Posted on 11/27/2001 10:25:52 AM PST by IowaHawk
Are you a Western leader of the Judeo-Christian or Agnostic-Atheist persuasion? Want to issue a public statement on how much you respect and value Islam as a peaceful religion of moderation and tolerance? Take a number, pal. The line's longer than the waiting list at a Quebec hospital. The Queen's spoken of her respect for "the Islamic community," so's the Pope and Tony Blair. President Bush does it at least a couple of times a day. A week ago, he hosted the White House's first ever Ramadan dinner -- not a banquet, that would have been insensitive, and the whole point of the Administration's "Ramadan public relations offensive" is, according to The Washington Post, to "highlight its sensitivity to Islamic tradition." In Canada, it can't be said that Jean Chrétien has made anything in the way of a coherent statement on the subject, but he has visited a mosque, as he never ceases to remind us. Ask him about border security or troop deployments or post-9/11 economic issues and he says, "I was proud to visit da mosques because dat to me is da Canadian value."
This is the most sensitive war in history. The President has urged Americans to be especially solicitous and protective of what he calls "women of cover." He has recommended that each American schoolchild get a Middle Eastern pen pal, though, with the current anthrax scare, I don't suppose the U.S. Postal Service is especially eager for a lot of envelopes with childlike handwriting from Mullah al-Mahrah's Fourth Grade at the Sword of the Jew-Slayer Elementary School in Kandahar. Last time round, FDR interned Japanese-Americans. Not only has Bush no plans to intern Muslim Americans, it wouldn't surprise me if he interned himself, just to "send the right message."
Do you find our language too insensitive? Fine. Let's make "Koran" "Quran," or better yet, "Qu'ran," or, if you prefer, "Qu'~*ran," whatever you want, the more the merrier, toss a couple of those wingdings from the new Mordecai Richler font in the middle. In the Thirties, when Churchill was attacking the Munich Agreement, the sensitivity-check didn't automatically amend it to "Munchen." But the other day, in the 24 hours between appearing in London's Daily Telegraph and the National Post, Janet Daley's column had every single "Afghan" surgically removed somewhere over the Atlantic and replaced with "Afghani," included the pull-out quote. Janet is a ferocious American of robust views and anyone less likely to say "Afghani" is hard to imagine. Hitherto, Anglicization of foreign place names has been an accepted custom, just as we accept that in Iraq America is spelt G-R-E-A-T-S-A-T-A-N. But, if appellatory sensitivity requires us to use the foreign version, let's do it right and rename Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry the Infidel Dog's Lackeys of Zionism.
Classic Steyn.
As usual, our Tolerance Police are very intolerant of insufficient tolerance. As The Toronto Star's disapproving headline put it, "Harris Finally Listens To Muslims." "Forty-three days after the events of Sept. 11," began Ian Urquhart, "Premier Mike Harris finally sat down last week with leaders of the Muslim community to provide them with reassurance that the provincial government does not see them as the enemy." Ah, that's lovely, and such a useful formulation: "President Bush finally sat down with leaders of the feminist movement to provide them with reassurance that the Federal Government has no plans to rape and torture them."
Was I out of town that day? Did some errant clerk at Queen's Park accidentally issue a declaration of war on Muslims? Apparently not. But the 20 community leaders present were concerned the Premier had yet to visit a mosque to "show solidarity," as Bush, Blair, Joe Clark, the Prince of Wales and a gazillion others have done. Maybe Harris didn't go because he he didn't want to be sitting on the QEW backed up in mosque photo-op drivetime. Or maybe he was just busy with other stuff -- meeting with Governor Pataki in New York, dealing with trade and security issues, announcing his resignation. Either way, the Muslim spokespersons didn't care for it. Concerned about public ignorance of Islam, they insisted that a world religions course be made part of the core curriculum in Ontario schools. That's not a bad idea. An even better idea would be a world religions course in Saudi schools. I'll pay the airfare of any Ontario Muslim leader who manages to get an appointment with whichever prince heads up the Saudi education department.
British Muslim bigwigs went the Ontario guys one better, and came up with an ingenious wheeze. The Islamic Society of Britain drafted a "Pledge To British Muslims" and then demanded that prominent political, religious and media figures sign it. Tony Blair did, thereby giving everyone else the choice between opting for an easy life and signing or refusing and getting pilloried as a racist. After all, it's only a pledge to be "tolerant," and what could be more unobjectionable than that? The impeccably tolerant Islamic Society of Britain, just for the record, has denounced the Israeli government as "inhuman savages and murderers."
Britain has also provided my favourite newspaper headline, even better than The Toronto Star's. This was the story in The Sunday Times titled "Muslims In Britain Come Under Attack." If you read on, you discovered that, oddly enough, the only verifiable attacks mentioned were the attempted burning of an Anglican church by a masked Muslim gang in Bradford and a rampage through Leeds by Muslim youths. At the former, though the discreet reporters forbore to mention it, the Reverend Tony Tooby was pelted with stones by men who shouted, "Get the white bastard!", a Brownie troop of small girls was threatened and its leader, Lucy-Jane Marshall, stoned and jeered at as a "Christian bitch." At the latter incident, a mob vandalized cars, yelling "Get out of Afghanistan!" and forcing drivers to repeat, "Osama bin Laden rules!"
Nonetheless, we sensitive media types understand that the main significance of these events is that they could provoke a "backlash," no matter how theoretical. Hence, "Muslims In Britain Come Under Attack." To be fair, there was one reference to 12 pigs' heads being left in the parking lot of a mosque. Which mosque? Which town? Was it in Birmingham, where the Saddam Hussein Mosque is not to be confused with the Birmingham Central Mosque, which sells videos of bin Laden's calls to Jihad? But there was no room for details of the pigs' head incident. Sounds like the Jews to me.
Not all battle conditions are as favourable as Brownie night in an English churchyard. After September 11th, several British and American Muslims decided to sign up, with the Taliban. Some, alas, happened to be standing under the B-52 at the wrong time and will not be returning. But those who've survived and escaped the especial wrath the liberated Afghans reserve for foreign Taliban have announced that they're coming back and don't want any "hassle" from the authorities. By "hassle," they mean prosecutions for terrorism, treason and so forth. London's Mayor Ken Livingstone agrees. "These people went off because of a deep sense of injustice," he says. So we should understand their need to join a foreign army and wage war against their own (nominal) compatriots.
We madmen on the right dislike this identity-politics business. So I accept there are all kinds of Muslims. In Luton, whence came many of the Taliban's British volunteers, the mainstream, moderate Muslims claimed that a few extremists were getting the community as a whole a bum rap, and just to prove it they beat up the principal local jihad-inciter. As The Wall Street Journal's James Taranto commented, "Extremism in the pursuit of moderation is no vice." Doubtless the same differences of opinion exist among Muslims in Chicago, Boston and Saskatoon.
But the fact -- the fact -- is that, since September 11th, the remarks by the Queen, the Pope, the President and almost every other pasty face have earned no similarly warm, unqualified response from Muslim "community leaders." In the Ottawa Citizen's coast-to-coast survey of imams, all but two refused to accept that bin Laden was responsible for September 11th, even though he himself has said he did it. Every single imam was opposed to the U.S. bombing campaign against the Taliban. In that, they differ sharply from their happily liberated co-religionists in Afghanistan. In Washington, the best the Administration could turn up for the multi-faith service at the National Cathedral was Dr. Muzammil Siddiqi, of the Islamic Society of North America, who told the President and the nation that "those that lay the plots of evil, for them is a terrible penalty." Does that mean Osama's gonna get it? Or that the Yanks were asking for it? Hey, let's not get hung up on specifics. In Bush's Islamic home guard, it's strictly don't ask, don't tell.
At the UN, the President told the world that expressions of sympathy weren't enough; it was time for other countries to get on side. Yet, back home, he's happy to hold photo-ops with fellow Americans you can't squeeze anything but the vaguest expression of sympathy out of. He schedules visits with groups that are either covertly hostile, deeply ambivalent or deafeningly silent. This unreciprocated abasement is unworthy. Islam wouldn't be the fastest-growing religion in the United States, Britain and Canada if Muslims were thought to be "the enemy." Conversely, Christianity is the fastest-shrinking religion in the Sudan, where they really are thought to be the enemy. In Pakistan the other week, six children and nine adults were gunned down as they worshipped in a Christian church.
If the West's Muslim "community leaders," for whatever reason, are reluctant to speak truth to evil, that is a matter between them and God. Their opposition to the war is their right as free citizens. I don't even care particularly about prosecuting the Taliban's Anglo-American volunteers: To Hell with them. All I ask is an end to the deeply unedifying spectacle of Western politicians fawning on an anti-war constituency by jumping through increasingly obnoxious tolerance hoops. It suggests we have something to feel guilty about. We don't.
Britain has also provided my favourite newspaper headline, even better than The Toronto Star's. This was the story in The Sunday Times titled "Muslims In Britain Come Under Attack." If you read on, you discovered that, oddly enough, the only verifiable attacks mentioned were the attempted burning of an Anglican church by a masked Muslim gang in Bradford and a rampage through Leeds by Muslim youths. At the former, though the discreet reporters forbore to mention it, the Reverend Tony Tooby was pelted with stones by men who shouted, "Get the white bastard!", a Brownie troop of small girls was threatened and its leader, Lucy-Jane Marshall, stoned and jeered at as a "Christian bitch." At the latter incident, a mob vandalized cars, yelling "Get out of Afghanistan!" and forcing drivers to repeat, "Osama bin Laden rules!"
...
Not all battle conditions are as favourable as Brownie night in an English churchyard. After September 11th, several British and American Muslims decided to sign up, with the Taliban. Some, alas, happened to be standing under the B-52 at the wrong time and will not be returning. But those who've survived and escaped the especial wrath the liberated Afghans reserve for foreign Taliban have announced that they're coming back and don't want any "hassle" from the authorities. By "hassle," they mean prosecutions for terrorism, treason and so forth. London's Mayor Ken Livingstone agrees. "These people went off because of a deep sense of injustice," he says. So we should understand their need to join a foreign army and wage war against their own (nominal) compatriots.
Bump for a brilliant piece!!
The war on terror is really being conducted the wrong way. We should actually be showering the Taliban with love rather than daisy cutters. To hold prayer services at the White House at the beginning of Ramadan for these ingrates sickens me. This is similar to holding prayer services for Adolph Hitler because he was so misunderstood.
I am curious as to why you provided a link to the rest of the article rather than post the entire article. The reason would be obvious if the article originated from the LA Times or Washington Post but it doesn't. Articles like this provide perfect illustrations of Liberal PC reporting tactics, and are therefor ideal examples to place into the FR archives. Of course you realize that links to other sites change frequently and would be zero help to anyone that wanted to search for instances of PC reporting on the subject of Muslims.If you have a good reason I'd like to hear it.
BTW, I was/am a huge fan of yours. My wife and I would laugh hysterically at your APUPI articles you would so graciously provide to FR readers. I've asked you this question before, to no response, but do you have any or all of those satirical articles archived someplace where I could get ahold of them? I have managed to save a few myself :
BUDGET DEAL MEANS MORE FOR EDUCATION, REMOTE CONTROLS
G.O.P. GAINS 147 HOUSE SEATS; CLINTON POLLS HOLD STEADY
U.S. SKANKINESS UP 137% SINCE ’93, SETTING NEW RECORD HIGH
BLUMENTHAL SEIZED BY DEMONIC MIST; HILLARY IN GRIEF
SALON SHOCKER: YOUTHFUL NEWT “SPANKED THE MONKEY”
INMATE CLEARED IN CLINTON PRISON ASSAULT; “NOT REALLY SEX”
PREZ APOLOGIZES AGAIN; STARR HAS KNEECAPS BROKEN
PREZ TAKES VERBAL LUMPS AS MORE DEMS PILE ON
CLINTON SUPPORTERS STAGE MASSIVE APATHY RALLY IN D.C.
STANDOFF CONTINUES AT 'BRANCH CLINTONIAN' COMPOUND
GJ TESTIMONY INTERCEPTED, DECRYPTED!
NEW POLL: 62% OF AMERICANS HALLUCINATE, HAVE IMAGINARY FRIENDS
LOCAL MOM, 37, WINS GROOVY DREAM DATE WITH PREZ
And
WH SPINNERS BATTLE LATEST CANNIBALGATE REVELATIONS
But I know there's more. Can you please help (if you can), PLEASE? Thank you (even if you can't help with my request, you've done enough already).
Type "David Burge" as your search string.
I just read Lucifer Joins Clinton Team In Staff Shuffle. That was one of my favorites that I haven't seen since way back when. I'm going for Savages Cut Pilgrims' Alms; Get Thee To Protest next (If I remember correctly, you were suffering writers block at the time).
Do you happen to remember, or have access to, the one about Bosnia where you made up all those names for towns because it was all so confusing? I was seriously crying at that one, but can't find it in that list. I hate to press my luck but ...
He (the President) schedules visits with groups that are either covertly hostile, deeply ambivalent or deafeningly silent. This unreciprocated abasement is unworthy. Islam wouldn't be the fastest-growing religion in the United States, Britain and Canada if Muslims were thought to be "the enemy." Conversely, Christianity is the fastest-shrinking religion in the Sudan, where they really are thought to be the enemy. In Pakistan the other week, six children and nine adults were gunned down as they worshipped in a Christian church.
Great column by Steyn, yet again. Please put me on your ping list if you've started one.
BUMP for an absolute classic. That second paragraph is just too funny for words. Outstanding. I just sent it to my ma as a rebuttal to some silly Thomas Friedman column she sent me (I keep telling her not to do that).
let's do it right and rename Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry the Infidel Dog's Lackeys of Zionism.
Oh, LOL. I do so enjoy Mark Steyn. His writing is as important to good living as the very air we breathe.
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