Now that Pamela Geller (plenty of conspiratorially inclined content and some truth at the link) has become an Islamist target, perhaps we can say the following: Islam still has a large following. Radical Islam still has a smaller but significant following, and through IS, Al Qaeda, social media, questionable imams, online chat rooms etc. is still able to radicalize followers to action. The debate in the U.S. has drifted more multicultural (Left) recently, and so Pam Geller might likely find many fewer Americans standing up for her right to speech, no matter her views.
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You may recall hearing about Lars Hedegaard, former Marxist, admirer of our 1st amendment, and founder of Denmark’s Free Press Society. He’s still under police protection, having written on many occasions that Islam itself is part of the problem. Naturally, he’s become a target for costly legal battles on charges of racism. He’s also been marked for death by some Islamists, joining a long list of those who have become targets of righteous Islamist anger.
“The assassin came to his home dressed as a postman. When the historian and journalist Lars Hedegaard opened his front door, the man — whom Lars describes as ‘looking like a typical Muslim immigrant’ in his mid-twenties — fired straight at his head. Though Hedegaard was a yard away, the bullet narrowly missed.’
Our own ‘beloved’ NY Times, begrudgingly supportive of Hedegaard’s cause, ran a story calling him an ‘anti-Islamic provacateur.’
‘However, as Mr. Hedegaard’s own opinions, a stew of anti-Muslim bile and conspiracy-laden forecasts of a coming civil war, came into focus, Denmark’s unity in the face of violence began to dissolve into familiar squabbles over immigration, hate speech and the causes of extremism.’
Having read many of Hedegaard’s articles, I can say he is highlighting uncomfortable truths upon a factual basis with an historical outlook. I can’t say I agree with the idea that Islam is entirely incompatible with Europe, nor entirely with his outlook, but it’s a no-brainer to stand up for his right to speak. Here is a good response to the Times article.
There’s no doubt the multiculturalist orthodoxy too easily allows what Christopher Hitchens’ termed ‘one-way multiculturalism:’ The apologetic European’s invitation to recently arrived Muslims to go full Muslim or join the perpetually aggrieved; isolating themselves in growing enclaves, loosely tethered to their host countries with vague notions of human rights and soft Marxist solidarity. Many young men remain underemployed, some in and out of criminal activity, drifting on the margins, looking for someone to be. Many of the Islamic enclaves have people in them quite attuned to the old ways back in Pakistan, Algeria, Syria etc.
Here, some feel emboldened to adopt increasingly Islamic dress and identity, while maintaining higher birth rates as their populations grow steadily. Suddenly, the well-meaning, less-fecund Europeans are confronted with face veils, full burqas, and claims for Sharia law. Their brows furrow. Their hearts race. What happened?
The most dangerous scenarios unfold when some of those young, Muslim men join up with radical Islam as a global cause, or go to join IS, then come back unemployed, radicalized and with a horrific new skill set and commitment to action.
If someone like Hedegaard comes along, they stow him uncomfortably away. He’s upset the apple-cart. If he’s lucky, he can drum up public support enough to censure the Islamists who come calling.
The celebration of all faiths and all tribes equally under an expansive liberal State fighting for social justice, equality of outcome, and multicultural inclusion is not necessarily a desired outcome. A class of professional journalists, social scientists, academics and cultural critics who will oversee the forward march to peace and progress under the banner of multiculturalism has downsides.
Here’s Briton Melanie Phillips speaking about Muslims in Britain, and also finding excessive fault with multiculturalism (~15:00 min):
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Phillips wrote a book called Londonistan, and perhaps she’s the British equivalent of a neo-conservative, having been ‘mugged by reality’ to some extent, for which she draws special ire from her former fellow travelers. As a columnist who started out for the British Left-Of-Center Guardian, and moved to the Daily Mail, Phillips targets that unholy marriage of Islamism and multiculturalism.
In the case of Britain, civil society has managed to create a space which shelters a number of Muslism immigrants operating outside of British law, sometimes bringing tribal customs and Sharia courts with them. Obviously, this is a problem.
Islamism and Islam, for Phillips, are two different creatures. There are Muslims who subscribe to the faith, and emigrate from their home countries. They come to the West for economic opportunity, political stability and all the other reasons people immigrate to the West. In the case of America, for example, they are particularly free to practice their religion, and perhaps have their religion insulted by South Park or the likes of Terry Jones.
Islamists, on the other hand, are a different matter. They range from the radicalizing Tsarnaevs, to Al Qaeda, to Anwar al-Awlaki and the Muslim Brotherhood. They subscribe to a form of Islamic ideology that sees itself in a global struggle against the encroachment of outside ideas, particularly the freedoms, culture, and influence of the West at the moment. Islamists are reactionary, ideological, and often advocate violence. They have serious issues with modernity, demanding and seeking solidarity and soldiers for the front lines against all enemies. Islamists seek to re-establish the kinds of laws and society that would enforce strict and impossibly ideal and narrow Islamic codes. This form of Islamic idealism has many wings and various sympathizers. It’s the kind of idealism we’re battling both abroad and on our soil, sometimes effectively, sometimes not very effectively at all. Some Islamists have even imported Western fascistic and socialist ideology and fused them with their own Islamism. A toxic brew.
Islamism is a major force throughout the Middle East and Muslim world right now, and at the very least, perhaps we can recognize that the Islamists mean harm to other Muslims as well.
So, how does Phillips think Britain should handle Muslim immigration? By highlighting terms which Britons should be quite clear about: There are laws to follow, forms of government to understand, a language to master and traditions which they might one day be expected to defend. This means locking horns with the multicultural Left.
The West is not merely a stop on the global benefits welfare chain. We’re not necessarily here to offer asylum or student visas to those who don’t particularly care to be here, nor those Islamists who travel from mosque to mosque, calling for jihad. Of course this is closer to the melting-pot approach that was once dominant in the U.S., which has since been on a slow decline due to the rise of multiculturalism here as well. I doubt this is a coincidence.
I’d add that America is obviously more than just a well-educated university faculty, or the talking heads on T.V. There are many other ideals, beliefs and virtues besides those like the new atheism, environmentalism, feminism and multiculturalism etc. Such secular ‘-isms’ tend to have universal aspirations, and many of their followers believe in these ideals with a kind of secular faith, rallying around these ideas and often presuming them to be universally true. As in Europe, universities and the media are natural draws for people who want to pursue such idealism, eventually influencing the culture and politics.
If Britain can show us anything, it’s that allowing the secular ‘-isms’ to be the highest things around, right alongside Muslim immigration and Islamism, is asking for serious trouble.
Now, I don’t think Phillips has everything right (nor obviously do I have everything right, for that matter) but her voice, like that of Christopher Hitchens, and Lars Hedegaard, are interesting voices of dissent tracing paths out of the Marxist, socialist and multiculturalist European Left. They have important truths to tell us.
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Sayyid Qutb isn’t a bad place to start to understand a little more, I’ve been told.
Michael Totten’s various interviews over the years with the Muslim Brotherhood are not inspiring. They’re Islamist lite, perhaps, and not likely the kinds of people we can do much business with.
Also, check out that sophisticated link between the Brotherhood, Muslim world and multiculturalist Europe, Tariq Ramadan. He sure knows how to speak the language:
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***Inevitably, criticism comes from the Left that highlights Phillips’ Jewishness. “She’s a shill for Israel” etc. Well, there you go. Anti-American, anti-semitic victimhood is all the rage in many quarters in Europe these days. Where’s that getting them?
Ever closer to the ideals which they hold aloft, and which move forever out of view.
People think I’m crazy, but NPR is the manifestation and mainstreaming of 60’s idealism. This idealism will always need money, and gravitates towards the public purse. Foundations which served other ideals naturally attract idealists. A Few Thoughts On NPR And Current Liberal Establishment Thinking Under Obama…
Theodore Dalrymple argues that France has the potential to handle Muslim immigration better because of its ideological rigidity, which can better meet the ideological rigidity of its Muslim immigrants…Theodore Dalrymple Still Attacking Multi-Culturalism In Britain
You may recall hearing about Lars Hedegaard, former Marxist, admirer of our 1st amendment, and founder of Denmark’s Free Press Society. He’s still under police protection, having written on many occasions that Islam itself is part of the problem. Naturally, he’s become a target for costly legal battles on charges of racism. He’s also been marked for death by some Islamists, joining a long list of those who have become targets of righteous Islamist anger.
“The assassin came to his home dressed as a postman. When the historian and journalist Lars Hedegaard opened his front door, the man — whom Lars describes as ‘looking like a typical Muslim immigrant’ in his mid-twenties — fired straight at his head. Though Hedegaard was a yard away, the bullet narrowly missed.’
Our own beloved NY Times, begrudgingly supportive of Hedegaard’s cause, ran a story calling him an ‘anti-Islamic provacateur.’
‘However, as Mr. Hedegaard’s own opinions, a stew of anti-Muslim bile and conspiracy-laden forecasts of a coming civil war, came into focus, Denmark’s unity in the face of violence began to dissolve into familiar squabbles over immigration, hate speech and the causes of extremism.’
Having read many of Hedegaard’s articles, I can say he is highlighting uncomfortable truths upon a factual basis with an historical outlook. I can’t say I agree with the idea that Islam is entirely incompatible with Europe, but it’s a no-brainer to stand up for his right to speak. Here is a good response to the Times article.
There’s no doubt the multiculturalist orthodoxy too easily allows what Christopher Hitchens’ termed ‘one-way multiculturalism:’ The apologetic European’s invitation to recently arrived Muslims to go full Muslim; isolating themselves in growing enclaves, loosely tethered to their host countries with vague notions of human rights and soft Marxist solidarity.
Here, some feel emboldened to adopt increasingly Islamist dress and identity, while maintaining higher birth rates as their populations grow steadily. Suddenly, the well-meaning, less-fecund Europeans are confronted with face veils, full burqas, and claims for Sharia law. Their brows furrow. Their hearts race. What happened?
If someone like Hedegaard comes along, they stow him uncomfortably away. He’s upset the apple-cart: The bien-pensant worldview steering much of the liberal, multi-culturalist press, politics and public debate. If he’s lucky, he can drum up public support enough to censure the Islamist crazies who come calling.
The celebration of all faiths and all tribes equally under an expansive liberal State fighting for social justice, equality of outcome, and multicultural inclusion is not a desired outcome. A class of professional journalists, social scientists, academics and cultural critics who will oversee the forward march to peace and progress under the banner of multiculturalism has downsides.
Theodore Dalrymple argues that France has the potential to handle Muslim immigration better because of its ideological rigidity, which can better meet the ideological rigidity of its Muslim immigrants…Theodore Dalrymple Still Attacking Multi-Culturalism In Britain
‘The Islamic Society, which runs Denmark’s biggest mosque and played an important role in stirring up passions against the cartoons of Muhammad, swiftly condemned the attack on Mr. Hedegaard. It also said it regretted its own role during the uproar over the cartoon, when it sent a delegation to Egypt and Lebanon to sound the alarm over Danish blasphemy, a move that helped turn what had been a little-noticed domestic affair into a bloody international crisis.’
Well, good for the Islamic Society. If you need a little background on the Hedegaard case, click through. We Americans are fortunate to have much stronger legal, political, and cultural traditions of free speech.
“The assassin came to his home dressed as a postman. When the historian and journalist Lars Hedegaard opened his front door, the man — whom Lars describes as ‘looking like a typical Muslim immigrant’ in his mid-twenties — fired straight at his head. Though Hedegaard was a yard away, the bullet narrowly missed.’
This blog hopes Europe has reached a tipping point when it comes to standing up to violence and threats of violence to individuals, no matter the source. There has been an alliance between semi-integrated Muslims who incite and commit violence when their religion and prophet are criticized, alongside a deeply liberal, morally relativistic establishment (by American standards socially democratic or further Left).
The only way to protect Hedegaard is through public support, so others like him aren’t magnets for righteous holy warriors. He’s a polemicist, but judge for yourself whether or not he’s ‘hateful’ and what the interests are behind ‘hate speech’ laws. Europeans admittedly, have had a tough time integrating Muslims. You may not agree with everything he says, but as Hedegaard points out, if you can’t even talk about the problems of integration that Europe is facing, and tolerate voices of dissent like his, how will you begin to solve those problems?
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Here’s a broader point to make about Western trends of thought, that highlight some problems and limitations in the culture.
Terry Eagleton is a British cultural thinker in the humanities, and he’s an actual Marxist. Rarely is it actual Marxism we’ve been importing into the United States, especially by way of our humanities departments, but rather more Continental European thought in general. Post-modern influences in the humanities often include feminists, race theorists, anti-colonialists (wikipedia), the Existentialists, some products of the generation of ’68 (wikipedia), the works of Michel Foucault (wikipedia) and Jacques Derrida. Generally, all of these influences aren’t necessarily seeking a Marxist overthrow of the bourgeoisie by the proletariat, ready with their own top-down program for life, but they’re rarely traditionalists either. Some are quite deep and of potentially lasting value.
These influences generally seek to challenge traditional moral thinking, question the roots of legal, social and political institutions, and are not fans of organized religion. Most of them have their own theories and ideas that vary from anarchic to semi-anarchic, anti-establishmentarian to anti-capitalist, to top-down rationalist and nihilistic.
I think the video below might offer ideas on how we decide what’s important to read, to think about, and which ideas to pass along. In it, Eagleton is debating Roger Scruton, a British philosopher focusing on aesthetics and the humanities, and who is generally conservative: What do British universities keep, and what do they leave behind? What is culture, and what should one read, think, and feel in order to pass that culture on?:
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This blog’s theory (take it, leave it, critique it) is that American culture since the rise of the 1960’s has been deeply influenced by post-modern thought, and that it’s been spilling out into the culture and our politics. There has also, perhaps, due to technology and a freer flow of goods and information, been a convergence of ideas in the Western world.
Here’s a quote:
‘The young man who has not wept is a savage, and the old man who will not laugh is a fool.’
A man of the right, Steyn has been darkly predicting the end of Europe as we know it, locked as it is, he argues, into demographic decline and painting itself into the corner of multiculturalism.
Multiculturalism is tough to define, but for Steyn’s analysis, perhaps we could think of it as a melange of moral relativism, Statist top-down rationalism and its remnants, as well as a dominant liberal ideology of conformity. Some people are viewed as victims before they even arrive, to be pitied and included into civil society mainly through questionable lawmaking by way of political activism.
More broadly, it can lead to the kind of technocratic governance which appears currently unable to acknowledge many cultural, economic, and demographic problems in Europe. Muslim immigration, multiculturalists, and free speech are the main players in the Hedegaard case.
Europe wanted cheap labor and they got it with Muslims. A few generations onward, as Europe’s Muslim populations quietly grow in cities such as Malmo, London, and Brussels, there are broader consequences. For Steyn, Muslims are naturally following an Islam at odds with much of European culture, an Islam which doesn’t recognize separation of Mosque and State, and will occasionally kill people who insult the prophet. Point this out, or the folly of having Sharia law in shadow courts operating alongside at least 800 years of English jurisprudence, and someone may well try and kill you. The sensitivities of the marginalized Muslim and the sensitivities of the multicultural Leftist consensus dovetail nicely.
***To be fair, I’d add and Steyn might agree, that many European Muslims are naturally responding to the incentives that European societies have created for them, including multicultural policies which blame Europe or America first. Immigration isn’t easy, with or without Islam. They are often viewed with suspicion and distrust. It’s tougher to get a job in Europe, and it’s tough to be accepted where racial and national identity are more closely aligned. Steyn may not agree, and I may, that the moral absolutism of Islam does not need to be met with the absolutism of some free-speech advocates each and every time, but it ought to be supported more than it is now.
Here’s Steyn on what’s become an unholy alliance:
“Why then are the Euroleft prostrate before Islam? Simple arithmetic, says Lars: “They are now increasingly dependent on the Muslim vote, which they hope will guarantee them a perpetual foothold at least in the major population centers.”
Here he is in his own words describing what he thinks are the failures of multicultural policies (addition: and why Islam is different):
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Now, he’s become the target of actual violence and an assassination attempt. His tale here:
“The assassin came to his home dressed as a postman. When the historian and journalist Lars Hedegaard opened his front door, the man — whom Lars describes as ‘looking like a typical Muslim immigrant’ in his mid-twenties — fired straight at his head. Though Hedegaard was a yard away, the bullet narrowly missed.’
Is he right about everything? Probably not. But few people are willing to endure the financial damage of political activism, legal persecution, and violence and threats of violence, just to speak up and join public discourse. Hedegaard joins a growing list, in fact. He’s taking his life into his own hands just to do so, and that’s where the line should be drawn.
European free-speech advocates can easily find themselves operating in a vacuum, working against public opinion, often alone and outnumbered. It’d be nice to think even the establishment would come to his aid with public support against, you know, attempted murder. Sadly, this is unlikely at the moment, as it takes both personal courage and the political will to butt heads against the dominant ideology and worldview of many European institutions. The Eurocracy drifts forward, flaws and all.
Addition: Should Hedegaard be reading, I hope he’s faring well, and that after reading his work, I’ve found him very reasonable.
And if you think it can’t happen over here: Mark Steyn discusses complaints brought against Macleans, Canada’s largest publication, by the President of the Canadian Islamic Congress (who sent three representatives) to TVOntario. They were upset at the pieces Steyn had published there. The complaints went through the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal for alleged “Islamophobia” and “promoting hate:”
The connection here is what happens in Canadian society beneath the umbrella of more Left liberal ideas:
***A friend asks me to note that the current progressive, Obama administration shares many of the same hallmarks as the EuroLeft Steyn describes: More malleable on free speech, vaguely tolerant of American nationalism, conveniently religious but more animated by Enlightenment rationalism and Statism. Political activism for social justice is a legitimate path to power and to reward minority groups (remember getting Muslims to NASA). No wonder the Europeans love Obama, he’s so familiar.
The simplest and plainest example: It takes a special kind of ideological commitment to call the Ft. Hood shooting an example of ‘workplace violence.’
Related On This Site: Tariq Ramadan speaks both multiculturalese and the language of Muslim Brotherhood, and ironically it’s the 68er and socialist who stands for neither religious belief nor multiculturalism confronts him