All I really want to do

A reader wrote:

Muslims believe it is their right to live all over the world and to spread their influence, but accuse us of being Crusaders and justify terrorism against any non-Muslims for being in or doing business in Muslim countries

I replied:

This needs to be seen not as a double standard or lack of fairness on their part (those are our Anglo-American concepts), but as the very nature of Islam. The world consists of Muslims and infidels. Muslims are commanded by Allah to wage war on all infidels (by open war or stealth, with occasional truces) until the world is brought under the power of Islam. Westerners make a mistake when they feel that Muslims are not “playing by the rules.” They are playing by the rules, their rules, which are the only rules for them and what they are commanded by their unchangeable law to follow.

Westerners think we can somehow get Muslims to be fair and “universal,” like us. This will never happen. Muslims—as long as they remain Muslims—have no choice but to be the way they are. That’s why the “rollback and contain” strategy is the only thing that makes sense. It’s not aimed at trying to get them to be like us (the Bush approach) or to wipe them out (the option that arises in frustration when the Bush approach fails), it’s only aimed at rendering them non-dangerous to us, by removing them to a place where they cannot have any effect on us and we don’t have to be involved with them in any way.

With apologies to Bob Dylan, here, for our own salvation, safety, and sanity, is the way we ought feel about the Islamic world:

I ain’t lookin’ to compete with you,
Beat or cheat or mistreat you,
Simplify you, classify you,
Deny, defy or crucify you.
All I really want to do
Is be far away from you.

I ain’t lookin’ to block you up
Shock or knock or lock you up,
Analyze you, categorize you,
Finalize you or advertise you.
All I really want to do
Is be far away from you.

I don’t want to meet your kin,
Make you spin or do you in,
Or select you or dissect you,
Or inspect you or reject you.
All I really want to do
Is be far away from you.

I don’t want to fake you out,
Take or shake or forsake you out,
I ain’t lookin’ for you to feel like me,
See like me or be like me.
All I really want to do
Is be far away from you.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at August 10, 2006 01:25 PM | Send