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COMMENTARY
August 28, 2010
No one home
The problem with a problem that isn't going away -- that is going to get worse before it doesn't get better -- is that it won't go away.Tautology seems as good a place to start as any, in dealing with the security problem presented by "Islamism," of which we have all been reminded by the arrest of more alleged, semi-home-grown bomb plotters in Ottawa this week. If, as wags have suggested, even the flat-footed Mounties could capture these guys, think what else is out there. To be fair to the police, who necessarily start from a position of no knowledge, and work within the tight constraints of political correctness -- so that the spontaneous arrest of a known Islamist ideologue merely "suspected" of being up to no good, would be a career-ending move -- they are doing their best. My impression is that their outwardly naive-looking schemes of "outreach" to Muslim communities are, modestly, paying off; that they do find help from "moderate Muslims" when they ask for it. Reasonable Muslims and their children -- trying to get on with their lives; who often came to Canada to escape this sort of violent nonsense -- are the targets of a very sick propaganda, designed to persuade the psychologically unstable that Allah loves to kill infidels gratuitously. And over the world at large, Muslims are by far the most numerous victims of Islamist acts of carnage: quite literally tens of thousands killed and maimed in the time we've been counting since 9/11. But when they look outside the community, they feel themselves being held responsible for a murderer's creed. And this is the case whether or not outsiders admit to the "prejudice." Ask the right poll questions, and you will find that a great majority of people in the West have "had it up to here" with Islam generally, even if they are outwardly maintaining the smiley-face of universal multicultural tolerance. This is how things are, and as we can see from such European constituencies as Holland, that tolerance finally wears thin. Nor is it clear what the way is heading forward, when it does wear thin. Actually, the problem is worse than this. For reasons, both material and spiritual, too deep to be adequately conveyed through conventional journalism -- intensely political, ideological, "Islamist" interpretations of Islam are advancing almost everywhere that Muslim communities exist. Perhaps the biggest single exception is Iraq: but there the reverse tide may not be sustainable. The chief material cause is Saudi Arabia, and the extraordinary funding that has gone, internationally, into promoting a Wahabi, "puritanical," strictly Shariah-based, fanaticism. That's where most foreign money for mosques and imams comes from, and the oil wealth behind it shows no sign of evaporating. Nor have our statesmen (or their electors) the guts to confront this issue, and express Western revulsion for a polity abhorrent to every Western principle of freedom. The chief spiritual cause is the disappearance, on nearly a planetary scale, of sane and effective religious authority. Muslims are responding in their own way to the apparent triumph of atheism, manifest almost everywhere in a tawdry and meaningless consumerism. It is no coincidence that the terrorists recruit almost exclusively from Muslim households with all the material advantages. Their appeal is to the young, who have had that material advantage, and know it is nothing. If we think they can be bought off with more consumer goods, we are fools indeed. Compounding this is the universal fact of "us/them." Put yourself in a Muslim's shoes and ask: Who are "we" and who are "they"? It is human nature to identify with one's own, even when one's own are behaving reprehensibly. Moreover, the very strategy of the Islamists is to isolate Muslim emigrant communities; to prevent their assimilation into the West and its (truly corrupted) values. In other words, to put every Muslim in a position where he is either with the Islamists, or against every aspect of his own identity. This strategy is working. In both Europe and America, the trend is towards less, rather than more interaction between Muslims and non-Muslims. The mosque insistence on distinctive Islamic dress contributes more to this separation, day by day, than isolated acts of terrorism. Our media insistence on publicizing the more radical Islamic spokesmen, at the expense of the more reasonable, also contributes mightily to this by enhancing and promoting the radicals' prestige. It would be a different story if Muslims emigrating to the West encountered a society that was still overwhelmingly and confidently Christian in its beliefs, culture, and instincts. There would then be, for better and worse, reciprocal influence, and a "dialogue between civilizations." Instead Muslim immigrants find a dialogue with the deaf: with a society that still says terrorism is wrong, but can't even explain why. David Warren
© Ottawa Citizen
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