Pro and contra the Muhammad cartoons

Concerning my criticism of Patrick Buchanan’s attack on the European newspapers for printing the cartoons of Muhammad, two readers speak from opposite sides of what looks like a new conservative divide. The second e-mail defending Buchanan and attacking me is followed by many responses which I have been continually adding to this entry.

A reader writes:

I was sorely dissapointed after reading Buchanan’s latest at Lewrockwell.com. I do understand that in reality it is wise to choose your words carefully, but I’m GLAD that the newspapers in Europe published the cartoons in defiance of Muslim tyranny…specifically because it was MUSLIMS that were being confronted. Has Buchanan forgotten that every day, dozens of newspapers across the Muslim world print insults and hatred directed toward the West, Christians, and most especially Jews? What if the West rioted every time they did this to us?

Another reader writes:

Dear Larry:

What on Earth are you saying? Every time you write about Pat it seems like you slip a gear or two. As best I can figure, you are saying that we are better than the Muslims because we are competely jaded, secular and indifferent to blasphemy, tolerating in 2000 abominations like Piss-Christ that would have gotten Andre Serrano brutally beaten in 1950.

And yes, I suspect you are right: in America a cartoon of Christ being humped by a dog in a daily newspaper of national circulation like the Washington Post or the New York Times probably would not even merit a demonstration, let alone threats of divine (or even secular) vengeance, nor would it cause any cartoonist to lose their job. Such things are anodyne as you put it, and (as best I can figure) you feel that is a good thing. You apparently feel we should celebrate our sophistication for falling to this level. It apparently is this wallowing in cultural blasphemy that makes us better than them.

Just who are you rooting for, Larry? You do a good song-and-dance about preserving Western Civilization, but sometimes I wonder. Sometimes you seem to champion those secularists who have gutted European and American civilization and caused us to go voluntarily extinct. Which to me and Pat seems to be a much greater civilizational threat than a few angry Arabs and Africans. It is the loss of nerve, the unwillingness to make babies, the atheistic skepticism that rots the people’s souls and causes them to willingly die off like the Eloi. It isn’t a handful of Arabs and Africans living in European ghettoes, even if they do riot ocassionally and kill an artist here and there. It is the loss of any will to treat them firmly, insisting on assimilation, yet giving them as individuals basic human respect. That loss of will is the problem, it seems to me. It has weakened our cultural immune system to the point that we fear a Mexican and Muslim invasion when all we really have to do is just say no. And it is the secularists that have done that.

In any case your whacking of Pat is misplaced. He does not celebrate an Eloi-like European surrender. What he damns is the moronic incitement by European leftists who play right into the hands of those who would expel us from the Middle East. Hell, Pat is clearly saying that Muslims agitating to expel white folks from the Middle East is a BAD THING (tm). Yet somehow you spin this as Pat calling for “surrender” to the Muslims. I just don’t get it. I know you don’t think for one minute that Pat is in favor of Muslim immigration to Europe and America. You have read too much. We both know he was one of the first to raise the extinction of white folks as an issue. Of course his traditional enemies hammered on him for being a racist, Recently I have noticed that many of them (even those at the National Review) have picked up the Buchanan cultural survival torch. Even Time and Newsweek have done articles on The Death of Europe. Yet still they have to pretend they are not following Pat, since he is, of course, a racist anti-semite. Yet you would have us believe that Pat Buchanan—Mr. White Europe—is a Muslim apologist, a dirty Muslim-lover? Pat teaches “surrender” to Muslims? Hell, he was advising Europe to dump the foreigners and start making babies long before you mentioned such issues.

No, the people he is fearful for are those Europeans who are stuck in the Middle East: the Danish soldiers, the Europeans traveling, the Embassy personnel and all other “innocents” (as he calls them) who may be butchered for the sophomoric statements of a few newspapers. Yet you turn this into Pat supporting Muslims 100%. 100%? Really? Like he believes Europeans should be beheaded? Here we have a man saying we should pick our battles with more care, and you turn that into a surrender.

Larry, if your son said he planned to drive through the ghetto screaming “Nigger! Nigger! Nigger!” from his car window to make a statement about free speech, would you say “good idea, son!”

If your daughter insisted on walking two miles home through the ghetto … alone … after midnight … to make a statement about the safety of women in America, would you say, “what a wonderful idea!”

Naah. Didn’t think so. Yet you whack Pat because he points out the obvious: Muslims are nutcases and they will kill. I just don’t get it.

So maybe you have some other agenda. Maybe I have misread you all along. Maybe you really don’t care who they kill. Maybe you really want the Muslims to kill innocents and start some monster race war.

If you ask Pat, I suspect he would say that there are much cleaner, nicer, less moronic ways to deal with the problem, like expelling Muslims when they break laws, like refusing to let refugees enter if they are already in a safe countrylike Germany, like getting rid of family reunification, like getting rid of welfare for immigrants, or buying them out as Steve Sailer suggests, or extending the retirement age to 70, or enforcing our borders, or paying a child bonus so white women will start reproducing, or any of a host of other productive ways to get rid of our reliance on Mexicans and Muslims and make Europe and America European once again.

I know Pat would suggest all of those things, and I know you would agree with 99% of them. And I also know that you know this is what Pat believes in his heart of hearts. Yet for some reason you just can’t resist bashing him for pointing out the obvious: one way or another we are going to have to live with the Muslim World for many, many, many years to come. Gratuitously pi**ing them off and getting innocent people slaughtered doesn’t seem like a good idea.

I swear, the only thing I can figure out is that you loath him so much that your critical thinking and analytical abilities just dribble out your ears whenever he opens his mouth. Here the guy wants to save the lives of his people from a war started by newspapermen and you go after him hammer and tongs for being a Muslim suckup.

But again, maybe in your heart of hearts you are a Wilson or an FDR. Maybe you look forward to anything that incites bloodshed and horror. Perhaps it is because (like FDR) you think it is the only way to get the people traumatized and racially enraged. Larry, sometimes when you hammer Pat I really start thinking that a global war of civilizations is your true goal, not separation. It is the only thing I have been able to figure that would explain your rejection of Pat’s peaceful separatism and your mischaracterization of him as some Muslim apologist, some Muslim-lover.

So what is it Larry? Do you want war? Here we have Buchanan, warning us that the Hearst Newspapers were able to start the Spanish American War with their inflammaory language, and here you are supporting the inflamers. At times like this, Lawrence Auster sounds for all the world like Randolph Hearst: “Remember the Maine!!!” You talk all the time about how you are against the neocons and their war, but more and more you start to sound like you want a bloody conflagration, and you want it right now, you are just afraid to say so out loud, or perhaps to admit it to yourself … or us. So what is it, Larry?

While I haven’t had time to reply in detail yet to this very interesting e-mail, two readers have written about it. I want to underscore the point in the paragraph in the first e-mail below beginning, “Secondly, freedom of speech…” The Buchanan defender’s desire to eliminate press freedoms in the West because they are exercised by the secular left is a perfect example of Buchanan’s and the Buchananites’ core attitude that I have discussed over and over: the enemy of my enemy is my friend, or, at least, he’s not so bad. Thus if neocons and Israel (Buchanan’s principal object of hate) oppose Muslim terrorists, then Muslim terrorists aren’t so bad. (See my article, “Buchanan’s White Whale.”) If the secular left (another main Buchananite enemy) stand up against Muslims, Muslims aren’t so bad.

Mr Auster:

I certainly hope that that long, emotional rant from a correspondent who has a Buchanan fixation is not an indication of a “divide” among conservatives.

There are so many things wrong with his analysis, but I’ll just mention a few elements. By referring to the cartoons as “blasphemous” and “inflammatory,” he is embracing the Muslim perspective. These drawings should only be judged from what a reasonable Western person would think, not what a Muslim would think. By those standards they are quite anodyne, to use your word.

Secondly, freedom of speech is not the preserve of the secular left. It’s the most valuable right for preserving our freedoms, including the free exercise of religion. Just because a (presumably) liberal newspaper exercises this right, it doesn’t make what they do wrong. It should be noted however, that decidedly left-wing papers in Britain, as well as the New York Times and Los Angeles Times have so far refused to publish the drawings, opting instead to be protective of Muslim sensibilities.

Finally, the undisguised suggestion that the times when blasphemers were “brutally beaten” were better times is appalling.

Scott in PA

Dear Lawrence,

I must admit I couldn’t even read the letter of the Pat Buchanan supporter to the end—so out of touch he was with street reality and common sense. I quit reading in disgust shortly after I read: “It isn’t a handful of Arabs and Africans living in European ghettoes, even if they do riot occasionally and kill an artist here and there. It is the loss of any will to treat them firmly, insisting on assimilation… “

So many false premises wrapped up in one short sentence tossed offhand as if it were truth! First : We’re not talking about “handfuls” of violent Muslims in Europe or even in the U.S.; we’re talking MILLIONS … Second: We can insist all we want on “assimilation” of Muslims; it also won’t happen—they don’t want to assimilate.

Last night I heard a Muslim on a call-in radio show on the topic of these riots. A caller insisted—in his perfectly accented American English (scary in itself)—that the riots were “not Islam” and that the Koran is peaceful and that Muslims are over-emphasizing the Hadith— and people only have to read the Koran to know it is peaceful. I did not have the relevant nasty Sura on hand or I would have called in to the program and read the nasty Sura to the world on the air. Ugh. Keep up the good fight, Larry; you are wonderful.

Maureen

More excellent responses to the Buchanan defender are coming in, sparing me the trouble of penning my own response to him.

A reader writes:

I guess you will have plenty of responses to the Buchanan fan (which to a point I am as well) and anyway you don’t really need anyone to tell you where the correspondent goes wrong.

But I’d like to address the key point of the secular left mocking religion. In seeing this cartoon incident in those terms, Buchanan and the correspondent are being obtuse or at least ignoring the entire leftist media. You have only to go back to the Volokh Boston Globe post from earlier to see which side of this the secular left is on—as usual they are with the Muslims. The anti-secular, anti-Leftist position is in defense of the cartoons and apparently opposite Buchanan and his fan.

The “sophomoric” Danish newspaper was responding to a general Muslim refusal to integrate, and specifically the fact that a children’s book author could not publish a life of Muhammad that would have included pictures of him. The Danish newspaper was standing up for European civilization, trying to just say No as the correspondent demands. In crying about sensitivity to Muslims Buchanan is taking the side of the vast majority of the secular left. The Danish paper, secular left or not, was on the side of European civilization.

The correspondent mentions an image of Muhammad and a dog. That was one of the fake images put in by imams to incite violence, not the work of the “secular left” Danish paper, whose cartoons were unexceptionable fare, mostly uncritical even. So the correspondent is criticizing the work of the religious Muslims, falsely blaming the “secular left” paper, and missing the point that the Muslim leaders will cause trouble on their own, not in justified reaction to the secular left.

Blaming the death in the Middle East on the Danish paper is just beyond the pale.

Finally, I want to second Scott in PA in hoping that this correspondent is not truly indicative of a real divide in conservatism.

Alex

Mr. Anachronism (I love that pseudonym) writes:

Re the anti-Buchananism dispute in which some of your readers are apparently lambasting you with charges of condoning blasphemy … what blasphemy? I don’t see any blasphemy in the Jyllands-Postens cartoons, I see some (rather jejune) facetiousness in respect of the Musselmen’s glorious butchering child-molesting “prophet.” Why Buchanan and his minions should be any more upset about that than about mockery of David Koresh or Jim Jones quite baffles me. Hey, guys, wake up! This is a Christian civilization! Defend your own civilization! Don’t be so tenderhearted about the sensibilities of Musselmen (even though you cannot help admiring them for hating Jews so much)! Would it be such a terrible thing to make them feel unwelcome in Europe?

Respectfully yours,
Mr. Anachronism

Mr. Anachronism’s comparison to David Koresh and Jim Jones is apposite. Why should we have any particular respect for Muslims, either on the grounds of the validity and goodness of their religion, or on the grounds of their (non-existent) respect for our religion? A remarkable aspect of this debate is the way certain Christians make a dichotomy between religion and secularism, and then treat all religions as good, all religions as our allies against secularism. This is a catastrophic error. Islam can never be our ally under any circumstances.

In fact, the reasoning of supposed traditionalist Christians such as Buchanan in this area is analogous to that of open-borders Catholics in the area of immigration. The open-borders Catholics believe we should let in millions of nominally Christian Mexicans, because that will strengthen religiosity in America! In reality, it would disintegrate America further, and so weaken our religiosity as well. The open-borders Catholics see unassimilable Third-World Catholics as their allies against secular white Americans. In the same way, Buchanan-style Catholics see unassimilable Muslims as their allies against (or at least as less bad than) secular white Americans. This is woefully flawed syllogistic reasoning at best (“Belief in the transcendent God is good, Islam worships the transcendent God, therefore Islam is good.”), treason at worst. The right approach is to rescue and reform our own people, not embrace alien people based on the suicidal delusion that the aliens will “rescue” us from our sins.

On this point, see my Huddled Clichés, pp. 29-32. In fact, I will post that section in the next day or two.

On another point, the Buchanan defender’s repeated charge about my supposed “loathing” of Buchanan as expressed in my recent post is amazingly off-base. I hardly mention Buchanan in that post, and deal only with the arguments. To the extent I mention him, my tone is descriptive and objective. I’m not saying I like Buchanan; I don’t. But where in that post is there any evidence of the obsessive animus against him of which the Buchanan defender accuses me?

A reader writes:

One point Buchanan makes that is very solid is the hypocrisy of the “free speech” stand of these newspapers. These newspapers enforce some of the strictest PC and censorship codes themselves. They will not tolerate mockery of what they hold sacred, but are quick to raise the free speech shield when mocking what others hold sacred.

LA replies to reader:

You’re missing the big picture, in overreacting against the left. Those few papers were taking a stand against the Islamic domination of Europe. Do you support them or not? Do you want a Europe in which Europeans must obey Islamic taboos? Do you want a Europe in which Europeans cannot publish a cartoon showing Muhammad in heaven telling suicide bombers that all the virgins are used up? Do you want a Europe in which the violent nature of jihadist Islam cannot be linked to Muhammad and the Koran? Do you want a Europe in which even childlike cartoons of Muhammad cannot be published out of fear of death? That’s what the Muslims are insisting on, and threatening to kill Europeans if they don’t get what they want. Is the supposed hypocrisy of the newspapers an issue that is one thousandth as important as this?

It is clear that the Buchananites in their hatred of the contemporary secular West are siding with Muslims whom they see as pure, religious, and pious, as well as manly and tough. It was precisely through such delusions, such treason toward their own side, that various Christian and other non-Muslim peoples in the past came under the sway of Islam.

The reader writes back:

I said ONE point. I am pleasantly surprised the Europress (at least some) apparently have woken up and taken a stand as they can. I may be missing the big picture, but you may be missing the deeper picture—the self censorship of political correctness out of multicultural hyper-sensitivity is in no small part what got Europe into this mess in the first place.

LA replies:

OF COURSE it was the self-censorship that got them into this. But the fact that liberal Europeans have finally had it and are starting, even a little, to resist the Muslims, is something to support, not undercut.

I like your distinction between the big picture and the deeper picture, even if I’m not sure what it means.

The reader replies:

Well, if I can even understand it myself—I guess the big picture would relate to the event itself (as you correctly identify, the fact that Europe is finally waking up that Islam qua Islam is the problem—definitely support, not undercut). The deeper picture would refer to looking for a root cause, a more fundamental theme or paradigm that got us here, with the hope of uprooting or changing that paradigm for true lasting progress. Hence, this hypersensitive multicultural nonsense (not that I don’t enjoy a good Mexican dinner or humus, but I wouldn’t trade Chesterton for all the enchiladas in Mexico, and I won’t pretend that Aztec civilization wasn’t brutal and savage compared to the Spaniards who conquered them (although they also had their own faults when doing so)).

LA replies:

Ok. The search for that deeper picture is what traditionalists are continually involved in, among other things. I can’t get into that now, except to say that speaking of “hypersensitive multicultural nonsense” is not very helpful in my opinion. A mistake continually made by conservatives is thinking that this mess has been brought on by some kind of silliness, some gratuitous excess in liberalism. Such a view of liberalism make it impossible to fix the problem, because it is, well, so superficial.

In reality, the problem comes from liberalism itself. The postwar West delegitimized the idea of any national particularity based in religion, race, ethnicity, and historic culture, while simultaneously adopting the idea that we must either practice strict non-discrimination toward non-Western peoples on the basis of the equal rights of all individuals (right-liberalism) or actively celebrate and raise up non-Western peoples and cultures while despising our own (left-liberalism). These ideas are not a matter of “hypersensitive multicultural nonsense.” They are the mainstream, sacred, ruling beliefs of the entire Western world. If we think the problem is just hypersensitivity, or hypocrisy, or some stupid mistake, we will never be able to solve it. To solve the problem, we have to understand, expose, and reject modern liberalism itself. This takes work. It involves taking a stand. Complaining about liberal hypocrisy, which conservatives do all the time, does not take any work; in fact, nothing could be easier. But has complaining about liberal hypocrisy ever won a single battle for conservatives? (See my article, “How to Oppose Liberal Intolerance.”)

Conservatives don’t want to look at the deeper picture, for two main reasons: (1) it would lead them toward opposing the dominant beliefs, norms, and values of our (liberal) society; and (2) it would lead them to question their own beliefs, since essentially all modern people, including conservatives, are liberal. Yet as difficult as it is, this is the only way forward. It is only by thinking through how we got into this situation, that we can start working our way out of this situation, by reversing our previous principles and consciously adopting new (or rather old) principles. This is the work of traditionalists. It is work that we must do both individually and together.

After a couple of e-mails back and forth, I asked Carl Simpson to sum up his position about the cartoon issue, and here’s what he wrote:

On the cartoons:

We should support the cartoonists and the newspapers that published them—even if they are leftists—for the simple reason that they are very possibly beginning to see the fallacies of liberal multiculturalism dogma thanks in no small part to personally experiencing the dangerous and unhinged reaction of Muslims.

On leftists and leftist western governments:

Any western government that invites hostile aliens (like Muslims) into the country, suppresses the free speech of dissidents who criticize such policies, denies its native citizens self-defense, corrupts the electoral process, uses police power (or the threat thereof) to brutalize and silence protests from native dissidents is an illegitimate treasonous regime deserving no loyalty—only resistance, preferably of the non-violent kind. The UK Labour regime is guilty on all counts. No Briton who has any real loyalty to his nation and people should support this regime in any way—even passively. Any and all non-violent means of resistance should be employed to facilitate the collapse of this treasonous, illegitimate government.

Cicero’s outstanding quote applies:

“A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But, it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But, the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government, itself.”

To support such a treasonous government is a variant of the same moral error that is present in the idea of making an alliance with the Muslims themselves. As you yourself pointed out on Ilana Mercer’s blog, Buchanan’s siding with the Muslims against Western liberals is foolish even on its own terms because the Western left, which includes the Blair regime, has already made the alliance with them.

That said, not every Western government has reached the level of full-blown treason, though all are at various stages along the way. That is the reason I’ve singled out the Blair regime in particular. Sweden, France, and Spain are possibly already at this point. Other countries like Denmark have not crossed the line. I think traditionalists need to decide exactly where that line is to be drawn. Resisting a treasonous government is not treason. but patriotism.

Another reader writes:

I read through the second reader’s email that you posted and couldn’t help but laugh out loud at the pathetic arguments that he was making.

Denmark and the rest of the West ought to let the Muslim monsters know that this is still the West and that we plan on hanging on to it till the bitter end. Islam has no place here. Its that simple. After seeing the videos of hoardes of screaming Muslims baying for European blood, my tolerance has completely run out. These people riot over cartoons but have no qualms with blowing themselves up on a crowded bus or cutting someone’s head off on video. When I think about the situation, I’m given hope by the memories of a strong Europe and a strong European America. I’m given strength by the legacy of Charles Martel at Tours, the Normans in Sicily, and Polish army at Vienna. Let us not forget our own heroes who died fighting to protect us from the very monsters that we are currently letting in the front door.

Steve

Dear Mr Auster,

A somewhat minor point regarding the Danish newspaper, Jyllands-Posten, that posted the Muhammad photos.

The correspondent who wrote the lengthy defense of Pat Buchanan’s criticism of the newspaper wrote: “What he damns is the moronic incitement by European leftists.” Then later Carl Simpson adds: “We should support the cartoonists and the newspapers that published them—even if they are leftists.” A couple of American conservatives such as Ralph Peters, who are critical of the paper, have also made references to European secular leftism as if they are trying to get American conservatives to see the paper as the Danish equivalent of the lefty unpatriotic press like the New York Times.

Yet everything I’ve heard and read about Jyllands-Posten indicates that it is actually conservative. According to Wikipedia (admittedly not the most reliable source) the paper is even said to have played an important role in helping the current conservative government win the 2001 election through its coverage of immigrant welfare fraud.

Keeping in mind that Danish conservatives are more secular than Americans it seems to me the Danes are not motivated by hatred of religion in general but by a desire to resist a bullying Muslim immigrant community and political correctness. How depressing that some conservatives would attempt to discredit such a long overdue stand by a Western country by labeling it “leftist.” Do they seriously think the Muslims will give them brownie points for doing so?

Best regards,
Philip

Mr. Auster:

One gets the sense from the Buchananites that Christians and Muslims must be “brothers in arms” in a religious war against secularism.

I would refer Christians with this mindset to the Book of Judges in which Gideon is commanded by God to tear down his father’s alter to the pagan god Baal. When the townspeople become aware of this blasphemy, they approach Joash (Gideon’s father) to demand his son’s death. To this he responds: “if he [Baal] is god, let him contend for himself”. (Would it that Muslims had such leaders).

If the Lord is not too keen on respecting a competing god’s rights, perhaps we as Christians shouldn’t concern ourselves with protecting Islam from secular criticism. If one doesn’t support exposing the true nature of Islam, he should at least adopt Joash’s attitude: let Allah contend with the world’s evil cartoonists.

Thanks, and keep up the good work,

Posted by Lawrence Auster at February 08, 2006 02:10 AM | Send