Theodore Dalrymple: "No beheading, please, we're British." (Appeasing Muslim extremists)

City - Journal ^ | February 6, 2006 | Theodore Dalrymple

[UnklGene]

"No Beheadings, Please, We’re British."

Appeasing Muslim extremists means surrendering Western liberties.

6 February 2006

The weekend edition of Le Monde carried on its front page a startling photograph of a masked protester in London, holding up a placard demanding the death of those who insult Islam. Policemen flanked him on either side, as if protecting him from the vicious assaults of cartoonists.

Nothing could have captured better the cowardly and pusillanimous response of the British government to the crisis deliberately stirred up in many Muslim countries four months after the publication in a Danish newspaper of 12 cartoons depicting Muhammad (only one of which was remotely funny).

In condemning the cartoons, Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, a man with all the qualities of Neville Chamberlain except his fundamental decency, attempted to curry favor with the Muslim world, or at least to avoid its wrath. Revealing the practical value of such appeasement is the way in which Muslims burned down the Danish consulates and embassies even after the Danes, with equal cowardice, had apologized. But at least the Danes have the excuse of being a very small nation indeed—although their country produces far more, oil excepted, than the whole Arab world put together.

Instead of protecting the protester (whose placard, incidentally, was comparatively moderate compared with some others), the police should surely have arrested him for incitement to murder. After all, the cartoonists who had “insulted” Islam were individuals known to the public: in the context, the protester must have been referring to them. Even if the subsequent prosecution did not ultimately succeed, it would remind Muslim extremists in Britain that they remain subject to the law of the land just like anyone else.

This, of course, is not the first time the British government has allowed Muslim extremists to incite murder in Britain. When Muslims marched through the streets of Bradford to demand the implementation of Ayatollah Khomenei’s thuggish fatwa against Salman Rushdie, the British government did nothing, giving the impression—so far an impression that has proven fully justified—that it is too weak and lacking in self-belief to defend itself. Two thirds of a century later, the lessons of Munich have not been learned.

The supposition that the kind of people who call publicly for beheadings, or tell Europe to prepare itself for the real holocaust (the connection between Muslim extremism and Holocaust denial being a very strong one), will feel placated by a few expressions of sympathy for their supposedly offended feelings is psychologically preposterous and demonstrably false empirically. It is the reductio ad absurdum of the Clintonian propensity to feel other people’s pain as a substitute for a policy.

At some point, we shall have to confront the threat directly, unapologetically and vigorously. If we don’t, it will be our own pain that we shall feel, not the pain of other people. And, in a sense, we shall have got what we asked for.

[massgopguy]

Where's Chinese Gordon when we need him?

[rellimpank]

--good article--as always from "Dalyrmple"--

[dynachrome]

"Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, a man with all the qualities of Neville Chamberlain except his fundamental decency,... "

ouch!

[American Quilter]

Theodore Dalrymple nails it again.

[Thombo2]

At some point we shall have to confront the threat directly,vigorously,and unapologetically."Well said and i agree,but we're no where near that point yet.What's it going to take,a few more 911 type attacks?

[Bahbah]

Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, a man with all the qualities of Neville Chamberlain except his fundamental decency....

Ouch!

[Bahbah]

I should have read the comments first and I could have avoiding repeating exactly what you said.

[dynachrome]

2 seconds of gloating on my part for being first!

[Bahbah]

Gloating deservedly. It is a wonderful sentence and truly does elicit an audible response...at least it did from me.

[dynachrome]

Probably 10 or 20 other freepers just a wee bit slower than us.

[hershey]

What will get the UK's dander up? If Muslims kill the queen or the princelings? There has to be something they value enough to say, We've had it. (Just treat Muslims like the IRA.)

[hershey]

Great read.

[Kozak]

What's it going to take,a few more 911 type attacks?

Unfortunatley I'm betting it's going to take a Hiroshima level event.

[<1/1,000,000th%]

Policemen flanked him on either side, as if protecting him from the vicious assaults of cartoonists.

LOL!

The folks in NY never lose their sense of humor.

[Kozak]

ArrGH.

What's it going to take,a few more 911 type attacks?

Unfortunately I'm betting it's going to take a Hiroshima level event.

[VOA]

for the youngun's in the forum, here's a link to the IMDB site for
the old movie that inspired the title of the article:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070450/

[Tolik]

...The supposition that the kind of people who call publicly for beheadings, or tell Europe to prepare itself for the real holocaust (the connection between Muslim extremism and Holocaust denial being a very strong one), will feel placated by a few expressions of sympathy for their supposedly offended feelings is psychologically preposterous and demonstrably false empirically. It is the reductio ad absurdum of the Clintonian propensity to feel other people’s pain as a substitute for a policy.

At some point, we shall have to confront the threat directly, unapologetically and vigorously. If we don’t, it will be our own pain that we shall feel, not the pain of other people. And, in a sense, we shall have got what we asked for.

Nailed It!
Moral Clarity BUMP !

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[Brian Allen]

<< .... a masked protester in London, holding up a placard demanding the death of those who insult Islam. Policemen flanked him on either side, as if protecting him from the vicious assaults of cartoonists.

Nothing could have captured better the cowardly and pusillanimous response of the British government ....
In condemning the cartoons, Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, a man with all the qualities of Neville Chamberlain except his fundamental decency ... >>

This joker has taken a stone-cold dead-to-rights aim at the quivering yellow jello that is what passes for the dead and decadent once great Britons' collective back-bone. And is swinging so close by the the place once filled by the collectivist British soul and character that he risks being swept to his destruction within the black hole that now occupies that space.

The black hole that is, best and most frequently demonstrated by the obscene moral relativity of the execrable Jack Straw.

As to poor old Neville Chamberlain? He will forever be castigated for no greater sin than being, until Jack Straw, the past two hundred years' only British politician to truly know and to as-truly represent his electorate.