Posted on 01/23/2007 5:17:59 PM PST by Free ThinkerNY
The Enemy At Home (Dinesh D’Souza argues that the cultural Left is responsible for 9/11)
By Jamie Glazov
FrontPageMagazine.com | January 23, 2007
Frontpage Interview’s guest today is Dinesh D’Souza, the Rishwain Research Scholar at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. He is the author of several bestselling books, including Illiberal Education, The Virtue of Prosperity, and What's So Great About America. He is the author of the new book The Enemy At Home: The Cultural Left and Its Responsibility for 9/11.
FP: Dinesh D’Souza, welcome to Frontpage Interview.
D’Souza: Thank you.
FP: I’d like to announce to our readers right up front that Mr. D’Souza and I disagree with each other on various aspects of his argument in his new book. And the two of us have had an exchange here at Frontpage about our disagreements. However, out of courtesy to Mr. D’Souza, in this first part of our interview we will allow him to express his thesis without any rebuttal from my end. In this way, Mr. D'Souza can crystallize his main points without us getting into a point-counterpoint exchange which may prevent his main thesis from being clearly synthesized. Then, in tomorrow’s issue, we will publish the debate between us.
So let’s begin. Mr. D’Souza, what inspired you to write this book?
D’Souza: While I was researching my previous book What’s So Great About America I realized that there was a big debate about Islamic radicalism going on in this country, but it bore little or no resemblance to what Muslims were saying in their own countries. A good example of this is Sayyid Qutb, the Egyptian writer who has been called “the brains behind Bin Laden.” Here in this country we hear that the Islamic radicals are against science and capitalism and democracy. “They hate us for our freedom.” Qutb was for science and capitalism. He supported democracy. Yes, he wanted an Islamic state under sharia. His point was that sharia should reflect the religious and moral sentiments of the Muslim people. His anti-Americanism was based on what he saw as the paganism and immorality of American culture. He didn’t hate us for our freedom, he hated us for how we have used our freedom.
FP: One of the points you stress is that the war on terror is not a “war of competing fundamentalisms” between Islamic fundamentalism and Christian fundamentalism. Tell us why you find it important to make this point.
D’Souza: If this was a war of competing fundamentalisms, then clearly the solution is secularism. And this is what many people, mostly on the left but some on the right, are recommending today. “Bring on the Islamic Reformation.” These people think that an Islamic Reformation would go down the same path as the Protestant Reformation, toward secularism. But Islam is in the middle of a Reformation. The only problem is that during such a time there is a return to origins, to the way the faith started. Islam began with a unification of church and state, an infusion of Islam into all aspects of the society. And this is what many Muslims want, not just “fundamentalists” but also traditional Muslims.
So when religious Muslims look at America, what they object to is not Christian fundamentalism but what they see as an official stance of atheism. Bin Laden calls America the fountainhead of global paganism, and many Muslims agree. We don’t think of separation of church and state as atheism, but Islam is a religion of law rather than creed. Islam in this respect is like ancient Judaism. So for Muslims, the idea of expelling God out of the public sphere of society is atheism. In fighting America the radical Muslims believe they are protecting not just Islam but monotheism against the greatest embodiment and promoters of atheism in the world, which is us.
FP: You argue that liberal popular culture has created a blowback of resistance from traditional cultures, especially Islamic culture. Kindly explain.
D’Souza: Here in America we know that there is a distinction between the values of American popular culture and the values by which Americans live. But for a Muslim on the streets of Cairo or Islamabad, American popular culture reflects what America is all about. Our popular culture is our country’s face to the world. There is an attractive aspect to this culture, its vitality and individuality. But there is also a lot in this culture that is excessive and trivial and indecent and shameful. I’m not just talking about rap music and Jerry Springer, but also about so-called high culture. Eve Ensler is very proud that her “Vagina Monologues” has played worldwide, including in many Muslim countries. She is especially proud of sequences in which people stand up and discuss their vaginas. Now you have to remember that outside of Europe andAmerica, most of the cultures of the world are quite traditional. They are socially quite conservative. Islamic culture is especially conservative in valuing female modesty and childhood innocence. So things that we may consider edgy or “pushing the envelope” here in America are, in the Muslim world, considered shocking evidence of American moral degeneracy. The radical Muslims say it’s one thing for Americans to have these perversions in their own society, but now they are forcing it upon the rest of the world. So the call to jihad is issued defensively: to protect Islamic society from values that will undermine the religion and destroy the family and corrupt the children.
FP: If Islam rejects separation of church and state, how can Muslim countries become democratic?
D’Souza: Separation of church and state is an American invention. Even the Europeans don’t have it. In England you have the Anglican church which is an official establishment. Even European countries which are more secular than the United States often give money to religious schools and so on. So religious establishment is consistent with religious toleration. And religious toleration is an idea that has long been upheld in Islam. When Catholic Spain gave the Jews three choices—leave the country, convert to Christianity, or be killed—Jews and other religious minorities were living peacefully and practicing their religion in Muslim empires, from the Mughal empire in India to the Abbasid empire and later the Ottoman empire based in Turkey. True, the Islamic empires discriminated against other religions, but they put up with them and gave them considerable control over their own communities. The radical Muslims are trying to get rid of this tradition of religious toleration, but the traditional Muslims still abide by it. Here is something within the Muslim tradition that can provide a foundation for Muslim democracy.
FP: You cite Abu Ghraib as an example of the depravity of “liberal family values.” Why exactly do you say this?
D’Souza: For Muslims, torture was not the big story at Abu Ghraib. Historian Bernard Lewis has said that compared to prisons anywhere in the Muslim world, Abu Ghraib was like Disneyland. Many of the infamous pictures depicting captives blindfolded, or with wires all around them—that was simulated torture, not real torture. What really scandalized the Muslim world was the pictures of sexual depravity. Now even some conservatives minimized this at the time, I guess in the hope that it would make the scandal go away. “It was just a fraternity prank,” and so on. But for traditional societies where honor is the highest social value, there is nothing amusing about taking a religious man and putting a woman’s underwear on his head. There is no humor in stripping him naked and forcing him to masturbate while you take photos. For many Muslims Abu Ghraib was an illustration of what perverts Americans have become, and how lightly we tread on other people’s sacred beliefs. We think that a little sexual tomfoolery is nothing compared to cutting of a man’s head and broadcasting the assassination on the Internet. But for many Muslims, it’s bad to kill a man but it’s worse to strip away his honor. This is why some traditional Muslims are reluctant to condemn their radical counterparts. They don’t want to be seen as taking the side of Western depravity, a depravity that my book shows to be the product of contemporary liberalism.
FP: You challenge the idea that radical Muslims are against modern science, democracy and capitalism. How come?
D’Souza: Because they’re not. Read the works of the leading thinkers of Islamic radicalism, like Qutb and Sharia’ti and Mawdudi. They are all champions of modern science. They like capitalism. Now democracy is a trickier issue. Here the radical Muslims are divided. Some, like Qutb, support democracy while others say we cannot allow the will of the people to substitute for the will of God. But in the last decade and a half most of the leading organizations of radical Islam have become enthusiastic proponents of democracy. Why? Not because they have been reading The Federalist Papers. The reason they support democracy is that they have discovered that this is an excellent way to come to power. Look at the success of the Islamic Salvation Front in Algeria in the 1990s. Or the success of Hamas. Or of the Muslim Brotherhood in the Egyptian parliamentary election.
FP: You say that liberal foreign policy sowed the seeds of 9/11. How?
D’Souza: First the liberals advising Jimmy Carter helped radical Islam to capture its first major state. Since the 1920s the radical Muslims were on the margins of society. But in 1979 they came to power in Iran. How did this happen? Well, our friend Carter was elected in 1976 on a human rights platform. The liberals went to Carter and said, “You can’t support the Shah of Iran because he is a dictator. He has a secret police. He violates human rights.” And so Carter began to pull the Persian rug out from under America’s ally. As resistance to the Shah mounted, Carter urged the Shah not to resist it but to abdicate, which he did. And the result was Khomeini. In trying to get rid of the bad guy, liberal foreign policy brought us the worse guy. Khomeini invented the idea that America is the Great Satan. He called for martyrdom in the cause of fighting America. Without Khomeini, we would never have had Bin Laden. Khomeini paved the way for 9/11. I’m not even going to get into Clinton’s role in emboldening Bin Laden to strike when he did. I’ll leave that for people to read in my book.
FP: You say the left wants us to lose in Iraq. But why? Aren’t the Islamic radicals a threat to women’s rights and gay rights?
D’Souza: It’s quite clear that the left wants us to lose the war on terror. Some people like Michael Moore and Noam Chomsky and Howard Zinn are outspoken in saying this. But even people who don’t say it clearly wish it. If you think the left wants us to win, then its actions become baffling and mysterious. You have to labor hard to figure out why they speak and act like they do. On the other hand if you assume the left wants us to lose, then all its rhetoric and actions make complete sense. But why? Because the left is a bit scared of Bin Laden but it is very scared of Bush. The left doesn’t like Bin Laden but it absolutely hates Bush. And while Bin Laden and his allies are the “far enemy,” Bush and the conservatives are the “near enemy.” As the left sees it, Bin Laden threatens sharia in Baghdad, but Bush threatens sharia in Boston. Imagine one or two more conservative court appointments and the whole liberal agenda of the past half-century is jeopardized. So the left is quite willing to ally with the lesser evil, the Islamic radicals, in order to defeat the greater evil, Bush and the right.
FP: We have a difficult time with the word “treason” now. Is treason the problem?
D’Souza: No, because the left loves America. Yes, I know David Horowitz is going to do a double-take on that, but it’s true. I’ll say it again: Michael Moore loves America. The only thing is that he loves a different American that we do. What he loves is liberal America, the America of labor revolts and bra-burning and the Stonewall riots and Roe v. Wade. What he hates is traditional or conservative America. Jeanine Garofalo said that she hates it when people wave the American flag but she gets teary-eyed when they burn the American flag. That’s because she identifies the flag with traditional American values. So she’s not anti-American: her patriotism is based on an allegiance to liberal American values.
FP: How important is the Iraq war? Can we win?
D’Souza: I am not sure how we are doing in Iraq. It’s hard to say because the media accounts are so untrustworthy. It’s important we win because we don’t want radical Islam getting its hands on a second major state. They already have Iran, and that’s a big enough problem. If Iraq falls, you can be sure that Egypt and Saudi Arabia will be targeted next. This is not Vietnam, which was peripheral to our vital interests. Our whole way of life, not to mention our security, depends at least for the foreseeable future, on a stable Middle East. So the stakes in Iraq are very high, and the Democratic Leadership that is trying to force a precipitous withdrawal is playing with fire.
FP: You say America can fight a better war on terror by making allies with traditional Muslims. What do you mean?
D’Souza: Our current strategy is based on trying to find secular liberals in the Muslim world, people who believe in women’s rights and separation of church and state. News flash: there are hardly any such people. Yes, there is Salman Rushdie and a lesbian radio host in Canada who have gotten a lot of attention. I like some of the things these Muslim liberals are saying. But they have no constituency in the Muslim world. That world is divided between the Islamic radicals and traditional Muslims. The left is allied with the Islamic radicals, so common sense says the right should build ties with traditional Muslims. Besides, there is no way to win the war on terror without driving a wedge between radicals and traditionalists. The traditional Muslims are the recruiting pool for radical Islam. Even if we kill 100 radicals, it’s no use if 500 traditional Muslims join the next day. So we have to find a way of drying up radical Islam’s recruitment. Whenever we attack Islam or say that Muhammad was the founder of terrorism, we are pursuing a self-defeating strategy because we are driving traditional Muslims into the hands of the radicals. My book, however, has specific suggestions for how America can work with traditional Muslims to defeat not only Islamic radicalism but also the global influence of the cultural left.
FP: Dinesh D’Souza, thank you for joining us.
D’Souza: It’s been a pleasure.
Interesting points and discussion.
Do Muslims blame the temptress more than the sinner? I have noticed this theme seems rather consistent vs christianity where the sinner blames his/herself.
I attended undergrad at a small Southern Baptist school and knew more than a few Missionary kids (MK's), Preachers kids (PK's), and others who came from a sheltered/strict homelife who had little to no self-control with their new freedoms. From my observations, more of these kids had problems with binge drinking, sexuality, and other social behaviors that most kids seemed better equipped to control due to familiarity. My observations are in no way scientific but I think this is a fair statement.
Many Islamic students who come to America come from a similiar background and homelife as do MK's/PK's or other fundamentalists. The "shock" of our culture was most pronounced in MK's who had lived overseas in a sheltered environment similiar to what is described by D'Souza.
My wife and I both saw enough of this to realize that we do not want to shelter our children from the world so much that they are unprepared to confront it on their own making wise choices along their way.
We live in a liberal culture where almost anything goes and some of them come from a strict culture where anything outside the norm can get you killed or beaten. I am sure for many of them it is jealousy but I can see how a few of them would be filled with self-hatred for their desires and transfer that hatred to our culture. Throw in the poverty, funadmentalism, and lack of perspective/education on top of these perceptions and I don't wonder that we are the Great Satan in the eyes of many.
I still believe their religion will never allow them to totally accept liberal culture. But, it is important for Americans to understand the threat our liberal culture presents to the culture of Islam just as it is important to understand the point you more ably made about the differences in Mosaic Law.
As others have noted is there are large numbers of them who come from a more progressive "Western" backgrounds who like American culture (music/movies etc) but we should all understand those who lived under the Taliban, in the fundamentalist ghetto's/villages, or other strict Islamic environments are ill equipped to understand our culture and predisposed to hate it. This is their main recruiting pool and it will not run out anytime soon.
There are also those who despite their education (or even familiarity with our culture ala the British terrorist) become twisted religious kamikaze's who feel convinced it is their religious duty to kill us.
We will have to fight both.....
We must understand the "why" if we are going to win this war and this author provides good insight into a small part of why they hate us.
Understanding "why" should help us realize why we must prosecute this war to the death until the radicals are gone for good because I don't believe we can co-exist and I don't think we will win their hearts and minds.
It took us over 40 years to liberalize our culture to the point that individual freedoms outweighed our social sensibilities. While I don't like all the changes from a socially conservative point of view..... it's not going to change. The MSM and our leaders need to understand that we don't have 40 years to liberalize them to the point where they accept us. It's not going to happen so where does that leave us?
kabar -
Thanks for your insight and I believe you are correct about the many reasons the Shah fell in Iran. I still think Carter made a fundamental miscalculation that is costing us dearly today but I agree that there are many reasons for what happened.
I also agree there are many reasons for what exists today and in no way do I (or probably any others on this thread) think this subject is the ultimate explanation for the conflict.
It is a small part of the "why" and I think we should all endeavor to understand it. If we understand what D'Souza points out we can better understand the fundamental differences between our culture and theirs. My hope is that the sooner we understand that the sooner we will realize that we are not going to "Americanize" them.
You must have had a unique group of students. The only "hatred" I have observed related to the US involvement in the 1953 coup involving the overthrow of Mossadegh. The idea that these students just learned of American culture when they came to the US is nonsense. As I indicated, there were over 70,000 Americans in Tehran. American culture and influence abounded. I have no idea what constitutes depravity, but there were nightclubs and bars in Iran. There were prostitutes and other such vices. Iranians were free to travel with many of them being educated in the West. American music was everywhere along with women dressed in tight jeans. There was untrammeled access to information.
I was present in Iran after Khomeini took over. Iranian women were forced to wear chadors overnight. Women went from one of the freest, most liberal societies in the Muslim world to one of the strictist. The Mullahs hijacked the Revolution and enforced their rules in much the same way as the Taliban. The current unhappiness with the current regime in Iran comes mainly from the students.
As for the reasons for the student influx at the time of the Shah's fall, I can only point out that the numbers support my point: Iranian students--many of them totally unfamiliar with America and even with the English language--came to this country in droves in the years immediately before the Shah's fall. Were they afraid of the Shah? Well, that may be why they put bags on their heads at demonstrations against his regime!
You linked the influx [using just a three year span] to increased oppression by the Shah. In fact, the increase you point to occurred during a period of less repression, at our urging. Those years were marked increasingly by demonstrations, strikes, electricty cut offs, and bombings of movie theaters. Life in Iran in 1978 became increasingly uncomfortable and dangerous. I am sure that some of those students came here to escape just that.
As I mentioned, there was a coaltion of groups that opposed the Shah and wanted him replaced. The students in the US came from fairly well off families. They were not the children of the poor and uneducated. Carter's human rights policies played into the hands of those wishing to overthrow the Shah. There was a significant Iranian exile population in the US who helped foment demonstrations in the US. Many like Yazdi, went back to Iran, after the Revolution to become part of the new government. Eventually, the mullahs got rid of them, including by executing them.
Of course the demonstrators were afraid of the Shah and Savak. But they shouldn't have been because Carter and Vance had put them on a short leash. We essentially greased the way for the ousting of the Shah and the takeover by Khomeini. Carter's human rights policy cost us valuable listening stations on the Caspian that were monitoring Soviet nuclear tests and allowed the current world's biggest state sponsor of terrorism to infect the world with militant Islamic fundamentalism.
The Iranian Revolution was all about power, not hatred of American "depravity." I am sure if they took a real poll in Iran today, most of the people like and respect the US and want us back.
Thanks. I think it is incorrect to make too many generalizations about Islam and the way it is practiced. I have lived a total of 9 years in three Islamic countries--Iran, Indonesia, and Saudi Arabia. And I have visited many more. There are significant differences from country to country. Also, many Muslims are not that devout nor do they adhere to the practices of the religion. There are more gradations than just traditional and radical. D'Souza presents too simplistic an explanation. Perhaps it is spelled out more in his book.
In terms of Muslim populations by country, Indonesia is the largest and India is the second largest. Approximately 13% of India is Muslim, which equates to about 140 million Muslims.
I agree with you. I've had similar experiences in the Muslim world. The stink coming from Western popular culture is driving otherwise moderate Muslims towards the radicals.
Just as we were greeted with flowers as the liberators of Iraq. I don't know what services you rendered to the US in Iran, but I sure hope it was not intelligence.
We were greeted with flowers in most of Iraq. And most Iraqis don't want us to leave immediately. It seems as though you would rather believe a biased MSM that generally never leaves the Green Zone than our military personnel and others engaged in the reconstruction of the country.
Do you believe we are the liberators of Iraq [and Afghanistan]? You seem to base your knowledge on Iran on your brief encounter with some small number of atypical Iranian students who seem to have derived their contempt for America based on their experience here. I say they are atypical based on interviews and studies done by USIS and others in our Embassies. We have found that the visitors programs, exchange programs, and students are the best way to strengthen our relations with countries. Almost universally, they return to their home countries with a far better understanding and appreciation for America than what they had before the visit.
Your gratuitous insult reflects more on you than me. Your ignorance is only exceeded by your arrogance.
I agree. Many of the Iranians that I met when I was in the Navy in the mid-1970's and when I went to college in the late Seventies to mid-eighties seemed pretty darned westernized to me, and I was very good friends with more than a few of them. They harbored no hatred of the USA that I could see, and seemed to enjoy being in the USA, and enjoyed trying to figure out the cultural differences, often in quite comedic ways.
I knew of two Iranian students who were rather angry and sullen guys. I disliked them both, and perhaps those two fit into the mold others in this forum describe.
"The marked increase in immigration can be explained through two important events. First due to the substantial wealth of the country prior to the 1979 revolution, many families and the government chose to send students abroad for higher level education. By 1977, Iran had more students abroad than any other country in the world at 227,497. By 1979 in the US alone, there were 51,310 college students, ranking first amongst foreign nationalities. Second, after the revolution in 1979, not only did many of these students opt to remain in the US, but many of their relatives also decided to join them, later becoming naturalized citizens (or residents)."
I guess the thing to keep in mind is...the viewpoint that Dinesh D'Souza is trying to convey is through the eyes of radical muslims, and those that sympathize with radical muslims, even if they are not radicalized themselves.
Good gosh, the radical Islamists regard everyone with contempt and hatred...no surprise there.
I am currently listening to a book called "Because They Hate: A Survivor of Islamic Terror Warns America" by a former Lebanese national named Brigitte Gabriel. It is a gripping and frightening portrayal of Islam. In the book she describes her native country, and how it was once a majority Christian country before the demographics changed due to a massive influx over open borders of poor, radicalized muslims with a much higher birthrate. They had lived for years in relative peace with their muslim neighbors until the early to mid-seventies, when the demographics took a swing and the radical muslims began taking over the country, driving out Christians everywhere they went. I am only a chapter or two into it, and she is making the parallel with what will happen in Europe and the USA if left unchecked. I highly recommend the book, as disturbing as it is.
I have to say...I have always enjoyed the Iranians who I had a chance to meet. I found them to be intelligent, thoughtful people with a well developed sense of humor.
The ones that I knew were grief stricken at what happened to their country, as was I.
I always kept in mind they were not part of the Arab world, and spoke Farsi rather than arabic. I still think that, although an entire generation has had to live under the hand of those moronic idiots who rule the country, and that generation has known nothing else. I wonder how much of the "Great Satan" rhetoric has stuck in their heads.
Thanks for the link...interesting read.
....maybe if we can get rid of the LIBERALS in this nation, including the ACLU, the NAACP etc etc, the Islamofacists just might stop waging war against us.
A disquieting yet intriguing thought!!
Oh, yeah, the Iranian students who were sent home after the takeover of the US embassy in their country were great ambassadors for American democracy! In truth, they created the Islamic state we face today. Where on earth do you get this stuff???
Well, at the very least, we could wage war on the Islamofacists without being undermined at every step of the way.
Many of them never went home. They stayed here asking for political asylum.
In truth, they created the Islamic state we face today. Where on earth do you get this stuff???
BS. Where do you get this information from? Anyone with an association with the US was suspect. The exiles who returned to Iran after the Revolution found themselves to be targets. The students who returned from the US were not the ones in charge of creating the Islamic state. How many Iranian governmental officials today were educated in the US?
I reiterate. The mullahs hijacked the revolution. They killed and assassinated anyone opposed to them. They didn't trust anyone with a Western connection, especially in the beginning. They were worried that the CIA and other US intelligence agencies would try to topple them. The poor and uneducated were/are the mullahs main constituency. They are the religious zealots.
When the Iranians overan our embassy on Feb 14, 1979, they put a former butcher in charge of the Mujadeen who occupied and looted the embassy compound. The Fadayian, a Marxist guerrilla group, also occupied our compound by setting up their operation in the Ambassador's residence. It took months before we got them out, only to see them return on November 4th and take our diplomats hostage for 444 days. The only real impact the Iranian students in the US had on the Revolution was to convince Carter and the US public that the Shah needed to be removed.
Very little. The mullahs have made a mess out of the economy and they are just as corrupt as the Shah ever was. The Iranians don't want to be a pariah nation. We should support regime change and offer real assistance to groups inside and outside Iran to remove the mullahs. We should not be negotiating with them and legitimizing a regime that is not supported by the majority of the people. The US has faded as the number 1 enemy, i.e., Great Satan. Much of the rhetoric coming out of Tehran today is a feeble attempt to create an external threat to divert people's attention from the problems at home.
You sound like you know of what you speak. Makes perfect sense to me.
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