The religion that wore no clothes
On the question,
raised by Geert Wilders and Robert Spencer, whether we should see Islam as only a political ideology, or as both a political ideology and a religion, commenter Jim Farrar comes down on the latter side. He then reflects on the strange and depressing difficulty of getting even conservatives to see the obvious truth about the danger Islam poses to us, and I reply.
Jim Farrar writes:
The Islam problem is not so easily dealt with by simply declaring Islam a non-religion, as Geert Wilders does. Every leftwing organization in the country would rise up to defend Islam as a religion, thereby sinking any such political solution. I suggest that we need to face the issue squarely by declaring Islam as both a religion and a political ideology that is subversive and thus unwelcome in the United States. Substantive proof of this construction is much more easily compiled for all to absorb. This wording admits the essential fact of religiosity, but hangs the tag of subversive to the U.S. onto all of Islam.
A religion that is inherently destructive to the U.S. through a clear policy of political subversion must be recognized for what it is—an anathema to our democracy. We just might have better success trying to amend the First Amendment by inclusion of phraseology that excludes subversive religions such as Islam that seeks to overthrow the U.S. by stealth.
I do not believe that the time is right to pursue such an amendment, however, since the public is not really aware of, or even has an unbelief in, the dangers of Islam. The task of educating the public about the true nature of Islam is one of the laudable and recognizable services that VFR and a few other sites provide to the nation—if they will listen.
LA replies:
I agree that it is both truer and more politically effective to say that Islam is both a religion and a political ideology.
I believe that along with educating the public about the nature of Islam, we also need to put forward solutions, even if it is not the time for them. That way we are giving people a complete message: the problem, and the solution. As I have been arguing for years, it is destructive to the intellect and the will—it cultivates a bizarre intellectual evasiveness and doublethink—to keep telling people about a fatal threat they face, without indicating to them how this threat can be stopped.
Jim Farrar writes:
Yes, I do agree that possible solutions should be included in the argument against Islam. What I was getting at is that there may not be sufficient momentum, interest, or political will against Islam in the US to pursue any legislative or executive solutions at this time.
I have had debates with numerous conservative-leaning bloggers and commenters on the subject, and the position they most often take is that Islam is a peaceful religion and that we should not judge the majority by the actions of a few extremists. Most of these people are simply not informed about Islam, have not read into the subject deeply, and appear to wish their stance to be true regardless of the facts.
The media studiously avoids the issue of Islam as a threat, it seems to me. This makes it much more difficult to get the correct message out to the people, and allows apologists for Islam to continue their undermining process relatively undisturbed.
It is as if I were watching a slowly evolving national suicide through a thick, soundproof window, and cannot find a way to stop the proceedings.
LA replies:
You write:
“What I was getting at is that there may not be sufficient momentum, interest, or political will against Islam in the US to pursue any legislative or executive solutions at this time.”
Yes. Our job is to make the arguments, prepare the ground, build up a body of people who understand, in preparation for that day when the broader society might be ready to understand.
You write:
“It is as if I were watching a slowly evolving national suicide through a thick, soundproof window, and cannot find a way to stop the proceedings.”
That image perfectly conveys the horror of our situation. And it’s not as though the issue at hand—the nature of Islam, and the threat it poses to us—were obscure and difficult to grasp. The truth has been widely known, completely manifested, self evident, self-announced, and suffered from by our ancestors for over a thousand years. So how can people know nothing about it? The deep ignorance and persistant denial of such a basic fact is like not knowing and persistently denying that Africa is a continent, or that mammals nurse their young.
I was about to say that the only explanation for this horrible blindness is liberalism, but maybe the problem goes deeper than that. After all, the story of the emperor who went about in public wearing no clothes while none of his subjects noticed it, long antedates liberalism. So maybe the cause of the blindness is generic to humanity itself, namely the sway that authority and social conformity have over people’s minds. In an absolute monarchy, people cannot allow themselves to see that the emperor is wearing no clothes. In modern liberal society, people cannot allow themselves to see that the Other is wearing no clothes.
- end of initial entry -
May 9
Jim Farrar writes:
I suggest that there is another possible explanation for the public’s wilful blindness regarding Islam. Both leftists and Muslims want to tear down the current U.S. government in order to reconstruct it along their preferred lines. Thus their first objective is the same, and the media are aiding them both by steering the public in the wrong direction with misinformation.
Perhaps the liberals (neo-Marxists all) believe that they can control subsequent events within the U.S. after the fall. Obama is in a perfect position to exert the necessary control over subsequent events. Muslims see the fall of the U.S. as a huge benefit to their long-range objectives. The public is lulled into the extremism meme and thus sits back and allows the death by a thousand cuts to continue, with Obama leading the way.
Now that is a conspiracy theory that scares me.
David H. of Oregon writes:
It is easy for me to accept that Islam is a political movement wearing the cloak of a religion, since there are other examples of this situation. In the Roman empire, any Christian dissent from the state pagan religion was inevitably a political statement, due to the unity of religion and state.
In the Netherlands of the late 1500s, Dutch Protestants were subjected to the most appalling tortures and martyrdom by the Catholic Spanish who controlled the country at that time. The Spanish must have assumed that failure to adopt Catholicism was a political statement of opposition to Spanish rule.
Jim Farrar writes:
I should have read your sterling speech before I entered into our recent exchanges. You covered the ground thoroughly, and I admire your clarity of thought. Please forgive me for the redundancies.
For some time I have entertained the idea of common purposes between the liberals and Islam, perhaps more tacit than deliberate, but a firm objective they both sign up to—destruction of our society. Strange bedfellows indeed, but it would be so … so practical … as a first step!
LA replies:
I didn’t feel you were being redundant.
Ron K. writes:
You wrote: “After all, the story of the emperor who went about in public wearing no clothes while none of his subjects noticed it, long antedates liberalism.”
The story, by Hans Christian Andersen, appeared in 1837. He was the modern-day Aesop. He didn’t collect them, like the Grimms; he made them up himself.
So it depends on what you mean by “liberalism” here. It mocks vanity and insecurity (of the emperor) and sycophancy (of his retinue), so maybe it can be read as a “Sailerite” critique of liberalism!
At any rate, some form of the modern disease must have been extant at the time, because Dickens came up with the marvelously apt Mrs. Jellyby only 15 years later.
Mencken once praised some musicologist for pointing out that “folk” songs weren’t. They were always the work of some creative individual (though at times fine-tuned by other creative individuals) whose name was lost. That went against the lefty ethos of their day.
Ron K. writes:
David H. of Oregon wrote:
“…Dutch Protestants were subjected to the most appalling tortures and martyrdom by the Catholic Spanish who controlled the country at that time. The Spanish must have assumed that failure to adopt Catholicism was a political statement of opposition to Spanish rule.”
Notice three oddities about the Spanish:
1) They were willing to torture in the name of their religion.
2) They (and their ex-colonials) are the only people in Christendom who dare name their children directly after the founder of their religion.
3) The supply of consonants in their language differs strikingly from that of their near neighbors Galician, Portuguese, Catalan, Provencal and French, and even some of their own dialects (e.g. the source of ‘sherry’ wine.)
I’m sure there are others. But can’t you see the obvious influence of seven centuries of Mohammedanism and/or Araby in all these?
The Dutch blogger “Snouk Hurgronje” writes:
“David H. of Oregon writes:
It is easy for me to accept that Islam is a political movement wearing the cloak of a religion, since there are other examples of this situation…. In the Netherlands of the late 1500s, Dutch Protestants were subjected to the most appalling tortures and martyrdom by the Catholic Spanish who controlled the country at that time. The Spanish must have assumed that failure to adopt Catholicism was a political statement of opposition to Spanish rule.”
David H. is right. There is a painting by a Dutch Master Adriaen van de Venne who painted a religious-political painting in 1614 during the 80 years war against Catholic/Spanish rule. It is called “Soul Fishing” (Zielenvisserij) from Matthew 4:18-20. On the left bank of the river the Protestants are fishing for souls and on the right bank the Roman Catholics. I think you can see where the allegiance of the painter lies!
LA replies:
The image of the painting is too dark to make much out of it. I can’t easily see fishermen, let alone who are the “good” fishermen!
Posted by Lawrence Auster at May 08, 2009 11:25 PM | Send