At least since 9/11, the Muslim jihad against the West has led
to a number of eloquent books detailing the plight of the West and
documenting in detail what is happening.
I include not only Muslim colonization of Europe, but also the
attacks on Christian communities in Africa, Asia and the few
Christians remaining in the Middle East.
However, those works which I have read, and some of them are
truly excellent pieces of writing and research, all seem to me to
share a common weakness.
When, in the concluding chapters, they turn from detailing the
remorseless advance of Islam in one continent after another, and
the impotence of liberal democracy in the face of it, to what to
actually do about it, their often-razor-sharp prose has a
tendency to turn to vague platitudes and truisms.
It is impossible to blame the authors of these publications for
this. For one thing, the West is facing an enemy unlike any other,
an enemy particularly skilled at using the West’s institutions of
liberal democracy and the pacific elements of Christianity, to its
own advantage.
Further, the enemy has no recognizable military structure. It
has no general staff whose mistakes can be taken advantage of, no
population concentrations that can be bombed to any point.
Against a drive to Islamize the world, bombing Afghanistan has
never been much more than a waste of time, creating an illusion of
purposeful activity and cutting a few heads off a hydra. Killing
Osama Bin Laden did not damage Islamic jihadism as in, say, World
War II killing Hitler would have destroyed the heart of German
National Socialism. There can be no possibility of the equivalent
of a Gorbachev who either could or would end the machinery of the
terrorist jihad. The war in Afghanistan was plainly futile from the
start if its object was to defeat international terrorism. The Boko
Haram killing Christians in Africa in the name of Allah have
probably never heard of Afghanistan. Winning or losing ground in
the vicinity of the Khyber Pass will make no difference to the
unemployed Muslim “youths” in slums ringing the French (and not
only French) cities who regard Western Civilization with fascinated
disgust.
We have the finest navies and air forces in the world, almost
useless against an enemy who has neither. Further, to even advocate
any sort of comparable counter-attack is not only incompatible with
our own civilized values, but probably illegal.
I realize I am doing more-or-less what I am criticizing others
for: floundering for an answer.
It is the first war in which our side has made broadcasting our
own propaganda, let alone anything more active, illegal. Things
have reached such a pass that even a cultural revival of patriotism
(one, but only one, of the essential requirements, and for Europe
more than the United States) would probably need some sort of
censorship or government influence in the media comparable to, say,
the anti-smoking campaign.
To even talk of systematic discrimination is to walk on
dangerous political ground, though to raise it as a possibility is
not yet illegal, at least in most places and if one treads with
care. To observe the vast Muslim colonization effort in Britain,
Europe, and elsewhere, including the gradual acceptance of Sharia
Law, polygamy, and forced marriages, must inevitably lead one to
think of ways of drying up the Islamic ocean in which the Jihadist
fish swim. When there are whole districts of Western cities where
non-Muslims are not allowed to enter, and from which in some cases
non-Muslim residents and businesses have been systematically driven
out after centuries, it seems that some reaction is called for.
“Some reaction.” There I go again. The best I can offer is the
vaguest possible words. It is a product of a conflict, perhaps
unique in human history, in which only one side is allowed
aggression — or even response.
The “warning” books and articles I have read often conclude with
the observation that 9/11, the Spanish train bombings, the London
bus bombings, the Bali nightclub bombings, the Fort Hood massacre,
the Benghazi massacre or whatever, were “A wake-up call.” They were
not. Even 9/11 did no more than provoke a couple of blows in the
wrong direction. The killing of Bin Laden was satisfactory and
richly deserved, yet it had nothing to do with larger strategic
objectives, such as clearing the Taliban out of Afghanistan.
Without denigrating the bravery, dedication, and righteousness of
those involved (my strongest feeling towards those who killed him
is envy), the whole exercise had an air of superstition about it,
as if destroying a symbol was the same as destroying the reality.
What difference did it make to the Islamic colonization of Africa
or of the Western world?
One of my favorite characters in history is Fanny Radmall, a
slum-born London chorus-girl who married a rich man and became Lady
Houston.
While the great statesmen of the democracies dithered at the
rise of totalitarianism in Europe, and luminous intellectuals
signed the petitions of the Peace Pledge Union, she paid a
fantastic sum out of her own pocket for the development the
high-speed aircraft which led directly to the Spitfire.
It is to me a story with a liberally fabulous quality about it.
One might say: If only it was so simple today. And people like Lady
Houston, who instinctively know the right thing to do and do it,
are rare in any age.
