Muslims get their own sitcom

On one hand, people are right to be stunned and upset by the upcoming Canadian tv comedy series, Little Mosque on the Prairie, about a small community of Muslims living in rural Saskatchewan, since the obvious intent of the program is to “mainstream” Islam and further silence any criticisms of it, even as Muslims in Canada become more aggressive in their behavior and demands. On the other hand, to be shocked or surprised by the existence of such a program makes no more sense than to be shocked or surprised by Keith Ellison’s wanting to take his oath of office on the Koran. In recent decades, America and other Western countries have let in vast numbers of Muslims. Also in recent decades, tv comedies have often highlighted minority and immigrant characters and families. TV of course loves to bring diversity to the fore. Did anyone imagine that there would be some wall against Muslims being given the same treatment?

If we don’t want Muslim tv shows, if we don’t want Muslims in Congress taking their oath on the Koran, there is only ONE answer: there must not be significant Muslim populations living in our society. To allow in millions of Muslims (or, the same thing, to remain silent while our government allows in millions of Muslims), and then be scandalized by the fact that the people we’ve let in actually are (gasp) Muslims and believe in the Koran and sharia, is intellectually absurd and a waste of mental energy. The problem is not Muslim tv shows. The problem is the large-scale presence of Muslims among us.

Is there a less draconian way of solving the problem, short of stopping and reversing Muslim immigration? What about the Robert Spencer approach? Ask all the people involved in this show if they favor jihad, and remove anyone from the show who does. And what if they all answer honestly that they don’t favor jihad? Then there would be nothing more to say against the show.

Face reality. You either want to live in a society free of Islam, or you don’t—and there ain’t no neutral ground.

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Now, some may object to the way I’ve put it here, because my focus on the mere presence of Islam in Canada could be seen as showing an indifference to the specific outrage being perpetrated on the Canadian public by the CBC. And, yes, as I’ve indicated,I’m sure that the show will have content aimed at advancing the acceptance of Islam and weakening the will of Canadian to resist it. It will undoubtedly say outrageously false and demoralizing things. As Peter G. writes from Canada:

The Canadian government broadcaster (Pravda) has developed this as a sitcom. No joke, have seen several excerpts. It surreptitiously exercises what I call D&D (dawa and dimminizing) by propagandizing Muslim beliefs and habits, which non-Muslims are to be sensitized to. Our culture up here is into ideological thrill seeking, higher doses of liberalism are constantly needed for a satisfying fix.

So, one would say this show is not just about Islam in Canada; rather it’s about the way the leftist and Muslim cultural elites are using Islam to undermine Canada.

But that view is still based on the implied assumption that Muslims can be moderate and that Islam as such could fit into Canada, if it just weren’t “pushed down everyone’s throats,” as the saying goes.

All this is, unfortunately, false, because for Muslims to assimilate, they would have to cease being Muslims. Just as, in order to democratize, a Muslim country would have to cease being Islamic. This is what Westerners have never realized. Islam as such is totally unassimilable to a Western society. If you bring large numbers of Muslims in, they will start to assert Islam, which will make many Canadians uncomfortable. But if the Canadians are uncomfortable about it, why did they go along with letting the Muslims in? Because they had this vague notion of assimilation. But they never asked themselves what this assimilation would actually have to consist of in the case of Muslims. If they had realized that assimilation of Muslims would require that the Muslims cease to be Muslims, they might not have let them in. But they didn’t think.

Peter says the show “propagandizes Muslim beliefs and habits, which non-Muslims are to be sensitized to.” But that is exactly what you would expect Muslims to do in a non-Muslim country once the Muslims had developed enough political and cultural strength to do so. Muslims advance Islam and make non-Muslims yield to it. This is not something out of the ordinary. That’s been going on for 1,400 years. The tactics used by Muslims change from time to time and from place to place. The overall, Koranically mandated direction of Islam remains the same.

So how would such a show be stopped, once you have Muslims in Canada? By telling Muslims that they shouldn’t push Islamic ideas and attitudes? But those are their ideas and attitudes, and they’re not going to give them up, unless they are absolutely forced to. Is anyone in Canada including the people who are unhappy about this program even remotely considering forcing Muslims to give up their beliefs and habits, including their habit of forcing others to accommodate their beliefs and habits? No.

The problem cannot be solved within the present Western frame of thought.

We of the West have only two options. To spend the rest of our lives impotently complaining about each new Islamic outrage as Islam gains more and more power over us, or to give up our liberalism and recognize that Islam itself is the problem and doesn’t belong here. As long as we remain liberals, the Islam problem is insuperable. But the moment we cease to be liberals, the veil will fall from our eyes and we will see the Muslim problem clearly and discover the perfectly rational, commonsensical, and morally justified steps by which we can save ourselves.

I had asked Peter G. to forward to me any conservative reactions to the show. He wrote back:

Nothing thoughtful on the radar. Larry, the problem in Canada is the intellectual environment is corrupted, a biological metaphor would best describe it. What passes as conservatism has degenerated into being merely impressionistic, never instructive. Howling at the rotting carcass’s stench rather than a reasoned and logical treatise is what often passes as the conservative critique. This has come about from the education system’s relentless efforts to stamp out differentiation and presumption, fundamental requirements for meaningful thought. Conservatism apes legitimate dissent, agitating the populace by repetitively reminding them of matters they’re well familiar with.

It’s doubtful anything other than accolades will stream from our media. The cranks and bigots will be given just enough air time to allow anything posing as a conservative perspective to be pillories.

LA replies:

“Howling at the rotting carcass’s stench rather than a reasoned and logical treatise is what often passes as the conservative critique.”

The carcass being described here is not just that of liberalism, but of conservatism.

But that raises the question: Is the problem that conservatism is dying/dead, or that real conservatism, i.e., real opposition to liberalism within a civilized modern Western context, has never existed in the first place, and must be created?

Posted by Lawrence Auster at January 06, 2007 07:43 PM | Send