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Programmed to be prickly
Last fall blogger Dennis Mangan, who has had many kind references to VFR, was discussing my debate with Steve Sailer about Islam. He wrote:
One might note that, while the call to violence against the unbeliever is of the essence of Islam, and Mr. Auster notes that he “never said Muslims are inherently prickly and violent,” Islam sure does make its followers prickly. [Italics added.] As I have called it, Islam is “The Religion with the World’s Biggest Chip on Its Shoulder,” and any perceived slight to it (the perception always of course being the perquisite of the one “slighted”) can result in a violent, and to the Muslim’s mind, wholly justified, response.Mr. Mangan is right to correct me on this. I was disagreeing with Mr. Sailer’s supposition that the issue of Islam is whether Muslims have some inborn racial or ethnic trait that makes them troublesome to others (Sailer being a racial/genetic reductionist, it’s the only way he knows how to approach the issue). The issue, I said, is not the racial characteristics of Muslims, but Islam. Mr. Mangan took my argument one step further. If Islam is the problem, and Islam makes Muslims what they are, then it is certainly true that Islam makes Muslims prickly—permanently so. This is because the Koran says over and over than any failure to believe in Allah and his prophet is not just a mistake, or even a sin, but an insult directed at Islam that must be avenged. It’s so wild. On one hand, Islam is a universal religion, the final truth for all mankind. On the other hand, Islam is an expression of the Arab tribesman’s honor/shame syndrome, which tells him that if he is insulted, the world remains out of joint until he avenges himself. Combine the universalist religion with the tribal mentality, and anyone who rejects the universalist claims of Islam has “shamed” Islam and must be killed. Furthermore, the insult and the resulting shame are infinitely greater than in ordinary circumstances, since the wrongdoer has not just insulted a member of some Muslim “tribe,” he has insulted Allah, he has insulted Allah’s Prophet, he has insulted the ultimate and final truth of the universe. Since the shame and dishonor that Islam has been made to suffer are infinite, so must be the recompense. This is why the Koran is filled with endlessly reiterated, sadistic promises of horrible and eternal punishments to be inflicted on the unbelievers. This is why any “insult” to Islam anywhere sets off mad hysterical riots throughout the Muslim world. And this is why Islam remains always a threat to the rest of the human race.
Howard Sutherland writes:
I’m not too well read on the desert heresy, so I have never seen it expressed this way, but it makes sense. Universalist Arab tribalism: I think you have just resolved the Moslem paradox. Posted by Lawrence Auster at April 19, 2006 09:12 PM | Send Email entry |