the ways of cultural revolution.
Just as the self-indulgent gluttons of PC are attenuating themselves out of existence, an army of off-grid intellectual warriors is slowly being raised to join the battle. They are not polled. They are not counted.
But they have actually read the Constitution. They have learned– in latin– from the lessons of Republican Rome.
They see.
And they are coming.
Goesh — As I have said before, the appeasers are probably not really thinking through the consequences of their position. The goal is to make all the bad stuff go away, so that we can return to normal, living our nice government-funded socialist permissive lives.
Jihad? What jihad?
a4g — You are, of course, right; there is an optimistic view of all this. Sometimes I even adhere to it!
And, demographically speaking, we are bound to win — we will simply outbreed the Left. But will we do it before we are overrun by the mujahideen? That is the question…
Yes, a4g! I have an 8-month-old son, and as I change his diaper I whisper in his ear that he will be a leader, a champion, and a stone killer, if necessary. In addition to the Latin he’s going to learn Spanish and Arabic–now I’m thinking of adding Chinese (I’ll learn them with him).
And on the current, intellectual battlefront let us just keep on thinking, speaking and blogging, and we’ll wear down the gloomy PC crowd. I think they’re already so hollowed out inside that they will collapse (as a cultural touchstone) faster than we think). Reality is an unstoppable force when it comes to the test of ideas.
It just takes longer than we like sometimes to wear away the masks.
The demeaning of the most vibrant and successful culture in history by the PC and Ultra-liberal brigade, has thrown our whole system into confusion. Note the confusion and division in Britain over the Belmarsh detainees – Magna Carta, Bill of Rights, all have been called into question. These were issues that had been settled a long time ago. It is the presence of Islam and its social requirements that has thrown us right back to the Middle Ages. The Islamists though, care nought for our legal, judicial or constitutional systems, except as rope to hang us with.
Bodissey had a picture of the three proverbial monkeys. All three of them are symbolic of the PC culture that now pervades the West. The deaf monkey will not hear unless the speech is politically correct. Similarly the second monkey for sight, and the third will not speak anything that has not been filtered through political correctness.
What is the key? Subversion, as Bodissey suggests, and as I posted in a tangential manner a week ago, is the answer. Subversion is what has been going on for the last 30 years and subversion is the key to put a spanner in the works of Political Correctness and Ultra-liberalism. The tactic is to use Political Correctness and Ultra-liberalism as tools, to tread the PC path and lead it into a dead alley, an impasse, to a logical absurdity.
We have complained that MSM, being totally liberal and politically correct, does not hear or see the Blogworld. The three monkeys are on different wavelengths from the Blogworld wavelength. So subversion in this context means, that we have to frame our articles, speech, and any other form of communication, and put it on the same wavelength as the MSM.
The MSM will not see an attack on religion as politically correct or fit in with their Ultra-liberal view of society. We thus have to shift the battleground to the secular field. Another reason to shift the battleground from the religious to the secular is that the “religious” battleground suits Islam perfectly, as it further raises the profile of Islam in the West, which is the main purpose of the Jihad.
In the first instance, we need to start putting real pressure on two issues, both of which are social and legal issues.
1. The enslavement of women in Islam.
It is damnably unfair that Muslim women have to bear the responsibility of “honour” in Muslim society, a deadly serious matter, but get no power that goes with such awesome responsibility. It is damnably unfair that a Muslim woman has no power to decide her fate. It is unjust that Muslim women have to bear the pains and penalties of FGM. Women are also regarded as chattels in the world of Islam – in effect slaves.
The public manifestation of our acceptance of institutionalised slavery in the West is the burqa. It is an acknowledgement, that we as a Western society have recognised the institutionalised slavery of women in Islam, as legitimate in the West. This cannot be accepted in a liberal and socially just society.
Our sense of justice and compassion for the cruel injustice heaped on Muslim women, is what concerns us as liberal compassionate humans. Once Muslim women are free, as it is their right to be in the West, then the after effects on Islam are of no concern to us. It is a private matter within Islam.
2. The sentence of death on Apostates of Islam.
Freedom of choice is the hallmark of a liberal and just society. Yet we countenance the fact that people who leave Islam, have to go about in daily fear of their lives. Hour by hour that fear stalks them, even here in the West.
How could we have allowed such a situation come to pass in the citadel of liberalism? How did we ignore the cries for help from the weak, the vulnerable and the isolated?
Such social issues are not the fault of Muslims. Muslims are the first and most oppressed victims of Islam. They are just as kind and nice people as any other. It is the doctrine of Islam that gives rise to social values that are so cruel and unjust on individual Muslims. My heart goes out to the weak, the trammelled and the vulnerable Apostates of Islam. They are truly the most marginalized and victimised individuals in the world. Let it not be said, that even here in the West, we allowed such injustice to continue.
The moral high ground is ours if we choose to seize it. Hope for all those in the thrall of Islam, and Compassion for those who are the most marginalized and vulnerable victims of a doctrine that needs to be made humane.
DP111
Fjordman:
Have you heard about the BBC Question Time programme after the Islamic terrorist attacks in London. The BBC packed the audience with Muslims, just as they did with the QT programme after 9/11. This QT was just as hideous and macarbe as the 9/11 one. The BBC BTW is funded by the license payers in Britain. BBC – Lord Haw Haw is more appropriate.
Biassed BBC has more details.
OoPs:
Previous post should have been on Fjordman’s site, as all of you may have guessed.
Plead guilty, though in defence, the comments section look alike.
Not only that, but a lot of the same commenters are here. But you never know — Fjordman might look in and see your comment…
Excellent post and orientation to the problem we face today. This war will be won or lost at home. We face cultural taboos that thwart debate and pre-empts consideration of the important questions that you list.
Is Islam inherently dangerous, or just its most radical forms? I argue yes, yes, definitely yes.
Is the UN part of the problem rather than part of the solution? And how!
Why are we so reluctant to tackle the Saudi and Iranian problems? Lack of moral leadership.
I have two sons who are conservatives and have avoided political correctness even though they attended public schools. They were raised in an atmosphere of skepticism about revealed truth. I won’t bore you with the details except to recount on method.
I would pretend to swallow whole what the used car ads on television said about Cal Wothington and his dog Spot. Which could be a bear or an ostrich or any silly animal he could get. I would say, “…that’s the oddest dog” “Dad, its a bear not a dog. “But the television says it’s a dog and it’s named Spot. “Dad, bear.” “Do you mean the television would lie to me?” Five year old answers, “All the time, Dad, all the time.” Dialogs like this, increasingly more complicated were features of their lives until they went to college.
Now, they are both able to spot crap and say, “That’s crap.” Liberals fear them in our town since they have no compunction about saying the unsayable and back it up with citations and footnotes.
Jason — we’re definitely on the same wavelength. I’ve blogrolled you.
Andrew — intelligent skepticism is a skill worth teaching. I homeschooled my son until he was 12, and tried to instill that capability in him.
Andrew–
The Baron is right about his boy. However, the BB was told recently by a college professor that he was “too upbeat.” I reminded the Baron’s Boy that this professor may be a bit disgruntled since he is courting the professor’s beautiful daughter.
Great post, Baron and unlike many others, offers a solution. I agree that the fight is and always has been in the marketplace of ideas, which we lost miserably thanks to the effective subversion of all the devious players you mentioned. We have also failed to support politicians with the courage and intellectual firepower to meet this daunting challenge.
We “countersubversives” need to get involved at the political level as well, rather than just sit on the sidelines throwing stones, so that when our dialogue finds a wider audience there is a pool of experienced people willing and able to articulate and legislate it.
Great post, Baron and unlike many others, offers a solution. I agree that the fight is and always has been in the marketplace of ideas, which we lost miserably thanks to the effective subversion of all the devious players you mentioned. We have also failed to support politicians with the courage and intellectual firepower to meet this daunting challenge.
We “countersubversives” need to get involved at the political level as well, rather than just sit on the sidelines throwing stones, so that when our dialogue finds a wider audience there is a pool of experienced people willing and able to articulate and legislate it.
Truth — one important way to get involved at the political level is to THROW THE RASCALS OUT.
There are plenty of squishy Republicans in Congress who do nothing but ladle pork and preen for the TV. The Club For Growth targets vulnerable ones in the primaries.
That’s one way to effect some change.
Baron:
Absolutely! Throw them all out. But we have to have something better to replace them with.
Baron:
Absolutely! Throw them all out. But we have to have something better to replace them with.
BTW Baron. I like your blog immensely. Have posted it on my fledgling site.
BTW Baron. I like your blog immensely. Have posted it on my fledgling site.
Great Blog all around. I personally as well as my family am glad there are people like you out there. Doesn’t seem quite so lonely anymore. I definately won’t be keeping my big politically incorrect mouth shut. I linked to your blog on mine and proud of it. I’m fairly new at this, but have lots of time to make waves.