Surviving Islamism ... And Right/Left Politics: Churchill's Principle - Part I: The Conversation

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In this series of six essays, Peter Carl guides us through a thought-provoking analysis of the Counter-Jihad Movement and what he sees may be its own greatest obstacles: itself and its message. Based upon thoughts arising from his intermittent exchanges over the past three years with opinion-leaders and politicians within the Counter-Jihad Movement, these essays will cause all who care about the survival of Europe and the West to step back and think. In this, his first in this series of essays, he begins by looking at a number of commonly accepted myths that are not only holding the Movement back – but which are actually giving a free and open road to the Islamization of the West. He concludes with a defense of a few of the Movements best known voices and our right, individually and as groups, to “hate” ideas.

“We have [come] together to try to pull the nation out of the forlorn and somber plight into which the action, or inaction, of all political parties over a long period of years had landed it. [….] What holds us together is the conduct of the war, the prosecution of the war. No Socialist, or Liberal, or Labour man has been in any way asked to give up his convictions. That would be indecent and improper. We are held together by something outside, which rivets all our attention. The principle we work on is: ‘Everything for the war, whether controversial or not, and nothing controversial that is not bona fide needed for the war.’”i (Emphasis supplied).

Winston Churchill, October 13, 1943, Speech to the House of Commons

 

Anyone in any party who falls below the level of the high spirit of national unity [-] which alone can give national salvation [-] is blameworthy. I know it is provoking when speeches are made which seem to suggest that the whole structure of our decent British life and society, which we have built up so slowly and patiently across the centuries, will be swept away for some new order or other, the details of which are largely unannounced. The spirit sometimes tempts me to rejoinder, and no doubt there are many here who have experienced passing sensations of the same kind, but we must restrain those emotions; we must see things in their true proportion; we must put aside everything which hampers us in the speedy accomplishment of our common purpose. ii (Emphasis supplied).

Winston Churchill, March 27, 1941, Speech to the Conservative Association

 

As background to this piece, presented exclusively here at The Brussels Journal as a six-part series of essays, over the past three years irregularly and off and on, I have been involved in a friendly yet sporadic private e-mail conversation, if one might characterize it so, with a few editors from a handful of some of the more widely-read blogs within the Counter-Jihad. This exchange has continued prior to and up through the attacks of the Oslo terrorist, Anders Behring Breivik, including actually during the very day itself of the extremely tragic and troubling July 22, 2011 massacres.

The topic of the conversation has always centered around my own assertion over the years that the bloggers, opinion-leaders, activists, and related political parties, including their respective leaderships (collectively the “Counter-Jihad Movement” or “Movement”), are and have been consistently laying the foundation for what could very likely be their own (and, therefore, our and the West’s) defeat. At the very minimum, as we have seen in the wake of the Breivik atrocities, the Counter-Jihad Movement has long been setting limits on its own successes and creating an atmosphere for its own defeat all due to a distinct inability to unify and properly identify and promote the most efficient and effective argument to that majority of Westerners of all political stripes who remain either sickeningly repulsed or ambivalently unconvinced by the Counter-Jihad Movement.

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Unity for Victory: Churchill in 1940

The most efficient argument, I insist, is what I will refer to throughout this series of essays as the “Counter-Jihad Argument”. The “Counter-Jihad Argument”, as defined below, is analogous to Winston Churchill’s national unity approach during World War II, which was based upon his well-defined one “Principle” and one “Ideology” (both to be discussed in a later essay). I define this argument as the Counter-Jihad Movement’s pitch for credibility among the politically correct, the fanatically opposed, the disbelieving, the skeptical, or quite simply the otherwise unconvinced individuals from the political “Center”, “Left”, and “Right”. I argue that the Counter-Jihad Movement together, in unity, including Counter-Jihad bloggers, authors, political parties, and politicians – in order to successfully stem the tide of the growth of Islamism and Sharia in the West – must immediately, consciously, and fully put aside “Left”/”Right” rhetoric and, finding actual unity in focusing only on the Common Freedoms outlined and defined below, speedily convince the broadest spectrum of these voters as soon possible that Islamism: 1) poses an ideological, social, political, cultural, judicial, financial, and demographic threat; 2) that Islamism is based in promoting discrimination and violence against and subjugation of non-believers, lapsed believers, and even believers; 3) that human rights, women’s rights, the rule of law, equality under the law, freedom of expression, freedom of inquiry, freedom of conscience, freedom of religion, etc. (collectively our “Common Freedoms”) are all threatened as a result; and 4) that Counter-Jihad proponents – whether from the “Center”, “Left”, or “Right” – are, contrary to general perception, the most broadly protective of these rights for all people, including even for the oppressed among Muslims and former Muslims themselves (hereinafter all referred to as the “Counter-Jihad Argument” or “Argument”).

I base this Argument for the need to unify globally the “Center”, “Left”, and “Right” behind our Common Freedoms in the many experiences of the past years, my own thoughts and reflections, as well as in the thoughts and writings of Sir Winston Churchill, as Churchill sought unity among all political ideologies to best face and defeat the Nazi menace during World War II. I base our ability to unify “Center”, “Left”, and “Right” behind our Common Freedoms in my assertion that – because “Political Correctness” (“PC”) arises out of Westerners’ very well-meaning collective and historical application of Christianity’s otherwise extremely valuable “Golden Rule” as intensified by the horrors of World War II and the Holocaust (as opposed to PC arising in some nebulous and nefarious “Leftist”, “Marxist”, or “Elitist” conspiracy) – individuals from the political “Center”, “Left”, and “Right” across the West are quite nearly equally apt to think and to act in a Politically Correct manner. African-American author and physician Ben Carson, M.D. correctly sums up how “Political Correctness” and the “Golden Rule” differ; “[b]eing nice doesn’t mean compromising your standards,” iii whether as to yourself or others. “Being nice,” he writes, “is not the same as being politically correct.”iv “Political Correctness”, then, is applying the “Golden Rule” in a way that does not equally uphold the many high standards that must necessarily always be applied right along with that “Golden Rule”. Without equal application of the all-important standards, the rule becomes hypocrisy.

Because Political Correctness has been a phenomenon that has affected Western people of all political ideologies, I argue, we are all equally responsible for the present predicament of Islamist expansionism in which we find ourselves. Up to now the focus of the Counter-Jihad’s approach has been very much centered on an attack against the “Left” (also interchangeably called “Leftists”, “Hard-Left”, “Liberals” (in the US), “Socialists”, “Left-wing”, “Progressives”, etc.) asserting unrealistically that it alone has somehow been responsible for or even that it is consciously part of some “collusion” or “conspiracy” to ensure Islamism’s advance in the West. Counter-Jihad bloggers Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller have themselves shown that, in the United States alone, even the most conservative of Conservatives, including present Republican presidential candidates Rick Perry, Herman Cain, and Ron Paul, Republican Governors Chris Christie (R-NJ) and Rick Scott (R-FL), and “king-makers” Grover Norquist and the Conservative Political Action Conference​ (CPAC) are like everyone else, due to Political Correctness or their own self-interests (or a combination thereof), just as likely to be a part of the problem of unwittingly advancing Islamist goals and agendas.

I argue, therefore, that this approach of focusing blame solely on the “Left” or, for that matter, using any terms of ideology such as “Right” and “Left” and other partisan labels in making the Counter-Jihad Argument is not only highly ineffective and detrimental to the cause, as Winston Churchill long ago recognized, it is factually incorrect and very much responsible for alienating potential voters from the “Center”, “Left”, and even the “Right”. Equally as importantly, I argue that, in particular, constantly aiming all arguments and blame at the “Left” has also had the very detrimental effect of making the entire Counter-Jihad Movement and its political parties all across the West to appear as if those involved are unquestionably attached to and stemming from the “far-Right”, “right-wing”, “Rightist”, “Right”, “neo-fascist”, “neo-Nazi”, or simply “populist” movements, which, of course, though not the case here, implies “scary”, “bigoted”, “hatemongering”, “racist”, “xenophobic”, and “Islamophobic”.

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Condell: Liberals & Gaza
Good intentions, bad effects

This does not mean we must somehow now become “Politically Correct” and “sensitive” as to the “Left”. Instead, we must simply recognize that those on the “Left” simply and honestly believe themselves to be fighting for those very same Common Freedoms for which we of the “Center”, “Left”, and “Right” within the Counter-Jihad Movement actually are fighting. Pat Condell recognizes the “Progressives’” or “Leftists’” very well-intentioned desire to support rights of apparent underdogs in his recent commentary on Israel and Palestine (at 3:43). Thus, it is not a question of a need to change any person’s political ideology, as Churchill emphasized. Each “Progressive”, “Liberal”, or “Leftist” and every other person – “Right”, “Left”, or “Center” – who does not now support the Counter-Jihad Movement simply must be convinced – leaving political ideologies aside – that protecting a “religion” (any religion, but now most especially Islam) from valid questions and challenge will ensure the end of all human rights as we in the West know them and as, in fact, have arisen over centuries out of core Christian teachings. This simple inability of ours to focus on commonalities in this Argument instead of differences, I insist, serves quite dangerously to hamstring and defeat the immediate and long-term cross-national needs and goals of the entire Counter-Jihad Movement.

By our very own arguments – and our own inability to confirm for governments and citizens openly and regularly both our emphasis on human rights for all and, equally as importantly, our desire to gain the support of and show respect for the “Center”, “Left”, and “Right” as members and voters, the Counter-Jihad Movement and related political parties, in this way, severely limit the support and membership that could otherwise be achieved among people who might consider the Counter-Jihad Argument. In the direct case of the recent Oslo Massacres, by the Counter-Jihad parties’ failure in the past to have reached out to the “Left” and “Center” and by never previously criticizing and publicly condemning those within the Counter-Jihad Movement who irrationally and irresponsibly place all blame for Islamization wholly on the “Left”, the Counter-Jihad Movement naively and without sufficient foresight has implicitly and repeatedly affirmed a connection with the “far-right”, alienated (perhaps for good) massive numbers of potential supporters among the “Center”, “Left”, and “PC Right”, and made itself look highly biased ideologically in its approach to problems where public policy, immigration, and human rights all intersect.

Worst of all, the result of this counterproductive strategy has done nothing but provided the Counter-Jihad’s opponents an extremely large and growing quiver of negative arguments, resources, quotes, and soundbites useful in smearing the entire Movement as “far-right” that can and will be used against the Counter-Jihad Movement and its political parties across all borders and for years to come. As opposed to, instead, choosing the correct Counter-Jihad Argument and wording and, thereby, limiting self-inflicted damage while forcing the Counter-Jihad Movement’s opponents to look for real answers when presented over and over with real questions about violent Islamists and Islamism’s violations of Muslim and non-Muslim human rights, this ineffective, inefficient, and ideologically polemical approach to presenting the Counter-Jihad case has put the entire Counter-Jihad Movement and all of its parties and supporters very much at risk and on the defensive in all ways. Blamed for Breivik now and still apparently unable to focus criticism on anything but the “Left”, the Counter-Jihad Movement today has the very daunting task before it to prove to the average voter across the West – before it is too late – that these political parties are not merely a wasted vote for “right-wing” “extremism”. This, of course, all could have been prevented – and may, with the right steps, still perhaps be ameliorated in the future.

The old and ineffectual arguments that focus all blame on the “Left” (and thereby stop dead in its tracks the growth of supporting voters) and simultaneously cause disunity within the Counter-Jihad Movement are based upon a number of disconnects with reality and generally inaccurate assumptions, some of them being:

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Rick Perry signs Halal Law with local Imam

First, such arguments often delusionally assume that normal average people – including the vastly differing politicians that represent them – are part of some global “Leftist” conspiracy aimed at supporting the Islamization of the world. Top conservatives, including U.S. Republican presidential candidates Rick Perry, Herman Cain, and Ron Paul, Republican Governors Chris Christie (R-NJ) and Rick Scott (R-FL), and others such as Grover Norquist and the Conservative Political Action Conference​ (CPAC), each of whom have fallen in with a blindly Politically Correct message about Islamism, suggest quite otherwise. Fact is, with the exception of a handful of actual self-avowed Marxists and a few neo-Nazis (National Socialists), all of whom are very small in number in every Western developed country, the vast majority of Westerners from the “Center”, “Left”, or “Right” who promote Muslims and Islam do so out of Western misguided (but well-meaning) Christian-based modernist universalism which, diffracted by “Political Correctness”, sees all religions as equally good or equally evil. They believe they are doing what we all like to do – protecting human rights and working to advance those seemingly in need of inclusion or protection.

Such well-meaning people have very likely never really honestly considered the question of what a person or a society should do to protect our Western Common Freedoms when one comes across a hyper-ideology (as opposed to merely a political ideology or religion) that is fully self-contained (religiously, socially, politically, judicially) and teaches and carries out, for example, violence, supremacy, misogyny, and is deeply anti-democratic. Why not? Because we believe in universalism and, besides, we in the West have not had to face such threatening ideas based in “religion” for centuries. It is not part of our present historical, social, or cultural memory. So, instead, we believe “Really, all people are the same” – and, for that reason: “Don’t worry, they will eventually become like us – in fact, they want to.” That being the case, it is our job within the Counter-Jihad then to patiently help the unconvinced to consider these important questions and disconnects; to look at how we all have a very well-meaning and otherwise highly-valuable desire to apply the “Golden Rule”.

In this specific case in relation to Islamism, however, a well-meaning desire becomes a dangerous tendency that causes us instead to blunt our senses and from a very safe distance assert that all religions and cultures are equally good and bad. The fact is, all people across the West – from “Center”, “Left”, and “Right” – believe in Western freedoms and human rights for ourselves and all the world’s peoples. The only question is, what happens when showing “respect for religion” in one case results in the subordination of every other freedom and every other religion? And, just as importantly, what arguments do we choose to pursue in order to convince the unconvinced and ensure that we and our Common Freedoms (developed over centuries and arising out of our own Western reckonings with and beliefs in a very different religion) will continue to exist? By considering these questions – if presented properly – a person of the “Left”, “Center”, or “Right” can not help but to see the dilemmas which Islamism and Islamists pose to Western freedoms, citizens, and institutions.

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Norwegian Conservative Party Leader
Erna Solberg

Second, it assumes that these enormous masses of people in so many countries designated simplistically as the “Left”, instead of being assumed to be well-meaning in their defense of the human rights of not only Muslims and Islam, but any person, group, or religion they see as being discriminated against, are somehow assumed to be malicious, subversive, or just plain stupid in their alleged intent to “purposely” bring down or “hate” the West. Fact is, like the above-named Conservatives, such people generally do not believe they are bringing down the West. They believe they are doing what we all rightly want to do across the West: protect and advance human rights and tolerance. Even the Norwegian Conservative Party (Høyre) – only weeks after the Breivik Massacres – asserted that today’s Muslims are being persecuted and suffering human rights abuses comparable to those of the Jews of the 1930s. What most tend to mindlessly forget, including apparently even the Norwegian Conservative Party itself, is that Jews of the 1930s, contrary to today’s Islamist immigrants, were not ever responsible for throwing Molotov cocktails and assaulting Norwegian police and civilians in the streets or for committing one-hundred percent (100%) of Oslo’s rapes for five years running (in which the rapist could be identified). Nor were the Jews of the 1930s ever participating in or funding a Jihadist war against the West, teaching outright intolerance for other religions, happily pursuing lives of crime and rejecting the Norwegian native culture and people around them, or working together en masse to end Western values of free expression and free thought.

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Grand Mufti of Jerusalem with Nazis
and Muslim Nazis troops during WWII

Today, there are very rational and very real reasons for dissatisfaction with significant portions of Islamism’s immigrants and immigration across the West; thus, any comparison with Jews of the 1930s – or any claims that the West’s dissatisfaction with this specific group of immigrants is mere religious discrimination – are fully inaccurate and fully inappropriate. On the other hand, a comparison of militaristic, violent, anti-Jewish, anti-Christian, misogynistic, imperial, supremacist Nazism of the 1930s with the past’s as well as today’s similarly situated Islamism would be quite accurate, as we will see in a latter section. All this being the case, there is no need to allege that the “Left” is alone responsible or somehow malicious, subversive, or just plain stupid, even if the argument is tempting or feels good. In reality, the assertion only damages the Counter-Jihad Movement. The “Left”, like others from the “Center” and “Right” who make the mistake of unwittingly advancing Islamism, believe themselves to be doing that which is otherwise quite admirable. They believe they are doing exactly as most Westerners – including the “PC Right” – believe themselves to be doing: protecting the human and religious rights of others. Problem is, again, most have not thought about what happens when – quite the opposite of the Jews in the 1930s – the non-Western religious system that Norwegians like the Conservative Party leader and the “Center”, “Left”, and “PC Right” believe themselves to be venerably protecting actually teaches or promotes the destruction of the kuffar (non-believer) meaning, in the case of the West, Westerners, Western values, Western institutions, and Western belief systems. Accordingly, since Political Correctness and a concern for upholding religious rights and freedoms are at home equally with the “Center”, “Left”, and “Right” – though in different ways, simplistically blaming the “Left” is an approach that does little to assist the unconvinced or governmental authorities in understanding the Counter-Jihad’s facts and positions on human rights. Human rights, if the Counter-Jihad Movement could get the unconvinced to keep from tuning-out the Counter-Jihad Argument, are issues that everyone on the “Center”, “Left”, and “Right” all actually would very much care to support.

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The mother of PC, the Golden Rule - not Marxism

Third, it assumes that “Political Correctness,” “Multiculturalism,” “Cultural Equivalency,” “Moral Equivalency,” etc. are, again, all part of some evil global “Leftist” conspiracy aimed at supporting the Islamization of the world or at intentionally deconstructing the West or, simultaneously, both of these while converting the world to “Socialism” or “Marxism”. The fact is, these religio-cultural phenomena are rooted in Christian universalism and Westerners’ very well-meaning but incomplete application of Christianity’s “Golden Rule” – again – exacerbated by the horrors and experiences of World War II and the Holocaust. As a result, these concepts can be found among people from the political “Center”, “Left”, and “Right” all across the West. No evil conspiracy. We are merely living out a very valuable part of our culture that works – so long as everyone in the West observes our religio-cultural rules and is held to the same standard. When faced with a hyper-ideology (e.g. Islamism) or even a separatist people that does the opposite of what Christian-Western culture has promoted for centuries – and we fail to apply the same standards equally to all, severe problems begin to arise. It’s not a question of getting rid of the values and freedoms (e.g. not applying the “Golden Rule”) that have made Western European culture the most stable, democratic, equal, open, tolerant, and prosperous in the world; it’s about maintaining the same standards for all, applying them equally, and dealing decisively, democratically, and non-violently with those who insist on being separate from or subverting those values found in our Common Freedoms. To do that, the Counter-Jihad Movement immediately needs to make the correct Argument, answer the correct questions, and obtain the absolute broadest support of all people from the political “Center”, “Left”, and “Right.

Fourth, related to the above, the present approach forgets that the “Left’s” attempt to preserve human rights and freedoms are meant to guard exactly the same Western Common Freedoms and rights as those which the “Center” and “Right” are also trying to protect. This is exactly what we all – “Center”, “Left”, and “Right” – have in common. The issue that needs to be overcome, therefore, is not the “Left’s” political ideology. What needs to be overcome actually is an unconvinced individual’s belief that the Counter-Jihad is somehow adverse to or attempting to curtail human rights and, conversely and most importantly, that unconvinced individuals need to be shown (by some patient repetitive examples and hard facts) that the Counter-Jihad – made up of people from the “Center”, “Left”, and “Right” – is actually fully committed to the human rights of all people. This is best done by teaching by concrete examples how blind support of Islamism and Islamists and its fascist tendencies actually fully undermines the Common Freedoms and human rights of both Muslims and non-Muslims. To do this, one must address and explain why and how this hyper-ideology (e.g. Islamism) is not merely a religion but, on the contrary, is far more than and very much unlike anything we have ever seen before. Arguments or comments made by the “Right” about the “Left” and its political ideology are simply off-topic and counterproductive. Such infighting and antagonism merely alienates potential voters of all political stripes and causes the label “right-wing” to stick even more permanently to the Movement, thereby ensuring its own lack of growth, failure, and an eternal association with the “far-right”.

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Politics begin in childhood

Fifth, this assumes that it is somehow easier or more efficient – or even necessary – to get people to change their political ideology. Fact is, as will be discussed in a later essay, changing a person’s political ideology is nearly impossible. For most people, this is one of the most highly personal set of beliefs that define each of us, generally from childhood. Think about it: could someone convince you not to be “conservative”? Likely not. In any case, in the time it would take to convert the unconvinced populus en masse across the West, the West would quickly be lost to Islamization while we all uselessly argue ideological “Left/Right” politics – as opposed to efficiently focusing on the winning Counter-Jihad Argument and the one point held in common for people of the “Center”, “Left”, and “Right” – that is, human rights and our Common Freedoms.

Sixth, this assumes quite incorrectly that it is easier to convince a person they are ideologically wrong than to cause that person to seriously think about the extreme abuse of human rights of Muslims and non-Muslims taking place everywhere in the Islamist’s wake. The facts (and bodies) are everywhere. These facts only need to be presented using the correct approach, tone, manner, and terminology – all in the context of human rights and our Common Freedoms, as part of this, the one true Counter-Jihad Argument.

Seventh, this assumes quite simplistically and incorrectly that the “Left” is somehow more than any other point on the political spectrum hopelessly “lost” and to be forgotten as ever being a partner in a Counter-Jihad Movement. This false and counterproductive belief is largely evidence that some today value attempts to score political points far more than they value defeating Islamism. Or they actually believe – very incorrectly – that there is still actually time to do both. It is moreover a sign of the extreme polarization that now exists between the “Right” and “Left” – especially in the United States. Fact is, in other places the picture is quite different. In Denmark, a country that was occupied by Nazi Germany for much of World War II and, therefore, very much knows the value of our Common Freedoms, all parties across the political spectrum – fully from “Left” to “Right” – are aware of and have been working together to address Islamist separatism and supremacism in their country. Just prior to the recent change in governments, with broad support across party lines, they created new laws requiring border enforcement once again and declared – with the Social Democrats and Socialist People’s Party in favor – that all immigrants found guilty of a crime must be deported.

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Staunchly anti-Jihad socialists:
Villy Søvndal and Thilo Sarrazin

As far as raw numbers, in Germany, even disregarding those Greens (6%) and mere Social Democrats (17%) who support the Counter-Jihad, twenty-five percent (25%) of actual Socialists (Die Linke) said they would vote for a new so-called “Right” or Counter-Jihad party. You are reading that correctly. The farthest “Left” are the largest potential group of voters and the strongest supporters for the Counter-Jihad. Thus, one might say, there’s more “Left” in the so-called “Right” than there is “Right”, right? If those on the “Left” in Europe, including their leaders like Thilo Sarrazin in Germany, a Social Democrat, and Villy Søvndal, the head of the Danish Socialist People’s Party, for example – who are generally far more liberal (in the American sense) than those on the “Left” in the United States – have recognized the dangers and bravely come out to confront Islamist supremacism and expansionism in their own countries, then, as the refined saying goes, any idiot with a half of a brain should realize that the problem we face is not that they or anyone else are a part of the “Left”. The situation in Sweden is not so different. In Sweden, of those who are actual members in the Counter-Jihad Sweden Democrats (Sverigedemokraterna), twenty percent (20%) had previously supported the Swedish Social Democratic party, ten percent (10%) identified themselves with the “Left”, and approximately thirty-three percent (33%) identified themselves in the “Center” as being neither “Right” nor “Left”.

As the Los Angeles Times reported long ago that, “In Europe's cafes, the newspapers are as wrinkled as always, the conversations still veer toward the abstract, but tempers these days are riled. Artists and influential leftists are warning that the rise of radical Islam is threatening the tradition of European liberalism….” I guess that explains the above numbers from Germany. In a recent European poll performed by England’s “Left-leaning” The Guardian, the poll showed that although 62% of Europeans view themselves as “liberal” rather than “traditional” on social issues, pluralities in the four biggest countries (Britain, France, Germany and Spain) are opposed to immigration from outside the European Union. Recent movement in France across the political spectrum shows that the so-called “far-right” is actually not “far-right” at all but very equally made up of “Left”, “Right”, and “Center”. Thus, the only things that stand in the way of bringing more voters into the Counter-Jihad Movement anywhere in the West are the self-defeating actions and messages of the Counter-Jihad Movement itself. As the figures above show, the Movement needs to re-craft and re-present the Counter-Jihad Argument in a way that leaves behind these very incorrect assumptions about the “Left” and that strikes on the concerns and priorities that are common to the “Center”, “Left”, and “Right”. That means communicating the Counter-Jihad Argument in a non-ideological way that explains and points to facts that show by real examples of Islamist supremacism from all around the world, including from our own countries, how our Common Freedoms are being threatened and subjugated.

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George W. Bush with Imam Hassan Al-Qazwini
in Dearborn, Michigan, in 2003.

Eighth, this assumes that for the last fifty years (and even today) that “Right”, “conservative”, and “Center” politicians have not also been a part of the Islamization process that has gone on and that “conservatives” have not had their own reasons for allowing immigration to constantly increase (e.g. for the “Right”: increase labor pool, decrease wages, add to housing market, more new customers for small and big businesses; for the “Left”: feeling sorry for and wishing to assist those less fortunate, wishing to bring “diversity” and “multiculturalism” to Western societies; and, for both “Left” and “Right: innocently like everyone else, a well-meaning Western universalist belief that “They’ll all quickly become just like us; we can change ‘hearts and minds’ – after all, all people are really the same deep down…”). Just as the “Left” has, the “Right” has also promoted mass immigration to the West, which everywhere has included large numbers arriving from Muslim countries.

Both at present and long into the past, the parties of the “Right” of all Western nations have and continue to work to increase immigration to the West for their own specific reasons. Ronald Reagan himself in 1984 as candidate for president proudly offered his support for amnesty (at 1:20) for illegal immigrants, which, in 1986 became reality as the Simpson-Mazzoli Act. The Act gave 3,000,000 illegals the right to remain in the United States. This we see still continuing even today, for example, among business leaders, the conservative FDP, and the conservative CDU in Germany; among the conservative Moderaterna in Sweden; among conservative business leaders, business owners, and Republicans in many places across the US; among business leaders and the Conservative Party in England; among business leaders and the Conservative Party in Canada; and even as to the conservative so-called “anti-immigration” UMP Party of France and its key leaders such as Nicolas Sarkozy, Brice Hortefeux, and Jacques Barrot. To argue that mass immigration or Islamization is or has somehow been the sole fault of the “Left” – and not also caused by and in coalitions with the “Center” and the “Right” – is neither reflected in history nor reality. Regardless, we can be certain that continually blaming the “Left” for these policies only counterproductively alienates large numbers of potential voters for Counter-Jihad parties from the “Center”, “Left”, and “PC Right” and, most dangerously, further confirms and serves as repetitive reminders in the minds of the greater general public and the mass media that all Counter-Jihad political parties – though traditionally made up of dissatisfied voters from the “Center”, “Left”, and “Right” – must somehow always be described as “Right-wing”. That is a price the Counter-Jihad political parties and the West can no longer in any way afford to pay.

Ninth, it assumes that the concerns people of the “Center”, “Left”, and “Right” have about Counter-Jihad parties as being “right-wing” are to simply be dismissed as not valid. Individuals involved with injudicious comments or actions – including some neo-Nazis – have been rightly purged and ejected from a few of the Counter-Jihad parties. Breivik himself was very briefly a member of Norway’s very reasonable “Fremskrittspartiet” (Progressive Party), which he thankfully left because he felt it was too mainstream and Politically Correct. After all, Norway’s Fremskrittspartiet is fully dedicated to the human rights and Common Freedoms of all. The Breivik massacres – as I myself foresaw that such events could and would do when and if they were to occur – have now greatly increased negative concerns and perceptions about Counter-Jihad parties among the general public. Because these concerns have created assumptions that Counter-Jihad parties are necessarily “Right-wing”, these concerns of the general public (and now governmental authorities) must be both recognized as valid and then addressed by the Counter-Jihad parties.

One key and most obvious way of doing so is to quit continually stating or implying to the general public and the media that Counter-Jihad parties are in fact “right-wing”. This can most easily be achieved by simply refraining within the Counter-Jihad Movement itself from the wholly constant, amateurish, and counterproductive “Right”/”Left” polemics. Sometimes, as any experienced lawyer or politician can tell you, an argument can be more about what one does not say as opposed to what one actually says. In other words, by eternally and vehemently attacking the “Left” – usually with no semblance of balance whatsoever – the Counter-Jihad “Right” (without ever saying it) infers to the general public and the mass media that it is in fact truly “right-wing”. In light of World War II and the Holocaust, “right-wing” is definitely not a position any political party should, by its own hand or mouth, cause itself to be labeled and pigeonholed.

Tenth, it assumes that it is clear that we in the Counter-Jihad Movement hold the intellectual, moral, and philosophical high ground in the debate. Fact is, everyone outside of the Counter-Jihad Movement – whether those gravely repulsed or those at least open to listening – have a picture of those in the Counter-Jihad Movement as being a bunch of uneducated, bigoted, xenophobic, “right-wing” “populists”. They believe that those concerned with Islamism are merely simple, anti-intellectual people who have a tendency to be “conservative”, “reactionary”, and “fearful”. As a result, those outside of the Counter-Jihad Movement actually believe themselves to undoubtedly hold the intellectual, moral, and philosophical high ground in the debate. In fact, both sides hold a piece of the same intellectual, moral, and philosophical high ground in this discussion of human rights. Both positions are intellectually, morally, and philosophically “high”. And yet neither position requires a person to be rooted in any one certain type of political ideology.

In fact, it is merely a question of whether a person of the “Right”, “Left” or “Center” counter-intuitively recognizes and understands that the ironical Achilles heal of all of Western society – because of our admirable and deep respect for all religions held by others not like us – lies in that every one of our Common Freedoms can be quickly undone by showing tolerance for and withholding examination and criticism from (and, where necessary, societal protections against) any form of religion that is centered or may or could be centered in intolerance and violence. This is where the argument of those outside of the Counter-Jihad Movement fails. It is not because their argument is not intellectually, morally, or philosophically “high” or because it is ideologically “wrong”. It is because they have failed to consider countless and constant facts and events that are reported in theological texts, historical books, and mainstream news sources all around us every day.

They also fail to consider one very important counter-intuitive (yet not-so-hypothetical) irony: tolerance for intolerance exterminates tolerance. Those of the “Left”, “Right”, and “Center” who see no danger at all in Islamism believe themselves to be valiantly standing against bigoted intolerance toward Muslims. In fact, the Counter-Jihad Movement is neither bigoted nor intolerant. And those who oppose the Counter-Jihad Movement, unblinkingly focused on no other value than “religious tolerance”, are failing to apply the same critical thinking they have applied in all ways to the dominant historical religion of their own culture and, thereby, have failed to consider what would ever happen if a religion – any religion – were ever based in intolerance and one blindly and trustingly allowed such an intolerant system of belief to spread its intolerance.

010_Religion_from_Space.jpg
Hypothetical new religion: no effects?

So, forget Islamism for the time being. Let’s think purely hypothetically for a moment. What would happen, hypothetically speaking, if a new religion were suddenly invented tomorrow, for example, that were based in enforcing inequality between its own followers and everyone else and that required: inequality between genders; the killing of those who ever dared leave this new religion; the stoning of adulterers and rape victims; an obsession with covering women’s hair and skin and controlling a code of “honor” associated only with the female genitalia and sexual life; permission to kill one’s grandchildren, children, or siblings who violate that “honor” or who appear to be becoming or supporting “non-believers”; an ability to declare insufficiently pious co-religionists as “non-believers” and kill them; a belief in eternal war against and the subjugation, humiliation, and at times the enslavement of non-believers; forced child- and inter-familial marriage; polygamy for demographic advancement of the religion and community; destruction of all cultures, religions, history, art, and religious symbols not belonging to it; communal (not private) worship five times a day (the times of which change daily); gender segregated worship and society; the beating of disobedient women; a ban on proselytizing by all religions other than for this new religion; a full rejection of democracy in favor of all laws coming only from the holy books of this new religion; a rejection of reason and human free will in favor of a belief that there is no knowledge or independent will outside of that taught and demanded by the “god” in the holy books of this new religion; and, finally, death, physical violence, or imprisonment for any person or intellectual who dared criticize, challenge, or make fun of this new religion’s theology or beliefs. As a very important hypothetical intellectual exercise, we must ask ourselves how would Western society deal with this? Would, ironically, our tolerance be lost by tolerating the intolerance taught by this new religion? And what effect would any tolerance for such a new religious belief system have then on Western society and its political systems, art, intellectual inquiry, gender relations, views of violence, criminal statistics, national security, educational systems, children, work days and workplaces, clothing, to name but a few aspects?

Thus, making the most effective Argument has nothing at all to do with “Left” or “Right” political ideologies or “conservative” or “liberal” views. Again, we must return to that which we all have in common: a desire to uphold our Common Freedoms. We must do so because it is here that this counter-intuitive and highly ironical disconnect lies that leaves Western societies exposed and those both inside and outside of the Counter-Jihad Movement butting heads. We must show that we – both inside and outside of the Counter-Jihad Movement – all believe in our Common Freedoms and protecting those Common Freedoms for all people. We must also show, however, how blind application of our Western rules for “religious tolerance” or “respect for religion” (which works where and when all of our religions across the West are Western and proceed from generally similar historical and theological assumptions regarding love, peace, human equality, intellectual inquiry, and non-violence or, in the case of modern Judaism, Buddhism, and Hinduism, which do not generally conflict with these Western assumptions) can quite ironically result in the end of “respect for religion” and our Common Freedoms across Western societies. The answer is not that one must be disrespectful of religious belief. The answer is, however, that all must critically examine and openly and vigorously discuss and challenge every form of theological teaching and religious belief equally and, thereby, not allow for any lesser standards – whether personally or as a society – than those now found within our own society with respect to teachings of love, peace, human equality, intellectual inquiry, openness, non-violence, and the inherent dignity due every person.

011_Caught_between_Supremacists_SM2.jpg
Without a united Counter-Jihad,
the West is caught between supremacists.

In the case the thoughts, disconnects, incorrect assumptions, and concerns raised in the various parts of this multi-part essay are not addressed and taken into account within the very near future in promoting the Counter-Jihad Argument and our Common Freedoms, the future of non-violent, democratic Counter-Jihad parties in Europe will be jeopardized greatly leaving the fate of all of the West to hang in the balance. In the case these non-violent, democratic Counter-Jihad parties and the Counter-Jihad Argument do not succeed quickly and efficiently, as the horrific Breivik massacres – and terrible events and memories of World War II and the Holocaust also remind us, others like Breivik who would endanger our Western rights and Common Freedoms in as much as Islamists do today will find a way of coming in to fill the void left by our ineffective, “Left”-obsessed Counter-Jihad Movement. As we will see below in the section that delves into Breivik’s beliefs, his vision of Europe again burning “…and rivers from the blood of patriots, tyrants and traitors…” flowing in its streets is nothing any person of any political stripe should ever like to see occur. The twentieth century saw enough of such disaster.

Accordingly, it is imperative that the Counter-Jihad parties build broad-based support among voters of the “Center”, “Left”, and “Right” by promoting and voluntarily focusing arguments upon our common beliefs in preserving human rights and the Western Common Freedoms held by people of all political stripes. In that way, the “Center”, “Left”, and “Right” can avoid unwinnable and alienating ideological argumentation and get on with opening the minds of and informing the countless unconvinced of all political colors across the West of Islamism’s dangers to the human rights and Common Freedoms of both Muslims and non-Muslims alike.

Robert-Spencer-Pamela-Geller.jpg
Robert Spencer & Pamela Geller

Now a few words about what the “conversation”, that is, my intermittent exchange of e-mails with these opinion-leaders over the past few years and this series of essays here, is not about. Two of the blogs that have been involved in the intermittent conversations with me regarding the topics and issues surrounding the Counter-Jihad Argument and “Left”/”Right” polemics emanating from the Counter-Jihad Movement, have included, among others, Jihad Watch and Atlas Shrugs. Robert Spencer is the much-read author of ten books on Islam and Islamism, a leading expert on Sharia and the Koran, and the editor of the straight-forward and informative Counter-Jihad blog, Jihad Watch. Pamela Geller herself is an author and the dedicated editor of Atlas Shrugs. Both are founders of the Counter-Jihad organization, SIOA – Stop the Islamization of America. As part of this amicable exchange with Mr. Spencer, Ms. Geller, and numerous others, I have also worked to involve leading Members of Parliament from a number of Europe’s Counter-Jihad parties. One of those MPs especially has, on occasion, also periodically taken part in this conversation.

In mentioning Mr. Spencer and Ms. Geller here by name, due to recent post-Breivik attacks on their writings and characters, it is important to be clear from the start of a few very important points. This six part series of essays, in looking at the ineffective arguments of the Counter-Jihad Movement and reflecting on the Oslo Massacres, is not – since numerous bloggers (Mr. Spencer and Ms. Geller included) were cited in Breivik’s rambling manifesto, “2083 - A European Declaration of Independence” – an article about whether Mr. Spencer or Ms. Geller somehow “caused” Breivik’s violence. They did not. Others from larger corporate media sources such as the BBC, NBC Nightly News, The New York Times, Fox Radio, and The Atlantic have already asked that question rather unsuccessfully. Jeffrey Goldberg, from The Atlantic, for example, referring to possible influences on Breivik, wrote: “Geller is a hatemonger, but she didn't pull the trigger. Free speech means free speech. But she should be aware now that violent people look to her for guidance, and she should write with that in mind.”

012_Gestapo.jpg
The end of thought and expression.

With all due respect to Mr. Goldberg, to characterize Ms. Geller – or others who do no more than challenge ideas – as a “hatemonger” is at best disingenuous. One commenter on an unrelated and fully inconsequential forum went even so far as to write, “…the likes of Robert Spencer, Geller, Shoebat and other racists and bigots should be brought in and questioned extensively.” A comment like that itself brings back visions of Nazi Germany’s Gestapo; a time when having, holding, and advocating “wrong” ideas grounded in our Common Freedoms could have gotten one locked up or killed. That Mr. Spencer or Ms. Geller should be questioned for themselves questioning a religion and publicly presenting facts offered both by Muslim clerics and the mainstream media is fully absurd. For that reason, it would probably be worth noting here that in their writings, like many others, Ms. Geller and Mr. Spencer only challenge and attack ideasnever ethnicity or race – and never in “hate” against any person or persons. If their true motivation were “bigotry” or “racism”, one would think they would attack the ideas of Indian Hindus as vehemently as they attack those of “Islamists” from Pakistan. This thought, however, never seems to come to mind for those who criticize Counter-Jihad concerns.

013_Philosophy_the_Power_of_Ideas.jpg
Philosophy (and religion):
the power of ideas

Instead, the words “hate”, “racism”, and “bigotry” are used to attempt to shut down simple calls to examine ideas. That being the case, I must confess, where symbolically burning a book (a collection of ideas) or even criticizing or artistically decorating a book (a collection of ideas) mockingly with bacon, for example, is considered to be “hate” (as opposed to free expression), I am not sure exactly what the terms “hate” or “free expression” are supposed to mean today. What many tend to forget, in any case, is that religion, as one example, is made up of nothing more and nothing less than a set of ideas and explanatory ideas (teachings) laid out in a core text or texts. Ethnicity and race are fully irrelevant. No one – and I mean no one – could successfully argue that ideas may not be “hated” or “detested” or “vehemently rejected.” No one can deny there are many ideas in this world – including specific religious teachings – that are fully worthy of being “hated”. Child marriage? Pedophilia and its results? Punishing rape victims? Wife-beating? Slavery? “Honor” killings? Does any Westerner want to stand up and argue anything other than “hate” for those ideas – especially if, instead of being applied to unrelated, far-off “cultures”, they were suddenly torn from the sad daily headlines and applied to your own neighbors, friends, or family members? I doubt it. Therefore, no person should ever be prevented from lawfully “hating” or, least of all, criticizing any idea, religious or not.

A person’s ideas are, in fact, what makes him or her good to others, constructive, non-violent, productive and so much more (or less); again, ethnicity or race have nothing to do with the matter. Nor does the act of pointing out actual differences in ideas and people’s applications of those ideas make a person doing so “hateful” or overcome with “hate”. Examining and challenging ideas – especially when experience suggests certain ideas may contain inhumane, intolerant, or violent precepts – can and should, therefore, never be considered “hate”. In fact historically, challenging religious ideas has brought to the West each Christianity, the Renaissance, the Protestant Reformation, the Enlightenment, the reform of the Roman Catholic Church, the reform of Judaism, and so much more along with these. These are not insignificant achievements. As a result, no religion should be held away from even the most vehement intellectual challenge, criticism, mockery, or ridicule.

In any case, like so many of us, both Mr. Spencer and Ms. Geller continually strive in their work against all forms of intolerance and bigotry and, instead, have as their goal the protection of human rights, women’s rights, the rule of law, equality under the law, freedom of expression, freedom of inquiry, freedom of conscience, and freedom of religion – our Common Freedoms – for all people equally across the world. In all cases, for those familiar with their websites, neither Ms. Geller nor Mr. Spencer have ever asked, encouraged, or implied that people should commit or turn to violence. They have continually argued for the opposite, in fact. Regardless, except where words cross that fine legal line of “incitement” to violence, no one can or should be held responsible for what others, stable or instable, themselves may in their own minds bring to interpreting words or ideas. As a result, actual “incitement” to commit acts of violence (as opposed to attempting to discern some vague emotion or state-of-mind long after the fact, as in “incitement to hatred” or “hate” laws) is and should be the only legal restriction that should ever exist on free expression in a Western society.

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Mohammed and troops leave for the Battle of Badr

Ironically, however, when considering “incitement” to acts of violence in Islamic core texts, contrary to so many assertions today that “true” Islam is being somehow “distorted” or “misinterpreted” in some violent way, no “interpretation” is actually necessary at all. Thus, the daily terrorist acts of the “very devoutly religious” all in the name of Islam all across the world come directly from the Koran’s unambiguous pages. The Koran does not merely “incite”, it demands violence and, moreover, offers “painful doom” for those who do not follow Allah’s words or Muhammad’s best examples of terror and murder. As the Koran reads, “But when the forbidden months are past, then fight and slay the Pagans wherever ye find them, an [sic] seize them, beleaguer them, and lie in wait for them in every stratagem (of war); but if they repent, and establish regular prayers and practise regular charity, then open the way for them: for Allah is Oft-forgiving, Most Merciful.” Or in one of the Koran’s many “peacefully” named chapters, entitled “Spoils of War, Booty,” it demands, making clear where one of the Koranic sources the Middle Eastern love of beheadings and amputations can be found: “Remember thy Lord inspired the angels (with the message): ‘I am with you: give firmness to the Believers: I will instil [sic] terror into the hearts of the Unbelievers: smite ye above their necks and smite all their finger-tips off them.’”

In yet another chapter named for the Muslim prophet himself, “Muhammad,” which still yet today echoes through everyday news stories of terror (and again beheadings) from across the Muslim world, a pious Muslim is commanded: “Therefore, when ye meet the Unbelievers (in fight), smite at their necks; At length, when ye have thoroughly subdued them, bind a bond firmly (on them): thereafter (is the time for) either generosity or ransom: Until the war lays down its burdens. Thus (are ye commanded): but if it had been Allah's Will, He could certainly have exacted retribution from them (Himself); but (He lets you fight) in order to test you, some with others. But those who are slain in the Way of Allah, - He will never let their deeds be lost.” To make sure all comply, a “dreadful penalty” or “evil doom” await those who turn away from these commandments. Jihad in battle is seen as a believer’s highest calling and worthy of Allah’s highest rewards. And, according to the Koran itself, those believers who fight in Jihad for Allah are due a “special reward” and deemed higher in the eyes of Allah than those who merely sit at home. It was for these and so many other specific incitements to violence in the central theological book of Islam that Geert Wilders, head of the Netherland’s third largest political party, “Partij voor de Vrijheid” (“PVV” or “Freedom Party”), facetiously or not, once proposed that the Koran be banned in the Netherlands. For that and other of his words, though possessing parliamentary immunity generally for his public statements, he was also quite ironically tried in the courts of the Netherlands for his so-called “hate”.

Yet neither Geert Wilders, Robert Spencer, nor Pamela Geller – nor any of the leadership of Europe’s elected Counter-Jihad parties – have ever advocated violence of any kind. What they have focused upon, instead, is Islamic supremacism and the historic and present global jihad for the subjugation of believers and non-believers and the implementation of Sharia wherever Islamism has found or is given an opening. From Abu Dhabi to Arizona to Australia, Egypt to England, Malaysia to Madrid to Mumbai, Lahore to London, Indonesia to India, Pakistan to Paris, Nigeria to New York, Fallujah to Frankfurt, Somalia to Stockholm, Marrakesh to Minneapolis, Bali to Boston. In so doing, they along with many others have worked to raise awareness of the need to protect our Common Freedoms, including human rights, women’s rights, the rule of law, equality under the law, freedom of expression, freedom of inquiry, freedom of conscience, and freedom of religion across the world for all people from Islamist and other totalitarian aspirations.

Admirably, in the case of Mr. Spencer’s blog, he has done this in no other way than to lay out facts. He does this by linking to and discussing normal news articles and media pieces culled from the mainstream press worldwide which, in their content, point out violations and the potential for violations – in the West or elsewhere – of basic Western human rights and our Common Freedoms. In order to explain what Islamists themselves say in these many articles and videos, Mr. Spencer, who possesses an advanced degree in Religious Studies from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and years of expertise in Islam, often explains and then links to the actual citations from the Koran and Sunnah that underlie the belief, statement, or action in question. As fitting, he also refers to mainstream interpretations of these theological requirements from accepted sheikhs and chief schools of Islamic jurisprudence.

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Islamist Friday Prayer Violence, Cairo 2011

It follows then that, no matter how one considers it, the fact that so many of us, including Mr. Spencer and Ms. Geller, are merely discussing and comparing ideas and presenting facts in relation to the words of believers, religious or otherwise, is not and never should amount to “incitement” to violence and can and should never be considered “incitement” to “hatred”, if at all, of anything other than an idea. For this reason, the topics of conversation in the various parts of this series of essays and their discussion of Anders Behring Breivik and the consequences of Breivik’s terrorist actions in no way imply any guilt whatsoever on the part of individuals like Mr. Spencer or Ms. Geller, who, as I myself do here, ask no more than that we read, think, and then consider the power and potential for either beauty or absolute destruction in the ideas each of us choose to carry or defend.

 

 

The author, writing under the pseudonym Peter Carl, is an independent non-partisan advisor to a sitting American congressperson and a strategic political researcher and consultant on international and comparative political and public policy issues. He is also a member of the American Committees on Foreign Relations. The author maintains contacts with numerous present and former ambassadors from both the U.S. and European countries, a number of whom are serving or have served in the Middle East. Similarly, he also maintains contacts with present and formerly elected representatives from parties across the political spectrum who have been elected to the U.S. Congress, the EU Parliament, and various national parliaments within Europe. Fluent in five languages and possessing elementary abilities in others, the author was trained and works as an international attorney and possesses a Masters Degree in Public Policy from the top-ranked public affairs program in the United States.

The terms “Islamist” and “Islamism” are used in this piece in recognition of relevant and applicable European Union directives or national laws, while duly noting valid and correct concerns over these terms and any uses of such terms.

 

Other parts of this series:

Part II: Right v. Left

Part III: Breivik v. Hitler

Part IV: On Politics and Nazis

Part V: Winston's Wars

Part VI: Back From The Brink 

 

_______________________

 

NOTES

i Winston Churchill, Closing the Ring (New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1985), 148; Cf. Randall Bennett Woods, A Changing of the Guard: Anglo-American Relations, 1941-1946 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1990), 34.

ii Winston Churchill, The Churchill War Papers: The Ever-Widening War, 1941 (New York: C&T Publications, 2001), 405-406.

iii Dr. Ben Carson, The Big Picture: Getting Perspective on What’s Really Important in Life (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1999), 123-124.

iv Carson, Big Picture, 124.

Rape in Oslo

Oh. The joys of “DIVERSITY”
The Scandinavian countries were always considered to be some of the safest in Europe. Why have they joined the Caucasian suicide club? They were NEVER colonial empire builders! France, England and Spain and Germany have spread themselves out on the altar of Colonial guilt and invited their ancestors’ former subjects in to dismantle their societies and brutalize their citizens.

More and more of our American cities are places where one doesn’t walk at night and sometimes not even during the day. Here is the US it’s the altar of slavery. Billions of dollars have been expended on set asides, Affirmative Action and the downright blatant discrimination against the productive segment of the society, the majority of whose ancestors weren’t even here during the slavery period is almost public policy. The incidents of murder, rape, rape & murder against the White and Asian segment of the society grow each day and atrocious beatings of innocent people on our streets are reaching epidemic proportions and”White racism” and “The Legacy of Slavery” is invariably the clarion call of the self loathing White. “Progressive” apologists. So Called “Flash Mobs’ run through city streets and Shopping Malls vandalizing , looting and assaulting random White people and many of these incidents wind up on YouTube. Our justice system is hamstrung by the overwhelming crime rate. Prisons are so overcrowded that they’re releasing convicts before they’ve served out their sentences.
Our once great urban public schools have become fearsome places where teachers and the ever decreasing number of serious students consider a successful school day as one in which they haven’t been assaulted, raped or murdered.
Our Main Stream Media does its very best to bury these stories. Eyewitness descriptions of suspects are edited in the Press to the point where the suspect’s clothing is the only information given unless of course he happens to be Caucasian. The link below is to the original article.

http://tundratabloids.com/2012/01/us-embassy-in-oslo-warns-us-citizens-against-walking-alone-in-the-streets-of-oslo-at-night.htmlReply

Robert Spencer - Killing the Counter-Jihad Yet Again

Here's a bad laugh about lost opportunities. Robert Spencer and a writer from the Daily Cos, who Spencer describes as a Leftist, quite ironically and unintentionally, both prove Peter Carl fully correct:

http://www.jihadwatch.org/2012/01/recently-two-extraordinary-articles-have.html#comment-851150

As does one other rather unassuming commenter who is rightly concerned with human rights.

The blogger says, "numerous people have demanded I be banned" for taking the position he takes on Islam. Spencer's idea of help? Bashing the Left. Instead of taking the opportunity to show how all Westerners have a common concern about human rights, Spencer instead, chose to alienate more potential voters, confirm that the Counter-Jihad is of and for the Right only, and, in addition, Spencer has also now fully deligitimized the blogger among the entire Left. Why would any reader from the "Left" now take that blogger's articles seriously? It all absurdly proves Peter Carl is quite right.

My only conclusion; as Spencer's posting shows, the anti-jihad movement, the West, and we right along with it all are on a very tragic road to nowhere - except maybe to Mecca or Londonistan.

Actually, Kappert, you need

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Actually, Kappert, you need to give me a bit more credit than you do; I did understand your “irony”. Recall I said I don’t think you fall into either category. But, after reading your most recent response, I actually now realize that, after all, you seem not to understand our “Common Freedoms” in some very important ways.

You write that, “…on many (anti-)islam blogs reigns the negation of (at least some) common freedoms, and that hate-speeches originate from people who hate - not love.”

As Peter Carl has written above, our “Common Freedoms” can only exist with an equal application to all people and groups of people of the standards of the Golden Rule and our Western laws that have been built up upon it over the centuries. That means that placing requirements and standards on immigrants, removing benefits from them and deporting them and their families in the case they do not meet those simple requirements or standards, or simply requiring at all times the same standards of behavior, professionalism, community awareness, non-violence, non-criminality, dress, or neighborliness of newcomers and their families can not be and is not a violation of the Golden Rule.

In fact, rejecting such behavior and people is a true application of the Golden Rule. Sounds callous, but both you and I, as Westerners, KNOW and EXPECT that if you or I act in asocial, criminal, separatist, or supremacist way that you or I SHOULD be rejected by our friends, neighbors, family, and the society we live in. (And you and I live in different Western countries.) Thus, you and I and our Western friends, neighbors, family, and society apply this same standard to me and you.

However, as we see with political correctness, they/we do not apply the same standard to asocial, criminal, separatist, or supremacist immigrants, especially not those from Muslim countries.  As Peter Carl writes so well, by NOT applying the Golden Rule’s standards of EQUALITY (under the law and otherwise) to all people, means that these “Common Freedoms” and the Golden Rule will actually disappear as a result – for ALL of us. So, to the extent the anti-jihad bloggers you complain of above are merely applying or asking for the application of the same standard for all people and groups of people, your accusation that the counter-jihad people are somehow not living up to these “Common Freedoms” or somehow being “hateful” is fully incorrect.

So, if you mean that counter-jihad blogs should not advocate these types of oversight and actions against those newcomers who are asocial, criminal, separatist, or supremacist and who do not have any intention of assimilating, I would argue that it seems that you do not understand exactly how these precious “Common Freedoms” are actually lost by tolerating or applying lesser standards or having lower requirements for certain people as opposed to others.

If, on the other hand, you mean that you have seen actual anti-jihad individuals and blogs who are arguing that the “Common Freedoms” defined by Peter Carl above are to apply to one race or ethnicity of people and not others, then I would say that you are correct and that such people do not support the “Common Freedoms” identified and defined by Carl and, therefore, do not belong in the Counter-Jihad movement. Such people may also very likely be dangerous candidates for participation in some form of Nazi or extremist activities, such as Breivik. Anyone who does not believe that the Common Freedoms are for ALL people does not believe in democracy and human rights and, therefore, do not fit or belong in a counter-jihad movement. Religion, we should recall, however, as Carl writes, is a set of IDEAS. No one is or should be required to respect, accept, like, or pretend to like (or limit their speech as to) ANY religion’s teachings or ideas. And, personally, I myself have respect for all religions – except Islam, specifically because of its backward, hateful, and violent “prophet” and his teachings.

In short, the Koran is a piece of garbage; but even so I don’t believe that it should be banned. I believe, instead, that it should be read and discussed by everybody so that we can ALL see and SAY exactly how violent, how sadistic, and what a gross violation of our Western concepts of our “Common Freedoms” and human rights and human dignity it actually is. On the other hand, those who follow it, including, for example, even those who feel the need to clothe themselves or style their hair according to it or make demands in Western countries in reference to it, do not belong in a Western country. Why? Because their beliefs and their behavior subvert and will eventually abolish the Golden Rule. A rule of tolerance like the Golden Rule can not survive a system of beliefs based in intolerance and ideas that are the opposite of the Golden Rule. That means if we “tolerate intolerance”, as Carl himself wrote, it is the end of our “Common Freedoms” for all of us. There are no “interpretations” of “Common Freedoms”, as you implied. There are only the “Common Freedoms” Carl named. We have had these for centuries across the West. We all know what they are – and, because we as Westerners know them, we all know what, how, and when they have been violated at various times in our Western history.

One other point it seems you do not understand about our “Common Freedoms.” The Western tradition of “Free Speech” or “Free Expression” has never known “hate speech” before. It has never existed – until the loss of Golden Rule standards (mentioned by Carl above) that came along especially post-World War II that created political correctness. Prior to that time, generally, the law allowed ALL forms of speech except for: 1) speech that would cause immediate danger to people (e.g. screaming “fire” in a theater); or 2) speech that EXPLICITLY “incites”, that is, calls on other people to commit actual acts of violence. Only in recent decades have we begun to legislate beyond and above these two things and against so-called “hate” speech (e.g. thought).

The way I see it, you seem to REALLY miss the point of Carl’s essay where he writes about the right to “hate” IDEAS. So-called “hate” speech laws should NOT exist. Why? Because they attempt to regulate both peoples thought and speech. They attempt to regulate WHAT people can THINK and EXPRESS about IDEAS. And, when a crime is committed (for which we have already had adequate penalties for centuries), the court now must try to determine that there was a state-of-mind that guided the accused to allegedly “hate” the accuser or “something” about the accuser. So what happens in the case where, as Peter Carl mentions, someone decorates a Koran with bacon and puts it on the stairs of the mosque. Do you ACTUALLY believe that that person did that out of “hatred” of Muslims as people – or instead out of “hatred” for ideas or, more accurately yet, out of INTELLECTUAL CHALLENGE to the IDEAS taught and held by Islam and perhaps even  as ART????? On that note, is Andres Serrano’s “Piss Christ” “artwork” or a “hate” crime???? What if I put a Koran and a picture of Mohammad in a container of piss??? Would that be done by me in “hate” then – or would it be a statement or a challenge to Islam or a work of art on my part? (I can tell you I have no hate for Muslims; as people, I like them as I like everyone else. I can tell you, however, I do “hate” and mean the severest challenge to the IDEAS of Islam). Should that be limited and punishable under the law??? To, as Carl puts it, “hate” ideas that promote “Child marriage? Pedophilia and its results? Punishing rape victims? Wife-beating? Slavery? “Honor” killings?” Do you (or other people who don’t understand our “Common Freedoms”) want to defend those sick ideas…or support laws that make my ability to challenge them illegal???? The point is…courts, the law, and government should NEVER be attempting to determine my or anyone else’s motives for ANY speech that falls short of an otherwise punishable criminal act.

As Carl says quite well, NO ONE can successfully argue that IDEAS can not and should not be “hated”. And no government or law should ever limit in ANY way our ability to HATE IDEAS or to SPEAK and EXPRESS those ideas. As far as laws that exist today that attempt to regulate this so-called “hate” or to find so-called “hate” where it actually has never existed. The criminal laws on the books are sufficient for punishing EVERY crime (even if some countries should add more years to sentences). By implementing so-called “hate crimes” the governments that have done so have implemented in the law political correctness and applied the Golden Rule without applying any of its standards of equality. Thus, the guy in Tennessee is prosecuted for a “hate crime” (though he gets death threats from Muslims) for his art of putting bacon in a Koran meanwhile the people who made the death threats run free. All the while the artist who made the “Piss Christ”, Andres Serrano, makes his rounds celebrated from museum to museum in the US and Europe and no Westerner and no Christian actually cares or bothers. As it should be. Do I think his art is offensive to Christians? Yes. Do I care. Yes but No. Do I think I have the right to judge his art? Absolutely not. Do I think he should be limited in any way in expressing himself? Absolutely not; in fact, I would defend his right to do so at all costs.

If you consider “hate speech” or “hate crimes” a part of our “Common Freedoms”, you do not understand our “Common Freedoms” or how “hate speech” and “hate crimes” just as much as Islamism has never been a part of – and actually results in the undoing of – all of those “Common Freedoms”. By creating such laws they have made the challenge of IDEAS, legitimate art, and Freedom of Inquiry illegal.

Lastly, as to your expectation of “Christian extremism”, I had to smile. Christian “extremists”, I can only imagine, these Christian extremists must run around and hug and love people??? If normal Christian behavior is “Love your neighbor as yourself” (including loving your enemy), then “Extreme” Christian behavior must mean loving them even more. Before you tell me about “Christians” hating homosexuals or the three so-called “Christians” who attempted to blow up or shot at an abortion clinic in the past thirty years, you might spend some time looking at some of Peter Carl’s links. Most especially, the ones where he talks about to “blunt our senses” and “from a very safe distance assert that all religions and cultures are equally good and bad.” Read those articles, especially the one on blunting the senses. It will put both “Christian” and Islamist extremism in a much more accurate perspective.  

As to “Christianity”, if you mean to be referring to Breivik, Hitler, or anyone like them as a “Christian”, you might want to read Breivik’s manifesto where he says he doesn’t have a relationship with Jesus or God (on numerous occasions) and that he wants to gut Christianity and make it war-like, just like Islam. I guess that would kind of mean that he’s not Christian (by any definition of Christianity, now or ever in the past). Christianity kind of requires a belief in Jesus and a relationship with God as embodied in God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit – and a belief in love for all (including one’s enemies) as its core principle, if my memories from having attended a church at least once or twice serve me well.

You are fully correct about Breivik and Nietzsche. Hitler also held the same views as Nietzsche and some similar views to Breivik. All three see actual Christianity and the Golden Rule as a sickness to be destroyed. The only difference is that Breivik thinks he can, by force and violence, make Christianity become violent. Nietzsche and Hitler simply wanted to root it out and destroy it because of its love and equal rights. So, if you mean “Christian” violence? Well, violence is not “Christian” behavior. Christianity brought that “new message” of “love” you mentioned. Christianity, by Jesus’ own words, leaves the Old Testament behind as reference material and modifies all that existed previously with the New Testament; there’s not one teaching of violence in the New Testament. Recall what Jesus said in Matthew to one of his followers after healing a Roman soldier’s ear, “Put up again thy sword into his place: for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword.” So, anyone who would teach or carry out acts of violence and claim to be a “Christian” any idiot knows – including Breivik, Nietzsche, and Hitler – that such behavior is not in any way Christian. If Jesus says one thing in the New Testament and Breivik, Nietzsche, and Hitler are repulsed by what Jesus said in the New Testament because it was non-violent, peaceful, and loving, I think we can all be quite sure where Jesus and Christianity stand on the issue of violence and loving one’s neighbor. Well enough, in any case, to distinguish those around us who do not live up to the very high standards of those very old teachings.  

In any case, Kappert, glad that you see that Breivik, Hitler, Eichmann, and the like do not subscribe to our "common freedoms." No offense intended.

@unrealpolitik

 

I appreciate your long and clarifying essay. I like to agree to most points you mention, yet we may discuss some of the topics.

'Common Freedoms' is not a determined expression but rather a desired form of freedom, resulting from cultural coherence and the application of norms and laws. Thus, the western version is different from the eastern version of what people may understand by this expression. The ethical concept of 'Golden Rule', as we know since Confucius, that 'one should treat others as one would like others to treat oneself', entered world-wide in every ethic, moral and religious tradition. Yet, cultural differences make the conjunction of these two concepts work in a different way. What seems plausible for a Westerner may not be plausible for an Easterner, and vice-versa.

The application of rules, norms and conventions is a construct of socialization. Even with the same understanding of common freedoms, a person would behave different living in Malibu or in Ramallah. Out of these differences, 'political correctness' and the 'amount' of free speech is judged different in each corner of the world. Therefore, I have doubts that Westerners (living in USA, Germany, Italy or Finland) have the same knowing and expectation on golden rules and common freedoms. Implying that a whole society has the same standard, is not part of our sociology. When the lack of tolerance jumps to the publishing of insults, some people may be amused, others will ignore, and some will understand it as a personal attack.

By comparing the Bible and the Quran, I cannot understand why you stress such great differences. In most parts, both books are rather identical, which is obviously explained by the jewish-christian-muslim common evolution. As not every Christian country has the same rules as the others, some Muslim countries are really stuck in century-old traditions, hard to overcome. But keep in mind, that also the western women emancipation was sharply criticised by the establishment and it took decades to change the 'mentality'.

As to the arts, I recall the latest Benetton kiss-posters censored by the Vatican and the persecution of a Portuguese cartoonist, drawing a preservative on the Pope's nose. So Christians also feel offended by art, it's not only the Danish Mohammed posters.

I hope you are right that there will not be any 'Christian extremism' in the future. Good luck to you and best wishes.

On the Right Track

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As to Kappert’s thought, I’d say that just because a person reads this (or any other journal) “regularly” has very little to do with whether they are “informed”; unless, of course, we are to consider people who write rambling 1,500 page “manifestos” and who are strongly inclined to mass murder as somehow being in any way relevantly or usefully “informed”.

I’d also say, Carl is pretty clear about his definition of the “Common Freedoms” here: “…human rights, women’s rights, the rule of law, equality under the law, freedom of expression, freedom of inquiry, freedom of conscience, freedom of religion, etc.” I have no illusions that Breivik or any Nazi has ever embraced any of these freedoms at all; Breivik specifically left Norway’s anti-jihad Fremskrittspartiet party because it, unlike he, is fully committed to those “Common Freedoms”.

To suggest that, “…Rambos, neonazi-gangs and other Eichmanns truely believe in the 'common freedoms’…,” depending on the person, might show either a lack of understanding of (or maybe even a lack of belief in) these “Common Freedoms”. I’ve read enough of Kappert’s prior comments to believe he falls into neither of these categories.

Human rights? If Breivik or any Nazi believed in “human rights”, they wouldn’t summarily judge entire sections of the public and commit mass murder. Women’s rights? If Breivik or any Nazi believed in “women’s rights”, they wouldn’t look at a woman as a breeding test-tube for their “race”. Rule of Law? If Breivik or any Nazi believed in the “rule of law”, they would not find mass murder so easily appealing, they might respect an individual’s and society’s rights to person and property, and maybe they’d even believe in the democratic process. Freedom of Expression, Inquiry, Conscience, and Religion? If Breivik or any Nazi ever believed in any of these freedoms, neither would have written or acted to endorse ideas or laws that would make certain political or religious beliefs (and I’m not referring to Islam here) fully off-limits for all of us.

We can be certain that people of Breivik and Hitler’s ilk (and their followers) have and have had no understanding or respect for these “Common Freedoms” and have had no illusions that they were promoting them. We need only spend some time reading Breivik and Hitler’s fanatical writings and some basic history to understand that.

I’d say Peter Carl is definitely on the right track. In my opinion, if the counter-jihad movement doesn’t fully drop its focus on Right/Left antagonisms in relation to Islamization and immigration, use Carl’s “Counter-Jihad Argument” to show its openness to bring in the Left and everybody else concerned about these “Common Freedoms”, and then go out of its way to show its support for these freedoms, I’d say that we’re all very soon going to be deeply awash in violent supremacist Islamists, Nazis, and horror all across the West.

And the counter-jihad movement, if unable to have made the right arguments, will be, at the same time, both irrelevant and at fault.

@unrealpolitik

Obviously my irony was not so transparent to be grasp. The same way you are not an adept of 'unreal politics', the cited criminals of course do not subscribe to 'common freedoms'. Au contraire, from Nazis to Rambo-Breivik they have a very unique interpretation of 'common freedoms', more endorsed by Nietzsche than by human rights. Nevertheless, we should be aware that on many (anti-)islam blogs reigns the negation of (at least some) common freedoms, and that hate-speeches originate from people who hate - not love.

I agree that Europe will have to face religious extremism, christian and muslim, growing tribal nationalism, and blunt violence out of dispair.

As for the USA: the current political dispute in senate and congress blend out the concept of 'checks and balances', as there is no compromise in sight. Thus, the current situation is a danger for the American democracy. A failed Obama and a ferocious Tea-Party are bad signs of the times.

Trond Berntsen to U2

Kappert,

Be safe, as a regular reader of the Brussels Journal, some would argue that you are a danger to yourself. Of course, I don't buy into such nonsense, but such is the reality of the world in which we live, where thoughts and beliefs become criminal acts rather than the criminal act itself.

demagogy

Norwegian Rambos, neonazi-gangs and other Eichmanns truely believe in the 'common freedoms' and faithfully follow the indications of their leaders. Don't forget that thr Norwegian Rambo Breivik read this journal regularly, so he was as informed as you are.

Trond Berntsen

Whenever Anders Breivik is mentioned I like to mention or think Trond Berntsen, I think of it as a sort of blessing myself in the face of evil.

Blaming writers Spencer and Geller for Anders Breivik going beserk is like blaming a fictional movie character - Rambo, or  a popular song like "Pumped Up Kicks" a catchy, but disturbing tune, and frankly, it is a bit like joining Breivik in his horrific fantasy realm, not a safe place to be.  

Peter Carl is embarking on a noble endeavor and I tend  to agree with him, especially concerning the importance of challenging and debating ideas and the terrible consequences for a society when people are afraid to stand up and argue for what they believe is right.