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Ever since hijacked airliners made toxic dust of the World Trade Centre in New York, there has persisted an intellectual struggle in Europe and America the furiousness and range of which has very few historical parallels. As soon the smoke cleared from that gigantic crime scene (and after the criminal force behind the attack was exposed) a thousand journalists, philosophers, historians and artists set out feverishly to make sense of the event. In the blink of an eye, the global intelligentsia split down the middle into two haughtily confident factions; factions we will brand simply as the ‘Left’ and the ‘Right’.
According to the Left, 9/11 was a revenge attack for the depravities of American, British and Israeli foreign policy. In this sense, the attackers were little more than Quran-carrying Che Guevaras or Guy Fawkes’s; freedom fighters, essentially, who had been forced by cruel circumstance to choose a nasty response to past-nastiness. The Right saw things as differently as can be imagined. For them, the attacks were not revenge for anything, but simply the perpetuation of an ancient theological grudge-match between East and West. No moral case, they considered, could be made to justify the barbarism so photo-realistically witnessed.
We are now 14 years on from the attack on New York. In the intervening period, wars have been launched; numerous smaller-scale atrocities have been committed all over the globe; protest and counter-protest have gripped every Western capital; every thinking person has found themselves in some way drawn in. After all that – which set of arguments has won? Which narrative has triumphed? Or, if we allow that the debate still persists, who is winning?
If you caught me in a bad mood, I might tell you that the Left had won. For this contention I’d probably offer such evidence as the continuing Muslim immigration into the West, as well as the enduring taboo on blaspheming the holy figures of Islam.
But if you caught me in a calm, rational mood such as I find myself in today, I would likely decide the other way, and I’d be correct. The Left has lost the Islam debate and lost badly. Outside of the media crèche itself, the number of people still arguing for appeasement of Islam is infinitesimally small. Don’t believe me? Just look at the Guardian newspaper coverage of the Paris attacks of this month. Though the columns themselves were designed to promote ‘understanding’ and inter-communal ‘tolerance’, the comments made in reply to them exhibited frank disagreement, even mockery. The following comment is representative of the general trend:
“I detest Islamism. No-one is ever going to change my mind on that…The more Muslims we import into Europe the more our security services will be burdened. If the truth offends you, tough.”
Remind yourself that this is from the Guardian’s ‘comment is free’ website; a bastion of orthodox anti-imperialism and left-wing inflexibility. Most people registered to comment are Left-leaning in almost every other respect (take a look at the comments on welfare sanctions and climate change). The reorientation of such attitudes on an issue of this divisive nature is telling, shocking, encouraging.
Further evidence for this new and pleasing reality is found in online polls. Whenever a newspaper (whatever the stance of that newspaper) sets up a two-answer poll involving Islam, the anti-Islam option wins by a landslide. And not only is this trend ongoing in the general public. A similar process is underway in the intelligentsia itself. It is surely amazing from this historical distance to imagine an argument like the following being taken seriously:
“On the morning of September 11, 2001, a few more chickens – along with some half-million dead Iraqi children – came home to roost in a very big way at the twin towers of New York’s World Trade Center. Well, actually, a few of them seem to have nestled in at the Pentagon as well…The most that can honestly be said of those involved on September 11 is that they finally responded in kind to some of what this country has dispensed to their people as a matter of course… That they (the terrorists) waited so long to do so is, notwithstanding the 1993 action at the WTC, more than anything a testament to their patience and restraint…They did not license themselves to “target innocent civilians.” There is simply no argument to be made that the Pentagon personnel killed on September 11 fill that bill. The building and those inside comprised military targets, pure and simple. As to those in the World Trade Center . . . Well, really. Let’s get a grip here, shall we? True enough, they were civilians of a sort. But innocent? Gimme a break. They formed a technocratic corps at the very heart of America’s global financial empire – the “mighty engine of profit” to which the military dimension of U.S. policy has always been enslaved.”
This quote is taken from a lengthy essay entitled “Some People Push Back: On the Justice of Roosting Chickens” written by Native American professor Ward Churchill. At the time of its publication, this amoral screed encapsulated the mood and feelings of uncountable academics, both in the West and outside of it. Now, post-Iraq, post-7/7, post-Madrid and post-Hitchens, such views are weighed as wicked, childish, unbefitting of intelligent consideration.
Though the nightmare of Jihad is far from resolution, we must yield to optimism when reason allows for it. More and more people are waking up to our position. We are no longer ‘extremists’ lurking about on the half-lit fringe. We are pioneers. We are being followed.
D, LDN
Defend the Modern World 
Magnificent. And optimistic too, which makes a refreshing change from some other bloggers and commenters that I read. The relentless pessimism, the assumption by so many, that Western civilisation has no fight left in it, annoys and dispirits me in equal measure. As for whether the Left is starting to crack my response is a resounding ‘Let’s hope so!’.
On ‘Question Time’ recently the gruesome Ken Livingstone was opining that the 7/7 bombings were the result of British policy in Iraq, ignoring all extremist Muslim activity before 2003, such as the planned operation by some young Muslims from Birmingham to destroy the British embassy in the Yemen (sorry, can’t remember the exact year). Lefties like him are incorrigible, but as you say they seem to be losing the battle for public opinion.
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Thank you. Yes, Ken Livingstone is something of a dinosaur. I don’t believe his kind of divisive rhetoric appeals to the public anymore. There is a great shift happening on the subject of Islam. Left-wingers are finally starting to realise that Islam is conservative. Took them long enough.
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Excellent piece.
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Thank you.
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Good piece. I too am noticing the shift. All the more cause to persevere and go on educating, educating, educating. I think we may be close to a ‘tipping point’. Something the pessimists on our side are forgetting iis that paradigm shifts can happen very suddenly after a long period when nothing much seems to be changing.
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If ISIS attack the UK, the reaction will show just how much has changed since 7/7. I doubt anyone on the Left will be listened to in that situation.
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I agree with your analysis. Typically under all newspaper comment articles now the comments are much more un-PC than the articles and this does go for The Guardian too. There is hope.
What I hate most is the insufferable smugness of the “progressive” Left – yet they are arguably accessories to murder in European countries.
It is very hard to crack their delusions, as they seem to be motivated by a kind of self-hatred, but this supports a smug superiority. As more are raped and mugged as a consequence of their own policies, however, perhaps this will jolt them out of it. This the famed “mugged by reality”, though some are so far gone that they blame themselves.
If you look at your typical Leftist’s Twitter feed, there is a very high degree of general profanity, ad hominem and insult. If you look at Tommy Robinson’s feed, for example, in contrast (and he is not a “well educated” person), what you see is mostly simply hard facts – a constant stream of news stories of the rapes and attacks and illiberal Muslim attitudes. Yet the Left have the gall to behave as if they are morally superior and immediately call anyone who disagrees with them a “racist”. Looks for example also at how Sam Harris is treated by Glenn Greenwald – serially slandered.
The Left don’t really care about reality – or even morality – I think. All they care about is their own sense of superiority, at any cost.
(Here is a typical tweet by a Leftist SJW. He can say this and think he is decent and upstanding, but he would never say it about a multiple rapist or Muslim FGM practitioner – and if a conservative were to say similar he would call them out: https://twitter.com/MattBowdler/status/659091791669547008 )
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That tweet is one of the most humourless things I have ever read.
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Yes – yet he would no doubt claim it was “a joke”, if challenged (in this case it would be convenient to do so). The worst thing about the Left is they actually think they are righteous.
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Indeed. So smug. Part of me almost wishes for the Islamisation of Europe – just so they can have the smile wiped from their faces.
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The Left has a fanatical core who will always stay Left. Everyone else will abandon that ship eventually. I’m sure of it. When ISIS attack London like they did Paris, all the memes in the world won’t be enough to suppress the fallout.
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Hopefully. The Left will be holding up signs and hashtags, but hopefully everyone else will take more decisive action. i.e. Strongly object to the Islamification of their towns, boycott halal, openly call Islam for what it is – at a minimum.
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Everything changes when it’s in your own neighbourhood. We need more Muslims in Islington.
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Just reflecting on this, I hope you are right. When you look at your average leftist, it is going to take a lot for them to ever admit they were wrong, or *even worse* culpable. They revel in a sense of knowing superiority – it’s their fuel. In any instance they find a way to blame their own society and excuse terrorism. Even if WWIII kicks off they will doubtless say it is our fault. This is what you call traitors. Hopefully their numbers are dwindling as Muslims numbers rise, attacks increase and reality intrudes on their doorstep. As you say, we certainly do need more Muslims in Islington!
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There were still pacifists in England in 1944. Some people are wedded to their ideas in a very disturbing way.
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Ward Churchill is not a Native American. He’s a white leftist fraud and imposter.
Cracked says its best in its inimitable way…
“So let’s say it’s 1990 and you’re a white Vietnam War veteran with several communications degrees and some seriously aggressive social skills. You also, somehow, need to land a job.
Instead of buying a fake wheelchair, tucking his arms into his coat, and begging for money on the street, Ward Churchill did the only-slightly-less-questionable move of pretending he was American Indian to get a job as a professor.
The Metamorphosis:
In terms of flipping race for profit, every single celebrity we’ve listed makes Ward Churchill look lazy. Churchill’s solution to changing his honky heritage was to put on a pair of sunglasses.”
http://www.cracked.com/article_17501_5-celebrity-careers-launched-by-ethnic-makeovers_p2.html
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Interesting. That’s a very cynical thing to do. Reminds me of the NAACP woman from earlier this year.
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