Phoney War: Why a French Burkini Ban Would Be Meaningless

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In September, 1939, after the Nazis had triumphantly rolled their tank battalions over the corpse of the Polish defence forces, there began a period now referred to by historians as the ‘phoney war’.

This period – which lasted roughly eight months before terminating dramatically at the Battle of France in 1940 – saw little to no actual military activity in Europe, despite the war being officially underway and there being no diplomatic solution considered feasible by European leaders.

That is not to say that nothing happened. There were, of course, war-like gestures by both sides, such as the digging of trenches, the erection of barbed wire fences and other military deterrents etc… What was missing, what made the war phoney, was the absence of any pro-active initiatives, any real engagement of the enemy, either with policy or force of arms.

In regard to Europe’s confrontation with Islamism, we have been locked in a period of phoney war for over ten years now. In this period, no real battles have been fought, or at least none to any great consequence. Only war-like gestures have been made. Nothing big. Nothing loud. Nothing enough to scare the pigeons.

The burkini ban proposed by the French government last week is one such gesture. Though the ban (which has since been blocked in the French courts) was greeted initially by some in the cultural-defence community as bold and meaningful, I cannot for the life of me think why.

Woman wearing the ‘burkini’ swimsuit in Nice, France

The burkini ban was simply a token move by the French government designed to convince the smaller-skulled among the French public that it cares, that it is willing to do something about the threat of Islamisation.

By itself, the ban would have done nothing at all to improve security, guarantee the secular character of French society, or even liberate the women concerned from their religious obligations. Indeed, it may have even robbed them of liberty, since, given that Muslim women are governed ultimately by their husbands, such women would almost certainly have been ‘advised’ to avoid the beach rather than risk breaking Quranic law.

The ban would contribute nothing. It was nothing – nothing pretending to be something.

To avoid the charge of picking on the French here, it should be noted that many such token gestures have been enacted or proposed by the British and American governments also. I can still recall the fanfare and fake controversy when the Home Office announced that it would be no longer acceptable for Muslim women to wear the veil in their passport photos. Imagine that…

The Niqab – often referred to as the ‘Burka’. No legal restrictions on Muslim dress have been successfully enforced in Western nations.

Whatever explanations they manufacture for their apathy, the truth is that the governments of the West are simply too scared to take any serious action to combat the Islamist threat. And, to be fair, it isn’t difficult to imagine why they would be.

If the reader is on Facebook – and has a representative selection of friends on this site – he/she will have observed with dismay the absurd intensity of the backlash against the burkini initiative these past few days.

Self-defined Liberals, both in France and outside of it, have branded the idea ‘fascist’, ‘totalitarian’, and (of course – drum roll please….) ‘RACIST”. The idea was even said by some to violate the rules of feminism and sexual equality – including, it should be noted, by Muslims themselves, who ordinarily have scant regard for the notion of female empowerment.

In the Independent newspaper columnist Suhaiymah Manzoor-Khan went further than most by pressing the accusations of racism and feminist betrayal into one incoherent lump, arguing that French feminism is itself explicitly rooted in “colonialism and imperialism.”

“Correct me if I’m wrong,” she wrote, “but I thought this was a pretty black and white thing we feminists were agreed on. An article of faith if you will: Thou Shalt Leave Women To Do As They Will With Their Own Bodies. France, often posturing itself as the beacon of feminism because apparently feminism was born of the French Revolution… should surely know this article more than most. And yet, here it is – the French state itself – forcing women to wear or not wear certain clothes! Incredible!…Muslim women are posited always as victims of their dress who require liberation from the French authorities. And here’s the catch: this French desire to liberate Muslim women and the positing of Muslimness as ‘oppositional’ to Frenchness has a long and bloody history (in the colony of Algeria).”

Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy has spoken in support of the burkini ban

The comment section beneath this article contains numerous criticisms of Khan’s leaky reasoning, but just as many agreeing voices. Khan is, furthermore, in the solid majority within the closed world of the Western press and the activist mainstream it feeds.

In France, Britain and America, protests against the burkini ban have been staged outside French embassies and cultural centres. On the internet, petitions have been drawn up and generously endorsed with signatures from right-thinking undergraduates and bearded Guardianistas.

If this timid, pointless gesture cannot pass into law without triggering such hysteria, one can well understand why our governments are averse to doing anything more profound.

I will not here deal with the specific arguments for and against the burkini ban in France (or elsewhere), since the initiative is too meaningless and tokenistic to merit our consideration. Instead, let us consider (for contrast) a meaningful, serious policy; one with which the governments of the West could take the fight to the Islamist forces threatening our way of life and physical existence. To do this we must necessarily turn away from Europe and look to America.

The Donald Trump speech I referenced last week (which addressed the issue of US foreign policy) advertised many novel and impressive strategies for pushing back against the Islamist ranks. Of these, one stood out to me as particularly commonsensical: namely, the drawing up of an ideological test for prospective migrants to the United States prior to their admission. This brave idea is logical and reasonable not just for the US, but for the entire Western world.

Donald Trump addresses supporters in Ohio

As Trump explained, this would be no different in practice to the tests used (effectively) by many Western nations during the Cold War. As with Communism during the Soviet era, Islam (Trump still insists, for political reasons, on calling it ‘radical Islam’) represents a massive and feasible existential threat to the social and governmental norms of all Western countries. It is only natural, therefore, that the West should take the same precautions now as were put to use then.

What would such an ideological test look like? No-one knows for certain (Trump has the habit of being rather vague). I can only say at this juncture what I think it should look like.

Here are some suggested questions for Trump’s ideological test (and I write these fully in the knowledge that they are too extreme even for Donald Trump’s campaign):

Q1: Do you recognise, understand and accept a causal relationship between the strength of Islam in a country and the backwardness of that country?

Answer required for a pass: Yes.

Q2: Do you recognise, understand and accept that what attracts you to the Western world is the cultural superiority (freedoms, secularism and sophistication, etc.) of the Western world?

Answer required for a pass: Yes.

Q3: Do you recognise, understand and accept that those things you wish to escape by leaving the Muslim world are the natural and inevitable by-products of Islamic culture?

Answer required for a pass: Yes.

Q4: Do you believe women, homosexuals and followers of non-Islamic religions should have the same rights and freedoms as anyone else?

Answer required for a pass: Yes.

And finally: Q5: Do you swear on the Quran to put your commitment to the liberal, bohemian values of the West over and above any commitment you retain to the Muslim faith?

Answer required for a pass: Yes.

While imperfect and incomplete, I think this little questionnaire would go some way in filtering out the more honest Islamists from among the migrant hordes. Lying (a virtue in Islam) is obviously a possibility, but, even in that case, such an interrogation would nevertheless succeed in putting unwelcome thoughts in previously closed minds.

When the phoney war is finally over, and when the competing sides are clearly identified and ready for an honest confrontation, I believe Muslim immigration to Europe and America will be outlawed entirely. But we are not at that stage yet. The war of gesture vs. gesture still has a lot of life left in it – not to mention appeal.

All people, of all backgrounds, are naturally inclined to oppose confrontation and support the status quo. Even during WWII, the British, German and French populations were almost certainly relieved by the break in hostilities offered by the phoney war. They knew deep down that it couldn’t last. They knew deep down what the Nazis were really about. But they wanted space to breathe, to continue life as normal. It is no different now.

Ultimately, of course, the same thing will get us out of our comfortable trenches as got the French and British armies out of theirs in 1940. We will have no choice.

D, LDN

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Islam and Black Americans

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A common perspective holds that America is a haven of non-Islam, of kafirdom and cultural infidelity, and that while Europe is destined to become ever more Middle Eastern and North African in the future, America shall long remain a shining city on a hill; proudly old-fashioned in its Christian, patriotic Anglo-Saxonism.

This is not entirely inaccurate. Compared to Western Europe, America has certainly retained an enviable cultural-religious clarity. It is still uncontroversial to postulate that America is a ‘Judeo-Christian’ country, either in the media or from the political podium. The only protest aroused by such a claim tends to be from spectacle wearing atheists, and who on Earth could find them intimidating? By contrast, if one made the same claim about Europe, the backlash would be of an immeasurably more serious kind. People would die. Windows would be smashed. Heads might possibly be removed. America is simply more confident and self-assured than Europe – more willing to stand its ground and preserve its original identity.

But this is not to say that America doesn’t have a problem with Islam. On the contrary, the nation may have more of a problem with Islam than Europe, depending entirely on how ‘Islam’ is defined.

African-American Muslims are today the most powerful Muslim community in the United States and in the West more broadly. Unlike the Arab and Persian Muslim communities, African-American believers are socially and culturally integrated, acceptable, part of the national fabric. Many African-American icons are or were Muslims: from Malcolm X (AKA el-Hajj Malik el-Shabazz), to the late Cassius Clay (AKA Muhammad Ali), to Shahrazad Ali, to Louis Farrakhan. These figures are not like marginalised Arab-American activists or obscure Pakistani-American Imams. They are nationally recognised faces, with enduring influence on the mainstream media and the mainstream political conversation.

Louis Farrakhan

They are also protected against the kind of contempt one might safely direct against Arabs and Pakistanis by the firewall of political correctness. You cannot speak as liberally about Black people as you can against Middle-Easterners. Given the horrors of the African-American past, Black leaders are typically treated gently and apologetically by White political analysts. Their comments, however ridiculous, are rarely dismissed, but debated and scrutinised. Therein lies political power.

Of all the African-American Muslim movements in operation today, none is more famous, or infamous, than the so-called ‘Nation of Islam’. Conceived in Detroit in 1930, the Nation of Islam (or NOI) now commands the allegiance of up to 50,000 American citizens; a membership that has in the past included such figures as Muhammad Ali and Malcolm X.

The NOI ‘brand’ is recognised across the United States. Few people have never heard of the organisation. And this notoriety is well earned. NOI members are routinely condemned for their homophobic, anti-Semitic and anti-White demonstrations, some of which have proven very difficult and expensive to police. NOI chapters on university campuses are also noted for their combativeness and hostility to rival groups and demographics, including more moderate or secular African-American fraternities.

Women of the NOI

So what do they want? It’s difficult to say. The NOI website currently features a list of ten ‘demands’, entitled ‘The Muslim Program’. It functions as a kind of manifesto, and has been little changed for several years. I won’t paste the entire thing, since many of the demands are vacuous and jingoistic. But here are three of the most interesting:

“3. We want equality of opportunity. We want equal membership in society with the best in civilized society.

4. We want our people in America whose parents or grandparents were descendants from slaves, to be allowed to establish a separate state or territory of their own – either on this continent or elsewhere. We believe that our former slave masters are obligated to provide such land and that the area must be fertile and minerally rich. We believe that our former slave masters are obligated to maintain and supply our needs in this separate territory for the next 20 to 25 years–until we are able to produce and supply our own needs…..

10. We believe that intermarriage or race mixing should be prohibited. We want the religion of Islam taught without hindrance or suppression.” – Source: https://www.noi.org/muslim-program/

The Nation of Islam was founded in 1930

Eagle-eyed readers will notice at once that all three of these demands are in contradiction with each other. How can there be equality of opportunity (presumably they mean between different races) in a Black-only state? Why also would race-mixing need to prohibited in that state? And so on…

But while one can nit-pick this manifesto for hours on end, that is not the point of this article. What we are trying to scrutinise is the nature of Black Islam and what its followers are aiming to achieve in the United States of America. Judging by the text quoted (as well as other texts available on the Nation of Islam website), Black Islam appears to be a movement dedicated to racial separatism; that is, to the permanent separation of Whites and Blacks, ostensibly for the benefit of both.

Whether you find this a good suggestion or not is not the issue to focus on; rather, we should ask: What has this to do with the Islamic religion authored by the Arabs in the 7th century? Indeed, is this Islam at all? Does the Nation of Islam actually care about Islam, or are they merely using it as a façade, as a cosmetic and/or political cover?

Few questions are more important for the future of America. Given how many African-American ‘Muslims’ there are in the country, and given how mainstream some of them have become in the Black community, the answers to these questions may reveal whether Islam, in the truest sense of the word, has any future in America at all.

‘Conventional’ American Muslims

It is revealing (and comforting) to note that Black Islam has yet to be formally recognised by any conventional Islamic authority, either in America or around the world. The Sunni and Shia religious establishments have only limited ties with the NOI. Even al-Qaeda, an organisation usually welcoming to Western supporters, has greeted Black Islam with a mistrustfully slow handclap.

We hardly need wonder why this is the case. The Nation of Islam has a very, very liberal attitude to Islamic dogma. Not only do NOI clerics preach the infallibility of the Qur’an; they also provide a generous heap of new-age, Afrocentric Apocrypha to go with it. In NOI theology, for example, White people (understood as those of pure Northern – but not Southern – European descent) are a breed of scoundrels and devils, inferior to the pure and ancient Black African race (the race, allegedly, of the Egyptians, Moors, Ancient Arabs, Hebrews, Romans and Greeks). NOI theorists explain White misbehaviour as being congenital to – and ineradicable from – White psychology. Slavery was not, then, a terrible aberration by an otherwise civilised people, but merely the natural expression of White human nature, of White evil.

As much as they might find this kind of analysis appealing, given the contemporary antagonism between East and West, no orthodox Muslim would recognise these ideas as Islamic. They are not based in the Qur’an, and nor do they have any root in the sayings or teachings of the Prophet. For those reasons, Orthodox Muslims will reject a great portion of Black Islamic thought outright. Then there are the UFOs to consider…

The NOI has a lot to say about spacecraft, especially a peculiar UFO called the ‘Mother Wheel’. Minister Farrakhan is quoted on Wikipedia as having said the following: “That Mother Wheel is a dreadful-looking thing. White folks are making movies now to make these planes look like fiction, but it is based on something real. The Honorable Elijah Muhammad (Note: NOI leader from 1934-75) said that the Mother Plane is so powerful that with sound reverberating in the atmosphere, just with a sound, she can crumble buildings.”

Ufology is integral to the NOI worldview

I think that’s probably enough to prove the point. These frankly daffy beliefs are not compatible with any major school or tradition of Islam. On the matter of theology, Black Islam is out on its own.

What about politics? What about the aims of Islamism? Well, happily enough, I have yet to hear of a single case where a Black Muslim (of the NOI style) has travelled to join either al-Qaeda or ISIS, or has carried out, or been apprehended in the process of carrying out, a major terrorist attack. This is most probably because there is a major disconnect between the goals of the NOI Muslims and those of the conventional Islamists. Radical Islamists of the conventional style wish to create a global, multiracial caliphate under the rule of Sharia law. NOI Muslims, by contrast, wish only to create a Black homeland in America or in Africa where they can be free from non-Black oppression. Would NOI Muslims be happy living in an Arab or Pakistani-controlled caliphate? No, of course not. The NOI only exists because Black Americans became tired of being treated as secondary human beings. In a caliphate, the White devils would quickly be replaced in NOI grudge-theology by Arab devils.

For these and various other reasons, I find it quite unlikely that Black Islam will ever threaten American culture in the same way that real Islam threatens Europe. Black Islam is just too silly, too fake, and too cobbled-together to ever mount an effective opposition to modern civilization.

D, LDN

The End is Nigh?

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The news that Sadiq Khan (the Muslim son of a Pakistani bus driver) has been elected Mayor of London hasn’t exactly gone down well with the British people. Here is a representative reaction cropped from the comment section of a popular right-wing newspaper:

“Bye Bye London. It was nice knowing you. Can’t believe what’s happening to this country.”

Here’s another – “We’re doomed. This is the end. We knew it was coming. Shame on those who did nothing to stop it. I used to love visiting London as a kid. I won’t bother doing that now. Tragic.”

And here’s one more – “Hardly surprising. There are no English people left in London. It’s part of Pakistan now. Used to be such a lovely city.”

It would be easy – and conventional – to label such responses hysterical and exaggeratedly doomly. That is exactly how they are being framed by the liberal press. But are they really an overreaction? The answer is complex.

As Mayor of London, Mr Khan will have very little political power. The position of Mayor is almost entirely bureaucratic, with the functions of the office largely confined to issues like transport, museum fees, rubbish disposal and recycling. Despite that, few positions are more symbolic than the Mayoralty of our Capital.

When the man or woman who replaces Barack Obama visits London, he or she will be required to meet with Khan as a matter of tradition. There is no way around it. For the President to refuse this meeting would be loudly condemned by both ends of the spectrum of political acceptability. And this applies to all foreign leaders who visit the UK, including the premiers of China, France, Israel, Canada and India.

Mr Khan will often be the first living thing a foreign leader will encounter upon visiting the United Kingdom. He is the welcome mat; the red carpet; our best Sunday suit. This is one reason to be worried, for being an official representative of a major nation provides Khan with enormous ‘soft’ power.

Should Donald Trump enter the White House this coming November, he will be expected by his electors to follow through on promises he made over the election season. And most notable among these promises, at least for people of our political persuasion, was the promise to close the borders of the United States to all practitioners of the Muslim faith. While this policy was and is enormously popular with the American public (and the British public, for that matter), it will be very difficult to enact without setting off an organised wave of condemnation from leaders across the world. As to whether this makes any difference to President Trump depends to a large extent on how influential Muslims are in other Western countries. It matters little or nothing if the Sultan of Brunei decries the President from his little, irrelevant fiefdom. But it does matter if a certain Mayor lobbies the UK government to bar the US President from London, a city which hosts a massive proportion of the world’s economic and political get-togethers.

As Mayor, Mr Khan will have high-level access not only to the government, but also to the monarchy. The Queen herself will be expected to meet with Khan on occasion to discuss all manner of topics, ranging from economic matters to the status of foreign leaders. While the Queen, like Mr Khan, occupies a largely ceremonial position, it is nevertheless invested with considerable emotional importance. The Queen’s viewpoint (expressed, for example, in the annual Christmas Day speech) is taken a million times more seriously than the view of a commoner. Will Khan seek to influence the Queen? It isn’t exactly far-fetched to predict that he will.

Finally, we must also consider the effect that a Muslim mayor of London will have on our national-cultural identity. London is the most important site in the British Isles – the place where the economic, political and cultural elites reside and make their decisions. Though citizens of other areas might begrudge the idea, London still leads the way in setting the cultural tone for the rest of the United Kingdom. In what way will having a Muslim mayor change London’s cultural self-concept? Again, we don’t know, but this must be considered.

I do not personally believe the election of Sadiq Khan means Britain has succumbed to Islam. It is simply a sign that London’s British identity is slipping further into the multicultural gunge. I’d love to suggest a way of halting this decline, but I’m not entirely sure there is one.

D, LDN.

Note About Changes

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Hi,

I’ve been planning to change the way I post for a while now. I no longer believe that posting a batch of small posts each week is the most effective or professional way of presenting my writing. Instead, I am going to post longer, more ‘journalistic’ articles (usually one, sometimes two) each Monday, in order to go into topics in greater depth.

Always grateful for your visits and support.

Thank you. 

D, LDN

Murica: The Strange Persistence of Anti-Americanism

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If you’re a user of any social-networking site, you will be as familiar as I am with the ‘Murica’ meme. The prevalence of this trope is such that lately even celebrities, intellectuals and political figures are making use of its lazy appeal. In case you don’t use social networking, or haven’t otherwise had the pleasure of coming across the slur, the KnowYourMeme database explains it thus: “Murica or occasionally ‘Murika’ is a slang term for America which is used to denote extreme patriotism, coupled with aspects of a redneck or southern American stereotype.”

The cartoon above is a famous expression of this vulgar sentiment. It crudely depicts the mythical America of robotic flag-wavers, mountain dew-soaked knowledge haters, and obese gun-nuts. By the presence of the flag, the image also makes comedy of the country itself, together with everything it stands for, such as the notion of liberty and being grateful for the blessings of capitalism.

I’m getting rather sick of the meme myself. It isn’t fair, valid or reflective of anything beyond the ignorance of those who make use of it. Anti-Americanism of any kind can be refuted very easily by recounting basic realities. .

• Americans are stupid? The United States has been the homeland of 357 Nobel Prize winners. This can be compared to the UK (118 winners) and France (67 winners). If the issue of population size is raised, one can compare the figure against that of India (13 winners) and China (12 winners).
• Americans are lazy? In terms of economic productivity, the US dwarfs the rest of the industrialised world. The GDP per capita in the United States is USD$55, 904, while the GDP per capita in the European Union (its closest economic and political rival) is USD$36,392.
• Americans are unsophisticated? In the related fields of science and technology, America has led the world for more than half a century. The achievements of NASA form the standard to which all other space projects are compared. And just a few blocks away from there, the Texas Medical Centre leads the world in healthcare innovation, providing the most advanced cancer treatment and surgical expertise in the developed world.

One could go on. One could mention the awe-inspiring extent of the modern American Military, with its 15,000+ aircraft, 272+ ships, 40,000+ armoured vehicles and 1,000,000+ fighting personnel. One could recount the heroic acts achieved by said military, such as the routing of Hitlerite racialism, Soviet Communism, and Baathist Arabism, etc… The list of American virtues puts the rest of the world firmly in its shadow, making them seem pathetic, retrograde, undeveloped.

Given that this is so, why then does such low and unrefined anti-Americanism persist? Jealousy? Perhaps, but surely not that alone. My inclination is that a very old sentiment still flourishes in the hearts of all who dwell outside the Western Hemisphere: namely, the idea that the US is fundamentally synthetic, an artifice, an incoherent dustbin of old-world apostates; that it isn’t a real country at all, but a jumble of stolen elites from other lands – lands which can more rightly lay claim to the achievement of their despoiled expatriates. That’s what I think.

This misfiring of the imagination is persuasive enough that many great minds, from Nietzsche to Freud, have found truth in it. Even for these it wasn’t enough to note that America is as old and distinguished an experiment as modern France, Bismarckian Germany and post-Imperial Russia. Rather, such minds have insisted on believing that America arrived out of a clear blue sky sometime in the midst of the first world war, before which it was only a dreamy concept of green prairies and hopping Indians.

In modern times this prejudice is implied by the sarcastic emphasis (in anti-US humour) on specific products like spray-on cheese and the Big Mac Hamburger. These products are brought up because they are themselves chemically enhanced and artificial, much like the world conceives America itself to be. To anti-Americans, the USA is not merely the home of the Big Mac, the USA is a Big Mac. Just as the beef patties once belonged to real, natural cows, but are now so processed and altered as to be illegitimate and fake, so did America’s Germans, Frenchmen and Anglo-Saxons once belong to real, natural countries, but are now so processed as to be illegitimate and fake.

The reality, of course, is very different. German-Americans are not synthetic Germans. They are real Americans. German-American achievements are not German achievements. They are American achievements. America is a real country, as old and legitimate and unique as any other, and with a population that is as native and peculiar to its soil as the Chinese are to China.

D, LDN.

Characteristics of a Real Refugee

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The vast majority of Muslims seeking ‘asylum’ in Europe, whether from Syria, Afghanistan, Iran or Iraq, are not real refugees. If they were, as has been said countless times before, they would have settled in the first peaceful country they arrived at after fleeing their own.

It is now clear to all but the most doctrinaire Leftist that these people are actually migrants, most of them seeking solely material benefit and financial reward. They are economic refugees, then, not political ones (as the media would have us believe). Not that we should allow political refugees in either, of course, since the first-safe-country principle is also valid in that case.

The only possible exception to this principle – and thus the only conceivable justification for allowing, say, a Syrian or Afghan asylum seeker to settle in Europe – is if the person in question were proven to qualify as a cultural refugee; that is, someone who is fleeing not merely the violent excess of Islam, but Islam itself. While this remains vanishingly rare, it will cost us nothing to briefly define what such a case would be like.

Imagine if in the future a man in his twenties washes up on the southerly coast of Spain. After being taken into custody he is revealed to be a Moroccan citizen who has swam the distance from North Africa to Europe alone and without any possessions. To the surprise of his interrogators the man speaks very good English and announces – convincingly – that he has had enough of living in the age of religious barbarism and wishes to join the Dar al-Harb permanently. He emphatically identifies himself as an atheist, or a Christian (or whatever other non-Islamic identity you care to imagine), and he can eloquently back up his self-identification with detailed arguments and sincere passion.

What to do with him? The response would almost certainly depend on and reflect the deepest ideological poise of those who are asked the question. A nativist, or ethno-nationalist, for example, would politely decline the stranger or perhaps unceremoniously throw him back into the Mediterranean. A Leftist meanwhile would also rather the stranger return to his land of origin, since there is enough ‘Islamophobia’ in Europe already.

Me? I’d demand a probationary period of police vigilance on the fellow, and after that a path to citizenship. In my 3 years as a blogger, I’ve found that ex-Muslims are a very potent resource of resistance to Islam, far more indeed than the average Native. And surely this hypothetical case is exactly what an asylum law is designed for. Just as in the time of Communism we generously admitted those Russians and Eastern-Europeans who wished for freedom, but did not admit Communist sympathisers or state bureaucrats (for reasons of security). So in the age of political Islam must we admit those opposed to barbarism and keep out those dedicated to it.

Whenever a native of the Muslim world shows up at the Free World’s borders, one question should be asked before all others: Why are you leaving? If the answer is not in English, the answer should be treated with suspicion. If the answer is in English but is nevertheless punctuated with inshallahs, al-hamdu lilahs and salaams, the response should be a swift refusal. But if in reasonable English the native says something like the following: “I am looking for freedom. I want to live in the modern world and leave behind the darkness of Islam and its primitive, undeveloped society”, a more generous and warm response is surely merited.

One cannot reasonably ask that the native returns to the first safe country he or she came across, because the first safe country might no longer be safe for an infidel. A more reasonable action would be to inter the individual while background checks are carried out, and then if the individual is clean of connections with Jihad relocate that person to an appropriate part of the Dar al-Harb. It might not be somewhere as illustrious as London or Berlin, but there are many options available.

Over time, a policy like this would lead to the only logical resolution we can hope for in our clash with the Islamic world; geo-cultural segregation. The Free and the Unfree kept apart, and never to merge again.

D, LDN

In Defence of… Christian Movies

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When I feel low, I often cheer myself up by watching US-made Christian movies. I’m not proud of this. Very few are well made or intellectually complex. I’m drawn to them for other, perhaps less respectable reasons, some of which I will share here today.

First, you should understand that the Christian movie industry is a very much booming trade. After the injection of pace with Mel Gibson’s (slightly dodgy) ‘Passion of the Christ’, even the most atheistic Hollywood producer has come to recognise the massive profit-potential in religious film-making. Most ordinary Americans are devoutly attached to their faith, and of these a great number feel alienated by the over-worldly content churned out by conventional L.A productions. It seems only logical then that faith-based productions enter the void left over.

And they have done. They really have. Christian films now reliably bring in millions of dollars, usually despite a paltry budget and so creating a gaping profit margin for the makers.

What are they like? As I perceive the matter, Christian films are usually small variations on the following plot structure: Good Christian girl/boy living a wholesome American life – falls into temptation (drugs, fame, sex, wealth etc…) – gets burnt by the sin they fall into – are saved by their old friends or family from their former wholesome life.

Sounds stupid? I suppose it is. But then there is something weirdly magnetic and comforting in the uncomplicated innocence these films advertise. If the idea of the movies is to tempt you into a different, more wholesome way of life, they are successful to the extent that they make that way of life seem joyful and safe. You come away from one of these films with a desire to avoid falling into life-traps, perhaps even to get out of life-traps you are already in. The feeling doesn’t last long enough for you to do anything about it, of course, but it certainly stays in your mind longer than the messages of Taken 3 or the latest sci-fi abomination.

Christian movies are also appealing to me because of their all-American feel. The characters at the beginning of each film (before the temptations and fall from grace) are living the American dream; a suburban house, a nice car, and a tight family with one beautiful cheer-leading daughter and one athletic and good-mannered son. I’ve always been drawn to idyllic caricatures like that. It matters nothing that this isn’t the reality for 90% of real American families. As shtick goes, it works for me – like a social watercolour painting.

A list of Christian cinema’s flaws would be as long as the list of its virtues. Christian movies are often anti-Semitic (the temptation villain trope character in a film usually looks Jewish). They are homophobic as a matter of course. And though the lead character in each production is usually female, she is also passive, secondary and naïve. These films are anything but politically correct, and this explains sufficiently why they will never break through into the mainstream.

By any religion’s standards I’m a sinner. I like anything that brings me pleasure and have indulged more than I should in uncountable vices. Perhaps it is for that reason that the morals of Christian cinema strike me as exotic and fascinating. They are foreign, but in a way I can’t easily belittle or reject.

D, LDN

Merry Christmas

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I’d like to wish all who frequent this blog a truly wonderful and pleasure-filled Christmas season.

As ever, I am deeply grateful for your support and attention.

Posting shall resume soon after the holiday. In the meantime, any comments will be answered as normal, and feel free to email me if you wish.

Merry Christmas

David.

On the Shooting at Planned Parenthood

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It didn’t take long for the shooting at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado, Oklahoma on Friday to be exploited for cynical political ends. After three bodies were carted away to the morgue Colorado Springs, memes began to spring up everywhere (on facebook, twitter, reddit and other places) comparing the shooting to Islamic terrorism, and in doing so downplaying the suffering of its victims. A truly shocking exercise in cold, emotionless manipulation if ever there was one.

The memes, though multitudinous, differed from each other only very slightly. The most popular ‘Willy Wonka’ variant was typical: against the backdrop of a smiling Gene Wilder (taken from my favourite childhood movie), the text read as follows: “Christian extremist kills 3 people at an abortion clinic…Tell me again how Syrian refugees are a threat.”

You don’t need more than a few operational brain cells to perceive the startling un-worldliness of this sentiment. Indeed, many people on social networks have recoiled from the image in revulsion or responded to it with loud mockery. How on earth can one tragic, stupid action – the first of its kind in years – measure up to the daily bloodbath of Political Islam? How can one action – brutal, awful and yet discriminating – be placed in the same ethical category as the bombing of market-places, funeral parades, Parisian restaurants and concert venues?

Since the outrage in Colorado was committed, Christians across America have disowned the force behind it, branding him ‘psychopathic’, ‘crazed’, ‘lunatic’ and (most crucially) ‘un-Christian’. Compare that to the icy silence and tacit approval of Muslims communities after outrages in the West.

Let’s be clear – there has been no major Christian terror attack (that is, a terror attack committed explicitly for Christian theological motivations) in Europe or America for the last 100 years. There have been murders, random and cruel all, but nothing of the same malevolent grade as Islam manages to inspire on a daily basis.

The attacks in Norway in 2011 were not Christian. I don’t believe Anders Behring Breivik had a Christian bone in his body. The troubles of Northern Ireland don’t count either (despite the enthusiasm with which Islamic apologists bring them up). The Catholics of Ulster do not hate the Protestants of Ulster for religious reasons, but for ethnic and national reasons. Ulster Protestants are descendants of British colonisers and remain loyal to their imperial sponsors. The Catholics are native Irish who wish to have the northern corner of their island back under Irish control. Whichever way you lean on this, you can surely agree that religion plays no part (apart from the total coincidence of the religious divide between Scots-Irish and Irish which serves as an excuse).

Adherents of Christianity have certainly been violent at various points in history, but the period since they behaved in a way comparable to the adherents of Islam is measured in centuries. Let no one deny reality, or history, or seek to deform them into a reality or history synchronisable with their bigotries.

Islamic violence has no equivalent in other faiths.

D, LDN

Defining the ‘West’

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In the course of an online discussion last Tuesday, I was asked a deceptively simple-sounding question that has since plagued my thinking. After offering an argument for the inherent superiority of the ‘West’, my competitor stumped me by requesting that I “define ‘the West'” – that is, explain what it actually consists of.

Having had a few days to ponder an answer, during which I have been staring intensely at google maps and rifling through the pages of Wikipedia, I have come up with a list of countries I consider ‘Western’. I must add beforehand the obvious point that ‘West’ and ‘Western’ in this context have no geographic meaning, but rather imply certain standards of civilisation, such as secularism, gender equality, liberal capitalism and a free press. Here then is my answer – presented in no particular order:

Great Britain and all the countries of the EU
Liberal commonwealth nations (such as Jamaica, Trinidad etc..)
The United States
Canada
Australia
New Zealand
India*
Japan
South Korea
Taiwan (Republic of China)
Brazil
Argentina
Chile
Uruguay
Mexico
South Africa
Armenia
Israel

*It should be noted that India has an anti-democratic caste system, with different categories recorded by government. This must change if India is to maintain its Western character.

Now, a lot of people would say I’m being far too generous with this list. When such people think of ‘The West’, they think of things like influence, affluence, cleanliness and order, as well as the basic civilizational standards mentioned above. I understand what these people mean and would agree that there exists a ‘core’ inside of the West, without which the whole ‘Western’ construct would begin to fragment or collapse. This core is simply the Anglosphere, France, Germany, Italy and Japan. Such nations are not merely of the West, but its original authors.

Needless to say, no Islamic country comes close to membership of this marvellous club. And I doubt that fact will change any time soon.

D, LDN.