I recently received an email that included an article that nicely dovetails with a point I was making in an earlier earlier post of mine, that we must never allow the religion of Islam to secure a place of dominance within our western societies, which shields it from both critique and debate. The comments expressed in the email are so profound as the article sent, that I choose to include them here as well.
“In the same way that people have denied the existence of anti-Semitism and pointed the finger at anyone who tries to warn of its dangers, so now they are criticising a Muslim (Bassam Tibi) for trying to open people’s eyes to the growing threat of the Islamisation of Europe and accusing him and others who express their concern of inciting Islamophobia.”
This is not incitement, but a cool, considered warning about the growth of Muslim extremism and the growth of Muslim power through the sheer weight of numbers. As the extremists flex their political muscles, they are becoming more and more demanding. In the UK they openly target any MP who has dared to say a good word about Israel and triumphantly claim victory if they succeed in unseating anyone.
When a British woman was recently jailed in the Sudan for allegedly insulting Islam, the pussyfooting way British diplomats and two Muslim MPs trod on glass and virtually thanked the Sudanese for not flogging her or imposing the death sentence made one feel physically sick.
Political correctness has gone mad – a bank withdraws piggy banks because it might offend the Muslims. A company withdraws a logo and an advertising campaign because Muslims say the symbol insults them there are demands by some for a separate health service for Muslims, particularly the women. An English teacher who attends an interview without a burka later demands the right to teach with her face covered How are children supposed to learn how to pronounce words if her voice is muffled and they cannot see how to form the words because they cannot see her lips)
Watch this space as more and more demands are made and European governments and organisations roll over in their haste not to ‘offend the Muslims’. The Australians got it right when they said the criteria for people being allowed to settle there is that they have to adopt the norms of the country and honour Australian law and integrate into Australian society. Any other way is buying future disaster in countries that allow any minority group to dictate its own terms and make its own rules.
These statements are both true and to the point, the danger posed by Islamism to our western societies is real. Those of us who warn about the Islamists’ excessive demands are not over reacting to 9/11, but are accurately warning about a clear and present danger. The west’s continued inability to address the problem only compounds that danger. Political correctness has indeed gone mad. The article in question by Marget Went, quotes Bassam Tibi:
“After 9/11, after Madrid, after 7/7, and all the rest of it — the European elites don’t have a clue what they are up against. “Europeans don’t know what Islamism is,” “We are talking about a new totalitarianism. And Islamists are establishing themselves in Europe with great success.” They thrive, thanks to Europe’s tolerance of the intolerable.”
Tundraman weighs in.
“In spite of the new lip service being paid to integration, … Europe shows little interest in acting to promote it“, and what I mean with that, is exactly the failure to secure a minimum of a common denominator in the value system of the society, the “core culture”, defined as the values of modernity — democracy, secularism, human rights, and civil society”.
Only, instead of secularism I would say freedom of religion (including secularism), PROVIDED that the religion does not clash with the core values (democracy and human rights). This is precisely where Europe has gone wrong: bending over backwards in a false notion of “tolerance”, it has too long accepted intolerance, in the name of political correctness.
Simultaneously, Europe has also failed to embrace as full members of society, as “one of us” (in Tibi’s case, as Germans), those who DO adhere to the core values, just because they look different, have a different name or a different denomination.
I would also add that Europe and the rest of the free world, have consistently shown the ineptitude in its failure to back ´”the right voices” within the Islamic community (like Bassam Tibi). Those who lean towards modernization and reform within Islam, are being sidelined due to ignorance and a knee-jerk mentality that doesn’t want to offend those who cry “Islamophobia”.
The article continues:
“He’s not too popular in Germany either, where he has been accused of inciting Islamophobia. “It is most disturbing to see how writers who try to warn about the totalitarian character of Islamism are defamed as racists,” he says. “This wrong-headed political correctness prevents any honest discussion about the subject.”
This is not the message you will hear from any Muslim leader. The standard line is that extremism has been exaggerated, the media are to blame, and that the real problem is that Muslims have been unfairly targeted.
But long before 9/11, Dr. Tibi began warning Europe had become dangerously vulnerable to radical Islamists. Today, many of these movements have their logistics, as well as their support systems, in Western Europe. In the name of multiculturalism, Muslims were encouraged to build parallel societies. Now, many have no intention of integrating into the mainstream.
Tundraman continues:
I have spoken of keeping both eyes open: the one directed towards the majority (i.e. the one which should prevent racism, discrimination and exclusion) and the other towards the minorities (i.e. the one ensuring that the core values are adopted alongside with cultural pluralism): closing one of the eyes (or worse; both), leads to failure of integration.
But once again we must return to the core issue of an unreformed Islam. It is unreformed Islam that poses the greatest threat to peace in the world, both to Muslims and non-Muslims alike. Islamism (the non-violent kind) in the long term, is more dangerous to democracy than its violent twin that is currently waging war against the “opastates and the infidels” through various different Islamist groups rallying under the “pirate jihadist flag“.
BOTH versions of Islamism find its validity within the Islamic religion itself, and because no great number of Muslims are sticking their neck out willingly besides Bassam Tibi and a few others, the problems of Islam with its non-democratic sharia and jihad ideology, will continue to be a reoccurring phenomenon.
It is entirely irrelevant that only a small portion of the Islamic world is VIOLENT or Islamist, (but over 150 million supporters of Islamism is no small number) because as history has proven, time and again, only a small number promoting a violent agenda is needed to place the greater majority into fear and submissiveness. The same can be said about non-violent Islamism, in that the fear of being labeled an apostate is a real intimidating factor, and that “modernist” Muslim leaders are ill equipped to counter the Islamists pure version of Islam.
That is something that bodes ill for the future of European democracies once European states start to have larger or even majority Muslim populations. When we talk about PEOPLE adhering to different religions, but we certainly MUST create an ideological opposition to values which threaten to abolish the democratic values we hold as core or basic values in our own value system.
It is not an opposition to people who confess to a different religion, but an opposition between value systems when one of them is (a) unreformed and (b) driven to its extreme. And it IS being driven to its extreme in many European countries today. otherwise Dutch Museums would have nothing to fear, and our core values would also be safe. More here. *L* KGS
