Muslim News. Some Thoughts

Teletext, for those not living in Britain, is a news service that is wholly text based and provides short summaries of what has happened in the news on any one day.  It is run from BBC TV channels one and two.  My experience over the years has been that any negative Israel related item remains for two days at a minimum while other items of news will generally stay for no longer than one.  What is particularly dishonest about the BBC is that on the few occasions I have complained about inappropriately worded news items my complaint has been dismissed with peremptory disdain and one sentence: “The BBC is not responsible for any content reproduced by Teletext which is an independent news company”.   So the fact that Teletext could not disseminate its propaganda without the electronic presence of the BBC is apparently not considered relevant.

I bring this up because on the 6^th of August 2012 a most curious thing occurred.

Teletext displayed the following stories (in order of appearance).  There were perhaps ten stories featured:

1. Fighting intensifies in Aleppo as fears grow that the Syrian army will launch a Full-scale assault within days.
2. Yemen suicide attacker kills 30 in an attack on a funeral service.
3. In Pakistan several police officers have been suspended after they were accused of parading an unmarried couple, naked, in public.
4. 48 Iranian pilgrims were kidnapped from a bus in the vicinity of a shrine near the Syrian capital Damascus. 
5. Deadly attack off Nigeria. Gunmen stormed an oil barge killing soldiers and kidnapping foreigners.
6. Key Afghan ministers fired after failing to prevent cross-border shelling from Pakistan and security lapses resulting in the assassinations of senior officials.

I recently read that there are some 30 conflicts in the world today, 25 of them involving Islam.  It is what Samuel Huntington (The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of the World Order) refers to as fault conflicts. These are communal conflicts which inevitably deteriorate into violent clashes, ethnic cleansing and war.

In ‘The Islamist’ Ed Husain states that the failure to conquer Europe is seen as “the unfinished business of Vienna in 1683” (where 1683 is the date that the Ottomans were turned back from conquering Europe).  By embracing Muslim refugees but refusing to define what is acceptable within our Western society we may be creating an economically stronger society but we are not creating a better future. 

When Turkey’s foreign minister publicly reminds his Austrian compatriots that they must not integrate into their host Austrian society; that their loyalty and identity remains Muslim and Turkish, it is an issue that we, the infidel fail to deal with at the cost of our identity.  Twenty million Muslims live in Europe and their population is expected to double or treble over the next few decades.  We refuse to discuss any issues that are intrinsic to the health of Western Civilisation where they conflict with the cultural values of our newest subjects. Multiculturalism is the not so new buzzword that invalidates rational debate.  We accept the totalitarianism of other nations, adhere to their fuzzy definition of terrorism and embrace their selective application of Human Rights legislation.  When human rights conflict with Sharia law we look away.

We accept their ongoing brutalisation because they are not our own but by being desensitised to their pain we vicariously brutalise our own societies. And ours is based on an assumption of progress but the relentless march towards darkness is possibly mirrored in our own Western States not because we stone our people to death or beat immodestly dressed women to a bloodied pulp but because in our confusion of identity we no longer focus on relieving the stresses within our own society.  John McCarthy is a British journalist and broadcaster. He was held in captivity by Muslim terrorists (in Lebanon) for 1,943 days.   He described this mind-set as the casual cruelty of his Hezbollah jailers. 

Slavery, execution for witchcraft, homosexuality and adultery; mutilation and murder; cruelty, violence and intimidation are a small part of the acceptable face of the Islamic world that we prefer not to judge.  Our own politically correct spokespersons warn us against the “American eye for an eye” or “the Old Testament way.” After Muammar Gaddafi’s butchered body featured on the front page of every British newspaper we became squeamish after the fact even though we (in the West) had encouraged the Libyan Civil War.  What did we expect?

And that is our problem as well as our failure. We have abandoned universalism for a carefully defined particularism.  Our interests preclude taking responsibility for the failure of others as we would expect them to behave if they were in our place.  In theological terms it is defining grace, and therefore mercy, as specific to the chosen. Secular belief in this entitlement is weirdly sacrosanct.  It enables the Left to choose its demons with enthusiastic abandon. It is the sweetest of ironies that the communications era while facilitating the prostitution of our beliefs has shown us the evidence of our complicity in the cruelty of others.

If we looked at the Teletext headlines a little closer we would notice that an alarming pattern is beginning to emerge.

When Sunni is not killing Shiite and Shiite is not killing Sunni their attention is focused on us. To quote the Koran “The war with the descendants of apes and pigs (i.e. Christians and Jews) is a war of religion and faith." Our failure to demand accountability on our terms has left the stage to the enemies of Western Civilisation.  Their fellow travellers will make any excuse to scapegoat others for their crimes.