Mock Muhammad, not to insult Islam, but to provoke the Muslims into revealing themselves

An English reader writes about Buchanan and my criticisms of him:

I just read Buchanan’s article on the cartoon jihad for the first time. What a disappointment. Certainly, I share Buchanan’s disgust at the hypocrisy of the liberal press, and, to a certain extent, his reluctance to gratuitously offend Muslims over Mohammed. The man was a bloodthirsty warlord, whose supposed revelations from the angel Gabriel were either cynical (and incredibly successful) lies or the products of epilepsy (not too dissimilar from the ludicrous Book of Mormon). Nevertheless 1.3 billion people view Mohammed as sacred, so I wouldn’t mock him just for the sake of it (not that I believe this was the motivation behind the cartoons).

What surprised me is how Buchanan fails to identify the Muslims as a serious threat to the West’s existence. Furthermore, even if he had bothered to identify this danger, his article would still lack any strategic sense of how we can deal with the threat of Islam. It’s self-evident that our best course of action is to deliberately provoke Muslims into showing their true colours. In this context, I do support the mockery of Mohammed. For it is only by stirring up the zeal of the Musselman that the herd will wake up to the threat Islam poses. Most of the population is completely passive over this threat. Since we ourselves won’t take action to defend ourselves, perversely, we must rely on the actions of our enemy to prepare the way for a remedy. If the Muslims throw us out of the Middle East as Buchanan suggests, then hopefully people will start thinking that it would be rude not to reciprocate! We shouldn’t be trying to avoid hostilities but rather to escalate them at every turn. Therefore these cartoons are just what the doctor ordered.

This article aside, though, Buchanan is probably the most stalwart defender of the West in American public life. He’s amply identified the dangers of Muslim (and Third World) immigration in countless other articles, not to mention ‘The Death of the West’. That’s why I was surprised to read this particular piece. Yet I doubt that it signals a descent into dhimmitude—rather that Buchanan failed to make the right judgement call on this particular occasion.

On a broader note, it’s a shame that you can’t stand Buchanan. With the exception of what he writes about Israel (which for the most part I haven’t read), what else do you and him disagree upon?

LA replies:

There’s much in your e-mail of interest. As for your question to me, I could answer at length but for the moment here is my short answer, which I’ve stated many times:

I will not associate with anyone who rationalizes, excuses, or supports people who seek to exterminate Jews.

Buchanan most definitely fits that category.

This does not make me a bigot against him. When, on increasingly rare occasions, Buchanan publishes an article or makes an observations that I think is worthwhile, I link it and approvingly mention it, but never without the caveat that I overall disapprove of him. This may seem odd to some people, but not to me. I don’t know how else we can exclude things that ought to be excluded, while at the same time not cutting ourselves off from the debate.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at February 13, 2006 05:30 PM | Send