Posted on 09/16/2002 11:24:29 AM PDT by drjoe
The "Dueling Civilizations" Letters
Charles W. Moore 2002.09.16
My 9/11 column, Dueling Civilizations: Islam and the West, proved to be quite a letter-generator. I was surprised and pleasantly gratified at the large proportion who got the point I was attempting to express -- that Islam and the Christian/post-Christian West are on a collision course, irreconcilably alienated at the most basic level of ethical, moral, principle, and essential worldview -- - and that many agree with me, although of course plenty did not.
I had not intended to get into another debate about the past sins and shortcomings of Christendom, but inevitably, I guess, the crusades and the Inquisition, et al., were dredged up once again by many as putative refutation of my thesis. No Christian who engages in apologetics is unfamiliar with these arguments, but I marvel at their selectivity, ignorant of the much greater cultural and social good accomplished by Christianity over the centuries -- not least that we take too much for granted as Western culture itself, but also the service to the poor and sick, to widows and orphans, the establishment of hospitals, the contribution to education by building and staffing schools and universities, the great music and art that Christian faith inspired and commissioned, to gloss over just the tip of the iceberg.
To focus exclusively on the moral shortcomings of some nominally Christian persons hundreds of years ago who did things that were in gross contradiction of Christian doctrine and principle is indulging in willful ideological blindness.
However, the main intention of my column was, again, that there is little hope for peaceful coexistence with Islam, because Islam, broadly speaking, operates on an entirely different philosophical, ethical, and moral worldview than does the West -- Christian or post-Christian. We cannot reason with the Islamic world at large (I acknowledge that there may be extraordinary exceptions), because the mass Islamic culture is disinterested and/or non-cognizant of the application of reason as the West has defined it at least since St. Thomas Aquinas' Summa Theologica.
The official boilerplate that's been parroted by most Western leaders since 9/11 is that Islam is a pacific faith whose reputation has been corrupted by a handful of heretics -- a politically correct and multiculturally sensitive fairy-tale that ignores the fact that the "handful" numbers hundreds of millions -- and on the basis of Islamic principle as laid out in the Koran, they are not heretics:
"Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day . . . until they pay compensation with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued." It promises that "if you are slain or die in the way of Allah, forgiveness and mercy from Allah are far better than all they could amass."
Muhammad says: "Fighting is prescribed upon you. . . . Tumult and oppression are worse than slaughter."
Unhappily, in the liberal, postmodern, multiculturalism-obsessed West, children are indoctrinated from the cradle that one religion is as good as another, blithely ignoring the respective ethical and moral constructs advanced at the doctrinal level. Christian and Jewish clergy scramble anxiously to prove how multiculturally tolerant they are by having interfaith services with imams. Moslem leaders are invited to the White House. George W. Bush signs a Ramadan declaration. California school children are encouraged to role-play at being Moslems.
The National Council for Social Studies recommends a short story titled "My Name is Osama." Calculatedly inciting hatred toward white American boys, the story is about a nasty little boy, "Todd," who taunts an Iraqi immigrant named "Osama." This is ideological folly, brainwashing, and blindness writ large.
In an Atlantic Monthly essay on the topic of suicide bombing, David Brooks notes that:
"Suicide bombers go through indoctrination processes similar to the ones that were used by the leaders of the Jim Jones and Solar Temple cults. The bombers are organized into small cells and given countless hours of intense and intimate spiritual training. They are instructed in the details of jihad, reminded of the need for revenge, and reassured about the rewards they can expect in the afterlife. They are told that their families will be guaranteed a place with God, and that there are also considerable rewards for their families in this life, including cash bonuses of several thousand dollars donated by the government of Iraq, some individual Saudis, and various groups sympathetic to the cause. Finally, the bombers are told that paradise lies just on the other side of the detonator, that death will feel like nothing more than a pinch....
"For many Israelis and Westerners, the strangest aspect of the phenomenon is the televised interview with a bomber's parents after a massacre. These people have just been told that their child has killed himself and others, and yet they seem happy, proud, and -- should the opportunity present itself -- ready to send another child off to the afterlife.
"Last year the BBC shot a segment about so-called Paradise Camps -- summer camps in which children as young as eight are trained in military drills and taught about suicide bombers. Rallies commonly feature children wearing bombers' belts. Fifth- and sixth-graders have studied poems that celebrate the bombers. At Al Najah University, in the West Bank, a student exhibition last September included a re-created scene of the Sbarro pizzeria in Jerusalem after the suicide bombing there last August: 'blood' was splattered everywhere, and mock body parts hung from the ceiling as if blown through the air.
"According to polls, 70 to 80 percent of Palestinians now support it -- making the act more popular than Hamas, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Fatah, or any of the other groups that sponsor it, and far more popular than the peace process ever was."
How the hell can you reason with people like that? Well, Palestine is a special case, some might argue, where the people have been driven to despair and mass psychosis by more than half a century of Israeli oppression.
Well then, consider this: World Net's Ann Coulter reports that:
"Soon after the terrorist attack, the New York Times chatted with students at the Al Noor School, a private Islamic academy in Brooklyn. None of the students said they had experienced any harassment since Sept. 11. To the contrary, their school had been deluged with support from local Catholic schools, hospitals, state education officials and political leaders. But the love was entirely one-sided. The students stated point-blank that they would not fight for America against a fellow Muslim, denied that Osama bin Laden was behind the attacks, and criticized the United States for always opposing Muslims....
"Though uniformly refusing to believe bin Laden was behind the terrorist attack, the students showed a remarkable lack of curiosity about who was. Students from the Al Noor School were interviewed again a few weeks ago, this time by CBS' '60 Minutes.' The students instantly and enthusiastically agreed with the proposition that a 'Muslim who becomes a suicide bomber goes to Paradise for that action.' 'Definitely,' one student said, calling a female suicide bomber 'very brave.' As to whether suicide bombers would go to Paradise, the students said they earnestly hoped so. 'I mean, they're doing it for a good cause,' one boy explained. 'I pray that they go to Paradise,' another said. Not only that, but one student said, 'I think we'd all probably do the same.'"
Did I mention that this was kids in New York City, probably most of them American citizens, a few miles from Ground Zero?
I rest my case.
That'll stop the first time a unionized teacher is blown up.
Really?? I tried "dueling civilizations," then both words separately, but didn't get it. Dunno what I screwed up, but no matter. Thanks for the link
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