A more direct, personal approach to the Islam problem

I said in an entry a few days ago that it’s pointless and counterproductive to get personally angry at Muslims for their horrifying beliefs and actions, because such anger implies that the Muslims are guilty of some moral failing, and therefore that they can change and become better people and stop supporting sharia and jihad. But of course, short of utterly renouncing their own religion, which commands on divine authority those horrifying beliefs and actions, they cannot change, and our fatuous belief that they can change, indeed, that the only way we can be saved is by their changing, leaves us helpless before the encroaching spectre of expansive Islam.

However, while the problem is Islam, not Muslims as human beings, Islam could not exist and be present among us apart from the Muslim human beings who carry it with them and follow it and practice its dictates. It cannot gain power in a non-Muslim society apart from the Muslims who are putting into action its jihadist program of subversion. And their belief that they can impose Islamic rule on us—a belief fed by our benign or cowardly passivity towards them—gives them the confidence to keep attempting to do so.

What I’m leading up to here is that there is something to be said for personally expressing to Muslims—in forceful, even rude, language—our repugnance and abhorence for their religion, with its denial of the humanity of non-Muslims, with its sadistic vengefulness against non-Muslims, with its commands to wage war against and subdue non-Muslims. Obviously we should not employ such confrontational tactics toward Muslims with whom we have regular, personal dealings, but, when appropriate, toward Muslims we may encounter in various settings, toward Muslims we may get into conversation with, and, of course, toward Muslim spokesmen. This will put Muslims on notice that we are wise to them, that we are not patsies, and that they and their sharia program are not welcome in our country. If enough people began doing this on a regular basis, it would tell the Muslims that America is not an open field for them to colonize. They might become less aggressive here, and, in accordance with Islamic strategy and doctrine, start looking for more welcoming venues elsewhere.

These thoughts were set off by the following anecdote about the late Allen Ginsberg, as told by Mark Goldblatt in an article at, of all places, the libertarian magazine Reason. Here are the first few paragraphs:

I got to know the poet Allen Ginsberg towards the end of his life. Not very well, just a nodding acquaintance, but after he died I attended a memorial in his honor at the City University Graduate School. At that service, his personal assistant related a story about Ginsberg’s reaction to the death sentence pronounced on the novelist Salman Rushdie by Ayatollah Khomeini in 1989. Rushdie’s “crime,” you’ll recall, was writing a provocative, perhaps even blasphemous novel inspired by the life of Muhammad called The Satanic Verses.

Though I might be screwing up a few details, the gist of the story was as follows: Soon after news of the fatwa broke, Ginsberg and his assistant climbed into the back seat of a taxi in Manhattan. After a glance at the cab driver’s name, Ginsberg politely inquired if he was a Muslim. When the cabbie replied that he was, Ginsberg asked him what he thought about the death sentence on Rushdie. The cabbie answered that he thought that Rushdie’s book was disrespectful of Islam, and that the Ayatollah had every right to do what he had done. At this point, according to his assistant, Ginsberg, one of the gentlest men ever to walk the planet, flew into a rage, screaming at the cabbie as he continued to drive, “Then I sh*t on your religion! Do you hear me? I sh*t on Islam! I shit on Muhammad! Do you hear? I sh*t on Muhammad!” Ginsberg demanded that the cabbie pull over. The cabbie complied, and, without paying the fare, Ginsberg and his assistant climbed out. He was still screaming at the cabbie as the car drove off.

I’ve had a couple of weeks now to think about Ginsberg cursing out that cabbie, and cursing out Islam and Muhammad. You see, I live in Manhattan, three blocks from Times Square. As near as I can determine, I was walking with a friend about thirty feet from the car bomb on May 1st right around the time it was supposed to detonate. Except for the technical incompetence of a Muslim dirtbag named Faisal Shahzad, I and my friend would likely be dead now….

Let me ask the question another way: Where’s the rage? Why won’t anyone say in public what Ginsberg said in the back seat of that cab? If Islam justifies, or is understood by millions of Muslims to justify, setting off a bomb in Times Square, then I sh*t on Islam.

[end of Goldblatt excerpt]

- end of initial entry -

Richard W. writes:

A few other suggestions on tactics I’ve used:

• Go out of your way to walk up to woman in burkhas, chadors and other obvious signs of subjugation and talk to them. For instance I saw one of these death-shroud encased women dutifully walking behind her man in the mall. I went directly up to her and asked her if she knew where Sears was. (It was right in front of us.) Her husband started talking loudly to me, to which I replied, “I’m sorry, I’m not talking to you” And turned and walk away.

Under their law, no one except a male relative may talk to them, under our law we are permitted to ask strangers innocuous questions like directions, time or weather. It’s our country, and our law applies.

• Engage Muslim cab drivers on whether they have read Leaving Islam, and whether they understand that in the USA many children leave their parents’ religion in high school.

• If you work in high-tech familiarize yourself with export controls. Non-native Muslims are not allowed to work in many sensitive areas of things like software development, hardware development, cryptography, energy systems. Despite this they are often working in these areas.

• I’ve considered protesting at the local mosque. On Friday. Simple signs like “Islam Sucks,” “Allah is a false God,” “Islam hurts Woman.” I haven’t done this yet, but I think it would make for wonderful theater.

(Our local mosque was the center of a six person terrorist cell that included an Intel VP. They pulled all the cards out to defend them: racism charges, profiling, anti-Islam charges. But, in the end he pled guilty as the evidence was overwhelming.)

I agree that each one of us should turn the tables and force our customs on Muslims we encounter.

Sharia isn’t the law here, Mo’, it’s just another bad idea with a few supporters. They need to all get used to it.

Paul Mulshine writes:

Great stuff.

Mark P. writes:

I wish a time would come where I can dispense with all of this tertiary nonsense and, instead, drive these people out of here at the business end of a bayonet.

LA replies:

We should certainly not wish for such a time to come because it will mean that we have failed to remove Musims by making them feel unwelcome, or by outlawing their religion, or by lawful deportations, and so the only remaining recourse will be large scale violence and death. It’s a horrible future that no one should wish for. However, El Ingles in a 2008 article at Gates of Vienna (discussed here) argues at length that it is the most likely outcome.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at May 21, 2010 01:06 PM | Send