The irresponsibility of refusing to speak clearly about our long war against sharia
We quoted from Mark Steyn today in two brief posts below. He was writing on a subject which has come into focus of late: the incompatibility of the Judeo Christian Enlightenment tradition of law and rights and that of the world governed by sharia. We think the governments of the West are utterly irresponsible in failing to engage in a straightforward discussion of the West’s de facto war against sharia. We are in a war against sharia — not only against its imposition in the West by jihadists — but a Cold War which seeks its end as a form of government in the Islamic world.
The truth is: there are almost no members of the ruling elites of the West that think sharia is anything other than a brutal, intolerant system of government, totalitarian in its ideological demands, and totally worthless as a means of organizing men towards modernity and prosperity. The truth also is: almost none of the elites say so publicly.
Everyone knows that what the jihadists want is nothing new or strange: it is a government similar to that in Saudi Arabia, Iran, Taliban Afghanistan, not-so-Taliban-Afghanistan, and throughout the Islamic world — only perhaps purer and more restrictive on people. Everyone knows that it is an historical and theological truth about Islam that its mission is to spread Muslim rule worldwide, which is one of the core reasons that you don’t see a billion moderate Muslims saying “we have no idea whatsoever what these radicals are talking about.”
And hence everyone knows inside, but is perhaps not quite willing to think about clearly: there will be no end to this war until: (a) there is a Reformation in Islam so that Koranic instructions to spread sharia can be interpreted metaphorically; (b) somehow Islamic governments stop taking sharia seriously for whatever reason; (c) those who preach sharia in the West are seen as talking politics, not religion, and are forbidden to do so; (d) an energy alternative makes oil obsolete and returns those Arab and Muslim countries once more to poverty and irrelevance; (e) there is a hot war over Israel or oil or some other issue which kills a lot of people and destroys those countries whose culture has given them no technology and inferior military doctrine; or (f) an emasculated West capitulates to the fervor and zeal of the Islamic missionaries in its midst and the effectiveness of strategic terror. There are other imaginable ends as well.
Every day that the leaders of the West refuse to engage in discussing the awfulness of sharia as government, and why it is a bad idea for the Muslim and non-Muslim worlds alike, is another day that the West makes more likely the lone outcome of (f) defeat above. This really isn’t that complicated; even Churchill understood this, way back when.
It is not as though there are terrible consequences for speaking clearly. The Australians do it every day, and are all the better for it. It is not as though the Arab and Muslim world is going to stop selling oil; the sophisticated men in the elites of Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Iran, as well as their cosmopolitan financial associates in London and Dubai, are not eschewing the modern world in favor of fundamentalism to do such a thing. It is not as though Westerners are going to riot against their Muslim friends and neighbors.
Thus, we fail to see the virtue of the West’s rhetorical weakness, either in practical or ideological terms. It emboldens the enemy and makes us weak at home. Such confused and mealy-mouthed talk, if not ended, can fulfill its own prophecy and make losers of the West. The West and America must wear our values proudly or we shall lose those values and our freedom. We missed our most recent opportunities in the Cartoon Riots and the Abdul Rahman Affair, which was inexcusable. We must do better. Every day that the Bill of Rights comes into conflict with sharia, we must champion our founding freedoms or shamefully lose the precious gifts for which our forebears sacrificed.
UPDATE
Understand the depth of what we face. Take a look at these Egyptian counter-cartoons to the ones that inspired the Cartoon Riots, and appreciate the assumptions about the closeness of mosque-and-state that they appear to imply. (HT: LGF)
UPDATE II
We recommend James Arlandson’s article in the American Thinker, which argues that Islamic law must be strongly opposed worldwide, and bases its thinking on the Islam’s notorious and outrageous criminalization of apostasy.
UPDATE III
Now that the world seems to be taking increased note of the rather common outrages committed in sharia societies, we are going to see more articles like this (via LGF):
A EUROPEAN manager at a major restaurant who allegedly desecrated the Holy Quran has fled the country, it was revealed yesterday….The manager disposed of copies of translations from the Quran by mistake that were distributed by Discover Islam during the Gulf Air Bahrain Grand Prix and left on one of the desks by some customers. He admitted being guilty, but he said it was unintentional.
Shaikh Mohammed said that Interpol should bring the manager to justice like any other criminal. “I don’t care where this manager is, the only thing that matters is for him to be brought back to the country to face the punishment he deserves,” he said.
“This is a serious matter and the government shouldn’t rest until this man is punished. He should have been arrested a long time ago, but everyone knows about the bureaucracy in this country. This person has made a mockery of Muslims and Islam and should get the severest punishment possible, but first he should be brought back. I am very angry and I will not breathe a sigh of relief until he is behind bars.”
We have a feeling that the Bush administration’s talk in the last couple of years about democracy and freedom being the God-given right of man has been in part based on a hope that maybe Afghanistan and particularly Iraq would quickly evolve away from sharia, and that this whole unpleasant issue could be finessed. If that was a hope, it was a vain one. We can understand the reluctance of any American government to engage this kind of thorny, difficult issue if there is a way around doing so — unfortunately, there no longer is such a workaround.
UPDATE IV
See also this piece on Jihad as a sacrament to achieve eternal life, and these pieces with questions about what is and is not properly considered a religion.
April 4th, 2006 at 5:31 am
The Reavers of Islam
People recognize that when we try to communicate with each other, our tools of language and image are almost always inadequate to convey our full meaning, and at the same time, convey multiple meanings that we do not consciously intend.
April 5th, 2006 at 10:15 am
I would not impute any such hope as a “quick evolution away from Shari’a” in Iraq and Afghanistan to the Bush administration. I would impute exactly those hopes which they voiced: in Afghanistan, to deprive Al Qaeda of safe haven; in Iraq, to remove a long-term threat of a nexus among WMD, terrorism, tyranny, etc.; and, in both countries, to plant democracy and tolerance as forces in the Middle East. Afghanistan is in fact no longer safe haven for Al Qaeda, women there have more rights than before, as for Iraq Saddam & his sons are no longer a threat short-term or long-term, in both countries democracy is being built, and so forth. Bush also said (I think in his 2004 Inauguration speech) that we may not like the forms of democracy which Iraq, Afghanistan, and others end up choosing. It’s a long-run process and we cannot cease to attend to it, though it would be less hard if the civilized world stood shoulder to shoulder in a solid no-brainer prudential front. Bush 41′s choice to leave Saddam in place in the first Gulf war would probably not have turned out so ill if the subsequent POTUS had followed up properly. One of the things driving current US policy is surely W’s determination to get as much done as possible. But some things cannot be rushed. Shari’a is key. An islamofascist is any Muslim who doesn’t hate Shari’a like poison. Shari’a will not go quietly; but a more advantageous position against it seems possible even in the relatively short historical time frame which we face, the short time during which we may still head unbelievable mass horror off at the pass, time short given the gradual but inevitable acceleration in the general development — in accessibililty, power, computerization, deadly combinations, etc. — of technologies adaptable for mass destruction and the efforts of terrorist & destructionist groups & subcultures willing or eager to use them.
June 20th, 2006 at 10:18 am
They Can’t Help Themsleves, Its Their Nature.
Ali Eteraz at Unwilling Self-Negation has an interesting post (and be sure to read the comments), Zaid Shakir Is Not Our Mouthpiece, that was triggered by an article from the New York Times. The Times piece by Laurie Goodstein, U.S.