TAJ: A salient question indeed. While I think I have a good handle on the Malaysian and Muslim mindsets, I admit that I have a less than perfect understanding of the European psyche, having only been in Europe once and not having had many European friends over the years.
One part of the European mindset that I have read about is their consistent anti-Semitism, a factor in their thinking that’s appeared at one point or another in virtually every European country and culture and goes back centuries to the medieval era and earlier. Even an event as immense and horrifying as the Holocaust or ‘Shoah’ only put this attitude into stasis — it didn’t kill it off. Now the level of violence against Jews shows us that the anti-Semitic ghosts of Europe are returning again to haunt us all. And speaking of the Holocaust, remember that Hitler had to have gotten his ideas from somewhere; Vienna around the turn of the century — when and where Hitler spent his youth — was, according to authoritative sources I’ve studied, a veritable cesspool of Jew-hatred.
And a few decades later, when Hitler sent European Jewry off to the ovens, or into mass graves, it’s pertinent to remember that the Fuhrer had an awful lot of help from his fellow Europeans, and not just the Germans. From the French to the Poles and beyond, Herr Hitler had a great number of very willing executioners. There is, in fact, a book that discusses this aspect of the Holocaust and goes under that very title. So Europe’s persecution of the Jews, and Europeans who happily tolerate Muslims doing the same, are in fact a harkening back to a tragic, well-worn and time-tested European tradition.
Europe’s increasingly shabby treatment towards Christians and Christianity is a bit more mystifying, at least on the surface. I think, overall, the situation has less in common with deliberate persecution and more in line with mass apathy. Europe is becoming less devout and Europeans are becoming less pious. In short, they just don’t care as much about conventional religion as much as previous centuries, in particular towards Christianity. Of course there are localized exceptions — the Poles and their continued devotion towards Catholicism immediately spring to mind. If any religion is popular in Europe nowadays, other than Islam (a political movement pretending to be a religion), it’s Marxism slash environmentalism (a religion pretending to be a political movement).
Political correctness and leftist-inspired atheism are much more politically potent in Europe than they are in the US, at least for now, and that could be changing in America as we speak. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the churches of Europe started to empty out at about the same time that mosques started to spring up everywhere across Europe and become filled to overflowing. Islam is taking advantage of the power vacuum, the lack of a strong competing belief system, and of course, the leftist-Marxist PC school of thought is a proven enabler and ally of Islam.
All of this added together explains, I believe to a large degree, the very passive European attitude and lack of response to the degradation and growing persecution of Christians in Europe and beyond.
FP: Are you a Christian? If not what faith are you and how is it significant to you in your life?
TAJ: I was raised as a Christian and I’ve held true to what I was taught, although I must admit that I times I’ve had my doubts. One of my ‘beefs’ with many Christians is their relative pacifism in the face of aggression. For example, when I open up to other Christians about what Muslims are doing to other Christians both here in Malaysia and in other Muslim countries, the usual response isn’t outrage, but a sort of dhimmified sadness: “oh how horrible — I shall pray for them.” And other than that, they do nothing. I know that Christians are taught to ‘turn the other cheek’ when provoked as this is taught in the Bible, but I also know about the narrative of Christ in the temple with the money changers. Christ wasn’t a wimp, and Christians shouldn’t be either.
As for my own doubts on Christianity, no one cannot study Islam and the countless atrocities committed explicitly in its name without having one’s faith — either in God or in humanity — severely tested. My studies of Islam have brought me up close and personal with evil, unspeakable evil that maims and destroys everything standing in its way. I thought 9-11 was the ultimate inhumanity that was possible, with office workers crushed, burned, asphyxiated and flung out of burning sky-scraping towers to their deaths. The past nine years or so have dramatically and forever disabused me of that notion. We know that devout Muslims (I prefer this to calling them ‘radical’ or ‘militant’ Muslims) will stop at absolutely nothing. No barbaric act is too wanton to commit, like gouging out the eyes of women, or deliberating beating very young children, or stabbing infants to death. No wonder so many people, Americans and others, would just prefer to shut it out and gossip about celebrities, watch sports or reality shows, and remain blissfully ignorant of the terrible, ugly realities running loose in our world. But ignorance is not an option anymore, if it ever was, not if the free people of the world want to remain that way. Nor is it an option if non-Muslims want to retain their equality and human rights. We must not only be educated, but we must also maintain faith in our own Judeo-Christian heritage if we are to survive.
And if one posits evil in the world, then one must posit good. It is not sufficient to merely fight against something — one must believe in and fight for something as well. So I believe in Good and the Good News as it is found in the New Testament. And the many noble martyrs and heroes in the history of free societies, who have stood against evil and for justice — people like Thomas Jefferson, Winston Churchill, Geert Wilders, the incredibly valiant men and women of the US Armed Forces — these people continue to inspire me to carry on.
FP: Can any of this be turned around? Or is it too late? What must the West do to save itself?
TAJ: I see reasons for both pessimism and optimism. At this point, the situation seems dire, and it is. It’s more accurate to state that we are really poised on a knife’s edge and the situation could go either way.
On the negative side, that is to say, favoring Islam, are the forces of mass migration and procreation that threaten to permanently throw demographics wildly out of whack, particularly in Europe. The talented blogging duo over at Gates of Vienna would call this the Camp of the Saints effect, after the work of fiction that prophesied this almost 40 years ago. It’s not only mass migration from across the Mediterranean, but also the number of babies being born to Muslims already in Europe. The most popular baby name in many places in Europe already is ‘Mohammed‘. And the fact that non-Muslims in Europe have more or less stopped having children magnifies this troubling demographic trend substantially. Given a few more decades, and these Muslims, who can be relied upon to maintain their pernicious culture in spite of their European surroundings, will be at or near majority status.
The second powerful advantage Islam has is the current Western policy regimen, combined with the unofficial ruling doctrine of ‘Political Correctness’ in both Europe and the US — Islam’s two chief opponents. Muslims, under current laws, are free to move anywhere in North America or Europe, buy property anywhere, and build mosques and madrassas at virtually any location they please (the Ground Zero mosque has proven to be a notable exception).
In the US, Islam enjoys undisputed 1st Amendment (‘Freedom of Religion’) constitutional protections. Muslims can and have gained access to trusted positions within corporations and government, including but not limited to the military, intelligence agencies, and law enforcement. Muslims in the West can and do congregate in sizable numbers over large areas. These Muslim areas are invariably transformed into ‘no-go’ areas, de facto Sharia-ruled enclaves off limits to police, and can be found blighting most major urban areas in Europe and increasingly in the US as well (Dearborn et al). The situation in fact in Europe has already deteriorated to the point where Muslims rule virtually entire cities and run riots, unchecked by any infidel authority, such as in Malmö, Sweden. To make matters worse, spineless, opportunist Western politicians play for short term political gains by pandering to Muslims for votes. Political correctness muzzles and mutes much (but not all) opposition to Muslim expansion.
On the positive side of the ledger are the facts that speak to us from history, especially about fascistic movements. History teaches us that totalitarian forces have almost always, eventually, overextended and overreached. Tyranny usually overplays its hand. Remember that Herr Hitler, had he stopped after seizing all of Czechoslovakia in early 1939, could have probably avoided war with the USSR and the Allies, and Nazi Germany could still have still existed up to this day. For another, perhaps more pertinent example, the Palestinian Arabs were offered half of what is now Israel in 1948 from the UN absolutely ‘free of charge’, and a few decades of demographic expansion and immigration after that would have most likely peaceably won all of ‘Palestine’ for the Muslims without firing a shot. Instead the Arabs, acting on their own Islamic-inspired hatreds, opted for war. More than 60 years of intermittent war and constant terrorism against a small band of Jews has won them nothing, except perhaps the sympathies of the international media, not to mention a lot of Muslims and their leftist friends. And we know full well how dysfunctional Muslim cultures are. Islam and Muslims are very good at growing their numbers and influence, both politically and culturally, especially in the West, but at everything else they are a miserable failure. Societies with psychopathic tendencies writ large are societies that inevitably fail — it’s just a question of when. One can only hope that it’s soon enough.
In spite of ourselves, it is not too late to act. It is merely a question of political will, which of course and as many readers will know all too well, is sadly lacking at this time. The West needs an eloquent, rhetorical powerhouse and nonpareil visionary like Churchill to lead us out of this darkness, and here we are stuck with Barack Hussein Obama. But with a presidential election next year, there’s always hope. As to what should be done beyond winning presidential elections, I think many pundits have already outlined excellent courses of action in a comprehensive fashion (here are some great ideas, and here’s some more). So there’s plenty of awareness out there already as to what needs to be done. Policies and doctrines are not set in stone and need to be changed now, from top to bottom. The current American regime is flatly unwilling to do anything productive or in the best interests of their (non Muslim) constituents, except perhaps by accident. Replacing that regime is, of course, in the hands of American voters.
And Christians need to shed their pacifistic leanings and become a lot more pro-active in their defense. The Vatican needs to stop mouthing pleasantries towards Muslims and understand that Muslims are not and can never be genuine allies of the Catholic Church or of any other group of Christians. Interfaith ‘dialogues’ with Muslims are not only pointless, but dangerous, for they offer a vector for dissembling taqiyya-spouting Muslims to continue confusing and misleading otherwise well-meaning Christians.
The squabbling factions of the West, be they atheists, or Christians, or Jews, or whomever — need to put aside their differences, gather under a big proverbial political tent, and unite against Islamofascism. If the Allies could unite with the Soviet Union against Hitler 70 years ago and be victorious, then we can do something like it again. Sure, it could be well-nigh impossible, but if we don’t, the alternative is extermination.
Islam is nothing more than an ideology, a collection of ideas, and the best way to fight a belief system is with another, superior belief system. Superior ideas are something the West has in spades. But thanks to Political Correctness, the West never argues in favor of its own superior culture. The West has intentionally and wrongly ceded the initiative in the critical war of ideas to Muslims, who are of course never restricted from disseminating the false or imaginary advantages of Islam, Muslim culture, Sharia, etc. The West has intentionally kneecapped itself, and this must stop.
FP: The Anti-Jihadist, thank you for joining Frontpage Interview.
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