| GREG-STRANGE.COM |
"If you haven't found something strange during the
day, it hasn't been much of a day." -- John A. Wheeler
day, it hasn't been much of a day." -- John A. Wheeler
PROVIDING SUBSTANTIVE COMMENTARY ON THE
PEOPLE, POLITICS, EVENTS AND ABSURDITIES OF
OUR TIME. SERVED UP WITH ACERBIC WIT, YOU
SHOULD FIND IT QUITE SATISFYING.
PEOPLE, POLITICS, EVENTS AND ABSURDITIES OF
OUR TIME. SERVED UP WITH ACERBIC WIT, YOU
SHOULD FIND IT QUITE SATISFYING.
Preserving the West in the Age of Cartoon Riots
Now that the embassy burnings and the calls for the
extermination of all those who slander Islam have subsided
just a wee bit, is there anything of value that can be learned
from the great Danish-Muhammad-cartoon kerfuffle of 2006?
Or is it, rather, just one more not particularly useful example
of what we already knew, which is that it doesn’t take a whole
lot to send Islamic fanatics into riotous tumult the world over?
Actually, I may have to amend the very first sentence of this
column already since even as I type, new reports of cartoon
carnage are coming out with the American embassy in
Indonesia being assaulted and at least 15 killed in a Nigerian
rampage, the deadliest confrontation yet. Man, they just don’t
quit, do they?
So it looks like this goes on for a while. Nonetheless, there is
one overridingly important and simple lesson to be learned: If
the West cares anything at all about preserving its way of life,
including freedom of speech and expression, then it shouldn’t
placate or kowtow to the most extreme members of the world’s
most intolerant religion and culture. That’s because giving in
to the calls for the censorship of all things offensive to Islam
could be, in effect, paving the way for eventual Islamic
hegemony. And make no mistake, worldwide hegemony is the
ultimate goal of Islam.
Right now you might be thinking, okay, so a bunch of
backwards fanatics got all hot and bothered about some stupid
cartoons. So what? Such people can’t possibly defeat Western
civilization and become the dominant force in the world,
right? Well, in any kind of conventional or military sense,
that’s certainly true. But that’s not to say that the West can’t
just give the store away through a combination of negative
demographics, an irrational adherence to extreme
multiculturalism and a mystifying indifference to defending its
own culture and heritage.
So, while we may be scoffing today about the primitiveness
of the cartoon rioters and the seeming absurdity that their ilk
might one day rule the world, our great-great-grandchildren’s
favorite television program might end up being “Shari’ah Law
and Order” just by default.
It certainly doesn’t help when people in positions of power
in Europe are chomping at the bit to make needless
concessions to Islam in this clash of civilizations that is
becoming as hard to ignore as the proverbial elephant in the
living room. Take, for instance, European Union vice-
commissioner Franco Frattini, who wants media to sign up to
“a voluntary code of conduct on reporting on Islam and other
religions” in order to try and avoid future cartoon-type
commotions. He wants this because he believes that the
cartoons in the Danish paper Jyllands-Posten “humiliated”
millions of Muslims.
Granted, there’s something fishy about a globally
synchronized outburst of humiliation that doesn’t manifest
itself until several months after the cartoons first appeared.
One could almost get the feeling that something funny was
going on, like maybe a cabal of radical Islamic imams and
clerics deliberately stirring up a hornet’s nest and then
exploiting the resultant Muslim outrage in order to gain
another small victory over the mostly quiescent Western
world.
Hey, these guys aren’t stupid. Fanatical, devious and a bit
crazy, yes. Stupid, no. They understand the perverse mentality
of post-Christian Europe with it’s guilt-ridden self-loathing
and they know how to take advantage of that weakness. They
know there aren’t going to be any military conquests of Europe,
but they’re a patient lot and a slow, insidious Islamic
infiltration over the next century or so will do just fine.
In any case, according to Euro-minister Frattini, by
agreeing to a charter “the press will give the Muslim world the
message: we are aware of the consequences of exercising the
right of free expression, we can and we are ready to self-
regulate that right.”
But if you translate Frattini’s statement into non-weasel
words, they come out more like this: we can and we are ready to
deprive ourselves of the right of free expression in order to try
and appease the rising tide of radical Islam.
It shouldn’t come as any surprise that those who are
proposing voluntary “self-regulation in cases where sensitive
religious issues are involved” are really only talking about
sensitive Islamic religious issues. That’s because those are the
particular ones that stir up global hubbubs, get people killed
and threaten to destabilize European societies that have
significant populations of surly, unassimilible Muslims.
If you think the Eurocrats -- or their American
counterparts, for that matter -- give a hoot about offended
Christians, Jews or others who don’t regularly take to the
streets in rage, you’ve got another thing coming. Crucifixes
immersed in urine? That's provocative and challenging “art.”
Portraits of the Virgin Mary festooned with pornographic
images and elephant dung? The same. Jesus Christ depicted
as a homosexual in theatrical productions? Yep, ditto.
Whenever people have questioned the wisdom even of the
government subsidizing such provocative works of “art,” they
have usually been portrayed as right-wing religious nuts out to
impose puritanical standards on a free society. But let some
honest-to-goodness religious nuts pitch a deadly global
tantrum over some newspaper cartoons and then it becomes a
matter of acknowledging “the importance of respecting
religious sensitivities.”
Which can lead to preposterous and humiliating scenes
being played out, like the one in Oslo which was orchestrated
by Norway’s minister of labor. The editor of a Christian
publication called Magazinet was prevailed upon to issue an
abject public apology for having reprinted the Danish
Muhammad cartoons. The apology was accepted by one
Mohamed Hamdan, chairman of the Supreme Islamic Council
in Norway. Given that Muslims comprise a tiny percentage of
Norway’s population (at the moment, anyway), that there even
is a Supreme Islamic Council in Norway seems preposterous,
but should also serve as fair warning to those Norwegians who
like to think that 100 years from now their country will bear
some resemblance to the Norway they know now.
To most rational observers in the West, the entire cartoon
kerfuffle, with its rioting mobs and nonsensical chants of
“Death to Denmark,” is seen as the absolute zenith of absurdity
that can be attained by sentient human beings. Unfortunately,
too many of those same observers don’t see the absurdity of
appeasing such absurdity, but rather see it as appropriate
sensitivity that ought to be accorded religious folks -- or at
least those religious folks who regularly go bananas and carry
signs that say things like “Behead those who insult Islam.”
Appropriate sensitivity or gutless submission? You be the
judge.
Now that the embassy burnings and the calls for the
extermination of all those who slander Islam have subsided
just a wee bit, is there anything of value that can be learned
from the great Danish-Muhammad-cartoon kerfuffle of 2006?
Or is it, rather, just one more not particularly useful example
of what we already knew, which is that it doesn’t take a whole
lot to send Islamic fanatics into riotous tumult the world over?
Actually, I may have to amend the very first sentence of this
column already since even as I type, new reports of cartoon
carnage are coming out with the American embassy in
Indonesia being assaulted and at least 15 killed in a Nigerian
rampage, the deadliest confrontation yet. Man, they just don’t
quit, do they?
So it looks like this goes on for a while. Nonetheless, there is
one overridingly important and simple lesson to be learned: If
the West cares anything at all about preserving its way of life,
including freedom of speech and expression, then it shouldn’t
placate or kowtow to the most extreme members of the world’s
most intolerant religion and culture. That’s because giving in
to the calls for the censorship of all things offensive to Islam
could be, in effect, paving the way for eventual Islamic
hegemony. And make no mistake, worldwide hegemony is the
ultimate goal of Islam.
Right now you might be thinking, okay, so a bunch of
backwards fanatics got all hot and bothered about some stupid
cartoons. So what? Such people can’t possibly defeat Western
civilization and become the dominant force in the world,
right? Well, in any kind of conventional or military sense,
that’s certainly true. But that’s not to say that the West can’t
just give the store away through a combination of negative
demographics, an irrational adherence to extreme
multiculturalism and a mystifying indifference to defending its
own culture and heritage.
So, while we may be scoffing today about the primitiveness
of the cartoon rioters and the seeming absurdity that their ilk
might one day rule the world, our great-great-grandchildren’s
favorite television program might end up being “Shari’ah Law
and Order” just by default.
It certainly doesn’t help when people in positions of power
in Europe are chomping at the bit to make needless
concessions to Islam in this clash of civilizations that is
becoming as hard to ignore as the proverbial elephant in the
living room. Take, for instance, European Union vice-
commissioner Franco Frattini, who wants media to sign up to
“a voluntary code of conduct on reporting on Islam and other
religions” in order to try and avoid future cartoon-type
commotions. He wants this because he believes that the
cartoons in the Danish paper Jyllands-Posten “humiliated”
millions of Muslims.
Granted, there’s something fishy about a globally
synchronized outburst of humiliation that doesn’t manifest
itself until several months after the cartoons first appeared.
One could almost get the feeling that something funny was
going on, like maybe a cabal of radical Islamic imams and
clerics deliberately stirring up a hornet’s nest and then
exploiting the resultant Muslim outrage in order to gain
another small victory over the mostly quiescent Western
world.
Hey, these guys aren’t stupid. Fanatical, devious and a bit
crazy, yes. Stupid, no. They understand the perverse mentality
of post-Christian Europe with it’s guilt-ridden self-loathing
and they know how to take advantage of that weakness. They
know there aren’t going to be any military conquests of Europe,
but they’re a patient lot and a slow, insidious Islamic
infiltration over the next century or so will do just fine.
In any case, according to Euro-minister Frattini, by
agreeing to a charter “the press will give the Muslim world the
message: we are aware of the consequences of exercising the
right of free expression, we can and we are ready to self-
regulate that right.”
But if you translate Frattini’s statement into non-weasel
words, they come out more like this: we can and we are ready to
deprive ourselves of the right of free expression in order to try
and appease the rising tide of radical Islam.
It shouldn’t come as any surprise that those who are
proposing voluntary “self-regulation in cases where sensitive
religious issues are involved” are really only talking about
sensitive Islamic religious issues. That’s because those are the
particular ones that stir up global hubbubs, get people killed
and threaten to destabilize European societies that have
significant populations of surly, unassimilible Muslims.
If you think the Eurocrats -- or their American
counterparts, for that matter -- give a hoot about offended
Christians, Jews or others who don’t regularly take to the
streets in rage, you’ve got another thing coming. Crucifixes
immersed in urine? That's provocative and challenging “art.”
Portraits of the Virgin Mary festooned with pornographic
images and elephant dung? The same. Jesus Christ depicted
as a homosexual in theatrical productions? Yep, ditto.
Whenever people have questioned the wisdom even of the
government subsidizing such provocative works of “art,” they
have usually been portrayed as right-wing religious nuts out to
impose puritanical standards on a free society. But let some
honest-to-goodness religious nuts pitch a deadly global
tantrum over some newspaper cartoons and then it becomes a
matter of acknowledging “the importance of respecting
religious sensitivities.”
Which can lead to preposterous and humiliating scenes
being played out, like the one in Oslo which was orchestrated
by Norway’s minister of labor. The editor of a Christian
publication called Magazinet was prevailed upon to issue an
abject public apology for having reprinted the Danish
Muhammad cartoons. The apology was accepted by one
Mohamed Hamdan, chairman of the Supreme Islamic Council
in Norway. Given that Muslims comprise a tiny percentage of
Norway’s population (at the moment, anyway), that there even
is a Supreme Islamic Council in Norway seems preposterous,
but should also serve as fair warning to those Norwegians who
like to think that 100 years from now their country will bear
some resemblance to the Norway they know now.
To most rational observers in the West, the entire cartoon
kerfuffle, with its rioting mobs and nonsensical chants of
“Death to Denmark,” is seen as the absolute zenith of absurdity
that can be attained by sentient human beings. Unfortunately,
too many of those same observers don’t see the absurdity of
appeasing such absurdity, but rather see it as appropriate
sensitivity that ought to be accorded religious folks -- or at
least those religious folks who regularly go bananas and carry
signs that say things like “Behead those who insult Islam.”
Appropriate sensitivity or gutless submission? You be the
judge.