Fantasy Islam vs. Islam

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In pointing out recently that Geert Wilders confounds Americans with his fearless clarity, one of the incidents I had in mind was an interview he sat for in May with The Daily Caller's Jamie Weinstein (photo above).

Because it so perfectly encapsulates the point at which sparkly-brittle delusions about Islam crack up against obdurate reality, this interview is well worth revisiting, if only to bear witness to the plight of the determined delusionist as he gathers his shards of fantasy and retreats to a vaccuum where he will reassemble them, far from the buffeting facts.

The interview starts off smoothly enough with Geert Wilders' basic story and goals for his book Marked for Death: Islam's War Against the West and Me. Geert goes on to explain why Islam "should not be compared so much with other religions like Christianity or Judaism" but rather "to other totalitarian ideologies like Communism and Fascism. If we acknowledge that fact then you don’t have to treat it like a religion and a lot of problems can be solved far more –"

This a provocative and instructive point but Weinstein cuts him off, deflecting conversation to Israel, which doesn't have a more ardent supporter than Wilders ("Israel is a canary in the coal mine...a beacon of light in total darkness.. I believe we should all support Israel ... in this "jihad against us all"....), to Islam and, at Weinstein's cue, Muslims.

Talking about "people" is one way to steer the debate away from ideology, history and political theory -- dangerous territory for the Islamic apologist-cum-fantasist -- and toward a more squishy, personal, emotional level. It is here where the appalling, anti-humanity imperatives of Islamic doctrine are supposed to recede among  visions of ordinary, every day folks, people, kids -- "women of cover" and "Muslim moms and dads,"  to recall some of  George W. Bush's  memorably awkward invocations.

Geert states his basic position: that he has nothing against people, that the majority of Muslims in our society are law-abiding. He makes the distinction, a la Ibn Warraq, that there are moderate people who are Muslim, but, getting back to the concrete subject at hand, there is no moderate Islam.  "Don't let anybody fool you who says Islam can be moderated," Wilders says. "There are not two Islams; there is only the Islam of the Koran, the Islam of the life of Mohammed, and the Islam of sharia law." 

Wilders goes  on to declare that we should de-Islamize our societies, "which doesn't mean that we have to make trouble with the Muslim people" so long as they assimilate in our societies, take our values, our constitutions, our rule of law "as the dominant one."

If that's not generous and liberal, I don't know what is. Wilders' position is that Muslim newcomers who accept Western law and values as supreme are welcome in the Judeo-Christian-humanist West. Wilders, however, does not concede to Islamic newcomers the right to regard Islamic law and values as supreme in the West, thereby establishing bastions of Islam that will expand until there is no West.  

Such an uncompromising dedication to self-preservation disturbs those Westerners who have chosen the Two Islams approach. This approach is not the result of analysis of the Islam of the Koran, the life of Mohammed, and Islamic law, as Wilders likes to put it, but rather an emotional reaction to Muslim people -- or, at least, to one particular Muslim person, Zuhdi Jasser. Jasser represents to Weinstein and so many other conservatives the poster boy of what they, as Westerners, fancy as An Islam We Can Live With. Islam. This Islam -- call it Islam No. 2 -- is totally and completely separate, they fervently believe, from Islam No.1 -- the Islam That Wants to Detroy Us. The only problem is that No. 2 doesn't exist, not in the Koran or any of the other sacred writings and traditions of Islam.

But, as Weinstein makes clear, that doesn't matter a bit.

WEINSTEIN: And here’s an area a lot of conservatives in the US may differ with you …You're taking, in essence, the bin Laden view of Islam. You’re kind of excommunicating those who don’t adhere to the strict form of Islam that’s prescribed by Qutb and the Wahhabist vision. Why not – you know, you re not a scholar of Islam, you studied Islam -- but why not take those, in the states like Zuhdi Jasser, and say well, you know, I’m going to stand behind them and if they believe there’s a moderate Islam, and if there’s plenty of Muslims who believe that they’re Muslims, I’m going to stand behind them and not take the bin Laden view of excommunicating, takfiri, excommunicating people from the Islamic faith.

It is an extraordinary statement. Let's break it down.

WEINSTEIN: And here’s an area a lot of conservatives in the US may differ with you …

... [subtext] because Wilders has confronted the facts about Islam and drawn the conclusion that Islam poses a danger to liberty. That's so extreme. What Weinstein and his fellow conservative fail to appreciate is that Islam is extreme. Such innate extremism, as codifed by mainstream, classical Islam, is simply beyond their ken. Their brains seem to short-circuit. Taking Islam at its word, then, becomes something only an extremist would do. Hence, he continues:

WEINSTEIN: You're taking, in essence, the bin Laden view of Islam, you’re kind of excommunicating those who don’t adhere to the strict form of Islam that’s prescribed by Qutb and the Wahhabist vision.

Never mind that bin Laden's Qutb's and the Wahhanist "view" and "form" of Islam conforms perfectly to the view and form of the Koran, the life of Mohammed and the sharia!

WEINSTEIN: Why not – you know, you re not a scholar of Islam, you studied Islam -- but why not take those like  in the states like Zuhdi Jasser and say well, you know, I’m going to stand behind them and if they believe there’s a moderate Islam, and if there’s plenty of Muslims who believe that they’re Muslims, I’m going to stand behind them and not take the bin Laden view of excommunicating, takfiri, excommunicating people from the Islam faith.

Wishing, sadly, doesn't make it so. Nor does blaming bin Laden for what is written in the Koran, the life of Mohammed and the sharia.

But wishing -- fantasy-- is the state of conventional political thought today regarding Islam. In imploring Wilders to "stand behind" the placebo-Islam of Zuhdi Jasser, Weinstein is asking him also to reject the reality-Islam of Mohammed -- just as Weinstein and Co. have rejected it as something extreme, like bin Laden. But as Geert replies crisply, it isn't his or anyone's else's place or role to create or validate some do-it-yourself Islam of one's own concoction or choosing.

WILDERS: I’m not excluding anyone. Who am I? The one who is excluding Muslims who don’t adhere to the holy book and the life of Mohammed is the Koran. ... If [Muslim moderates] assimilate to our society they are as equal as anybody else and  they should be treated with respect, but don’t let anybody fool you that there is a moderate Islam; there is not. If moderate Muslims call themselves Muslims, I’m happy with that, but according to the Koran they are not Muslims, they are renegades, they are apostates.

And apostates, according to Islamic law, must be killed. Indeed, as Geert points out a little later in the interview, a recent poll in Egypt shows that 84 percent of Egyptians want apostates from Islam to be killed.

WEINSTEIN:  My question is, Why do we need to get into the textual elements of this? If Zuhdi Jasser -- and as you said most, many, most Muslims around the world are not, you know, trying to start a holy war with the West,  and they think they’re Muslims and they believe that they’re adhering to the faith -- why not say let’s get behind those and fight for that interpretation? You know, you may be right in your interpretation, bin Laden might be right, but why as outsiders why don’t we get behind those who interpret it some way else?

Odious comparison between a democratic politician living under an Islamic fatwa and a jihadist murderer of infidels sitting at their desks aside, the crucial point here is Weinstein's acknowledgment that reality, facts, truth, are all so many extraneous details next to the importance of "getting behind" the fantasists -- the truly tiny band of extremists.

This is a bizarro attitude on many levels, not least of which is the reflex not to protect the liberty of the West -- doable -- but rather, as "outsiders," to mix into and imagine it possible to reshape Islam to our own uses -- impossible.

WILDERS: It’s not me, once again, or bin Laden -- you can mention me in the same sentence with bin Laden you are allowed to do so [Weinstein interjects that he is not comparing Wilders to bin Laden] but it’s the Koran who does it ..… it’s not bin Laden or Geert Wilders or anybody else, it’s the Koran who does it.

Wilders continues:

If Islam becones stronger in a society – and we experienced it in the last ten years and it’s the difference between Europe and America -- … even though the majority [of Muslims] are moderates as you rightfully said, we se see honor killings, we see female genitial mutilation, we see forced marriage, we see sharia banking,  we even see – and a lot of Americans don’t know this -- sixty active sharia courts in the UK, active today, where the word of a woman is worth half of a man, this is already implemented in Holland. So you can say and defend that there are many moderate Muslims, but the reality proves and shows that in European countries where Islam becomes more dominant, where the perecentage of Muslims rises from 5 to 10 sometimes 15 percent, that people who [criticize] Islam are being threatened by death, like myself, people are taken to court, there is, like I said, sharia implemented, and this all goes against our perception of  how a free society, how freedom of speech, and how equality between men [should be].

Wilders believes that the answer -- the longterm, down the line, best possible answer -- is for Muslims to renounce Islam altogether.

But, but, but -- what about that valiant Saudi woman who was determined to drive a car, Weinstein asks, interpreting her important rebellion as coming from within Islam. Geert has a different interpretation. He sees the woman, whom he writes about in his book, as showing that "the love of freedom is stronger than the ideology itself." That's when he mentioned the post-Mubarak poll indicating overwhelming support among Egyptians for the Islamic penalty for leaving Islam: death. "This proves my point," he said. "If you really want freedom, equality of women, others, you have to get rid of the ideology of Islam."

Weinstein's comment? "Saw that poll; it was very troubling." Moving right along ...

Now he wants to turn to the labels Wilders has used to describe Mohammed -- a matter of far more urgency to Weinstein, apparently, that the popularity of the Islamic death penalty that Mohammed invented for apostates!

WEINSTEIN: You’ve called Mohammed  a devil, a terrorists, a barbarian, a mass murderer, a pedophile … Beyond whether it’s true or not, is it helpful as a politician to do that? Is it useful to call someone who is beloved by even moderate Muslims – you don’t believe in moderate Muslims --  by Muslims who aren’t violent, as a prophet?

WILDERS: I believe in the truth. ...

And so should we all. See the rest of Geert's answer here.

What this whole exchange underscores is the terrible danger we have exposed ourselves to: We in the West have become so estranged from the truth that we have no relationship with facts; they have become foreign objects to be spurned. Our main goal now is to build our walls high against them, and woe to anyone who brings them into the citadel-psyche of pretend.

The Truth

"WILDERS: I believe in the truth. ...

And so should we all." - The whole idea of Truth has been deconstructed by our present-day civilisation. Following scrupulously George Orwell's forecast, Truth has been branded as a Lie and all lies, big and small, have been spun as truth. Only exceptionally intelligent, honest and courageous individuals like Geert Wilders can see and announce the difference. For this he's denounced and hounded.

Mein Kampf and Koran

I totally agree with Wilders' theories, except when he says he would ban the Koran like Mein Kampf is banned.

Sorry, neither Mein Kampf nor the Koran should be banned. Full Stop. 

@traveller, I understand you,

@traveller, I understand you, but Would you permit a book that promote pederastry?  or a book that promote mass murder?  treason? crime?.  Then, why permit a book that promote all of them together?

Yes I know that this is against the  contemporary view about freedom of expression since the sixties, but is the absurd naivety of this concrete view what is leading us to disaster indeed.

 

 

Yes I would...

Yes I would permit those books.

Books are not dangerous, opinions are not dangerous.

Physical violence, women bashing, child molesting is dangerous.

Our education system should be geared to have people with open minds, able to recognize BS and lies.

Right now we have no education anymore, we have a bunch of moronic sheep following the leader coming out of our universities.

Our problem is our education system, not "Mein Kampf".

We also need a strict justice system, not to protect and safeguard morons but to protect basic morals. 

@Koenraad Elst

You misread my text. The Nazis did not recognise Judaism as a religion but as a 'race'. Of cause they did not want to assimilate the Jews, they wanted to exterminate them. GW wants Muslims to assimilate to European 'western' values. I am mocking about the Brits in India and the Spaniards in Latin America. GWs formula of assimilation = liberty is a thoroughly fascist thought.

@ kappert

The Nazis knew very well that Jews were members of an exclusive religion.

They also knew that the Jews consider themselves as "the chosen race", they were definitely not mistaken about that.

@traveller

... but while the Nazis made an agreement with the Catholic Church, they certainly did not bother to negotiate with a rabbi - except when Jews paid their leave via jewish organisations.

Kappert ought to study his

Kappert ought to study his history. The Nazi "solution" to the Jews was the very opposite of "assimilation". But then this false reductio ad Hitlerum is the last refuge of the out-argued. For Kappert like all Islam apologists avoids that which really matters to all Muslims: the precedent of the Prophet. 

again

 

There he is again, Geert Wilders, the fair shining knight of Christianity. Wilders, 'marked for death' by self-appreciation, who had never suffered any harm from Muslims in his whole life, starts his thesis to declare that Islam should be compared to Fascism and Communism – maybe we then should compare Catholicism to homo-erotic submission exercises, Protestantism to ego shooting, and Judaism to elitist self-worshipping – and not be treated as a religion. Yes, the Nazis did just that with the Jews. In GWs words, there are 'moderate Muslims' but Islam cannot be moderate. Aha! He wants total assimilation of Muslims in Europe, (like the English assimilated in India, or the Spanish in Latin America, or the American Indians in the U.S.A.); though it's not clear what GW understands under 'assimilation' (the Borgs from Star Trek come to mind!!). Because Islam poses a threat to liberty? So, living under 'assimilation' is liberty for Geert Wilders. Probably 60 million Germans in the years 1933-45 thought like that as well. He fetches a poll saying that 80% of Egyptians want the death penalty for apostates - not one Muslim country applies this penalty. In his propaganda of 'jihad against us all' he cannot miss to evoke Israel, the 'beacon of light', the country which ignores most UN-Resolutions and now got a German Wunderwaffe to equip with nuclear weapons (irony of history!). He really has an undoubted talent for Propagandaminister.