There are many very bright people writing about the possibility and/or probability of the current War on Islamic Fascism devolving into a Clash of Civilizations. People look at the conflict variously form military, economic, sociological, historical, political, etc, perspectives. I approach the question from the Psychoanalytic point of view. From my understanding of how the human mind is organized, and what kinds of conscious and unconscious ideas propel action, I try to understand how events are likely to develop. As such, it appears to be increasingly clear that the Clash of Civilizations is already underway, that certain responses are hardening the lines of demarcation, and that reversing the outcome is close to becoming impossible. As a corollary, I would suggest there is almost nothing the United States and the West can do that would prevent further bloodshed. These are very pessimistic conclusions; I will try to explain why I feel this way and hope a Wise Commenter can offer convincing arguments that I am wrong, and more importantly, advise on what actions the West can take that would mitigate the worst case scenarios.
My starting point is one of the first posts I wrote, back in January of 2005, Contrasts, Edges, and Differences. I pointed out that our brains, and our minds, are expressly designed to enhance the perception of differences:
While one always has to be careful to avoid reductionism, contrasts and edges are fundamental organizers for the nervous system, and later, for the mind. The first awareness of an infant concerns the distinction between self and other.
Nuances, shades of gray, appreciations of complexity, all are higher order mental functions that arise late in psychological development and are most prone to disruption by any insult that impairs mental or neurological functioning. This is particularly apt for our current conflict with Islam.
There can be no question that very many Muslims, perhaps a majority, are lovely, moderate and tolerant people, who simply want to make a life for themselves and a future for their children; they just want to live and let live. The Bush administration has bungled many things but they have consistently sought, in their public diplomacy, to present our military action as directed against terrorists, not Muslims in general. Unfortunately, this has not done nearly enough to prevent the growing perception that Islam is an intolerant and expansionist religion that seeks to subjugate the West. I am not here arguing that this is a wholly accurate description; I am arguing that a powerful combination of informational avenues and processes have presented this as thew dominant image of Islam in the West. (I presented this argument in more depth in The Reavers of Islam.)
Among those who enhance this simplistic image of Islam are the Islamists themselves, the Arab governments that use their Islamic bona fides as justification for their tyranny, various Western governments which offer official sanction to terrorist front groups and apologists (Like CAIR) as exemplars of "Moderate" Islam, and the MSM, which lacks the sophistication and/or will to present nuanced images of Islam. In the West, governments and the MSM compound the problem by hiding the provenance of brutality when it stems from Muslims, while celebrating it when it fits their agenda. The combined weight of such distortion leaves the West with a picture of Islam that is pretty simplistic but essentially comes down to: They cover their women and don't let them have any rights and they want to kill us.
However, as I suggested, the image of Islam in the West is only part of the problem; the bigger problem is the image of the West facing Islam, and here the lack of nuance is even more dramatic.
The first comment on my post Sex & Islam was from Muslim Unity, who said:
We can have peace if people like you start understanding and respecting others. Learn to respect our values.
Obviously, Muslim Unity does not speak for all of Islam just as I do not speak for all of the West, however, I think he makes a fundamental error in believing that I do not understand what he values. In order to better ascertain what his values were, I went to his web site. He has been blogging since February and has a limited number of posts up. He makes the point that he hates Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein as much as George Bush, and would like to kill both, along with their supporters, in graphic and violent ways:
Kill Them Now!
Today is Valentine’s Day. And on this day here are the people I would love to see killed/wiped out/ beaten to death/ crushed alive/ burnt alive/ chopped into tiny pieces/ fed to live hungry lions/:
1. George Bush
This guy is definitely a “Modern Day Hitler” and a War Monger. He has united the entire World against America. He will soon be visiting India and Pakistan in March. I assure you there will be millions people protesting against him. I just wish one of them gets rid of him. We could all celebrate.
2. Osama Bin Laden.
This guy is one of Bush’s best friends. He came on TV just a few days before American elections so that innocent American’s vote for Bush. He pretends to be bad and Bush pretends to be the guy who protects America from him. In reality, both of them are evil terrorists. They both kill innocent people.
3. Saddam Hussein
This guy is one more of Bush’s buddies. Why is it that Saddam is still alive but innocent Iraqi’s keep dying? Get rid of Saddam. Everybody hates him, including Iraqis. We don’t need any trial just chop his head of in public.
4. Each and every racist / terrorist who supports the guys mentioned above.
Since 60,000,000 Americans voted for Bush, this is problematic.
My inference is that he is an Iranian Muslim, which suggest he is Shia; he makes no overt mention of this on his site. He decries terrorism, but is supportive of the Cartoon Intifada. He makes no distinction between newspapers exercising their free speech rights and the governments and people of the nation where the newspaper publishes. He repeatedly warns that Danes and Europeans will only have themselves to blame for further violence if they do not apologize for insulting his prophet.
I know it is unfair to single out one post on one web site as representative of a particular mind set, yet Muslim Unity presents himself as a perfectly reasonable example of the Islam in which he believes. In his world, the West oppresses Muslims, is racist toward them, and kills Muslims without a second thought; all problems would be ameliorated if only the West understood the peace-loving nature of Islam. My suspicion is that he fully believes every word he writes. And there is the problem.
For most Muslims, all they know about the West is what they are told repeatedly by their religious and government leaders, that we are wealthy beyond their wildest dreams, we support their corrupt leaders, we oppress, hate, and murder innocent Muslims all over the globe, we steal their oil, and we support the hated Jews who have stolen their land and live only to kill and oppress the poor Palestinians.
Could we develop more nuanced views of each other? Of course, but the average Muslim's sources of information are even more limited than the average Westerner's.
There is no place from which to establish a common frame of reference with Muslim Unity; his world view and mine are incompatible.
In Europe, meanwhile, the clash shows no signs of abating, and is certain to get worse, perhaps quickly, long before it gets better.
No Pasaran quotes from Westwatch (not in English):
Ever more Jews are leaving France for Israel. It’s no surprise to anybody, because for approximately five years Jews in France are increasingly being closed in on in frightening measure. Jewish cemeteries are violated, the suburbs are full anti-Jewish Graffiti, North African gangs attack Jews and kidnap them, and antisemites have been hitting it big in Showbiz.
And adds:
Dieudonné has said over and over that bin Laden is the worlds greates living public figure. With an ideology admiring fetishized and aestheticized violence and mass murder, what else can you call this admiration other than barbarism?
Worry about the image thing? Sure. It’s time to worry because Dieudo's spittle has been normalized and fed back to a new generation of Europeans. Call them "the leaders of the future" if you will.
"Comedians" who find Osama bin Laden a great man and think jokes about the Holocaust are funny do not share the same moral universe than I do.
France is also the home of Europe's largest Muslim population and the state-within-a-state is growing in power and reach. France-Echos [HT: Gateway Pundit] describes a report first written about over a year ago which suggests Europe’s Islamic future is now:
The Obin report, innocuously entitled “Signs and Manifestations of Religious Affiliation in the Educational Establishments” and headed by the inspector general of French education Jean-Pierre Obin, the study was actually finished last year but remained unpublished until leaked on the Internet a few weeks ago.
The post is worth reading in full. It is alarming. Islamists of the most fundamentalist stripe have taken over entire neighborhoods and are now taking over schools. Girls suffer first, but there is an enforced conformity to a fundamentalist line that should terrify our friends in Europe. The post concludes with some ominous words:
Faced with this wholesale assault on basic democratic values and secularism, the educational establishment appears powerless and immobilized. It admits that Jewish kids can no longer be schooled without being subject to constant racist and anti-Semitic harassment and cannot protect the freedom of spiritual choice of minor children, but does not know what to do. Instead, it engages in self-censorship and tolerates and appeases violent intolerance.
And this is not just France’s problem. The same phenomenon of large numbers of angry young Moslems who totally reject European civilization is easily observable in virtually every large urban center across the EU.
Moreover, the future is on their side. With fertility rates twice those of the native Europeans and large-scale legal and illegal immigration, Europe’s Moslem population is growing by leaps and bounds. Though only 4 to 5% of the general population, Moslems already make up 25% to 30% of the under 18 cohort in large cities.
On present demographic trajectory, they will become a majority of that cohort in the metropolitan areas where they are concentrated in 30 years or less. If they were to resemble the students described in the Obin Report at all, it would be difficult to imagine Europe remaining secular and democratic for long.
The French Muslims have determined the outcome of the "forced choice" and their choice is radical Islam.
Once one side in a conflict declares war on the other side, all those caught in the middle must inevitably take sides. The West has tried to avoid taking sides in a war that was declared upon us 27 years ago and our apathy and pacifism have been interpreted as weakness, which only has served to encourage our adversaries. Those who are calling now for a nuanced appreciation of Islam when Islam, et al, have done all they can to make such distinctions meaningless, are making a late, last ditch effort to avoid what already looks to be unavoidable.
The West has few choices left. Building fences against Islam is already underway. Deporting large groups of 2nd and 3rd generation Muslims from the heart of Europe seems unlikely and undoable. The French, as the leading edge of the war in Europe, can choose to fight; for the French that often has translated into barbaric violence. This time, the barbarity will be occurring in their own backyards and they will not have the option of disengaging as they did in Algeria. Alternately, the entire country could become balkanized, with chronic violence throughout the land occasionally flaring into more extreme tribal clashes. The French can surrender, of course, but that is also problematic.
Sadly, the best hope for a peaceful outcome between the West and Islam, that Iraq could become a beacon of Democracy in the corrupt sea of despotism throughout the Islamic Middle east, is fading, destroyed by the Islamic fanatics, the mainstream Arab governments and government controlled press, and by the MSM and left-wing elites who have struggled to strangle the nascent democracy in its crib. Even if Iraq eventually has a functioning liberal Democracy, that outcome is too far off in the future to change minds in the short term.
Update: In a post which dovetails nicely with mine, Wretchard at The Belmont Club writes today about the (almost) forced choosing of sides by the Media in Iraq. Unfortunately, in war time, eventually, forced choices become the default position; we have thus far avoided making the "forced choice" and it is causing a great deal of grief.
Recent Comments