Posted on 11/10/2004 2:14:55 PM PST by Syco
As the outstanding Italian journalist Magdi Allam sadly noted in the Corriere della Sera a few days after the event, the murder of van Gogh probably marked the end of Europe's multicultural utopian dream, because it forces politically correct Europeans to face an identity crisis that is eerily symmetrical with the same sort of crisis that has been afflicting Muslims for the past 30 years. Both were provoked by Western victories: The humiliation of Arab armies by Israel in 1967, and the defeat and dissolution of the Soviet Empire.
The Six-Day War and the ensuing collapse of the dream of a pan-Arab empire catalyzed a resurgence of fundamentalist Islam and its intense intolerance of social, religious and political freedoms. In Allam's neat formulation, al Qaeda represents the privatization and globalization of Islamic terrorism in its crudest and most hateful form. Yet it appeals to many Muslims, including some living and even born in the West, because they find it spiritually fulfilling, and also because there is no spiritual force in Europe capable of challenging it.
As things stand, the Europeans are so enthralled by cultural relativism and political correctness that they are totally unwilling to challenge any idea, even the jihadists' program of creating a theocratic state within Western civil society. The terrorist groups consider themselves autonomous, a community of believers opposed to the broader community of unbelievers and apostates.
The killing of Theo van Gogh is a textbook case of what happens when a tolerant but confused society takes political correctness to its illogical extreme. For Mohammed B. did not choose terrorism all by himself. He was indoctrinated and recruited in a mosque where he was pumped full of the Wahabbi doctrine "predominant in Saudi Arabia." The murder of van Gogh was an instant replay of the many murders carried out by Zarqawi and his followers in Iraq, extolled by fanatical Muslim Imams. As Allam reminds us, not all mosques are fundamentalist, extremist, or terrorist, but all the fundamentalists, extremists, and terrorists got that way in mosques.
The Dutch — like every other European society I know — were unwilling to recognize that they had potentially lethal enemies within, and that it was necessary to impose the rules of civil behavior on everyone within their domain. The rules of political correctness made it impossible even to criticize the jihadists, never mind compel them to observe the rules of civil society. Just look at what happened the next day: An artist in Rotterdam improvised a wall fresco that consisted of an angel and the words "Thou Shalt Not Kill." The local imam protested, and local authorities removed the fresco.
That's what happens when a culture is relativized to the point of suicide. As Daniel Patrick Moynihan once remarked of an American politician, "he can longer distinguish between our friends and our enemies, and so he has ended by adopting our enemies' view of the world." This has now befallen Europe, which cannot distinguish between free societies — their natural friends — like the United States and Israel, and has ended by embracing enemies such as the radical Islamist regimes and elevating Yasser Arafat to near beatific stature.
The process by which the Europeans arrived at this grave impasse has been going on ever since the late 19th century, when the intelligentsia revolted against "bourgeois society" and its values, and sought for deeper meaning in acts of nihilistic violence, in fascism and communism, and in vast wars that engulfed the rest of the world. The Europeans might have confronted their spiritual crisis after the Second World War (some brave souls, like Albert Camus, tried), but the Cold War tamped it down. With a huge enemy on their borders, the Europeans finessed the issue, opted for a soulless materialism (that has given them a nanny state and a birth rate that promises to extinguish them in relatively short order), and pretended that the core of Western civilization was irrelevant to their lives.
When the Cold War ended, the crisis was still there, but they projected it onto us. The United States "needed an enemy," they scoffed, because otherwise we could not define our mission. But they were the ones who had lost their enemy, and thus had to face their own terrible contradictions and moral failures. Now they deride us because of our presumed archaic faith. They even equate American religion with the fundamentalism that now menaces them inside their model cities and threatens their enormously self-satisfied secular utopia.
Holland is now in the grips of violent reaction. Mosques and religious schools are firebombed. Emergency legislation granting new intrusive powers to security services has been enabled. The Dutch are groping for a "solution," but they are still ducking the real problem, which, to their consternation, we are dealing with more effectively and far more self-confidently. "The multicultural crisis," Magdi Allam wisely reminds us, "should teach us that only a West with a strong religious, cultural and moral identity can challenge and open itself to the 'others' in a constructive and peaceful way. And that the goal must be a system of shared values within a common identity."
Their actions over the past few days have done little to convince me that I'm wrong. Fire-bombing an Islamic school and a few random shootings actually helps make the argument that the Europeans seem unable to take the responsible steps necessary to address the problem.
Instead of emotional knee jerk reactions (which are understandable but not constructive) the people of Old Europe need to come to grips with the fact that their Utopian dreams of a multiculural, secular, "tolerant" society are just that - dreams. They need to understand that the moral vacuum that they have created is sucking in the most violent sort of element from the Middle East. If they don't wake up soon it may be too late.
I don't think van Gogh's death is going to do it. There will have to be a lot more death before the Europeans come to their senses.
I agree. It seems like the "solution" to their problem is not to solve it, but rather come to the USA.
Perhaps we can have a citizen exchange program with those on the Left Coast.
I agree completely. They'll have forgotten about this by next weekend and will return to protesting the existence of the Great American Satan.
I think it's too late for Europe. More people attend religious services in mosques in France and England than attend Christian churches. White European birthrates are nil. They've let the enemy in, and don't have the stomach for the fight.
He used to post here, BTW.
L
yeah the politically correct dutch will probably say... it was good for them to express their beliefs...
they say this by expressing their secular piety.
The wonders of 'diversity'.
I hold out hope. The train bombings in Madrid did not stir the Spanish, where one fatwah execution seems, at least, to have the Dutch moving in the right direction.
I believe the Euopeans have been their own worst enemy.
There will have to be a lot more death before the Europeans come to their senses.
not if the french can help it
Doogle
Quote: Instead of emotional knee jerk reactions (which are understandable but not constructive) the people of Old Europe need to come to grips with the fact that their Utopian dreams of a multiculural, secular, "tolerant" society are just that - dreams."
This is very true, but sadly it will take something like an Airbus flying into a building for them to wake up.
When I point this out to my Euro friends they insist they would never be the target of such an attack because of the respect and fair treatment of muslims in thier countries. I point out Madrid to them and there are nervous replys and averting of eyes.
Their security is so lax over there that it will more likely be some dirty bomb with will poision an entire city making it uninhabitabla.
They are going to have to learn this lesson themselves because they are so convinced of their superiority to Americans that the idea of following our example is just not an option for them.
Thos who will not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
I agree. Europe has soul-sickness and is now sick unto death. It will be interesting to see which direction Europe takes in the future. Without a moral society, Democracy will collapse. The only thing left is tyranny. The question is, From where will the next tyrant come?
The problem here is that Islam, like Naziism, cannot peacefully coexist with any other ideology as all other ideologies are a threat to the authoritarian-totalitarian mindset necessary to support such errant ideologies.
Freedom and tolerance are anathema to these deviants because free people will not submit to such tyranny.
Like Naziism, Islam must be wiped from the face of the earth. If we have to kill every last man, woman, and child in the Islamic world to assure our children of a safe and free future then that is what we MUST do.
I don't even know if an Airbus flying in to a building would do it. Look at us. We had 9-11 and last Tuesday 19 states still voted for appeasement.
I want to offer support? assistance? to them.... been there, like the little place.
I don't think they can do it. Perhaps Britian. But it will take many many deaths before they realize what needs to be done.
Disagree. One man, VanGogh, was murdered and the Dutch are talking about stripping terrorists of citizenship and deporting them. What have we done along these lines after 3,000 of us were killed?
On PBS a few days ago actual Dutch congressmen (woman, actually) called for their... whatever the PC word for 'disappearance' is.
The Dutch are talking. The Americans acted!
We arrested hundreds of suspected terrorists and sent the to Guantanamo.
We deported hundreds of suspected terrorists and visa violators to their countries of origin.
We froze the financial assets of terrorist groups all over the world.
We convinced the Pakistani government to get off the fence and join us in the War of Terror.
We liberated Afghanistan and destroyed the Taliban.
We have aided the Philippines in their fight against Abu Sayef. (sp?)
We convinced Libya to disband it's nuclear weapons program thorugh diplomatic channels - backed up by the threat of force.
We liberated Iraq, captured Sadaam Hussein, and killed his scumbag sons.
We have destroyed two thirds of Al Quaeda.
And that's just for starters! We have also had numerous victories in the War on Terror that you and I have never heard about in the MSM or the new media.
The Dutch have set some schools on fire and have committed a few other random acts of violence. Their government has *talked* about deporting some radicals and renoucing the dual citizenship of some others. They have also taken some pretty stupid steps toward appeasing their Muslim minority, like forcing the destruction of the mural that simply said, "Thou shalt not kill."
I'm not saying that the Dutch definately won't take this threat seriously, I'm just saying that I'm sceptical. They need to do a LOT more than they're doing right now to convince me that their even close to taking this as seriously as we have.
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