The Cartoons and the Camel in the Room

Media, The West, The Zeitgeist

The commentariat’s response to the Danish cartoons that mocked Muhammad reminds me of the iconic scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark. Challenged to a duel by a scimitar-wielding enemy, Indiana Jones draws a pistol and dispatches the swordsman without further ado.
In my analogy, Indiana Jones, however, is the Muslim world. His showy opponent is the West, which has unleashed its penmen on rampaging Muslim mobs to convolute about the values of freedom of expression, enquiry, and conscience.
How have Muslims responded to these lofty disquisitions? As Indiana Jones did, lethally; by calling for the heads of the offenders. From Indonesia to Egypt they’ve kidnapped, killed, and set fire to embassies and missions, promising to visit a “holocaust” on those who pictorially depict or misspeak about Muhammad…

The complete column, The Cartoons and the Camel in the Room, is here. Comments are welcome.

Christopher Hitchens' Relativism & the Cartoon Controversy

Anti-Semitism, Christianity, Free Speech, Islam, Judaism & Jews

Christopher Hitchens’ cri de coeur over the Danish cartoon controversy fizzled somewhat due to his signature relativism with respect to the facts about the three faiths; it caused him to fudge important distinctions, without which clarity is impossible. One can disdain religion without losing sight of what separates Islam from the Judeo-Christian faiths.

Hitchens says Islam’s anti-Semitism has been borrowed from Christianity. He also mentions a rabbi who grounds his dislike for the Palestinians in scriptures (rather than in the actions of suicide killers and their supporters). These examples are supposed to show that all religions lead their faithful into latrines and lock them there forever.

Hitchens’ arguments, however, are weak. First, Islam is an innovator in anti-Semitism in its own right. For example, the Nazis did not originate the yellow cloth they tagged Jews with; the caliph who succeeded the Prophet Mohammed did. More fundamentally, he neglects to mention that Christianity has changed. Christian and Jewish holy texts, moreover, have been reinterpreted by the sages over the centuries; the Quran has not. Nor can it be, because devout Muslims believe it’s God’s eternal and unquestionable word to Muhammad. At least so deduced the greatest Christian theologian alive, Pope Benedict XVI.

Hitchens should know that one-case studies and spotty historical slates do not remotely equate with the groundswell of virulent, violent fundamentalism that grips and defines the Muslim world today. Contemporary Christianity and Judaism; Buddhism and Baha’ism are religions of peace. The same cannot be said of Islam.

Buchanan (and Libertarians?) Sides with "Deadly Serious Religion"

Islam, Media

At View from the Right, Lawrence Auster observes that “Patrick Buchanan comes out 100 percent against the European papers that published the cartoons of Muhammad, seeing the act as an anti-religious provocation by secular modernists.” Auster notes that Buchanan’s piece was published by “the anarchist libertarian website lewrockwell.com.”

This is not to say that the website endorses Buchanan’s view, but it’s important to note that lewrockwell.com is highly selective about content, usually posting perspectives—and people—that comport with its mission. “Patrick J. Buchanan on tweaking the Muslims” is how the column was billed on the site, clearly saddling the “tweakers” with the blame.

Libertarians are supposed to be committed to absolute freedom of speech on private property: newspapers. In fact, some libertarians will even defend speech that incites murder, which is a far more congruent position than countenancing the aggressive, murderous, uncivilized assailants of innocent Danes.

Auster, who obviously doesn’t expect much from libertarians, told me he thinks the incongruity is a further example of a phenomenon he’s long noted on the activist Left: “the various left factions—feminists, blacks, labor, homosexualists—will quickly give up their supposed ideals for some other, overriding purpose that they all have in common. What is that overriding purpose? The destruction of the West. Once people are motivated primarily by resentment and hate, all the positions are only taken because they advance that agenda of resentment.”

If this is true, it must be occurring on a subconscious, cock-a-snook-at-the-Empire level, since libertarians who find Buchanan’s piece valid can’t have thought through what the West’s dhimitude would mean to their endeavor. (Do libertarian homosexuals for Islam believe they’ll be spared a stoning?) Yet Auster has a point: these particular libertarians do invariably come out on the side of the Noble Savage, however savage his actions. Since condemning the invasion of Iraq doesn’t preclude castigating Muslim reaction to the cartoons, I’m not sure how to explain their unvarying, single-minded commitment to The Barbarians.

Buchanan (and Libertarians?) Sides with “Deadly Serious Religion”

Islam, Media

At View from the Right, Lawrence Auster observes that “Patrick Buchanan comes out 100 percent against the European papers that published the cartoons of Muhammad, seeing the act as an anti-religious provocation by secular modernists.” Auster notes that Buchanan’s piece was published by “the anarchist libertarian website lewrockwell.com.”

This is not to say that the website endorses Buchanan’s view, but it’s important to note that lewrockwell.com is highly selective about content, usually posting perspectives—and people—that comport with its mission. “Patrick J. Buchanan on tweaking the Muslims” is how the column was billed on the site, clearly saddling the “tweakers” with the blame.

Libertarians are supposed to be committed to absolute freedom of speech on private property: newspapers. In fact, some libertarians will even defend speech that incites murder, which is a far more congruent position than countenancing the aggressive, murderous, uncivilized assailants of innocent Danes.

Auster, who obviously doesn’t expect much from libertarians, told me he thinks the incongruity is a further example of a phenomenon he’s long noted on the activist Left: “the various left factions—feminists, blacks, labor, homosexualists—will quickly give up their supposed ideals for some other, overriding purpose that they all have in common. What is that overriding purpose? The destruction of the West. Once people are motivated primarily by resentment and hate, all the positions are only taken because they advance that agenda of resentment.”

If this is true, it must be occurring on a subconscious, cock-a-snook-at-the-Empire level, since libertarians who find Buchanan’s piece valid can’t have thought through what the West’s dhimitude would mean to their endeavor. (Do libertarian homosexuals for Islam believe they’ll be spared a stoning?) Yet Auster has a point: these particular libertarians do invariably come out on the side of the Noble Savage, however savage his actions. Since condemning the invasion of Iraq doesn’t preclude castigating Muslim reaction to the cartoons, I’m not sure how to explain their unvarying, single-minded commitment to The Barbarians.