Speaking the truth

Diana West is grappling with the fundamental issues. Not only does she admit that her past attempt to distinguish between “Islamism” and “Islam” is not sustainable, but she sees that there is an uneluctable contradiction between modern liberalism—or multiculturalism, as she calls it here—and civilizational survival. In practical terms this means that if our civilization is successfully to defend itself from the Islamic threat (and West gives specific examples of what she means by this), it must cease being liberal, at least in the modern sense of embracing tolerance and openness as its highest values. We need more Diana Wests in the mainstream conservative press.

In not discussing the roots of terror in Islam itself, in not learning about them, the multicultural clergy that shepherds our elites prevents us from having to do anything about them. This is key, because any serious action—stopping immigration from jihad-sponsoring nations, shutting down mosques that preach violence, expelling their imams, just for starters—means to renounce the multicultural creed. In the West, that’s the greatest apostasy. And while the penalty is not death—as it is for leaving Islam under Islamic law—the existential crisis is to be avoided at all costs. Including extinction.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at July 15, 2005 09:18 AM | Send